A Field Guide for Heartbreakers

by Kristen Tracy

  Veronica stepped closer to her mother. “These three look like college students,” she said. “I wonder if they’re in your fiction workshop?”

  All three guys straightened and attempted to look less inebriated.

  “Are you Tabitha Knox?” the first brown-haired guy asked.

  “I am,” Mrs. Knox said.

  “I’m in your workshop,” he said. “I wrote the story about the goat.”

  Veronica batted her eyelashes and stepped forward. “I’m her daughter, Veronica. This is my friend Dessy. We’re in the workshop too. We’re from Ohio.”

  I waved. “Parma,” I said. “It’s near Cleveland.”

  “Cool,” he said. “My name is Kite.”

  “Nice,” Veronica answered.

  “Well, Kite. We’d love help finding our rooms,” Mrs. Knox said. She handed him a card with our room numbers on it.

  “Very cool. Welcome to Masarykova Kolej,” he said, grabbing the handle of Mrs. Knox’s bag. “We checked in this morning. Have you been here before? This building was designed by the KGB. It’s a total maze.”

  Mrs. Knox turned her head away from Kite’s beer breath and nodded politely.

  The second brown-haired guy reached for Veronica’s bag. His cheeks were flushed, and a drop of sweat was sliding off his temple toward his ear. “I’m Waller,” he said. “It’s actually a nickname. It’s short for ‘Walnut.’” He wiped away the sweat bead and ran his hand through his long hair. “I have a talent.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Kite said.

  Veronica surrendered her suitcase handle and giggled. I raised my eyebrows at this, because giggling was something I’d never seen Veronica do.

  I figured the blond guy would take my bag, but he didn’t. I watched him teeter and fall face-first into a very large plant.

  “Awesome,” Veronica said.

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  “It’s Frank’s first time in Europe,” Waller explained, sweeping his long hair behind his ear.

  I nodded and made a mental note. Even though I was a first-timer in Europe too, I promised myself I would not ingest any substance that would cause me to topple like a drunken fool into a ficus tree in a dorm lobby.

  Mrs. Knox looked on with a pained expression. “We can’t let Frank remain in the plant,” she said.

  Then, as if on cue, a fourth guy, taller than the others, walked through the door. I couldn’t tell what color hair he had. He wore a baseball cap so low that it hid even his eyes and ears.

  “Hey, Roger, can you get him?” Waller asked.

  “Sure,” Roger said, giving a stoic thumbs-up sign. “I’ll drag him to the room.”

  I pulled my own suitcase as we followed Kite and Waller through a maze of white hallways. Kite may have made a few wrong turns, but these went unacknowledged. When we finally reached room 106, Mrs. Knox opened the door with a magnetic card. We stepped into a small galley kitchen equipped with an undersize stove and a minifridge that was way too mini. Adjacent to the kitchen was the bathroom. And beyond these rooms was a hallway that led to three more doors.

  “It looks like you’re sharing room B,” Kite said. “Here’s your keys for that door.”

  Veronica gasped. “We’re sharing? I thought Dessy and I had our own room.”

  “You do,” Mrs. Knox said. “But you have suitemates. Two girls in room C and one in room A.”

  “What if they have atrocious hygiene? Or are pathologically immature?” Veronica asked.

  “You’ll deal with it,” Mrs. Knox said.

  The guys backed into the hallway to wait for Mrs. Knox. I thought I heard them doing an impression of Frank.

  “I’m hungry,” Veronica said.

  “I’ve got a protein bar in my bag,” Mrs. Knox said.

  “That sounds terrible,” Veronica said.

  “Here’s some money for the vending machines,” her mother replied. “Good night, girls.”

  In our small kitchen a large window opened up into the hallway. Through it, I watched Mrs. Knox follow Kite and Waller to an elevator.

  Veronica threw her big suitcase onto a bed and began unzipping it. I rolled mine over to the corner and figured I’d hold off on unpacking until tomorrow. Everything I needed for a good night’s sleep was in my overnight bag. Clean socks, a T-shirt, and boxer shorts.

  “Are you really hungry?” I asked. “I’ve got crackers from the plane.”

  “No, I just wanted money. Do you want to go check out the vending machines?”

  “I’d like some water.” I reached toward my throat.

  “I feel parched too. Let’s go.”

  The hallway was silent.

  “Those college guys were so cute,” Veronica whispered. “I hadn’t expected to run into them first thing like that.” She peered over her shoulder, then turned to me. “So which one did you like the most? And you can’t penalize the one who passed out in the tree.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because that kind of crap happens to everybody at least once. For guys, usually a couple of times a year until they turn twenty-seven.”

  “It’s not going to happen to me,” I said.

  “Don’t get all judgmental. I’m trying to talk to you about men.” Veronica giggled again. “It doesn’t matter. I already know who you like.”

  “No you don’t,” I said.

  “I sure do. You like Waller. He looks a lot like Hamilton, except Waller has better hair.”

  “That’s not true,” I whispered. I worried that our voices might carry through our neighbors’ doors.

  “You cannot be serious. Hamilton Stacks’s hair looked like an eagle’s nest. I’m surprised he didn’t have a major large-bird-attempting-to-roost-on-his-head-every-other-day issue.”

  “Here’s the vending machine,” I said. “Where are you going?”

  Veronica kept plodding down the hallway. “I’m going to check things out.”

  “We need to get to bed or jet lag will smack us like a truck. Remember?” I clapped my hands. “Whammo!”

  “I believe the correct sound effect was ‘Blammo,’” Veronica said.

  “Either way, we don’t want to get jet lag,” I said.

  “Yeah, I don’t really care.”

  I watched Veronica turn a corner and disappear. As I stood in front of the vending machine, I realized that I didn’t have any useful money. Why hadn’t Mrs. Knox suggested that I pull out some money at the airport too? I thought about calling for Veronica, but I didn’t want to wake anybody up. Nor did I want to chase after her.

  “Do you need something?”

  I turned and saw Waller standing next to me. Had he heard what Veronica said? The part about my possibly liking him? The part about Hamilton’s wacked-out hair? This was terrible. Where had Waller come from? And why was he so sneaky? Why hadn’t he made his presence known to me immediately? By clearing his throat. Or saying, “Hi, Dessy.”

  Luckily, I didn’t have to admit that I was crownless and somewhat desperate. “I wanted water,” I told him. “But the machine only has soda.”

  “You can drink the tap water here,” Waller said. “It’s totally safe.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Me and my friends have been drinking it for two days. If you’re worried about diarrhea, you shouldn’t be. It’s fine.”

  My eyes widened. I couldn’t believe that Waller was so comfortable using the word diarrhea.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Not a problem.”

  Waller dropped some change into the machine and bought a bag of potato chips. He smiled at me and then walked off. I realized he did look a little bit like Hamilton. Same height. If they were wrestlers, they’d probably be in the same weight class. But he didn’t seem self-conscious at all. I mean, he was walking around in a T-shirt with a stain on it, and flip-flops. He even had a little bit of BO. And it didn’t seem to affect his interpersonal skills at all. It was like I’d just encountered a new species of guy.

&nbs
p; Maybe Veronica was right. Maybe college men were the answer. I wandered back to the room, floating in a new, Waller-filled, optimistic, and marshmallowy place. But when I got there, the positive energy ended. The door was locked. I had our room key, but I’d forgotten the magnetic card.

  Dizzy and exhausted, I sat down in the hallway. There was nothing I could do but wait. Orientation was tomorrow, and I wanted to show up to it well rested. When I didn’t get enough sleep, sometimes my eyes grew dark, ugly bags. That’s not the first impression I wanted to make. I was single now. I needed to look good. Cute.

  Slowly I lowered myself into a horizontal position. The floor was hard and it smelled like wax. Carpet would have felt better, but I had what I had. I hoped Veronica would end her expedition soon. I needed a blanket. I needed a pillow. I needed a softer place to dream.

  Chapter Six

  I woke up facing a cinder block wall. Ich liebe Anja was scribbled into the paint with such intensity that the letters went all the way down to the cement. I reached out and touched her name, and the j flaked off onto my fingertip. I turned over and flicked the paint chip onto the brown-carpeted floor.

  The light was on, and Veronica’s bed was empty. I blinked a few times, then pulled my blanket over my head. One whiff of my overtraveled, undershowered condition made me throw the blanket off. At the same moment, Veronica, very damp, burst into the room, swinging her arms, sending small water drops down on me.

  “That thing is a beast.” She stood in a towel in front of me and ran a pick through her hair.

  “Strong water pressure?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” she said. “And don’t leave anything personal in there. Our suitemates could be degenerate thieves. By the way, the place is ours. They all left.”

  I grabbed my toiletries and towel and walked past the kitchen to our small bathroom. I noticed the problem right away. Up to this point in my life, every shower I’d entered had shared the same design. The nozzle was opposite a wall, so after you turned on the water, and it reached the desired temperature, you stepped into the shower’s flow. But here, in the dorm, the nozzle was opposite the curtain. So when you turned on the shower, water shot out of the nozzle and flooded the entire bathroom. The only way to prevent drenching the place was to stand in front of the nozzle as you turned it on, thereby being assaulted with cold water. Veronica and I could not have been the only people to notice this.

  When I came back to the room, Veronica was groomed and fully dressed. “Throw yourself together. Let’s escape this edifice,” she said.

  I rushed to put on my jeans. While I did this, Veronica began cutting pieces of paper.

  “What are you doing? Where did you get scissors?” I asked.

  “I’m making a man-wall. I brought the scissors from home. Because without them, I knew I wouldn’t be able to properly construct my man-wall.”

  “What’s a man-wall?” I asked.

  Veronica held up a cutout shaped like a paper doll. Sort of.

  “This is the paper replica of a hot-dude. We met four hot-dudes last night, so I’m going to stick them on the wall. By the time I leave Prague, I aim to cover my entire wall area in hot-dudes.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Veronica stopped cutting and looked up at me. “Let me start over. I’m constructing a man-wall out of hot-dudes. I’m making four hot-dudes right now. A Kite. A Waller. A Frank. And a Roger.”

  “Who’s Roger?” I asked.

  “The hot-dude in the ball cap who pulled superhot Frank out of the ficus tree.”

  “I can’t believe that you remember all their names.”

  “Dessy, it’s hard to conquer a man if you don’t know his name.”

  Veronica put her head down and resumed cutting. I selected a T-shirt and decided to view building a man-wall as an occurrence as routine as flossing one’s teeth. When she’d finished, Veronica taped the four paper guys to the wall and smiled. Then she labeled them and drew a big star on Frank’s head.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “I plan to mark the extraspecial ones. I think Frank is double hot.”

  “The drunk one?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah.”

  She flashed a big grin and then put her face right up to paper Frank and licked his starred face.

  “That’s so unsanitary,” I said.

  Veronica shrugged. “Come on,” she said. She took a moment to study my outfit. “Good choice on the shirt. Guys always find buttons intriguing. But you can’t wear your sneakers.”

  “But they’re comfortable,” I said, loosening the laces and inserting my foot.

  Veronica’s jaw dropped. “Dessy, we didn’t travel to Prague to be comfortable. If that was our goal we would have packed tracksuits and togas. Seriously. Put on your sandals. You’ve got great toes.”

  Rather than object and create waves on our first morning, I took off my socks and rooted through my suitcase for my sandals.

  “Let’s hurry. We need to get out of here and scope a three-street radius so when orientation is over we have immediate destinations. Otherwise, we’re behind.”

  “Why three streets?” I asked.

  “Do you understand what scoping a street involves? No way do we have time for more than three.”

  Veronica looked very eager to leave, but I still had questions.

  “Do you think we should bring anything?” I asked.

  “Nothing beyond ourselves,” Veronica said.

  I sat down and held my bag on my lap. It contained three pens, a notebook, and—at my mother’s insistence—a small packet of baby wipes.

  “Are you going to tell me about the plan?” I asked.

  “Here it is in a nutshell.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and stuck up her pointer finger. “One: We gain rudimentary knowledge of our surroundings and locate all potential hot-dudes within our scoped area. Guys have fragile egos. Also, some are territorial. We don’t want them to know that we’re playing with multiple hot-dudes. For example, if we strike up a connection with hot-dude A, who lives on Main Street but shines shoes on Grand Street, we can never forget that. Because if we parade down Main or Grand with hot-dude B on our arm, we stand to lose both hot-dudes.”

  “You want to date shoe-shine guys?”

  Veronica frowned at me. “It was a hypothetical. And I spotted a few shoe-shine guys at Heathrow that weren’t half bad. Don’t judge my hot-dudes. I’ll do that.”

  “Okay. Scoping is important. I get it.”

  “Good.” She held up her middle finger and made rabbit ears. “Two: In order to isolate and interact with hot-dudes, we will need to create a map of hot-dude density. We have a month. We’ve got to focus our efforts in target-rich environments.” She lifted another finger. “Three: We need to capitalize on male friendships.” She pointed her three fingers back to the man-wall. “These writer guys are more than hot-dudes. They’re skeleton keys. Because they’re older, if we hang with them, we’ll look older too. Legal. And this will be essential in gaining access to the more exclusive parts of Prague. Also, odds are one of them is bilingual and that will unlock an entire new world for us.”

  My head was swimming. “How long have you been mapping out this strategy? It’s crazy.”

  Veronica waved me off. “Don’t interrupt me. I’m only at three. Moving on. Four: We need to befriend the janitorial staff. If we’re lucky, we can gain access to more than one hot-dude’s private living area. And in addition to uncovering whether they prefer boxers to briefs, I anticipate finding boatloads of useful information.”

  She’d gone too far. “Whoa, this isn’t so much a strategy as an unchecked impulse to stalk guys.”

  “So you’re not ready to hear the fifth major component?” Veronica asked.

  I looked out the window. Veronica made our excursion in Prague sound incredibly laborious.

  “Don’t you want to meet a guy? Wouldn’t you feel better if you had somebody?” she asked.

  I thought about my he
art. Even though it was broken, I could feel it pumping away in my chest. I looked at Veronica and nodded.

  “Listen. We’re young and hot. Plus, we’re smart.”

  “What if there are other girls in the program who are hotter? And smarter?” I asked.

  “That’s why I devised the seven major components!” Veronica said. She sat down next to me. “And it doesn’t really matter, because our trump card is that my mom is basically a celebrity here. We will conquer the hot-dudes. I’m being serious, Dessy. We will rule them.”

  Veronica sounded almost combative, and I wasn’t sure why. I decided not to interrupt as she continued to dish out her hot-dude plan.

  “In addition to the major components, let me impart some useful hot-dude advice. We need to act mature and interesting. We need to laugh a lot at their lame jokes. And trust me, they will tell lame jokes. It’s some weird genetic disadvantage that hot-dudes are born with.”

  “I guess.”

  “Dessy,” Veronica said, reaching out and taking hold of my knee, “what I’m about to tell you next will be more valuable to you than CPR.”

  By the edge in her voice I believed her.

  “We need to be good listeners. Hot-dudes love to talk about themselves. Athletic accomplishments. Academic pursuits. Hunting expeditions. Video game scores. Childhood encounters with squirrels. The biggest advantage we have over all the other girls here is that we’re younger, so the guys will feel enlightened and knowledgeable around us. And we should never challenge that. We need to use that as a way to worm our way into their hot-dude hearts.”

  Even though vast amounts of what Veronica said were crazy, this advice made sense. But still …

  “Guys aside, don’t you worry about whether or not we’ll make friends and be liked?” I asked.

  “No,” Veronica said. “Because there’s always the zoo strategy. It’s a surefire way to win people over quickly.”

  “What’s the zoo strategy?” I asked.

  “If you want to make instant friends, give them free food.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “No, it’s effective.” She shoved a cracker into her mouth. “You haven’t called your mom yet. Didn’t she want you to call her?”