“Have you finished your column for tomorrow's headline?" It was Vee. She came up beside me, jotting notes on the notepad she carried everywhere. "I'm thinking of writing mine on the injustice of seating charts. I got paired with a girl who said she just finished lice treatment this morning.”

“Okay, calm down, we'll pay,"said Vee, reaching into her back pocket. She stuffed a wad of cash into the bowl, but it was dark and I couldn´t tell how much. "You owe me big-time," she told me. "You're supposed to let me count the money first," Marcie said, digging through the bowl, trying to recapture Vee´s donation. "I just assumed twenty was too high for you to count," Vee said. "My apologies." Marcie's eyes went slitty again, then she turned on her heel and carted the bowl back into the house. "How much did you give her?" I asked Vee. "I didn't. I tossed in a condom." I lifted my eyebrows."Since when do you carry condoms?""I picked one up off the lawn on our way up the walk. Who knows, maybe Marcie'll use it. Then I'll have done my part to keep her genetic material out of the gene pool.”

“Vee lowered her lashes and smiled wickedly. "This class isn't going to teach me anything I don't already know.""Vee? As in virgin?""Not so loud." She winked just as the bell rang, sending us both to our seats, which were side by side at our shared table.”

“I am going to a conference tomorrow," she said. "In Portland. Dr. Melissa Sanchez will speak. She says you think your way to a sexier you. Hormones are powerful drugs. Unless we tell them what we want, they backfire. They work against us." Dorothea turned, pointing the Ajax can at me for emphasis. "Now I wake in the morning and take red lipstick to my mirror. 'I am sexy,' I write. 'Men want me. Sixty-five is the new twenty-five.”

“Vee: And I'm not going to let you sit at home all afternoon with your sour face on.Nora: I don't have a sour face.Vee: Yes, you do. And you're wearing it right now.Nora: This is my annoyed face. You woke me up at six in the morning!”

“Right now, Vee was the only person I could count on. She could be obnoxious, annoying, and lazy, but she never lied to me.”

“Here it comes," she said with an expression of pure bliss. "Drug rush ... any moment now ... the surge of warmth ... bye-bye, Mr. Pain...""Vee-""Knock, knock.""This is really important-""Knock, knock.""It's about Elliot-""Knock, knoooock," she said in a singsong voice. I sighed. "Who's there?""Boo.""Boo who?""Boo-hoo, somebody's crying, and it's not me!" She broke into hysterical laughter.”