Veneer Read Online Free PDF Page B

observant enough to see the flicker of color pass over them. She looked away for a moment and then said, “I’ve decided to kill Russo.”
    She was joking, of course, but Deron played along. “Why?”
    “He put up another shop,” she replied. The palette in her lap was blank, but when she placed her thumb on it, the colors started cycling in from the edges. It took her a moment to reproduce the image, as if she were having trouble remembering it. At last, she angled the palette towards Deron so he could see the finished product.
    “Uh oh,” he said, taking in the artwork. “It looks like I’ve spilled peanut butter on my vagina.”
    Rosalia tried to stifle her laughter.
    “And that Terrier looks like trouble,” he continued, nodding his head thoughtfully. Suddenly, his face went sad and he put his hand to his chin. “Can I ask you something serious?”
    “Yeah.” Her face mirrored his expression.
    “Does this picture make my legs look fat?”
    Rosalia bit her lip. “Why aren’t you mad?”
    “What’s there to be mad about?”
    “This was in the girls’ bathroom!”
    Deron sighed and stood up. It was just another shop. Disgusting yes, but no more vile than the hundred others Russo had created.
    “It’s not a big deal,” he said, sitting at the piano. He struck a few random keys, thought it sounded like a familiar melody. “There’s not a girl in this school that thinks I have a puss.”
    “Seeing is believing,” said Rosalia in a sententious tone.
    “So really, the basic premise of the picture is wrong.”
    “Yeah, but maybe everyone thinks that if you did have one, you would put peanut butter on it and try to attract small dogs.”
    Deron struck a dissonant chord on the left side of the keyboard and threw his hands up in the air in mock outrage. “Who knows what I would do if I had a vagina?! I mean, if you think about it, waking up one day as a girl would probably break me mentally. All bets would be off.”
    “That doesn’t excuse—”
    He turned on the bench and put up a finger. “I think it does. A lot of human behavior could be explained away by the phrase ‘but yesterday I had a wang.’”
    Rosalia’s face squirmed; she was cute when she tried not to laugh.
    They stared at each other for a full minute before Deron finally said, “Puppy love.”
    “Gross!” She lifted her palette, threatened to throw it at him.
    Deron put up his arms to protect his face as he returned to the couch. They struggled briefly for control of the weapon before he managed to disarm her. As he stared at his new prize, a reminder about the exam popped up in the corner, bringing the reality of school back to the equipment room.
    He handed the palette back to Rosalia and asked, “Are you gonna tell me about the story or not?”
    “I don’t know,” she replied. “Can you keep your mind off interspecies sex for ten minutes?”
    Deron’s eyes narrowed. “Who could really make that promise?”
    “A normal person.” Rosalia’s palette dimmed and then returned with the title of the story in large, baroque lettering. “Now, pay attention.”
    He tried to listen, really made an effort to concentrate on what Rosalia was saying. She used her palette to help him imagine the characters, gave them faces she estimated from their written descriptions. In the right context, it would have been invaluable in preparing for the upcoming test, but Deron found himself scrutinizing her veneer. He spent several minutes staring at her hands, at her fingers as they moved across the palette, correcting a smudge here or an errant line there. She was a natural talent at reconciliation, always had been.
    Although they first met in elementary school, they never even shared a teacher until junior high. It was one day in seventh grade that he found her sitting alone in the cafeteria, her breakfast cooling, untouched. Sitting down beside her, he noticed the faraway look in her eyes.
    “You okay?”
    Rosalia shook her head and