A Field Guide for Heartbreakers (9 page)

“Wow,” Veronica said. “Cool scene. But I think you ‘goshdarn’ yourself into a corner.”Mrs. Knox gently slapped the table. “We start with what’s working.”“I’ll tell you what I like,” Annie Earl said. “I like how she turns the rest of the world into savages. Lobsters die. We know that. But this story made me consider their point of view.”“Thanks,” Brenda said. “My boyfriend is a fisherman. And I’m really conflicted about it.”“Shh,” Mrs. Knox said. “No talking until after we finish responding to your piece.” I glanced at Veronica. She looked as thrilled as I felt. Our only competition for male attention in the workshop had been Brenda. And she’d admitted right in front of all of us that she had a boyfriend, and so now she was out of the game. It was a gift from the heavens. “I liked your description of the clambake,” Frank said. “I’ve never been to one. You’re great at capturing smell images.”I had never heard of a “smell image.”“I really enjoyed this story,” Roger said. “It’s a great premise. The way we cook lobsters is torture, but because they’re
lobsters
, the narrator’s mission is, in society’s eyes, borderline crazy.”Brenda smiled and nodded, like he’d gotten it. “That’s so compelling in itself,” Roger continued. “And because her passion felt so sincere, I found the ‘goshdarns’ kind of grating. They felt loaded, like they were somehow criticizing the narrator’s conservative, working-class background. For me, the language of the story began to challenge the narrative.” Brenda stopped smiling. Veronica leaned in toward me and whispered, “Meet our workshop’s Derrida.” I didn’t know who or what a Derrida was.“I also felt a little clobbered,” Roger continued, “by the appearance of the seafood-loving priest in the second grocery store scene. He seemed a little too convenient. It felt deus ex machina,and it made the lobster feel less central.”“Maybe the lobster is Catholic,” Waller joked. Roger grimaced at that comment.“The message hit me in the face too,” Veronica said. “The religious references did feel a bit shoehorned in,” said Corky.“I liked the priest,” said Frank. “He was creepy, but so are lobsters and fishermen. Also, so is the chick buying groceries and tossing them into the sea.”“How much do lobsters cost?” Kite said. “I’ve seen them in the grocery stores, but never bought one. The story might be addressing, like, class.”“The fisherman did strike me as underpriviliged,” Annie Earl said. “I think the protagonist feels conflicted about this. I think that’s a big part of what’s motivating her.” “Yeah,” Roger said. “But gender is important too. All the lobsters’ opposition is male.”“Even the bag boy,” Waller added.For the next twenty minutes the class discussed the price of live lobsters and then moved on to class warfare. Then we dissected the male characters and their symbolic roles. Everyone commented except for me. I just wasn’t sure what to say. When I reread sections, the fisherman’s untoggled rubber coat took on all kinds of new meaning. Like maybe I was supposed to imagine what was underneath that coat. Maybe the piece was a lot more carnal and sophisticated than I gave it credit for.At the end of the criticism, Mrs. Knox gave Brenda the go-ahead to speak.“Roger, I appreciated your comments. Mostly,” she said. “I’m sorry you felt clobbered by the priest. I think he’s thematically essential to the story.” She looked at Mrs. Knox. “When I was a sophomore at Bowdoin, I sent an earlier version of this story as part of a collection to an editor at Knopf. It got rejected, but I got a very thoughtful letter. It really all came down to platform and market. She said that she needed a clearer way to position it. It was regional and quiet. She felt it needed more hooks. A quirky underdog. Religion, repression, sex. She said she could already see hints of these things and that I needed to tease them out. I think she was right.”Veronica leaned into me again. “Suck-up alert.” I pulled away from her. “My classmates at Bowdoin don’t get it. They don’t pay attention to the market. They want to play with their own minds at the expense of everything else. They write experimental, marginal, nonlinear
crap
because they like it, and frankly, it’s masturbatory. I’m not saying I’m the next Lorrie Moore, but, well, maybe I am saying that.”Veronica leaned back into me. “I plan to use the word masturbatory in defense of my piece too.”Mrs. Knox nodded with a faintly amused smile. “Was the editor Kathryn Carter?” she asked. Brenda nodded, surprised.“She and I went to college together. Funny she’d come up. She always did have a thing for hooks.” Mrs. Knox did a subtle imitation of a cat with its claws drawn. A few people laughed, but she talked over them. “Brenda has raised an interesting point. It’s true. Editors, those fickle cultural gatekeepers, are usually the people who decide whether your writing makes it to the marketplace. It’s important to read. And all writers I know follow the industry
somewhat
.” Brenda smiled like she was the true genius among a flock of floundering nongeniuses. “Brenda, I admire your ambition. But I would never encourage a young writer to tailor her vision for an editor or add ‘hooks’ that feel inorganic to a story. I thought the voice would have been more compelling with
fewer
quirks.” She smiled kindly. “Compromising sincerity is the worst injustice a talented writer can do herself.” Veronica made a gag face, which her mother thankfully didn’t notice. “I came to Prague to teach you the craft of writing—character development, inventiveness with language, paring away excess, and homing in on truth. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with holding a magnifying glass over the raw, daily patterns of human life. If you know and love the human heart, you can write a heartbreaking best-seller about canning beets.”For the rest of the workshop, Mrs. Knox said amazing, insightful things about books she loved, and chatted with my classmates about their favorite and least favorite protagonists. I thought she was brilliant. Everything she said was worth writing down, so I had to start using shorthand. Veronica, though, acted like she’d heard it all before.Mrs. Knox ended the class by giving us an assignment. “Visit one of Prague’s historical synagogues and write ten descriptive sentences about it. Remember, focus on creating vivid images. The nature of image is about perception. Don’t be afraid to use all five senses.”After class I handed back the stories to Kite and Brenda. I didn’t want to, but I felt obligated. I thought Veronica would pump the guys for information about where they were headed, but instead, she hooked her arm in mine and rushed me toward the stairs.At the bottom of the stairs, Veronica veered left, past the front doors.“Where are we going?” I asked.“I think I saw a computer lab. I want to see if Boz wrote back.” She grinned wickedly and walked toward a side door. “It’ll only take a minute,” she said, holding the door for me.I followed her out into the warm afternoon. Maybe I should e-mail Hamilton and admit to him that I was beginning to understand the nature of my flaws. Maybe something like this would make a difference. I mean, it seemed possible that proper introspection could rekindle a broken bond.“Oh my god!” Veronica said. “Look at that guy’s ass. It’s the most bulbous thing I’ve ever seen.”I didn’t look. “Bulbous good or bulbous bad?” I asked.“Bulbous fantastic,” Veronica said.I looked. “Isn’t that his wallet?”“Maybe. Let’s go introduce ourselves. Do you know how to ask
What time is it?
in Czech?”“No,” I said. “Doesn’t matter. Men love foreign girls in distress. Follow my lead.”I watched Veronica jog ahead. When the guy with the bulbous butt turned around, I noticed two things. First, he had a bushy red beard. Second, he had a baby strapped to his chest. Veronica must have noticed these things too, because when she reached him, she jogged right on past. Then she ducked into the computer lab. I was relieved. I took the bearded baby-guy as a premonition. From behind, he looked interesting. But full frontal was a different story. Therein lay the message: we shouldn’t introduce ourselves to strange men. Because strange men might appear one way, but be a totally different way in reality. I mean, Veronica seemed to be forgetting that we were teenagers. Who had no business chasing after random Czech men we met on the street. I walked into the lab and scouted for Veronica’s familiar head. She was beaming as she waved me over.“He wrote me back!” she said. “Oh my god! You’ll never guess what Boz said. My plan is totally working. It’s like taking candy from a tween.”“You mean baby,” I said.“Tweens
are
babies,” Veronica said, happily pecking the keyboard. “Haven’t you ever noticed the way they dress?”

Chapter Nine

“
I
s somebody at our door?” I asked.What began as polite light thudding had grown into distinct pounding.“Sounds like a psychopath,” Veronica said. “I’m not answering it.” “Veronica! It’s your mother! Are you there?”I got out of bed and answered the door. A very bedraggled-looking Mrs. Knox entered our suite and walked into our bedroom.“This humidity is wrecking my hair,” she said. “I’m headed out to buy a curling iron. I thought you two might want to come.”“That sounds cool,” Veronica said, throwing on some clothes. “I need crap.”“Me too.” I quickly slipped on my shorts and sneakers and followed the Knoxes out the door.“Last time I was here my hair behaved wonderfully, the way it does in Moscow and Berlin,” Mrs. Knox said as we exited the building. “But this time, atmospherically, Prague is behaving like a totally different beast. I feel like a puff ball.”“I think you look good,” I told her.“Ha,” Veronica said, skipping ahead of us down the sidewalk. “Oh, but have I ever told you how much I covet your hair?” Mrs. Knox asked me.I was shocked to hear that anyone would covet my hair, let alone somebody blessed with thick, flowing masses of it.“It falls around your face in a way that seems happy.”I reached up and pushed some of it behind my ear. Veronica was at least two car lengths ahead of us as she descended into the metro station.“She has two speeds,” Mrs. Knox said. “Stop, and go-like-hell.”This made me laugh. Because it was totally accurate. When we caught up with Veronica, she was studying a map of the metro and tapping her foot like an over- caffeinated rabbit.“Will the store have thermometers?” she asked.“Are you already anticipating a fever?” Mrs. Knox countered.“I might have brought a thermometer,” I said.Both Veronica and her mother looked at me in total surprise.“My mom had me pack a small first-aid kit,” I said. “I think it has one.”When the train arrived, Veronica found a seat right away and plunked herself down in it. Mrs. Knox sat across the aisle and invited me to take the seat next to her. The ride was short, and Mrs. Knox was too preoccupied with her hair to chat. She touched it over and over. It wasn’t until the end of the ride that she refocused her attention on me.“Are you feeling better since yesterday?” she asked.I didn’t like thinking about my meltdown in class. And I didn’t want to confess that it stemmed from feeling wholly inadequate as a commenter. “I am,” I said.“Travel can be disorienting. There’s no shame in taking naps.”“Okay,” I said. But in reality I couldn’t imagine informing Veronica that instead of going off and tracking down hot-dudes with her, I was opting to power nap in the dorm.“Also I want you to know that you shouldn’t feel any pressure to say things in class,” Mrs. Knox said. “But you shouldn’t feel intimidated either. The first time is the hardest, but after that it gets easier.” It was as if she were a mind reader.“Okay,” I said. She looked at me with genuine concern.“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ve rallied.” And I had. I’d culled over the short stories for Friday’s class very thoroughly. Annie Earl’s and Frank’s were up next. After locating several sexual metaphors in both pieces: a missile silo, hedge clippers, and a partially deflated raft among them, I felt like a much more competent reader.We got off the metro and walked a short distance to a steep and enormous set of fast-running escalators.“Are they broken?” I asked.“No,” Mrs. Knox said. “In this part of town, they’re just aggressive in their ascent and descent.”I climbed aboard and felt a light breeze as the metal stairs whooshed me to the street level.“Can I pick up a few essentials too?” Veronica asked.“Five essentials,” Mrs. Knox said. “And that’s it.”Normally, Mrs. Knox wasn’t so firm with Veronica’s shopping habits. Many times in Ohio I’d seen her hand over a credit card and let Veronica do whatever she wanted. But here she was attempting to keep Veronica’s impulsive demands to a minimum. I doubted she’d be able to hold that line. Even when the crowded sidewalk began to incline, Mrs. Knox didn’t slow her pace. We rushed past dozens of brightly lit, high-end boutiques and hordes of amazingly slim women wearing designer clothes—skirt suits, zippers the entire length of torsos, asymmetrical collars. I saw more gorgeous people in ten minutes on this boulevard than I’d ever encountered before in my life. These locals looked like they belonged on television. “The place we’re going must have awesome crap!” Veronica said.“It’s called Tesco,” Mrs. Knox said. “And it’s Prague’s version of a Walmart.”Veronica didn’t say anything, but I knew she was disappointed.Tesco turned out to be nothing like Walmart. It wasn’t big enough. And the merchandise on the shelves didn’t feel endless or offer an obscene amount of variety. Plus, the shopping carts were way too tiny. Furthermore, unlike the Walmarts in Ohio, which spread
out
, Tesco had multiple stories. Due to the store’s limited selection, Mrs. Knox found a curling iron quickly, in the pea-sized appliances section. “I want a fan,” Veronica said. “Can I get five essentials plus a fan?”“Are you sure you need a fan?” Mrs. Knox asked. “Yes. I’m certain. By dawn I’m sweating like a pig in my bed,” Veronica said. “Dessy too. We wake up glistening in our own perspiration. It’s terrible. I get out of bed practically sticking to myself! It’s not sanitary—”“All right. I don’t need you to catalogue your moist parts,” Mrs. Knox said. “You can get a fan.”She drifted over toward the audio equipment, while Veronica zeroed in on a fan in a box as tall as a fourth- grader.“Is this big enough?” she asked me.“I’m not sweating that much,” I said.“Sometimes, to really sell my mom on something, I have to exaggerate the state of my suffering.”“Whatever,” I said as I followed her to the register.“Hey. The cashier is trying to tell me something,” Veronica said. “WHAT–ARE–YOU–TRYING–TO–TELL–ME?” “You don’t need to shout,” I said, mortified.Mrs. Knox came back looking over the instructions for her curling iron. “They need to assemble it before you can buy it,” she said. “It’s their policy.”“Why?” Veronica asked.“So they can guarantee that all the parts work.”The clerk appeared nonplussed as she dumped the parts onto the counter and commenced assembling our fan. The woman moved slowly and methodically. It took about ten minutes. Then, once it was assembled, she plugged it in.“Yay!” Veronica said. “Let’s get out of here and shop on the good floors.”“Wait. They need to disassemble it and put it back in its original box,” Mrs. Knox said. She smiled at the clerk. “I’m sorry.”“You’re joking,” Veronica said. “I’m wasting valuable shopping time here.”“At least you know your fan will work,” Mrs. Knox said. “You should be happy for the test run.”I was amazed that the clerk was able to fit every single part back inside the box. When she was finished, she handed Mrs. Knox a piece of paper to sign.“What’s that?” Veronica asked.“I’m agreeing that the fan was assembled and works.”“How much does this thing cost, anyway?”“Roughly twenty dollars,” Mrs. Knox said.“This country is totally prehistoric,” Veronica said. I glanced around at the other shoppers, while Mrs. Knox paid. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to us, which relieved me. Maybe they were used to foreigners behaving like this. “I’m headed back to the dorms,” Mrs. Knox said, smoothing her hair with one hand. “I need to correct this explosion.”“What about my other five things?” Veronica asked. Mrs. Knox reached into her purse and handed Veronica a few bills.“Will you take my fan back to the dorm for me?” Veronica asked. “Dessy and I want to explore.”“You can’t stay out all day,” Mrs. Knox said. “We’re touring the Old Jewish Cemetery this afternoon. And I’m expecting college-level work on your writing assignment. This is not a vacation, Veronica.”“Right,” Veronica said.“Be back in two hours.” “Gotcha.” Veronica saluted her mother, who turned and walked down the stairs.“She’s really getting on my last nerve,” Veronica said.“She’s having a bad-hair day,” I said.“That’s what I like about your mom,” she said.“Oh, my mom totally has bad-hair days. I mean, she has bangs.”“No, I’m saying that your mother would never act like
that
. She’d never create a self-indulgent writing assignment which forces us to tour a cemetery and a long list of synagogues.”“Are you insulting my mother?” I asked.“No.” Veronica tugged on my arm and led me to the stairs.“I love your mom. She’s not complicated like my mine. Your mom does mom things. Bakes. Gardens. Power walks at the mall. She’s so reasonable. Loving her must be totally effortless.”I followed Veronica down the stairs without commenting on her observations. They seemed slightly offensive. Like somehow her mother was far more interesting than mine. Even if this were true, hearing Veronica say it made me uncomfortable.“Your mom is a basic mom,” Veronica said. “You’re so lucky. It’s like you won the mom lottery.”“I like your mom,” I said.“I like my mom too. I’m not saying that I don’t like my mom. I love her.” “Great. Drama over.”Veronica paused on the stairs and turned around to glare at me. “Maybe if my dad comes back, then the drama will be over.”It stung. I felt like I should apologize, but I wasn’t sure what for. “I’m saying you’re lucky. Your mom is always there for you. She thinks about
you
before she thinks about herself. I’m giving you a compliment.”I nodded, and she turned around and started moving again. Soon, we were back at the ground level of Tesco.“I saw a ton of cool crap on this floor,” Veronica said.“What do you want?” I asked.“Good question. I’m feeling totally greedy,” she said. “I wonder what kind of lotions they have. This climate has thrown my skin for a loop. I think I’m chafing again.” I looked at her legs and arms. She was sporting a pair of white shorts and a pale yellow T-shirt. Her skin appeared totally normal. “Veronica, you brought an entire vat of lotion,” I said.“But what if Czech lotion is creamier? I’ve got to find out!”I watched her uncap and sniff tube after tube. Sometimes it felt like Veronica had a touch of OCD. Cap on. Cap off. Squeeze tube. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. She was drawn to lotion like a mosquito to exposed leg flesh. “Another way that you’re lucky is that your mom gave you great skin,” Veronica said. “You don’t have to doctor it with ointments like I do.”“You consider glitter lotion an ointment?” I asked.“Totally.” I wandered behind her, entering into the distinctive stink of perfume.“Doesn’t this smell make you gag?” I asked.“No. Why? What are you smelling?” She was holding an enormous green container of lotion.“Rotting flowers,” I said.“I kind of like it,” Veronica said. She put the lotion in a basket and continued to shop.“But the ingredients aren’t written in English. You don’t even know what’s in that stuff,” I said.“Control your level of freak. Lotion is lotion. And it smells great.”“What if it’s a depilatory?” I asked.“Then why would it be in a green tube with a picture of hands on it?” We circled the first floor six times while she continued to add to her haul. Two dozen tea candles. A half dozen greeting cards written in Czech. A hammer. Mascara. Two packages of nylons. Face wash. And gum.“Do you want anything?” she asked.I wanted a lot of things, but I was too worried about my current financial state to spend any money at the moment.“Are you hungry?” Veronica asked.“A little,” I admitted.“Go pick something out,” she said.“I think I saw some granola bars over there.”“Get them. My treat. And any other snacks you want. Seriously, why not live a little?”I took Veronica at her word and gathered an entire basketful of munchies. I knew she’d eat most of them anyway. “Let’s go check out Wenceslas Square,” she said as soon as we got back outside. “I’ve been studying my map and I think we’re really close.”“We have to be back to the dorm in less than two hours,” I said. “We promised.”“It’s not like we’ll be late for our own weddings.”I looked down the busy cobblestone sidewalk. I
was
craving a little more adventure. “Okay,” I said.Waller had mentioned Wenceslas Square during our walking tour, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. A park? A shopping center? A farmers’ market? Once Veronica and I were in the crosswalk, it became perfectly clear that the square was one of Prague’s major hubs. Parked cars lined the traffic-crowded boulevard. Multistoried and brightly colored buildings rose up over the wide road, shading half of the bustling crowd. There were restaurants and shops and apartments. We walked alongside the old stone buildings, and every time I had the chance, I reached out and dragged my fingers along their surfaces. They didn’t build things like this in Cleveland.At the end of the square stood a bronze statue. An enormous building rose gorgeously behind it. I figured it might be a museum, because the building itself looked like a piece of art.“I want to look at that statue,” I said. “Let’s see whose it is.”Veronica rolled her eyes. “Why? It’s just going to be some dead guy we’ve never heard of. Probably atop a horse.”“Come on,” I said. “I like statues.”“Dessy, nobody likes statues except sculptors and pigeons.”“What about art history majors?” I asked.“Trust me. They just fake it.”Veronica reluctantly followed me to the top of the square. She was right. The figure was on a horse.“There’s nothing here written in English. For all we know, this statue is the Czech interpretation of Paul the Baptist.”“Who’s Paul the Baptist?” I asked.“You know. That guy from the Bible who loses his head.”I shaded my eyes from the sun. She was talking so loudly that I was worried other people would hear her and think she was a total bonehead.“I think you mean John the Baptist,” a man said.Fantastic. Now some random person was going to think that Veronica and I were both bonehead tourists. I mean, we were carrying very similar bags. And with her present footwear, we were similar heights. And our clothes weren’t all that dissimilar. I wanted to tell the man immediately that I knew there was no such person as Paul the Baptist. As I turned to look at him, I bit my lip. It was worse than I’d thought it would be. This guy was gorgeous. Great. He looked like a swimsuit model only he was wearing all his clothes.“I’m Veronica Knox. This is my friend Dessy. We’re here for the July Prague College Writers’ Conference.”I couldn’t help but notice how Veronica included the word “college.”“So you’re writers?” he said, extending a hand to shake.“Yes,” Veronica said, reaching out to take it. “We’re both English majors. I’m a huge Walt Whitman fan, and Dessy loves Tolstoy.”“Really?” the man asked. “
Anna Karenina
is my favorite novel. I’m Scotty Dee.”My eyes must have been huge. Why couldn’t she have made me a John Steinbeck or Sylvia Plath fan? Those were writers I’d actually read. But Tolstoy? I wasn’t even sure of his first name. Theo? Leo? Ron?“Where are you from?” Veronica asked.His accent was obvious, I thought.“Australia,” he said.“I LOVE Australia!” Veronica said.The man laughed. He looked like he was in his early twenties, possibly older. He was tall and lanky. He could have been Frank’s attractive older brother. They both had corkscrew blond hair. I thought this guy’s jeans were a tad snug. But historically speaking, Veronica thought tight clothing on slim people was a sign of a healthy level of self-esteem. I looked at her face. I could tell she was falling for him. Big time.Then I spotted it. The one thing a guy can have that always sent Veronica into head-over-heels obsession mode. The one thing Boz was still too chicken to get. A tattoo. And this Aussie’s tattoo wasn’t a small one. It was, I thought, a real uninspiring clunker. A fat red heart sat squat like an apple on his upper arm.“Ooh, does that say