Zatanna, et cetera, et cetera. It’s way obvious.”“Maybe it’s their low-cut tops, skintight clothing, and gargantuan breasts.”“Either way, adventurous girls are turn-ons. Big time,” Veronica said.“You act like you know everything,” I said. “I know a lot,” she said. “Admit it.”I didn’t want to fight. Why was I picking a fight? Why not just agree with her? Veronica Knox did know a lot. Even her superhero-chick observation had merit. “You’re right,” I said.She ran to my side and hugged me. “Isn’t it amazing how we’re incapable of fighting for longer than thirty seconds?”“Yeah,” I said.“Okay. You sit here,” she said. I sat.“I’m going to sit here.” She slid into a chair and pulled out the stories for workshop.“Now that you’ve actually met these people, are you really going to make snarky comments about their work?” I asked. Veronica looked at the ceiling and blinked several times. “Probably,” she said.“Why?” “I want to look smart. I mean, it’s a lot easier to rip something apart than to offer useful feedback. Have you ever wondered why delinquents vandalize cars and mailboxes and abandoned buildings? It’s because it’s so much easier to wreck something than to build it.”What she said made sense. “Besides, the stories are a little freaky,” Veronica said. “I like Kite, and I wouldn’t mind hooking up with him, and going all the way to first base, or possibly second. But after reading his piece, there’s no way he’s going to third with me, because I think it’s pretty obvious that he’s a sexually injured person.”“I’m not sure I’d say that,” I said.“You’re not sure of a lot of things, Dessy.” Veronica looked down and started to read. “How can you tell that he’s sexually injured?” I asked. “He wrote about a goat.”Veronica groaned. “You think he wrote about a goat. And on the surface it may look like he wrote about a goat, because he was using the word goat , but trust me, the goat is a metaphor.”“It is?”“Yeah, Kite is either talking about his last failed love or his mother. Either way, he’s sexually injured. That becomes totally obvious during the milking scene.”“Wow. I completely missed that,” I said.“We’re not dealing with high school material anymore, Dessy. We’re tackling college issues.” I was already nervous about commenting on the stories. It was pretty clear that they had been submitted by people who were older and knew what they were doing. Would they even want my opinions? Probably not. My anxiousness turned into nausea. I glanced at Veronica. She appeared fine. I took a deep breath and tried to appear fine too. Today we were discussing two stories: Kite’s and Brenda’s. Yes, I’d already scribbled comments. But after Veronica’s revelation about Kite’s goat, everything I’d written seemed so obvious. Why hadn’t I dug a little deeper? I flipped through both stories again. Brenda’s was set in Maine. It was about a woman who buys a lobster at the grocery store and then takes it to the ocean and sets it free. The story ends with her returning to the grocery store to buy a crab. “The lobster story isn’t about sex,” I said.Veronica kept her head down while she talked. “Right, it’s about confronting mortality.”“Exactly,” I said. “That’s what I wrote. Because the lobster lives.”“We don’t know if that bottom-feeder survives,” she said. “She never even tells us if she took the blue rubber bands off its claws.”“We’re definitely supposed to root for the lobster,” I said. “Dessy, the story isn’t really about the lobster or the crab. It’s about her . And maybe some fixation she has for an uncircumcised fisherman. Did you read that description of the fishermen she sees in the grocery store?” Veronica looked at me and waggled her eyebrows, then she licked her thumb and turned a page.“Oh my god,” I said. “I missed everything!”I furiously
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