Katie Tarbox was an average thirteen year old girl in the fabulous New Canaan. Compared to everyone else, one might consider her somewhat less-than-ordinary . For a thirteen year old girl, Katie had a busy schedule. Her participation and high ranking on a nationally ranked swim team kept her from having an active social life. Rarely did she spend the night with friends except for special occasions, and she was prohibited to attend parties on Friday nights. While her parents both worked at full-time jobs, Katie spent her spare time by herself at home. It is here--alone and unsupervised--where Katie discovered AOL.
America OnLine--commonly referred to as AOL--is a chat room site where strangers can communicate anonymously with code names. On one of the nights when Katie was home alone, she logged on to AOL using her older sister’s profile, “atarbox,” to browse various chat rooms in which to join. She settled for a chat room called “Teen Chat Room.” Katie hoped to meet other teenagers in this chat room that shared some of her same interests. It is in this Teen Chat Room where Katie met “vallleyguy” (spelled with three l’s). It didn’t take long for Katie and vallleyguy to begin getting to know each other and before she knew it, Katie unwittingly gave out almost all of her personal identification information including her full name, email address, phone number, and city in which she lived. For all the personal information vallleyguy gleaned from Katie, all she learned in return was his first name, Mark.
Katie and Mark quickly assumed an easy friendship, exchanging emails and AOL chat room conversations at least a couple times a week. Their exchanges up to this point were merely conversational--never anything more. Katie soon considered Mark not only her friend, but also her confidant--someone with whom she could share her personal issues. With Mark being twenty-three years old, she figured he could have some advice to offer her. As Katie and Mark’s conversations became more regular, her thoughts became consumed with him. Katie’s conversations with Mark remained a secret from her family, friends, and swim team. She felt they would overreact and think of it as more than it really was.
Months passed by with Katie and Mark talking on the phone, emailing, and instant messaging, then Katie told Mark she had to go on a school trip to Italy. He begged her to write him and email during her trip, but Katie declines. She wanted the trip to be a time to reflect and really think about if this friendship was something worth pursuing or if she needed to stop all contact. Katie came to the realization that she had romantic feelings for Mark.
When she returned home, she called Mark to tell him of this realization. He confessed that he felt the same way about Katie and wanted to meet her in person. Katie knew in her heart that she wanted to meet Mark, but she knew that people would judge her harshly. She felt unable to decide what to do about Mark. Katie was with her best friend, Ashley, and finally told her about her secret relationship with Mark. Ashley disapproved and voiced her disappointment with Katie. After that, Mark was never mentioned to anyone.
Around six months after Katie and Mark’s first communication, Katie had a swim meet in Texas. Determined to meet her, Mark traveled to Texas see Katie. While Katie was in her hotel in Texas, she nervously awaited the phone call from Mark. She finally received a call from him around 9:30 p.m. Everyone was supposed to be asleep. Katie was practically asleep. The only thing keeping her awake is Ashley’s shower.
Katie answered the phone and Mark invited her to come down to his room. Right as Katie was about to leave, Ashley ran and jumped in front of her. Katie hadn’t said anything about Mark to her, but Ashley seemed to know where Katie was going. She begged Katie not to go, but Katie refused and stormed out of the room. While in the elevator going down to Mark’s room, she began to get very nervous and started to regret the decision to go. She figures that she wouldn’t have his opportunity again so she went.
She knocked on the door and the man that answered was not the man she expected. Katie recognized Mark, but the person who stood before her was a shorter and older looking version of the man in the pictures he sent to Katie. He invited Katie in and they sit on the couch. He got closer and closer to her and he leaned in and kissed her. He was in the process of trying to do more when a violent knock on the door stopped him. He rushed Katie into the bathroom and Mark openrf the door. To his surprise, Katie’s mother and two guards stood at the door. Mark denied any knowledge of Katie being in the room, but Katie’s mom was persistent. Finally, Katie walked out and confessed that she had come down to his room, yet denied any sexual exploitation. Her mother was highly disappointed in her bad judgement and her entire swim team became involved. While she was warming up for her swim meet, her team members spread rumors about her which got her distracted. She does awful in the swim meet and let the whole team down.
Before they got back to Connecticut, Katie talked to some policeman. They asked her questions about Mark, even as basic as his name. She came to learn that Mark wasn’t even his name and that his true name is Frank Kufrovich, and that he was from a different part of California than what he had previously said. Katie returned home and her parents began giving her the cold shoulder. She went back to school, not knowing what to expect from everyone who knew what happened. No one wanted to talk to her because of her bad judgement. As she said in the book, “I was no longer Katie Tarbox, good girl. I was Katie Tarbox, slut, idiot, or both.”
She eventually just couldn’t stand going to school and hearing all the rumors being spread about her, so she asked her parents if she could go to boarding school. They agreed, and Katie applied to different schools. She got accepted to St. Paul’s in New Hampshire, the same school her sister, Abby, attended. She thought that going to a new school in a different state would help her start over.
Her new school started off well and she really liked it, but as the investigation of Frank continued she started to feel guilty--guilty of turning an “innocent” man’s life upside-down. Soon after, Katie started having mental break downs and began seeing a therapist. The therapy helped her, but not enough to ease her feelings of guilt.
Two years passed and Frank’s day in court finally arrived. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Frank then wrote a letter to Katie saying how sorry he was, but she knew that all he was trying to do was get her pity and sympathy. He tried to make her feel even more guilty than she already felt.
Soon after the trial, Katie had an English assignment to write an essay on a topic of her choice, something that interested her. She couldn’t get the idea of pedophila out of her head. She called the FBI agent who worked her case and asked for any additional information so she could use it in the case. It was soon discovered at her school that the “Girl from New Canaan who was molested in Texas” was Katie herself. Four times a week, St. Paul’s has guest speakers come and talk to the students and they asked Katie to talk about the Texas incident. After she is done talking, and when everyone stands and claps for her, she says that she no longer feels like a victim in this case.
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