A Field Guide for Heartbreakers (15 page)

Chapter Sixteen

W
e decided to grab breakfast in the dorm cafeteria. Since I had to turn my story in on Monday, and it was now Sunday, I carried my copy with me at all times, pulling it out and reading through it, searching for rogue typos, combing through every word of dialogue, polishing every noun, clause, and sentence until it shined. I brought the “place” assignment with me, but since I wasn’t photo- copying it and dispersing it to the entire class, I didn’t feel the same sense of urgency to make it perfect.“You’ve become obsessed with your story,” Veronica said. “I’m worried that any negative feedback might send you into a self-esteem spiral.”I shook my head and peeled open a corner of my small cardboard box of cereal. “I just want my story to be the best that it can be,” I said.“So that it can enlist in the marines?” Veronica asked. She laughed at her own lame joke. Then her eyes looked sparkly happy, and she said, “Hi, Waller! Want to join us?”I looked up. Waller was wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans. He looked very clean and fresh and adorable. Then Veronica did the coolest thing ever. “I’m going to go make a phone call,” she said. “You can have my seat.”Veronica left, and Waller sat down. I felt my heart rupture in happiness.It was quite fortuitous that I’d chosen a wheat square cereal for breakfast, because I could eat it one piece at a time, seductively. I broke the final three squares into halves with my spoon. Waller sighed heavily. I thought he looked exhausted, but figured he must have been working on his story or something.“I had the most amazing dream about Uma last night. It woke me up at two and I couldn’t get back to sleep.” Waller began gnawing on a bagel.“Uma?” I asked. “Is she another sister?” I almost couldn’t breathe. It would crush me if Uma was his girlfriend.“Uma was my dog. She died when I was ten. But the ‘place’ assignment Tabitha gave us has taken me right back to my childhood. And Uma.” Waller’s eyes looked soft and reflective. “That dog used to do anything for a spoonful of peanut butter.”“What kind of dog was she?” I asked. I was proud of myself for being so quick with a follow-up question, because Waller’s deceased childhood dog was a conversational topic that I hadn’t expected to have to field. “Uma was a German shepherd, and even though she was smart, she used to eat everything: flies, tin cans, my ant farm.”“And peanut butter,” I said. Waller laughed. “You’re so easy to talk to. I haven’t thought about Uma in ages. My family had her cremated. We spread her ashes at the soccer field at my elementary school. She used to love to run there.”I had never heard of anybody cremating his dog before. Or spreading the ashes at a school. “Did you get special permission?”Waller shook his head. “It was summer vacation. We just showed up and spread them.”“Cool,” I said. And then I worried that maybe I’d said “cool” too many times.“I’m really looking forward to Kutná Hora. This will be my first ossuary,” he said.I didn’t have a clue what an ossuary was. “It’ll be my first one too,” I said.Waller’s face lit up. “Have you ever seen a real skeleton before?”I felt that this was a gross question to ask somebody who was eating. “I think the one in my science class was fake,” I said.“Kite wants to touch the skulls,” Waller said. “But I don’t. Just because I’m an American tourist doesn’t mean I have to act like one.”“Right,” I said. I didn’t understand why Waller was suddenly hung up on skulls. What exactly was Kutná Hora? Whore bones? “This place has more than skulls, right?” I asked. Because I knew that if Veronica ever saw a skull she would die.“Haven’t you seen pictures?” Waller asked. “They’ve got every bone in the body. Femurs on the ceiling. Skulls on shelves. Thousands and thousands of bones.” This was the worst news ever. Veronica was going to see a skull and die. And Waller was going to French kiss me next to a pile of femurs. Now the big trip seemed stupid. But then something happened that took me far away from this emotionally dreadful place and deposited me in a spot of pure bliss and romantic hope. Waller reached across the table and touched my hand. “Is that your story?” he asked.“Yes. Actually, this one is my story and this one is my ‘place’ assignment.” I pointed to the separate paper piles so he would know which one was which. “I’m writing about the Coneflower Trail.” Tragically, I felt compelled to elaborate. “It’s on a reservation outside of Cleveland. I hiked there. Once. With a friend. There were cardinals and snapping turtles and salamanders. It’s a cool place. I really like turtles. That’s why I chose it. I still have a long ways to go with it, though.”“I still haven’t finished mine either,” he said. He pulled his hand away from me, but my fingers kept tingling.“Impasse issues?” I asked.I loved being able to demonstrate that I was a good listener. “Yeah,” Waller said. “Stupid impasse.”“Maybe you should tell me what your story is about,” I said. “Maybe I can help you.”Thus far in my life I’d never had a conversation with a guy I’d liked that had gone so well. “Okay,” he said. “But this could get weird.” After successfully transitioning out of our skull discussion, I didn’t want things to get weird again. “Just tell me what it’s about in one word,” I said. I figured that was safe. What could he possibly say?“Desire,” he said. Things now felt weird. “Did you write about a relationship?” I asked. “That’s what my story is about.”“I guess I did write about a relationship.” “So what’s the impasse?” I asked. “It’s the ending,” he said. “I don’t like it.”“What don’t you like about your ending?”“Well, I don’t like the fact that it sucks.”“Okay,” I said. “But what sucks about it?”“I wanted the characters to really arrive somewhere. But they’re both kind of stuck in this moment of not committing.”“That sounds like something you can fix,” I said. Once Waller confessed his story’s shortcoming, I was a bit relieved. It wasn’t like he’d created an unlikable narrator that he had to overhaul, or had a ton of plot holes to patch. “But I have to get it to people by tonight,” he said. “I don’t have time.”“I think you have time,” I said.“Maybe if I knew how to fix it,” he said. “So you’re
really
stuck?” I said.Waller reached his hands across the table toward me, but I didn’t want to seem too eager, so I ate another half square of wheat. I really wanted Waller to touch my hand again.“You like to get right to the point, don’t you?” he asked.“Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock,” I said.“Okay. Here it is. Something deep needs to happen between the two main characters. It’s got to be physical. But I’m just not sure how to write it.” “Oh,” I said. I didn’t know how to talk to Waller when he used words like “deep” and “physical.” The conversation suddenly felt more advanced than I was prepared for.“I’m having a hard time with this because the characters are loosely based on me and my ex-girlfriend.”My heart leapt at the word “ex-girlfriend.” I hoped she was extremely ex. Like maybe she was a regrettable hookup he’d made during the eighth grade or something.“It’s so hard to tell a story that involves people you care about. I have this tendency to want to focus on their flaws,” he said. I didn’t like hearing that Waller was so fixated on his ex’s flaws. But I pressed forward.“Just be honest,” I said, though I thought the answer sounded too easy.“It’s not just her flaws. I’m stuck in other ways too. It’s hard for me to write about being physical with Lori. I mean, when I was with her it was exciting and fantastic. But writing about that stuff… . I don’t know. When I put it down on the page it really loses something.”Oh my god. We weren’t just talking about desire anymore. We were talking about sex. He was talking about his sexual history with his ex-girlfriend Lori. I had no idea what to offer or add or counsel.“How come you aren’t saying anything?” he asked.“I didn’t realize you were finished,” I said.“But I stopped talking,” he said.“Yeah,” I said.“Do you not want to talk about this with me? Is it weird? God, of course it’s weird. You’re still in high school. Never mind. I withdraw those last comments.” To say this remark wounded me would be an understatement. “Don’t withdraw anything,” I said. “I’ve got advice for you.”“You do?” he asked.“Sure.” I cleared my throat. “I bet if I had to write about being physical with my ex-boyfriend, Hamilton, it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as actually being physical with him.”I decided that “being physical” sounded a lot more mature than “making out.” “Right. Right,” he said. “But I have this feeling that the story needs a really physical, a really sexual and complicated closing.”“That’s rough,” I said. Because really, what else could I say?“But I can’t write about Lori that way,” he said. “And I can’t write about myself that way either.”“Well,” I said, “does it have to be the two of you?”“Of course it does,” he said. “We’re the ones in the story.”“I know. But you didn’t say that the story had to end with the two main characters doing something sexual. Maybe it could end with something else happening—sexually.”Waller sat up very straight; he seemed really intrigued by this.“Yeah, maybe they see something really sexual happening.”“Yeah, yeah,” I said.“Maybe it’s not even people,” he said.“Good idea!” I said.“Maybe they come across two animals having sex,” he said.“Okay,” I said. But I worried that it sounded a little bit like Veronica’s story.“But not big animals,” he said. “I don’t want anything comedic like walruses or elephants humping each other.”“Right,” I said. “And I don’t want any animals that look awkward and would be difficult to capture through quick images. No giraffes. Or ostriches. Or alligators.” “Absolutely,” I said.“And no animals that might accidentally injure the other with their teeth or claws while doing it,” he said. “No tigers. Or grizzly bears. Or sharks.”“I agree,” I said. It surprised me how quickly Waller could categorize animals and their mating styles.“I want something small,” he said. “And clever.”I finished my last half of wheat square.“What about otters?” I asked.“No, I want land mammals,” he said.“Kangaroos?” I asked.“Too comedic. And not common enough for my setting. My story takes place in Michigan.”“Oh,” I said.“I’ve got it!” he said. “I’ll describe a couple of foxes doing it.”Uh-oh. This wasn’t good.“Foxes?” I asked. “Are you sure?”“Yeah,” he said. “I saw a couple of foxes doing it on a nature show once, and it was one of the most amazing things ever. All that fur. They were totally wild, but they were also incredibly tender.” “Foxes feel wrong,” I said.“No,” he said. “The more you resist, the more certain I am that foxes are the exact right animal.”He ran his hands through his hair and smiled. “I gotta go. I gotta rewrite the ending. This is so amazing.”Waller took his tray and got up and left me. This meant we’d be reading two stories with foxes mating. Veronica would not be happy. In fact, I feared that she might even be crushed. She thought her concept was so original. And I didn’t like the idea that I’d steered Waller toward the revelation that led him to write about foxes. Ugh. If Veronica knew that, she’d never talk to me again. My safest bet was to deny any knowledge of Waller’s fox sex scene. Then, like the dutiful friend I was, I’d support her during her inevitable meltdown. The cafeteria was suddenly flooded with a group of German photography students. They buzzed around me wearing brown pants and speaking an emphatic and vowel-heavy language. I didn’t even bother checking out whether or not there were any hot-dudes among them. I had enough on my plate already.

Chapter Seventeen

V
eronica looked gorgeous. Her long hair was pulled back, but she let a curve of bangs fall to the side of her face. Without makeup she was so natural. I understood why guys fell for her. She was special, even when crazy things flew out of her mouth.We planned on meeting Waller and the other guys in front of the dorm at noon. Veronica had plopped down on the curb, but I was too nervous to sit. I hadn’t brushed my teeth after breakfast. This worried me.“My mouth will taste like cereal,” I said. “Is that really what I want him to associate me with?”“Don’t you have any gum?” Veronica asked.I looked in my bag. All I had were pens, baby wipes, and my story.“God, you should always carry gum,” Veronica said. “Do you have some?” “Yeah,” she said, stretching her toned legs out in front of her.“Can I have some?” I asked.“Totally,” she said. “The reason I didn’t offer it to you right away is because I wanted you to panic a little bit. Because then maybe you’d start planning ahead. Now that you’re dating again, you need to be more prepared. For example, familiarize yourself with the day’s headlines so you’ve got some solid conversation starters. And
always
make sure you have gum. And clean underwear. And push-up bras. And condoms.”“Stop, stop, stop,” I said. “When you mess with me like this you make me blush.”“I know,” she said. “That’s mainly why I do it.”“Do you have any other, more useful advice?” I asked.“Well,” Veronica said. “This is not about you in particular, but I’ve been thinking a lot about interest shifts.”“What are those?”“When a guy really likes you and then his interest suddenly shifts. If this happens, and you haven’t done anything course-changing, I think it means he’s met somebody else.”“Course-changing?” I asked.“That would be something you’ve done to make him lose interest. Drastic haircut. Inflated like a blimp. Peed yourself at Applebee’s in front of his friends. If you haven’t done anything from that category, and his interest shifts, then another woman has entered the picture and captivated him.”“Where do you come up with these ideas?” I asked.“My brain and life experience.”A little after noon, Waller and Roger emerged from the dorm looking cute and collegey in their well-worn jeans and T-shirts. “Where are the others?” Veronica asked them.“Frank went paddleboating down the Vltava,” Roger said. “And Kite went to rent the car.”“Frank went paddleboating by himself?” I asked.Roger nodded. “He’s still adjusting to his condition.”“Balding people is wrong,” Veronica said, pointing to Waller. “I know. I’ve apologized. Can we move on?” Waller said. I was really hoping that the guys could move on, because all this tension was a real mood-killer.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Kite rolled up in one of the smallest cars I’d ever seen in my life. It looked like a glorified shoe.“We’re all fitting inside that?” I asked. “Relax,” Waller said. “Two in front. Three in back. It’ll work.”“I think small cars are good for the environment,” Veronica said. “One day I hope to live in a country that only has electric ones.”“I think that place already exists. Tomorrowland at Disney World,” Roger said. “Beep. Beep.” He grabbed at the air like he was honking a horn.I don’t know why I thought this was so funny. Maybe because I liked seeing Roger tease Veronica, but I laughed so hard I snorted. Veronica stared at me in horror. As I climbed into the backseat after Waller, she leaned into me and whispered, “Watch the sound effects. The only fans of pig noises are actual pigs.”Kite drove. Roger sat in the passenger seat because he was clearly the tallest. And I positioned myself in the middle of the backseat between Waller and Veronica. Waller smelled yummier than he had the other night. Like an orange and some sort of spice. Veronica smelled like a banana. As we rolled along, I felt too challenged to have a conversation with Waller. My like for him made me pull back into myself. From this introverted place I tried to think of funny things to say. But I couldn’t figure out if they were funny or goofy. And everybody knows that, for guys, funny is sexy, but goofy isn’t. In the front seats, Kite and Roger were talking about a story I hadn’t read.“You really didn’t like it?” Roger said. “I seriously loved it.”“I was annoyed by the Miracle Whip jar,” Kite said. “He’s trying to foreshadow the upcoming failed miracle. It was heavy-handed. He could have just called it mayonnaise.”“No way. The irony is brilliant—the kid searching for this miraculous soup to put in a ubiquitous Kraft jar. The only miraculous thing about Miracle Whip is that food could be so cheap and disgusting. It’s about our concept of miracles. Stuart Dybek is a genius. That one detail adds so much.”While interesting, the conversation was making me tense. Because I hadn’t even considered trying to communicate with my reader using every tiny detail. And condiments? During my picnic scene, I think my characters ate their turkey sandwiches dry. Had I used any symbolism at all? I compulsively pulled out my story and started skimming it.“So how did all you guys meet?” Veronica asked. “Street luging? Heli-skiing? Scuba?”I almost answered for Waller and Roger, but then caught myself because maybe Veronica had some sort of agenda.“Roger and I have known each other for years,” Waller said. “We went through puberty together. We got into lots of trouble.”Roger turned around and looked into the backseat. “I think it’s more accurate to say that I assisted you out of lots of trouble.”“A kid can encounter all sorts of melee on the streets of Chicago,” Waller said.I loved that comment. It made him seem dangerous and sexy but in a reformed and approachable way. “It’s not like we were ever held hostage,” Roger said. “We had paper routes. We went to church. Your mother hired clowns for your birthday parties.”Waller lowered his mouth to my ear. “My street was a lot dicier than his.”“Oh,” I said as empathically as I could.“How did you meet Kite and Frank?” Veronica asked. “We met them in an online writers’ group,” Waller said. “We send stuff out for group critique a couple of times a month.”“Wow.” Veronica tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You guys are dedicated.”“You’re not going to get where you want to go if you don’t put your butt in the chair and type,” Waller said.I was a little disappointed that Veronica was monopolizing Waller. Wasn’t this trip supposed to be about me and my kissable lips?“Are you trying to write a novel?” Veronica asked. “I’m focusing on my short stories,” Waller said.“But Frank sure is,” Kite chimed in. “He’s the next Dan Brown.”Waller laughed snidely. “He wrote almost a hundred pages yesterday. He’s like a madman,” Kite said. “He says his energy comes from his plot.”“I want more than a loud plot to deliver my sales,” Waller said.I was glad to hear Waller say this. It reinforced my belief that he had good taste.“You have to work hard,” Waller added, “but really, when it comes down to it, it’s all about who you know. Which reminds me … I need to give you two my story today.”“Cool,” Veronica said. “I’m not even going to ask you what you wrote about, because I want it to be a complete surprise.”Waller laughed and rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t give anything away.”I don’t know if it was my conscience or the fear of Veronica’s wrath or some other powerful force, but the world around me began to turn very rubbery. It was like every solid thing had started turning flimsy on me. My legs. Veronica’s body. The car seat. The windows. My pen. Waller. I didn’t look at anybody. Instead, I stared at my rubbery story. The words danced. It was as if my own deep disappointment in myself had triggered a hallucination. “When are you up?” Waller’s voice only partially broke the spell.“I turn my story in on Monday,” I said. “I get critiqued on Wednesday.” I sounded like a robot.“Are you nervous?” Waller asked.“Yes,” I said. “Don’t be,” he said. “You should relax about it.”“Yes,” I said. “I should relax.”Veronica looked at me. Then she swiped my pen.“Put it away and chill out,” she said.Before I knew what I was doing, I punched Veronica with my fist and grabbed my pen back.“Ouch,” she said.“Wow,” said Waller. “Here’s a girl who’s intent on revision.” He glanced down at my story. I felt my fist tightening again. Veronica saw this and grabbed my arm.“I don’t think she’s ready to share,” she said.“What’s going on back there?” Roger asked.“Nothing,” Veronica said. “I’m trying to sneak a peek at Dessy’s story,” Waller told him. “The first sentence is ‘Before I let him kiss me, I made him tell me a secret: His father was coming unglued, and spoke about the Rapture as though it might arrive before Arbor Day.’”Oh my god! He was reading my story. That was my first sentence. I hadn’t told him he could read the first sentence. What was Waller doing? Were there no rules in my new rubbery world?“Sounds good,” Roger said.“Yeah,” said Kite. “I haven’t thought about the Rapture in years.”In protest, I wildly waved my pen in the air. Veronica and Waller both pulled their faces away from my swinging hand.“Don’t read it now!” I said. “Okay,” Waller said. “Calm down.”“Mellow,” Veronica said. “He stopped reading it.”“I’m just not ready yet,” I said. “I still might change something.”Waller playfully tugged at a corner of my story. I pulled it out of his grasp.“I like where it’s going,” he said.I glanced over the four paragraphs on that page. This particular scene reeked of sexual tension. It was, in fact, my fictive couple’s first attempt at a kiss. I lifted my butt off the seat and tucked my story underneath me. Then I sat back down. This maneuver made a crunching sound. Veronica stared at me.“Do I need to get back there and sit between anybody?” Roger asked.“Maybe,” Waller said.Roger turned around and smiled at me. “Where’s your story?” he asked.“She’s sitting on it,” Waller said.I could feel myself blush. Why couldn’t I have just stuck it back inside my bag? Things kept getting more and more rubbery. We traveled mile after mile without any conversation. What was I doing? I decided I had to reclaim a sense of normalcy. So I reached forward and patted Roger on the shoulder.Veronica shot me a sideways glance.“How are things in the front seat?” I asked.Roger turned around and looked at me. “Decent,” he said. “Backseat?”“I haven’t seen a single cow,” Waller said.“There’s supposed to be cows?” I asked.“He was kidding,” Roger said. “It’s an inside joke.”I wondered what it could be. I shifted my weight and heard my story crunch beneath me.“So, do you take workshops in high school?” Roger asked.“No,” I said.“Our school pretty much ignores the arts,” Veronica said. “You know how it is. Midwestern values. Most of us have never heard of Brueghel, but our football games are freakishly well attended.”The only reason Veronica knew about Brueghel was because of her mother. Mrs. Knox had written a short story about him around the time Mr. Knox had fled to Rome. She’d also bought a goldfish and named it Brueghel. Veronica had hated that thing. She’d even refused to feed it. It only lasted two months. I wanted to shift my weight again, but I feared releasing any more sounds. “So what kind of classes do you take?” Roger asked.“The basics. Trigonometry. Government. Metal shop. Botany. Et cetera,” Veronica said.“What do
you
take, Dessy?” Roger asked.“Yeah, what’s your favorite high school class?” Waller added.I hated hearing the words
high school
. Okay, so I hadn’t completed my secondary education. Did it need to be brought up with every question? Things felt so awkward. Why were relationships this hard? And of all the materials on the planet, why did everything make me feel like
rubber
?“I like English,” I said.“Nice,” Waller said. “That’s Allie’s favorite class too.”That response totally bummed me out. And even though I felt this nagging impulse to rearrange my weight again, I didn’t do that either. Veronica must have been able to sense my clumsy desperation. “Does this car have a radio?” she asked.Kite didn’t answer, just turned it on. We listened to techno dance music as we drove to the bones.