In kindergarten, she read at a sixth-grade reading level. This summer, she’s managed many of the classics quite nicely. Her favorite cities are Tokyo and London.

So why doesn’t Eva fit in?

Eva’s decided she wants to be popular, and not just popular, she wants in with the most popular girls, the exclusive clique of the very rich, very pretty girls who aren’t at all interested in being friends with her. And instead of accepting their lack of interest, she’s determined to change them. Or her. Neither being a winning proposition.

Earlier in the year, I tried to explain to Eva that wanting to be liked, and wanting to be popular, is the kiss of death. I told her that she was just giving away her power, giving it to girls who don’t deserve it, but Eva shook her head and answered with that martyred saint expression of hers, “Some people like to be liked.”

She’s right. I never needed people the way she does. I never cared what people thought. I still don’t. My parents say I marched to a different drum from the time I could walk, and I’ve made my living being different. Apart. Unique. First as a graphic designer, now as the head of my own advertising company. My vision creates my art, and my art isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am.

I knew the move from New York to the Pacific Northwest would be difficult for me. I never expected it to be so hard on Eva. I grew up here, in Seattle, and left as soon as I turned eighteen. I never planned on returning—this was where my parents lived, not me—but then eighteen months ago, a work opportunity arose and I took it. Despite my misgivings.

I watch Eva, my stomach in knots. We should have stayed in New York.

“Eva!” I lean forward and call to her. She turns to look at me, her long dark hair streaming water. “Want to go?”

She scrubs a hand across her wet cheeks, her gypsy eyes too wise for her years, eyelashes long, dense, and black. In the last year, I’ve begun to see the hint of the cheekbones that will one day come. She has my face. I wasn’t pretty as a child, either; my looks came much later, when I was older, sometime late during college.

“Not yet, Mom.” Her attention’s caught by the cluster of little girls climbing from the pool and race-walking to the diving board.

The little girls are pretty in that golden shimmer of late summer—tan, long limbed, sun-streaked hair. They have cute little noses that turn up, wide wet-lashed eyes, and gap-toothed smiles where baby teeth come and go. Children of privilege. Children who grow up belonging to country clubs and private tennis clubs and, if you’re very lucky and live on the water, one of the exclusive yacht clubs, too.

Hugging the pool wall tighter, Eva watches the giggling girls take turns jumping and diving off the board, trying to outdo one another with big splashes and new cool maneuvers.

And behind the diving board are the little girls’ nannies and moms. You can tell which girl belongs to which mom. Children and parents come in matching sets here, neat, tidy, incredibly groomed.