The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

Chapter Thirty-Five Plastic girl in a plastic world

The Birch Grove Shopping Centre is part of the suburban sprawl that surrounds the historic village of Clifton Springs. Unlike the historic village itself, there is nothing either quaint or attractive about the shopping centre – and no grove of birch trees, either. It’s simply a row of box-like concrete buildings with the supermarket at one end and a small parking lot dotted with litter and weeds in front. There are similar – if not actually identical – shopping centres in every direction. What distinguishes Birch Grove (at least today) is the presence of Maya Baraberra outside the entrance to the supermarket, dressed in a skirt covered with dozens of plastic bottles and a jacket and hat made of plastic bags. Ah, the things a girl will do for love.

Following a pattern that is now well established, Alice refused to come with her. “Even if I wasn’t going to my gram’s for the weekend, I wouldn’t come,” Alice declared. “I’m not really good at exposing myself to ridicule.” She didn’t think Maya should go either. “It’s kind of, you know, uncool, begging for money,” said Alice. “Like those geeks who try to get you to sign petitions you know nobody’s ever going to read?” And it’s doubly uncool if you’re dressed as the town dump. “You know, I’ve seen guys dressed as rabbits and clowns and stuff like that,” said Alice, “but I’ve never seen anyone dressed like garbage before. Everybody’s going to laugh at you.” Alice didn’t understand why, if Maya had to beg, she couldn’t wear regular clothes to do it. “It’s not like you’re advertising anything,” Alice reasoned. “You’re just asking for money.” So are all those Santas at Christmas, argued Maya. Alice said that that was different because it’s seasonal. Maya, however, wouldn’t be persuaded. She wanted to make an impact. “You mean that you want to raise more money than Sicilee Kewe, so you can impress Cody,” said Alice.

Which, of course, is true. If it weren’t for Sicilee shooting her hand into the air as if it was on a spring and boasting about how easy it is to get people to donate when you’re doing it for such a good cause, right now Maya would be hanging out with her friends at Mojo’s, drinking coffee and listening to jazz like on any other Saturday afternoon. “It’s not just that,” lied Maya. “I actually am advertising something, you know. I’m advertising environmental ruin and the end of life as we know it if we don’t stop using so much plastic.” There won’t be any more Santas at Christmas then, because there won’t be any seasons. “I want to make people stand up and take notice.”

Well, she’s certainly doing that.

Maya began the day with the enthusiasm of a crusader. Let Sicilee go from store to store in the village like a double-glazing salesman. Maya would do something memorable and eye-catching. Something artistic. She wasn’t going to just ask for money like Sicilee, which any fool can do. Maya was going to make a statement; create an event. Maya would be living, breathing conceptual art. She wouldn’t be surprised if the town paper sent a photographer around and did a story on her: Local Girl Set to Save the World.

But that was at the beginning of the day, long before those schoolgirls strutted by shouting out, “OhmiGod, it’s the Incredible Bulk!” – their giggling sounding like a swarm of locusts. Before those younger schoolboys pulled off some of her bottles and lobbed them at her, shrieking with glee. And long before the droves of Saturday shoppers arrived – pretending not to see her and shoving their carts past her so quickly you’d think they were giving things away inside. Maya’s been standing at the entrance to the supermarket since it opened and by now is feeling less like an installation in the Museum of Modern Art than someone dressed as a chicken to advertise a new fast-food restaurant. She is uncomfortable and constricted. Every so often she walks a few feet to the left or to the right, but movement is difficult and she can only see straight in front of her, so she never goes too far. She gave no thought to the fact that she might need to go to the toilet. She gave no thought to the possibility that she might see someone she knows. The last thing she wants at this point in time is her picture splashed across the front of The Clifton Springs Observer.

Smiling gamely and holding out a bucket that says CSHS ENVIRONMENTAL CLUB – EARTH DAY FUND, Maya stares out at the rows of cars, the busy road beyond them and the small huddle of concrete buildings on the other side. It’s not much of a view and after looking at it for so long Maya’s mind has started meandering – the way minds do when you stare at a blank wall. A woman and a small child in a teddy-bear snowsuit wander by, and Maya’s mind turns not to Cody Lightfoot as it usually does, but to the unusual thought that this may be the first time a bear has been seen around here since long before the birch grove disappeared. Diverted, Maya’s mind ambles back to a history project they did in eighth grade. The bottles clacking and the bags rustling every time she shifts or someone runs by her, Maya tries to imagine ancient, deep forests; to see black bears fishing in the river, wolves moving in the shadows; to hear the cracking of twigs as deer step warily through the trees.

Blinking in the reflection of sunlight off the roofs of cars, Maya is failing miserably in this act of extreme imagination when the child in the teddy-bear snowsuit sees her.

“No, Mommy! No, Mommy!” he shrieks, leaning backwards and tugging on his mother’s hand. “It’s a monster! It’s a monster!”

The mother laughs, dragging him forward. “It’s not a monster, honey. It’s just a girl dressed up like a plastic bottle.”

Earlier – when she was full of optimism and hope and hadn’t yet been publicly humiliated – Maya would have laughed, too. By now she is lucky to be able to smile.

“I’m not really a plastic bottle,” she explains as the mother and child come nearer. “I represent the billions of plastic bags and bottles we throw out every year. And that’s just in America.”

The mother smiles back in a placating, stay-away-from-me way, tightening her grip on her son’s hand.

Hoping to make them stop or at least slow down, Maya talks faster and louder. “That’s bags and bottles that are produced squandering precious resources. Bags and bottles that are used once and then spend the next thousand years in landfill.” She carefully stretches out the arm that holds the collection bucket to block them. “Think of it! The only thing with a longer life span is depleted uranium!”

“I’m afraid we’re only visiting here,” says the mother, darting past her with the bear in tow.

“What? Visiting the planet?” Maya calls after them. “Where did you park the spaceship?”

While Maya is temporarily distracted, another small child comes up to her. This one signals her presence not by screaming hysterically but by pulling on Maya’s skirt.

Maya looks down.

The little girl is gazing at her earnestly and eating a candy bar, her mouth smudged with chocolate.

Maya’s stomach growls. Lunch is another thing she didn’t plan for.

“Yes?” Maya gives her a friendly, non-monster smile.

The little girl chews slowly, almost meditatively, as though deciding exactly how to word her question, which is obviously an important one. “How come you’re dressed like that?” she asks at last.

Maya has approached scores of people this morning to tell them about the Environmental Club and Earth Day celebration, but this is the first time anyone has approached her. Maya responds with enthusiasm. She explains about climate change, plastic bags and plastic bottles. She explains about the Earth Day celebration and all the fun things there are going to be there. “We’re even having a contest to see who can make the best sculpture out of junk,” she finishes. “Do you think you’d like to enter?”

The little girl shrugs. “I just wanted to know why you’re dressed like that,” she repeats. “You know, because you look so dumb.” She runs after her mother (a woman who doesn’t look as if she’s ever turned a light off in her life) and Maya turns back to the car park with a sigh.

How much longer should she stay here, gazing out at nothing? She looks into her bucket. At the rate she’s going, another week might not be long enough.

The project they did in the eighth grade was called Where I Live Now, and it was all about the animals that used to live in the area, before Jeroboam Clifton colonized it in the name of the English queen. Not just bears, wolves and deer, but muskrats, otter, possum, raccoon, skunk, beaver, wild ducks and turkey and the sky full of birds. And there was a Lenape village near the river – the same river that no one wanted to help Clemens clean last year. When the Lenape lived there, the river would have been filled with fish, not garbage. Maya sighs again. There would have been a lot more to see then – and a lot more to hear than traffic and stereos and car doors slamming and shopping carts rattling over the asphalt.

Suddenly something catches Maya’s eye that makes the Birch Grove Shopping Centre look a lot more interesting than it did a few minutes ago – though not in a good way. A fire-engine red people carrier has just turned into the far entrance.

Maya feels herself go as rigid as concrete. There is only one people carrier that colour in Clifton Springs and it belongs to Brion Tovar’s parents. She squints into the distance. Mr Tovar is driving and beside him is Brion. Behind Brion are Shelby, Jason and Finn. Gott im Himmel, what are they doing here? It’s Saturday afternoon. They’re supposed to be at Mojo’s, eating bagels. But for some reason, they aren’t. They’re cruising through the car park, searching for an empty space. And in less time than it takes to throw a potato chip wrapper into the gutter, they are going to find one and be jumping out of the car.

She can’t let them see her. Maya has weathered the teasing, ridicule and mockery with patience, if not actual good humour, but riding the pink and blue bike (now equipped with brakes) to school, always asking what’s in the soup or sauce or telling them what’s in that cookie or that body spray, and often being seen with her new friends Clemens and Waneeda are nothing next to this. If they see her dressed like this with her bucket, she’ll never live it down. Uninvited, Alice’s voice echoes through Maya’s head. It’s really uncool… Everybody’s going to laugh at you… Well, if they’re not laughing now, they will be very soon. And the hip image she’s worked so hard to build since the beginning of high school – and already dented – will never recover.

The normal response to danger is, of course, either to stay and bravely fight or to run away as fast as you can. There is no time for Maya to get out of her costume – and no way she’s going to be standing here looking like The Scourge of Landfill when Brion, Finn, Jason and Shelby stroll by. Especially Jason. The only question is in which direction she’s going to flee.

The car park’s too dangerous. The alley down the side of the supermarket’s too far. Maya turns as sharply as a girl enveloped in plastic bags and bottles can, and rustling and clacking, heads for the supermarket’s automatic doors. The opening is narrow for her costume, but by twisting her body she manages to squeeze through without knocking anything off the displays dotted around the entrance. With all the grace and ease of a robot made of tin cans, Maya moves into the produce section. It’s unlikely that the boys are coming into Foodarama. Probably they’re going to the pizza place or the taqueria at the other end. But if some evil star does guide them into Foodarama, it’s even more unlikely that they’ll be looking for vegetables or fruit. They’ll cut straight across to the snack aisle.

Paying no attention to the people staring at her in open-mouthed amazement, holding aloft an apple or an avocado or a box of croutons that has been forgotten in surprise, Maya lumbers over to a revolving tower of salad condiments and stands beside it, ready to bury her face in the shelf of thousand-island dressing and Italian vinaigrette if Brion, Shelby, Jason and Finn do suddenly appear.

The same shoppers who would have pelted past her outside Foodarama show no fear or surprise at her presence beside the salad dressings. They come and go, testing the tomatoes and sniffing at the oranges – and looking over at Maya with indulgent smiles and mild curiosity. Several people ask her what she’s promoting, and if she has samples. “What are you supposed to be, honey?” asks one woman. “Plastic Girl?” There hasn’t been this much laughter in Foodarama since the pigeons got in last summer.

Word of the presence of Plastic Girl in Fruit and Vegetables moves through the store. Something’s about to happen. There will probably be giveaways. A small crowd starts to gather, watching as if they expect her to start singing and dancing. Maya does, in fact, recognize some familiar faces – friends of her parents, a woman from her block, Shayla’s mother – but for some reason this no longer bothers her. The panic that drove her through the electronic doors has vanished as completely as the Labrador duck. This, Maya realizes, is her great opportunity. She has an audience. An audience that is waiting to hear what she’s going to say.

“Hi, everybody!” says Maya. “I’m Plastic Girl. And I’m here to tell you what’s happening to the Earth.”

She is still talking when there is a call over the loudspeaker for security guards to go immediately to the produce department.