The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

Chapter Twenty-Nine Late but not late enough

It’s Saturday, and on Saturday afternoons Maya and her friends always meet at Mojo’s coffee bar, a dimly lit and brick-walled room, where they sit at worn wooden tables, eat paninis and bagels, drink espressos, and listen to jazz and Latin funk. Hood up, head down, Maya hurries through the falling snow, watching her breath float in front of her in tiny, frozen clouds. Late again. Interestingly enough, however, the main thought in Maya’s mind isn’t that she’s late again, but that if, by some sadistic twist of fate, she should run into Cody Lightfoot, she will have no choice but to join a cloistered convent and spend the rest of her life behind a high brick wall. She could never face him again if he saw her like this.

The bell tinkles as Maya bursts through the door, stopping to shake the snow off her boots onto the newspapers spread across the entrance. She throws back her hood and squints into the room, adjusting her eyes to the atmospheric gloom after the brightness of the day outside.

The others are all gathered around their favourite table in the corner, already eating their lunches.

“Yo!” Maya calls as she sidles through the packed room. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Better late than never.” Jason waves a fry in greeting. “Which makes a nice change.”

Alice pats the seat beside her on the bench. “We were afraid you weren’t coming because of the weather.”

Maya sighs inwardly. Why didn’t she think of that? It’s not only a good excuse, it would have been more or less true.

“It’s damn cold out there,” says Finn. “I wouldn’t have come myself, only I knew my dad would volunteer me to shovel the driveway when the snow stops, so I decided to take my chances with frostbite.”

Maya slips out of her coat and hangs it on one of the hooks on the wall, throwing herself onto the bench next to Alice so quickly and with so much force that Alice drops her fork. But not quite quickly enough.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Mallory leans around the table for a better view. “Are those your little sister’s clothes?”

“Of course they’re not Molly’s,” says Maya. “I was late, so I just put on the first thing I found.”

Which is true in the sense that she is wearing all she could find. What Maya is wearing are clothes she schleps around the house in that haven’t seen daylight in at least a year. Uncool clothes. Clothes she wouldn’t want to be buried in at night on an uninhabited island in the middle of the Atlantic.

“But those pants are way too small for you.” Mallory is now peering under the table. “They don’t even reach the top of your socks.”

“And that shirt!” Shayla’s face bunches up with distaste. “What’s all over it? Is that blood?”

“Of course it’s not blood. It’s henna.” Maya grabs a menu from the middle of the table, even though she has been here enough times to know that there are only three things on it that she can eat. “I had a little clothes crisis, that’s all.”

“What happened?” asks Alice. “The washing machine broke?”

Maya shakes her head.

“The dryer?” guesses Mallory.

“Not exactly.”

What exactly happened was that, having done her bi-monthly, environmentally friendly load of laundry yesterday, Maya was then filled with such a sense of goodwill towards every living thing on the planet that she decided she would hang her clothes on the line and dry them the way that Nature intended. She didn’t take the weather into consideration.

“They froze!” Shelby chokes on his coffee. “Are you serious? Your clothes froze?”

Maya glares at him. “And how was I supposed to know the temperature was going to drop?”

“It’s winter, Maya,” says Shayla. “What did you think the temperature would do? Hit ninety?”

“I guess the snow didn’t help either.” Brion laughs.

Jason, sitting across from Maya, leans his arms on the table. Maya’s outfit isn’t what’s bothering him. “So what’s your excuse for missing the movie last night? You were making your own bean curd and you forgot?”

“Oh, you are so droll.” Maya looks around for the waiter, but the waiter is busy with another table. “I just had stuff to do, that’s all.”

“More important than Friday night at the Multiplex?” Jason’s lopsided grin isn’t always as attractive as Maya sometimes thinks. “What stuff? Were you out wrapping blankets around trees with your pal Cody?”

Maya gives him a withering look. Lately, Jason has become almost as annoying as Sicilee Kewe.

“You didn’t miss much,” says Alice. “The movie wasn’t that great.”

“Bo-riiing!” agrees Mallory.

Shelby, whose choice it was, laughs. “Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad. Nobody fell asleep, did they?”

“I did,” says Finn. “But you couldn’t tell because I can sleep with my eyes open.”

Jason is still leaning towards Maya. “So what were you doing this time?” he persists. “What did you have to do that was more important than hanging out with your friends?” It isn’t even a smile, really. It’s more of a smirk. “Or were you just afraid that if you saw everybody else eating double-cheese pizza you’d cave in and renounce your holy vegan vows?”

Jason has become so annoying not only because he’s always making snide remarks about Cody Lightfoot, but also because he’s always on Maya’s case about something. He sniped at her for missing a couple of lunches. He rode her for not going skating last week. And today it would seem that he’s irritated because she’s not eating cheese.

“You can gorge yourself on double-cheese pizza till your eyes fall out for all I care,” Maya informs him with a sugary smile. “It doesn’t affect me at all.” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a Manila envelope. “But since you’re so incredibly interested, here’s what I was doing last night. It’s my own special project to get ready for Earth Day. It’s about what’s in all the stuff we use all the time. You know, the hidden stuff.” She puts the envelope down on the table. “There are four copies in there. You guys can look it over while I get a coffee. See what you think.”

“Nerd Nation strikes again,” says Finn.

Jason reaches for the envelope. “I know that I speak for everyone here when I say that we can’t wait.”

Despite her outfit, Maya’s in a good enough mood to laugh with the others. She’s worked hard, and she’s pretty pleased with her efforts. There was a time, not so long ago, when Maya thought she was Green enough. She knew about climate change, recycling and eco-friendly light bulbs. She cared about pigs, polar bears and whales. It never occurred to her that she should put some extra effort into learning about the environment. Why learn what you already know? Only now that she has been putting in some extra effort she realizes that she didn’t know half as much as she thought. She was like someone adrift on a dark, cold sea, thinking the tips she could see were all there was of the icebergs.

But there are even more icebergs on this dark, cold sea than perhaps Maya thought.

As she returns to the table with her black coffee and plain, dry bagel, she can’t help noticing that the boys all wear grins as they read through her project, and Mallory and Shayla are laughing out loud. Alice, too loyal to laugh, just looks bewildered.

“Whoowhee!” whoops Brion. “Geekdom rules!”

“Is this the kind of thing they talk about at their meetings?” asks Shelby.

“That must be why you joined,” mutters Jason. “The stimulating conversation.”

Mallory and Shayla are the last to look up.

“I don’t know how you can spend more than two minutes with them. Look at this stuff!” Cream cheese drops from Mallory’s bagel onto the page in front on her. “They’re all out of their tiny minds. I mean, talk about conspiracy theories – this bunch makes those guys who think we never walked on the moon seem sane.”

“Are you going to publish this in the school paper?” asks Shayla.

Maya sits down. “Publish it?”

“Well, yeah…” Shayla glances at Mallory. “It’s a satire, right? Of the nerds’ club?”

“It’s not a satire.” Maya half smiles, in case Shayla is just pulling her leg. “It’s my project? To get everybody ready for Earth Day? I’m just stating a couple of facts.” The book Maya got from the library is full of facts.

“Facts?” hoots Mallory. “Are you saying that you think this stuff’s true? That, like, pretty much everything we use is destroying us and the planet?”

“Not everything,” Maya explains. “But those are the facts. Petrochemicals are in practically everything. Even our—”

“Oh dig you,” teases Finn. “Petrochemicals are in practically everything. A couple of days ago you wouldn’t have known the difference between a petrochemical and a candy bar!”

“You are joking, aren’t you?” Shelby looks around the table, grinning. “I mean, yeah, we all know some things are pretty toxic. Pesticides and stuff like that. But deodorants? Talcum powder? Food?”

“I’m not joking,” says Maya. “Everything in there is true.”

Shelby’s grin seems to have gotten stuck. “But this makes it sound like we’re taking our lives in our hands just mopping the floor.”

“You know, you really should’ve come with us last night,” says Jason. “You’ve been spending way too much time with the lunatic fringe.”

“But it’s all true,” Maya says yet again. “There’s a lot of stuff that you don’t want to swallow or breathe in or put on your skin. Even our—”

“Oh, come on, Maya…” Alice is giving her a hopeful, if not actually encouraging, smile. “Are you saying that my shampoo, soap, shower gel, make-up and body spray are all really bad for me and the environment? How is that possible?”

“Well, they are if—”

“So what are we supposed to do?” asks Mallory. “Stink like a pair of old gym socks? Go around with our teeth falling out and our faces all naked?”

Shayla would like to know what they’re supposed to wear. “You’re saying that all my clothes are made from oil? And dyed with poisons? So what’s the big solution, Maya? Should I wrap myself in leaves?”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” says Maya. “I mean, you guys are already Green. I’m just—”

“Stating a couple of facts that make us look as evil as baby-seal killers,” says Shayla.

Alice says loyally, “Oh, come on, Maya isn’t blaming us.”

“Of course I’m not,” agrees Maya. “That would be blaming the victim.”

Shelby clutches his heart. “Oh, now we’re victims!”

Alice sets down her cup, looking hopefully at Maya. “But don’t you think that maybe you’re getting a little carried away? I mean, all these things…” She gestures at the pages of Maya’s project. “The manufacturers and the government and everybody, they wouldn’t let us buy that stuff if they thought it was doing so much damage.”

Maya opens her mouth to say that, as far as she can tell, they are letting us buy that stuff, but Mallory doesn’t give her a chance.

Mallory holds up one hand. “Let’s just back up the truck here.” She looks at Maya. “What about you, Maya? You drink bottled water. You wear clothes and make-up. You use soap and shampoo.”

“That’s right!” Shayla slaps the table. “You used to eat fish and chicken all the time! And you ride around in a car throwing toxic emissions into the atmosphere just like everybody else!”

“I never said that I was perfect,” protests Maya.

“No, only Cody Lightfoot’s perfect,” mutters Jason.

But Maya doesn’t hear him because the others are all laughing so much.