Becky's Kiss by Nicholas Fisher Page A

pinpoint as one thing specifically, but her face did something: moved, shifted, molded, contoured, re-sculpted itself. Everything was the same, but not so. When she focused on a specific feature, it seemed to be exactly as it had always been. It was what she wasn’t looking at directly that changed, the overall impression making her eyes sharper, her lashes longer, her cheekbones higher, her lips more pouty. It was her, but better…Becky Michigan, but more cat-like and girly, as if some hard diamond had been brought suddenly into the light from the shadows.
    She yanked the hat off and dropped it to the floor. Her cell phone was in her pocket and it took a second for her to yank it out, punch in Beth’s number, and text: i-Chat right now, SOS, STAT!
    She moved to her desk, opened her lap top, and began punching the keys. There was a glare from the window, so once she got on line, she moved her desk chair and then the computer to an angle facing the back of her bedroom where she had hung her Little Big Town, Carrie Underwood, and Lady Antebellum posters, all left over from her country phase really a year stale by this point. Soon, Beth’s image came up, moving in place onto what looked like a love seat in the corner of her own bedroom. Becky had expected hard wood floors, little African statues, and mosaic tiles, or the other extreme, long vases with wildgrass and pots with cacti and everything all health food and peace signs, but that wasn’t what surrounded her new friend at all in her room.
    She was a ‘fluffy girl,’ with cushy pillows and teddy bears all over the place. She got her guitar and sat, knees together, thin red hair hanging down. She had so many freckles on her face it seemed she was darker than she really was, especially with the way the computer broadcast her image in that flat manner with the slightest delay, like a cheap movie.
    “Hey there weirdo,” Beth said. She tuned a couple of strings, and then put this band over the neck of the guitar halfway up, probably to change the key or something. She started playing a gentle melody that was rather complex, but sweet, like enchanted forest or beach music.
    In any other scenario, Becky would have commented on Beth’s insanely awesome ability to provide a live soundtrack, but she was still too creeped out.
    “Can you see me?” she said. Beth kept finger picking like it was second nature and gave a real look.
    “Yes. What’s wrong?”
    “No,” Becky said, trying to keep her voice even. “I mean, can you really see my face? Like, am I half in shadow or can you make out everything, like my eyes and cheeks and my chin and stuff?”
    “Well, you’re a bit off center, but I see you just fine. Weirdo. What’s up?”
    “Just look,” Becky said. She reached to the floor, grabbed the hat, gathered her hair and put it through the hole. She pulled the brim forward and pushed back from the edge to the middle of the chair, trying to find the exact position she had just vacated. The second she found her place in front of the computer, Beth’s guitar went out of tune. Her fingers jerked, and she almost dropped the instrument. Instead, it fell to her lap on its back and she gripped it there, eyes wide as saucers.
    “Wow,” she said.
    “What?” Becky said. “Tell me.”
    “You look good in that hat.”
    “How exactly?”
    “I don’t know exactly. Hey Becky, you’re really cute, I mean, you were kinda cute before, but now…wowie.”
    Becky moved close to the screen, grabbing her lap top at its edges.
    “Look at me!” she said. “Real close. What exactly looks different?”
    Beth studied her, and this close up, Becky could see the video lines making up Beth’s moving image before her.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t tell close up. It’s an overall effect, like the hat frames you nicely. More than nicely.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “It makes you a sexy kitten, or more like a lioness with that mane of hair.” She sat