The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

Chapter Fifteen More than one person thinks of leaving, but doesn’t

You might think that, confronted with this sudden surge of interest in saving the planet, Clemens would be a little nonplussed – or at least surprised. Where did all these girls come from? he might wonder. Why are they here? Are they lost? Drunk? Hypnotized? Is someone playing a joke?

But Clemens (unlike some people I might mention) has fewer sides than a circle. It is part of his charm that he is so sincere in his own beliefs and motives that he assumes the same of others. Which means that, in this instance, after months of mockery and hostility, he takes it for granted that the Clifton Springs Environmental Club is experiencing the first packed meeting in its history simply because his fellow students are listening to him at last. They’ve woken up and smelled the toxic waste. They’ve seen the light pouring through the gaping hole in the ozone layer. They finally realize that it’s better to have a few very old trees at the edge of the campus than a state-of-the-art sports centre with an Olympic-size pool. Clemens looks around the crowded room and smiles. Gloating isn’t really in his nature, but oh how he wishes that he could see Dr Firestone’s face when he hears about this.

At exactly 3.45 p.m., Clemens gets to his feet (knocking Joy Marie’s pen and notepad to the floor and stepping on the pen) and calls the meeting to order.

“Hi,” says Clemens. The paperclip holding his glasses together seems to wave in greeting as he adjusts them. “Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for coming.” Today, in honour of the occasion, he is wearing another of his homemade T-shirts: Trees Don’t Grow on Money. “It’s a gratifying turnout.” He removes a red bandanna from his pocket and blows his nose. “I see a lot of unfamiliar faces, so for the benefit of all our new members, I’d like to start the meeting by saying a little about the club and why we set it up and what it hopes to achieve and so forth.”

Chairs scrape and feet shuffle. The old members glance at the clock and sit back, resigned. The smiles disappear from the faces of the new members, to be replaced with looks of concern. Only Cody, who, of course, was not here for the Christmas diatribe or the infamous Earth Day Speech, smiles back as though he thinks this is a pretty awesome idea and can’t wait to hear what Clemens has to say.

Reassured by Cody’s smile, the others all relax again, prepared to believe that this won’t be as bad as they fear it will be. But sadly, like so many beliefs, this one is ill-founded. Clemens “saying a little about the club … and so forth” includes a list of the crises facing the world. It’s a very long list.

Within only minutes, Sicilee is so done that if she were a cake in the oven she’d be burning. She cups her hands over her mouth as if she’s giving every word that Clemens utters serious thought, but really it’s so Cody doesn’t see her yawn.

Up until now, the most soul-destroyingly boring experience Sicilee ever had was the summer her father decided they should do a family road trip instead of flying to a foreign beach with cabanas and waiter service for their summer vacation. The car broke down approximately two million miles from nowhere in some Podunk mountains. And because they were in some Podunk mountains, the cell phones didn’t work. Nor did the entertainment system, the AC or the radio (though that was not the fault of rural America, but whatever was wrong with the car). It was over two hours before help arrived, and during that time there was nothing to do but sit by the side of road, looking at trees and, for a change of pace, the sky. Sicilee thought she would die. Listening to Clemens yammer on about how we’re killing the planet and consuming our way to oblivion, however, is much, much worse. What can all of this depressing stuff about dwindling forests and melting glaciers and polluted rivers possibly have to do with her? Merciful Mother, she’s not in the Amazon. And she’s definitely not about to be stranded on a chunk of ice with the last polar bear or go fishing in some toxic river, either. There is only one thing that prevents Sicilee from galloping from the room – and you would be wrong to think that that one thing is Cody Lightfoot.

It is the presence of Maya Baraberra perched like a vulture on the other side of Cody that keeps Sicilee sitting there as if she’s been cemented into her chair. There’s no way she’s leaving now. She wouldn’t give Maya the satisfaction. She wouldn’t give her the opportunity. Sicilee swings one foot back and forth, almost brushing Cody’s leg. She might have known Maya the Barbarian would be after the best-looking boy ever to walk the streets of Clifton Springs. Indeed, she should have known. Really. She really should have known. As soon as Maya strolled through the door with that you-can-start-now-I’m-here look on her face, a series of images from the past week flashed through Sicilee’s mind like a slide show. Maya lurking in the corridors. Maya hanging around outside classrooms. Maya skulking along the hallway where Cody’s locker is. Maya, just this afternoon, hurling herself into the cafeteria clutching her phone as if she knew Cody was near the door. How could she have been so blind? Sicilee’s teeth grind away behind her inattentive smile.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Cody, Maya keeps herself awake by remembering how much she loathes and detests Sicilee Kewe. Indeed, her first thought when she walked into Room III and saw Sicilee, aloof from everyone else like a visiting princess, was: Gott im Himmel! Barbie and the troglodytes! She was tempted to take a picture to post on the Internet. Her second thought was: No boy is worth this. I’m out of here. But then Sicilee’s perpetual smile, cold as the back of the freezer, fell on her like a dead hand.

And all at once, as though someone had turned on a projector in her head, Maya saw a moving montage of scenes from the past few days. And in every scene was the blindingly monochromatic Sicilee Kewe (in orange, in yellow, in mauve and in turquoise), teeth gleaming like miniature glaciers as she sashayed past Mallory’s locker as if she was on patrol … strolling along with her hair swinging and her eyes moving down the corridors like heat-seeking missiles … loitering in the lobby at the end of the day as though she was waiting for a bus. She was everywhere Maya was; everywhere Cody was likely to be; hunting him down as if she was the sheriff and he a wanted man.

Which was when Maya had her third thought: She’s here for the same reason I am.

After that, of course, Maya wouldn’t have gone home for the chance to show her paintings in a gallery in New York. The last time she and Sicilee wanted the same thing was in the sixth grade. Then it was Sicilee who won the lead in the class production of The Sound of Music. This time, however, Sicilee is so going to lose. There is no way Maya plans to stand by and watch Sicilee Kewe con Cody Lightfoot into believing that they have anything more in common than species and language. It’s totally ludicrous. She is so awesomely not his type. As if! As if someone so devastatingly cool might possibly be that dumb. Does she think he’s not going to notice her fur coat and her mother’s Cadillac Escalade? Does she think he’s not going to notice that Sicilee doesn’t care about anything besides her self-centred self? That she has a carbon footprint the size of the footprint of a Yeti? Or that the girl never wears anything twice, never mind second-hand?

Waneeda sits on the other side of the circle, her face turned towards Clemens as though she’s the king listening to Scheherazade tell her astonishing stories, but her eyes constantly move to Cody. Except for this afternoon when he came over to talk to Joy Marie, this is the closest she’s ever been to him, and the longest she’s ever had just to look at him. She could sit like this for ever – watching him scratch his head, watching him cross and uncross his feet, watching him twine his fingers together and then untwine them again, watching expressions of agreement and outrage cross his face like shadows and sunlight. And, as an added bonus, any twinge of guilt Waneeda may have felt about Joy Marie’s questioning of her reasons for coming this afternoon disappeared the second Sicilee and then Maya stepped through the door. She kicked Joy Marie, glancing at her with a smirk on her lips and one eyebrow raised. So what do you think their motives are? Are you going to ask them why they came?

“But there’s a serious crisis happening right here, in our own backyard,” continues Clemens.

And then he starts talking about trees.