Read A Field Guide for Heartbreakers for Free Online

bottles. She handed them all to me. I watched her buy a shot glass and an Ohio-shaped oven mitt along with our snacks. “We need to hurry,” I said. Veronica handed me the bag of stuff and then took off in the wrong direction.“Where are you going?” I asked.“I want to buy one more thing.”“Why didn’t you buy it here?”“Because the stud at the pretzel counter is way hotter than the dude at the magazine store.”“Well, I’m going back. I’m not going to miss the flight!” I turned to leave.“Thrill deflator.”I turned around. “Okay, I’ll wait. But be fast.” I backed up to a wall and watched passengers flood by. There were so many. Businesswomen with briefcases, men in cowboy hats, six-year-olds with security blankets, girls in tank tops, dogs in portable kennels. And some of the dogs were wearing jackets. “Got it,” Veronica said.“That was fast.”“He didn’t do much for me. He had a weird tongue.”“He showed you his tongue?”“If you look hard enough into people’s mouths, you always see their tongues. Anyway, his looked spotted. He probably had a disease.”When we arrived at the gate, Mrs. Knox had already packed her things and was waiting in line to board.“This is your first flight, isn’t it?” she asked me.“God, Mom. Don’t make Dessy feel like a cave woman!”“I’m trying to honor her moment,” Mrs. Knox said.I appreciated that. “Do you want the window?” Veronica asked as we filed down the carpet-walled chute toward the plane. “Technically, it’s my seat, but if you want to watch the engine and see if it sucks up any geese, you’re totally welcome to do that.”“That’s all right,” I said. “Whatever floats your rope.”“Boat,” I corrected.Takeoff wasn’t bad at all. I felt incredibly alive as the plane left the runway. I was amazed by how tidy and orderly the world looked from several thousand feet in the air. For the first half hour, Veronica let me crane over her and stare down at the miniature scenery. But then she got bored and our flight became tense.“How many days of workshop are we allowed to miss?” she asked, leaning over me to look at her mother. Mrs. Knox didn’t answer.“If I suddenly become feverish, I’m allowed to take a week off, right? And if that happens, Dessy, my roommate and presumed caregiver, is allowed to take a week off too, right?”Mrs. Knox clenched her jaw and kept reading the workshop story. “And if my condition worsens, and I become freakishly feverish and phlegm-ridden, and I need to take a few more days off, that would be acceptable too, right?” Veronica asked.“Veronica, you know where I stand on this. You attend everything. You got into the program without special consideration and you will participate in the program without special consideration. Unless you’d like to reimburse me for your airfare, that is the end of this discussion.”I looked at Veronica. She had taken out an enormous set of earphones. “Fine,” she said. “What are those?” I asked. “They cancel out noise. My dad got them for me for my return trip from Rome.”She slid them on and continued to talk to me really loudly.“I think I’m ready for our corn nuts!” she said.Mrs. Knox reached over and snatched the headphones off her daughter. “Veronica, please do not embarrass me on this plane.” She put the earphones on her own head.Veronica didn’t object. She pulled out her backpack from underneath the seat and tore open a bag of corn nuts. She popped them into her mouth one at a time.“You can’t eat these in front of guys,” she told me. “Why?” I asked.“They’re too crunchy.” Veronica tossed another one into her mouth. “Guys like watching women’s mouths when they eat. So mealtimes and snacks are crucial times to flirt.”I had never thought of that.“You want to eat slowly. And avoid noisy vittles. You also want to put the food in your mouth one piece at a time. It’s seductive and prolongs the