A Field Guide for Heartbreakers (2 page)

Chapter Three

W
e pulled into Boz Tidwell’s driveway, and Veronica slammed her car into park. Afternoon had shifted toward evening, and the temperature had fallen. Through a second-story window, I could see Boz at his computer. Backlit by a lamp, his head cast an exaggerated silhouette on the drapes. He looked like a giant, though in reality, even when he spiked his brown hair, he was only five feet six.“Who do you think he was with?” Veronica asked me. She was breathing purposefully, releasing air out of her flaring nostrils at two-second intervals. “Maybe he wasn’t with anybody,” I said.“Gloria took way too much pleasure in telling me he was with somebody. That means it was the truth.” She cracked open her door. I locked mine.“Would you please come with me?” Veronica asked.“You said I could stay in the car.” I stretched my legs and leaned back in the seat.“But I feel like I want to hit him in the head with an iron,” she said, pounding her fist on the dash. I glanced at her. The driver’s side section of the windshield was totally fogging up.“Well, don’t,” I said.“What if he was out stealing building supplies with Celerie? He’s not supposed to break the law with anybody but me. It’s a couple thing. Don’t you get that? Doesn’t
he
get that? And Celerie Sandoval? I hate foreign exchange students. They have no concept of American fidelity!”I wanted to point out that a few hours ago it was Veronica who was contemplating “roaming” like a cheetah. Maybe she needed to take a good look at her relationship. If she was already feeling the impulse to carouse at seventeen, her union with Boz probably wasn’t all that fantastic. But I figured I’d try a safer response.“You are so much more attractive than Celerie,” I said. “And way more interesting.” “But she’s from Honduras, and everybody knows that’s an extremely liberal country. I think their government even encourages its citizens to do it on public buses.” Veronica swung her legs out of the car and turned her back to me. “I know a lot about Honduras, and I’ve never heard that. You’re letting your imagination run wild.”I could tell Veronica was crying. She didn’t cry often, only when something terrible was happening.“Do you have your cell phone?” she asked me.“Why?”“Because if you hear screams or the sound of somebody’s skull being split open, you should probably dial 911.”I wanted to hold her back. I was her best friend. Calming her down felt like my job.“Veronica, I need a favor.”“You want a favor right now?”“Yes. I want you to walk around the house five times before you ring the doorbell.”“No.”“I think you should. I mean, you don’t look good. Your face is blotchy. And you’re making really tight fists. Boz’s mom has never seen you like this. You might ruin her impression of you.”Veronica clucked her tongue. “Well, I’m not going to walk around his house five times. I’d look psycho. I’ll walk around the block once. And then I’m going in.”“Fine,” I said.Veronica got out of the car and hung a hard left, setting off down the sidewalk at a good clip. I opened my door to get some fresh air. I knew Boz wasn’t cheating on Veronica, but I was surprised that he would hang out with another girl. He knew that would unhinge Veronica. That’s why he’d never done it. Until now. She and Boz fought a lot. It seemed oddly necessary for them, like they had all this extra energy, and if they didn’t erupt periodically at each other, they might overheat at night and explode in their separate beds. Yes, there would be a fight. Yelling. Wild gesticulation of arms. Screaming. Tossing of random items from Veronica. Boz shielding himself from objects. Extreme cursing. Crying. Further gesticulation of arms, but less frenzied. Apologizing. Hugging. At which point Veronica would walk to where I was waiting and ask if I wanted to drive her car to my house, where she’d retrieve it later. “Things are fine now,” she’d say, smiling, as she walked back to Boz. Yes. That’s the note I was hoping they’d hit:
Things are fine now
.When Veronica came back from her journey around the block, she looked more furious than when she’d left. She was blotchier. And her pink eyes were now filled with rage. She walked right to my door.“What happened?” I asked.“I thought I saw Celerie,” she said. She was crying and biting her lip with such intensity that I worried she might draw blood.“Was it Celerie?” I asked.“No, it was some other anorexic-looking brunette wearing paisley pants.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Paisley pants,” she whimpered. “Nobody’s worn those since the Depression. How could that out-of-date tramp turn his head?” “Maybe you should walk around the block again,” I said.“My heart feels like it’s breaking inside of me,” she said. “Like it’s being dissolved in battery acid.”“I know the feeling,” I said. But really I thought she was overreacting.Veronica shook her head, and a fat tear spattered onto the driveway.“I know I joke about unloading Boz, but that’s not what I want at all,” she said. “Go around the block two more times.”“But I don’t want to see that slut who looks like Celerie again.”“Cut a bigger block and avoid her altogether. Here. I’ll come with you.”“I don’t want a babysitter,” Veronica said. “You don’t need to sit on top of me!” She ran across the street without looking for traffic and hurried down the sidewalk.Watching these events unfold brought me back to my Hamilton tragedy. I squeezed my eyes shut. Fresh into my first broken heart, I didn’t want to be this close to more heartache. I craved solitude. No. That’s a lie. I craved what every dumpee craves. My dumper. I knew it was wrong to want this. Because what kind of guy breaks up with his girlfriend by reading her a typed (and laminated) list of her three worst flaws? Who thinks to make a list
and
has access to a laminating machine? He read me my flaws in the order of least offensive to most. It had felt like I was being stoned. First, by the sound of Hamilton’s voice as he uttered my shortcomings. Then, by the accuracy with which he landed his blows.
Thwack
.
Thwack
.
Thwack
. I’d felt so bruised by the event that in the weeks since I’d received the list and hidden it in my underwear drawer, I hadn’t told anyone about its existence. Even Veronica. Which wasn’t
that
surprising. Because, as Hamilton pointed out in what he deemed my first and least significant flaw,
I had a habit of selectively withholding important information for the sake of creating a more pleasant reality
. Boz’s shadow stayed positioned behind his computer. What was he looking at? Couldn’t he sense that his universe was about to blow up? He leaned back and stretched his arms over his head. Nothing about the image seemed to foreshadow disaster. When Veronica returned she looked like she had a better handle on her emotions.“I won’t crack him over the head unless he tells me something devastating,” she said.“Veronica, please don’t get violent.”She looked at me like she was surprised to hear that advice. “If he breaks up with me, I’ll die,” she said.“But you might be getting worked up over nothing. You don’t even know if those two were together at all. Maybe he’s part of a carpool that just started.”“Boz is not part of a carpool!” Veronica said.“Let’s just go home and look at our suitcases. I’ll let you zip me up in mine this time.”Veronica pushed my door open wide and crouched at my side. “That’s not what I want,” she said. “I need to save my relationship!”She stood up, and I watched her trek across the lawn. Even when she wasn’t furious she had a fierce and sizable stride. She rang the doorbell three times, but Boz stayed put. She pounded on the door with her fist. She kicked it with her shoe. His shadow didn’t budge.I opened my door. “I think he’s listening to his iPod,” I yelled. Veronica looked at the window, then reached down and picked up a couple of rocks. They were big. I closed my eyes. But when I heard the bangs, I forced myself to peek. Boz parted his curtains, then stood up and opened his window. He ripped out his earbuds. “You’re nuts!” he yelled down. “You could have hit my window.”There were two healthy-sized dents in the white vinyl siding of his house.“Don’t worry. I’ve got excellent aim,” Veronica said.“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.Good question. What was Veronica’s
goal
in this situation? She bent down to pick up more rocks and walked closer to his window.“Where were you last night?” she asked.“Is this about Celerie?” I tensed. Boz kept raking his hand through his hair, making it stick up in unattractive clumps. He seemed alarmed. “What’s the story?” Veronica asked. She raised one of her rock-armed hands.“Calm down,” Boz said.Veronica lowered her arm, but even that gesture looked menacing. I decided that things were on the brink of going insanely bad, so I got out of the car and made my way to Veronica’s furious and unstable side.“I want to know everything,” she called up.“Just give us the highlights,” I added.I reached out and took hold of Veronica’s right hand. It was still slick with lotion. I held on to it until the rock fell from her fingers.“You damaged my house,” Boz said. “When my parents see that, they’re totally going to freak.”I was very relieved that his parents didn’t seem to be home. “That’s beside the point. Why were you with Celerie?” Veronica asked. “I’m helping her build a doghouse,” he said.“For what?” Veronica asked.“Her dog,” Boz said.“What kind of exchange student buys a dog? She can’t take it back to Honduras. You can’t even take fruit into California! They make you throw it away at checkpoints before you can enter the state. Right?” she asked, looking at me.“I think you’re right,” I said.“And why couldn’t you buy a doghouse that was already assembled?” she shouted.I reached for her other hand, but she pulled it away.“We thought building it would be more fun,” Boz said.“Why do you want to have fun with Celerie? Why are you two out stealing supplies?”“That’s basically a misunderstanding. I had permission to take what I took. Mostly,” he said.“They wrote up a police report. You’re in trouble,” Veronica told him.“They did,” I added. “Gloria informed us at the mall.”Boz nodded. “I’ll get it straightened out. It’s totally fine that I took that stuff.”“Totally fine?” Veronica asked. “Totally fine? I don’t feel totally fine about any of this.”Boz disappeared, and Veronica buried her head in my shoulder. “Why is he doing this to me?”“I don’t understand the doghouse project at all,” I admitted. If Hamilton had taken up a project like that with another girl, it would have irritated me quite a bit too. “Men suck,” she said. “I know how you feel.”She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “It will work out,” I said.“I don’t know.”“You two always end up okay.” I patted her back and rubbed my hand along her bony spine.“I need to do something,” she said.“I think you
are
.” “No. He needs to learn a lesson.”She lifted her head off my shoulder and smiled. Traces of glitter sparkled underneath her nose.“Don’t do anything stupid,” I said.Boz opened his front door and stepped out onto the porch. He looked up at the dents by his window and shook his head.“Veronica,” he called. “Come inside so we can talk.”“What makes you think I want to talk to you?” she asked.“I’m your boyfriend.” “Are you?” she asked.Boz took several steps toward us. “Of course I am.” “You sound so sure and cocky,” she said.“What’s your point?” he asked. “Are you threatening to break up with me?”Veronica took out her lip gloss and applied a fresh coat. “No,” she said, slowly shaking her head.“Then what?” asked Boz.“I’m not threatening. I
am
breaking up with you.” I heard myself gasp. I looked at Boz, then Veronica, then back at Boz.“You’re joking,” he said. “You love me. You can’t dump me. We’re perfect for each other.”“You’re cheating on me.”“I’m not.”“It feels like you are.”“But you’re wrong.”“But it feels like I’m right.”“That’s because you’re terrible at reasoning,” he said.Veronica took a deep breath and tossed her rock onto his porch. It skittered across the cement and landed in a holly bush. I hated the idea that a union between two people could end so suddenly.“I’m out,” she said.“Do you want me to call you later?” Boz asked.“Why would I want that?” I thought about trying to force them to patch things up. But I just stood there and watched their two-year union disintegrate. “You’re breaking up with me in front of Dessy?” he asked.“Yeah,” she said. “Things haven’t been working for me for quite some time. I mean, this relationship hasn’t been firing on both engines for a while.”“Are you being serious?” he asked.“As a heart attack. I’ll have Dessy return any of your crap that’s still in my possession before we fly to Prague. And you should do the same. No need to hang on to my crap any longer than you have to.”“Don’t do this, Veronica,” he pleaded. “Let’s talk.”“Call Celerie. I’m sure she’ll talk to you all night long.”She flipped around, and I watched her small-waisted shadow walk to her car. “This is awkward,” I told Boz.“She’s joking, right?” “I don’t think so.”“Whatever. She’ll change her mind,” he said. “I know Veronica.”Watching the reaction of a fellow dumpee made me realize how pathetic a dumpee looks. He raised a fist over his head and shouted, “I’m not finished, Veronica. This isn’t over until we both say it’s over.”He was in total denial. And I could relate. Being in such close proximity to a second breakup, so near my own, stirred up all these feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. Hamilton Stacks didn’t love me anymore. Given the choice between being with me and being alone, he’d chosen the latter. He preferred to be with
nothing
. It hit me hard. Even with three flaws, was I that bad? It was easy to feel doomed. Would my flaws always drive guys away? I heard Veronica start her Audi. Then she honked. “I guess I’ll see you later.” I waved good-bye to Boz and walked over and got inside her car.“I feel awful about this,” I said. “It’s like the apocalypse of relationships.”“I don’t feel bad. Boz will be here when I get back.”“So you weren’t even being serious?” I asked.“Oh, I was being serious. I had to do this. I had to do something so big that he’d feel my absence like an elephant on his heart the entire time I’m gone. Plus, now I can go to Prague like the cheetah I really am and have some fun.”“You mean you did this so you can look for a guy in Prague?”“No. A
man
, Dessy. Those college studs won’t know what hit them. And neither will Boz; I plan on e-mailing him photos of all my conquests and adventures. By the time I get back, he’ll be so crazy in love with me, I won’t even know what to do with him.”“That seems risky,” I said.“I’m the walking definition of risk,” Veronica said.My skin goose pimpled. “What if you end up hurting him so badly that he can’t forgive you?”“That won’t happen. Quit being such a wet sock.” She punched me in the arm again, harder than her average slug. “We’re going to have the time of our lives in Prague. You can count on it.”I thought about telling her that she meant wet