On Beauty

The young man stepped forward cautiously, with one hand up as if to show he meant no harm. He turned the Discman over in her hand and showed her the sticky patch. He lifted his hoodie and the T-shirt beneath it to reveal a well-defined pelvic bone and drew a second Discman from his waistband. ‘This one’s yours.’

‘They’re exactly the same.’

Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in their loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have visited her in the night, but, finding it hadn’t, she did what girls generally do when they don’t feel the part: she dressed it instead.

She paused. She sat very straight in her chair.

‘I think it’s inappropriate,’ she said.

They had been skirting around this for ten minutes. Now the word had been used.

‘Are you interested in refining what you have?’

Zora Belsey’s real talent was not for poetry but persistence.

‘Well, my God. What a tricky bastard. Moral majority my arse. Well, you’ve got him. My God! You should go in there and spit-roast him. Destroy him!’

Zora forced her fake nails, left over from the party, into the underside of the table top. ‘That’s your advice?”

The young man stepped forward cautiously, with one hand up as if to show he meant no harm. He turned the Discman over in her hand and showed her the sticky patch. He lifted his hoodie and the T-shirt beneath it to reveal a well-defined pelvic bone and drew a second Discman from his waistband. ‘This one’s yours.’

‘They’re exactly the same.’

Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in their loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have visited her in the night, but, finding it hadn’t, she did what girls generally do when they don’t feel the part: she dressed it instead.

She paused. She sat very straight in her chair.

‘I think it’s inappropriate,’ she said.

They had been skirting around this for ten minutes. Now the word had been used.

‘Are you interested in refining what you have?’

Zora Belsey’s real talent was not for poetry but persistence.

‘Well, my God. What a tricky bastard. Moral majority my arse. Well, you’ve got him. My God! You should go in there and spit-roast him. Destroy him!’

Zora forced her fake nails, left over from the party, into the underside of the table top. ‘That’s your advice?”