Therese Fowler - Souvenir

‘Ten minutes to Kyle,’ she said, nervous. Would he show? Would he be as interested in her as he’d seemed last time? She grabbed her laptop and settled onto her bed with purple velvet pillows propped behind her, facing the door like she always did – so that no parent could stroll in and read over her shoulder. Not that they would stroll in. Not that she ever had anything to hide, in particular … until this week.

She signed on and scanned her buddy list for Kyle’s screen name: still offline. Suppose he didn’t show? Suppose he found someone he liked better than her?

Her webpage, where he’d first discovered her, was as appealing as she could make it. She’d fudged a little on the facts, though, including posting photos specially selected to make the case that she was twenty, not a month shy of sixteen. One showed her by the pool, wearing a bikini and holding a highball glass filled with amber liquid meant to look like a cocktail. In reality she didn’t drink at all – she was smarter than that. But success in life was all about presentation, that’s what her dad always said. So her page presented the Savannah she thought would attract the kind of boyfriend she wanted: an older guy whose interests matched hers. Guys her age – the ones she knew, anyway – seemed to care only about sports or money or, like her friend Jonathan, were more into playing video games than having an actual life.

Her page was her portal to the real world. And she hoped – hoped so hard that it made her stomach hurt – that her strategy had worked, that Kyle would become her companion and guide.

She traded IMs with Rachel about the guy they’d met up with earlier at the library. Some senior from North Marion High. She’d gone to the library as moral support, though Rachel, who’d practically licked the guy’s ear while whispering to him, seemed to not need any kind of support at all. Now Rachel was saying he’d promised to call her, but she’d forgotten to give him her number before her mom arrived. In typical Rachel fashion she wrote,

OMG!! wat do i do???? i just no i will never c him agn !!!!!!!

chill , Savannah wrote. In her opinion, the guy was too skinny, and he hadn’t seemed that into Rachel anyway.

Savannah kept up her end of the conversation mindlessly, waiting, waiting, her heart seeming to stall, until the chime of Kyle messaging her jump-started it again:

hi babe, wassup?

To Rachel she wrote hurriedly, its him! gtg.

If what he’d said in their first chat was legitimate, he was twenty-three years old and had a bachelor’s degree in marine biology. He loved music, including some of her favorite bands: No Doubt, Evanescence, Nickelback, and Carson McKay. He sounded perfect .

Everything she’d posted on her page was accurate – well, except for her age: long wavy red-brown hair, 5´8´´ (too tall, she thought, but what could she do?), green eyes, 127 lb. She hadn’t revealed her whole name, just first and middle, wise to the risks of giving too much information. Savannah Rae . If she ever got into professional songwriting or performing in public, that was the name she planned to use.

i’m studying 4 bio quiz , she replied. She’d told him that first night that she was a student at the University of Florida – but only after making sure he hadn’t gone there.

ah, the good old days , he wrote. He was working on his PhD now, doing some kind of research for a professor at Harvard – fieldwork around the western Everglades, only a few hours south of Gainesville, he’d said. Gainesville, where she supposedly lived in an apartment with three girlfriends.

Kyle’s very first message included a picture of himself standing on some decrepit dock wearing only cargo shorts that hung low on his hips, and hiking boots with socks showing above the tops. He was trim and muscled like the Greek sculptures she studied in art history. She thought his body was amazing, but it was his face that really drew her in: his wide, long-lashed eyes looked kind. Caring. Dedicated to his passions – which would include her, she hoped. His dark, curly hair and café au lait complexion made her think he might be part Latino or black – something her dad wouldn’t approve of, but she didn’t really care.

wut r u up 2? she asked.

sos. waiting 4 the wkend. i really want 2 meet in person , he wrote, thrilling her. wut r u doing sat ?

it’s my dad’s b-day , she wrote, adding a frowning-face icon. Another white lie, but it wouldn’t be good to sound too eager. She waited anxiously for his reply.

idea: meet 4 may day in miami?

Savannah perked up. wut’s in miami?

my bros. we meet every yr 4 beach party. got a bikini? duh . He’d seen the pictures of her on her webpage.

got a car?

duh , she wrote again, though she wouldn’t have one until her birthday in mid-May, a small detail she could work out later. She wiped her damp palms on the bedspread, waiting to see if he was serious.

Kyle wrote, luv 4 u 2 hang w/us. try?

sure! she replied, though she didn’t have a clue how she could get there without her parents’ permission. Not that they paid close attention to what she did with her time, her dad in particular. They believed whatever she told them. If she planned things carefully, she might be able to make it work. ‘Holy shit,’ she whispered, but played it cool, typing, will check to see if I’m free .

hope so, Kyle wrote. hey babe, gtg – frenz here. Call your cell sat?

Disappointed to be done so soon, she wrote, ok. ttyl! and added a smiley face, to show she was just fine with letting him go. Then she signed off, so that none of her friends could interrupt her glow.

Wow , she thought, snapping her laptop shut: Kyle . Miami . She couldn’t wait to talk to him about it – it would be only their second conversation, the first having been Monday night. They hadn’t talked for long, but long enough for her to determine that he wasn’t geeky or weird. Long enough to discover that his voice, a midrange tenor that might complement her alto if he could sing, filled a hole in her heart – or maybe her soul, she wasn’t sure – in a way nothing else quite managed to. She stood and stretched and grinned.

As she washed her face, she imagined walking with Kyle on soft white sand, holding hands, kissing … French kissing, like she’d done experimentally a few times with her friend Jonathan, who lived two houses over. She was fascinated with the male body and the way she felt when she thought about getting firsthand knowledge of Kyle’s. Now that she’d found a guy worth her time, she was ready to try out a lot of the things she knew most of her friends were doing already. Had been doing since eighth grade, some of them. Her stomach turned a funny little flip when she thought of how it would be to slide her hand inside the waist of his cargo shorts.

She leaned close to the mirror to inspect the few blackheads dotting her forehead and the top of her nose. She’d need to get rid of those before Miami – what twenty-year-old girl would still have blackheads? Getting rid of the freckles banding her nose and cheeks would be nice, too, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her height, her freckles, her smile, and the red highlights in her brown hair were gifts from her mother – that’s what her Grandma Anna used to say; she tried to appreciate them, but what she wanted was to be petite, with blond hair and spot-free skin. Or that’s what she often thought, but now that she’d snagged Kyle’s interest, she might concede that she looked okay as is.