“Hello, Jimmy,' said an all-too-familiar voice from somewhere behind me. It was Marty. No one else at South Miami had that delightful, almost exotic English accent.

I turned around slowly until I faced her. “Hi, Marty,” I said.

She got up from one of the few chairs that had not been placed in storage and gave me a shy half-smile. “So, come to say goodbye, then?” Marty asked.

I gazed at her, committing every detail of her appearance to memory. She wore faded Levi’s blue jeans, a white and orange SOUTH MIAMI CHORUS T-shirt, white socks and an old pair of Keds sneakers. Her chestnut hair was tied into a ponytail. She wore very little makeup; a touch of mascara here, a hint of blush there, a bit of lip-gloss to make things a bit interesting. She was shockingly, heartrendingly beautiful.

My heart skipped a beat. “I couldn’t go without seeing you, you know,” I said.

She smiled. “Oh, come on; I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“It’s true,” I said. “And no, I don’t say that to all the girls.”