Tudor

(Kayla)

{I know this is lame, but i'm excited for this summer because i get to visit Cheyenne in Colorado. Or, we are hoping to arrange a visit. And i thought that this sort of related to how Kayla would feel before she met Tom. In a way, i suppose. Anyway, it's just an "entertaining" story, so i hope you enjoy reading.}

It was originally Cheyenne's idea. Maybe it was mine. We're like that, the two of us. Our brains are the right and left hemispheres of one consciousness. She's confident; i fake it. But i can't tell you how many times we've hatched the exact same idea at the exact same time. So, really, it's hard to say who thought of it first. It popped into existence somewhere in the air between our two heads, right at the beginning of the summer of 1984.

"You know what I want?" I had asked. We were lying on two blow-up rafts in the center of the backyard, tanning our legs. We'd both turned twenty at the beginning of the summer, and were evaluation our lives with the wisdom that comes with maturity.

It was the first Saturday of July. Already I was feeling majorly inadequate. I mean, Holly spent a month in Greece on some boat (she called it a "yacht") and had the smoothest honey-brown tan i've ever seen. I heard she used olive oil instead of Coppertone.

My own best friend, Cheyenne, was looking amazing, too. She'd grown slimmer and blonder.

We both reached for our lemonades at the same time and sipped from bendable straws. "Do you know what i really want?"

She knew. Of course she knew. She sighed. "Me, too."

"Wouldn't it be nice?"

"So nice."

"What do you think it's like?"

Leaning back on the rubber pillow of my raft, i tried to imagine it. The "it" we were both talking about, of course, was true love. I'd pictured true love before. It was full of color, light. Pink feathers and turquoise ribbons and gold-leaf swirls that flickered in the sun. And it was cool, too, like a blanket of satin, air-conditioning that never gone out and wasn't too expensive to run all summer, even at night. Love was soft and smooth and beautiful. Nothing like our cruddy old beige tudor house in Birch Falls, Pennsylvania.

"Why bother planting anything?" Robin had once said. "We're the only ones who will see it."

Like we don't matter, and it's only important if other people see it.

No, love was nothing like that. Real love was alive and vivid and out there for everybody to see.

"I think it'd feel like coming home," i said, adding, "If you actually like where you live."

Cheyenne laughed. "I think it feels like... like..." Cheyenne paused, looked over at me, then said: "Love is a serious kiss."

"Yes!" i said. "A real kiss. Not some slobber session."

"Not some stupid lap-dance kiss in the basement."

"Not a fake kiss just 'cause some guy wants you to hook up."

"No, not a liar's kiss."

"No way." I stretched out on my raft and said, "True love feels like a deep, soul-melting, passion-bloated kiss."

"A kiss so intense you faint afterward." Cheyenne sat up.

"And he revives you with another kiss."

"He lifts your neck with the palm of his hand and kiss you back to life."

"You open your eyes," i said, my eyes drifting shut, "and see him gazing at you with such devotion your heart stops beating."

"Because he is your heart," Cheyenne said softly.

"And your soul mate."

"And everything in between." We stopped, sipped more lemonade, felt the cool, sweet-and-sour liquid trickle down our throats.

"That's what i want." I told my best friend.

It's not like Cheyenne and I have never been in a relationship. We've been in plenty. We just haven't felt like any of those relationships were true love. We couldn't think back and say, "I loved him and i wish i had him back." We wanted true love that would last a lifetime.

"Me, too." she said.

"I don't wanna say it's my goal for the summer, because i know that you can't go out looking for love. Love finds you and they say you never expect it, right? But, i'm going to try and find the guy this summer." I said.