The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

Chapter Thirty-Nine Joy Marie drinks flowers and Waneeda plants them

Joy Marie is sitting on Waneeda’s bedroom floor, reading over the final list they’ve made of the Earth Day activities and events. She looks up as Waneeda backs in through the door, carrying a tray.

“It’s incredible how everything’s coming together,” Joy Marie says. “Do you know that we have nearly fifty different things happening? Fifty! Half the town’s participating. This really has to be the biggest thing the school’s ever done.”

Waneeda’s smile has a little more acidity in it than you might expect. “So I guess the club’s safe for the rest of the year.”

“Are you kidding? Dr Firestone couldn’t shut us down now even if he still wanted to. Which he doesn’t.” Joy Marie leans back against the bed. “Ms Kimodo says that Dr Firestone says that the school’s going to recommend us for an Environmental Youth Award. How good would that look on our college applications?”

Waneeda sets down the tray next to Joy Marie. “You mean that it’ll look good on Cody Lightfoot’s college applications. He’s the one Firestone always makes the big deal over.”

Joy Marie puts a hand to one ear and cocks her head as if listening. “Hark!” she cries. “Is that a note of bitterness I hear?”

Waneeda plops down across from her. “It’s you and Clemens who should be bitter. You’re the ones who did all the work getting the club started, and now Cody’s getting all the credit.”

“Get you!” Joy Marie laughs. “If it wasn’t for Cody, you would never have joined in the first place.”

Waneeda squashes her mouth together and shrugs. “I might have.”

“Yeah, sure you would’ve. You and all the others.”

“OK,” concedes Waneeda, “so maybe it would have taken me a little longer…”

“And anyway, that’s not the point, is it?” There are two mugs on the tray. Joy Marie moves the nearest one closer. “The point is that Cody completely turned the club around. You can’t deny that.”

“That doesn’t make it right that Cody’s become the spokesperson for the club, though, does it?” Waneeda picks up the second mug. “Everything’s all about him. Cody this and Cody that… What does Cody think? What does Cody say? Like he’s the only one who does anything important. Like nothing counts unless Cody says so or it was his idea.”

“We’re talking about the trees again, aren’t we?” says Joy Marie.

“Yes, we are.” Waneeda plunks her cup back on the tray. “We’re talking about the trees.” While Cody Lightfoot’s been getting his picture in the paper and being patted on the back by Dr Firestone, Clemens and Waneeda (through sheer stubbornness) have got enough signatures on the petition to postpone the clearing of the oaks until May, when their fate will be decided by a second, public vote. “But no one says anything about that, do they? Nobody cares that we’ve actually managed to stop them from going ahead.”

“And you’re surprised?” Joy Marie makes a face. And where have you been for the last sixteen years? “You have to be realistic, Waneeda. The Earth Day celebration has a way bigger profile. People just don’t get excited about a handful of trees.”

“But it isn’t fair.”

“Fair schmair.” Joy Marie lifts her cup. “Cody’s the driving force behind Earth Day, so that makes him high profile, too.”

Indeed, just as Clifton Springs has started to emerge from the dark and bare-branched days of winter, Cody has emerged from being the new kid in school to being a campus star. Cody has only to be seen bringing his own ceramic cup to the coffee bar to have half the school doing the same. If his profile were any higher, he wouldn’t be able to leave his house without a bodyguard.

Joy Marie sniffs her tea. “What is this? It smells like flowers.”

“It is flowers. It’s chamomile.”

“Chamomile?” Joy Marie’s smile is bemused. “I thought you were addicted to Coke. When did you start drinking herbal tea?”

Unblinking and unsmiling, Waneeda gazes back at her as if this is an unreasonable question. “Since I found out about the dangers of sugar and artificial sweeteners.”

Rather graciously, Joy Marie doesn’t point out that Waneeda could have made this discovery a year ago if she had ever listened to a word that Joy Marie said.

“Anyway, it’s Cody who’s done all the schmoozing, isn’t it? Getting Dr Firestone on our side and buttering up the faculty and getting all the big sponsors on board and everything.” Joy Marie takes a sip. It is definitely chamomile tea. “It stands to reason that he’d get most of the credit.”

Schmoozing, like delegating, is one of Cody’s great talents. If Sicilee is someone who could talk a turtle out of its shell, Cody could probably talk it out of its skin and into a soup pot. Not only has he persuaded the local radio station to plug the Earth Day celebration every hour for the next two weeks, he is going to be interviewed about the club on “The Morning Show”, the most popular breakfast radio show in the county.

“While everybody else does all the real work,” grumbles Waneeda. “Let’s be honest here. It’s all the girls who joined because of him who are making Earth Day happen. Like Sicilee and Maya with their popular supergirl powers – look how much money and donations they’ve raised! Half the workshops are down to them.” And most amazing of all, they’ve stayed in the club, even though they must have figured out by now that Cody has no real interest in either of them. “I just don’t think it’s right,” persists Waneeda. “Clemens is the president. And you’re the vice-president. You’re both really smart and dedicated. And you’re the ones who did all the hard stuff. How come you and Clemens aren’t being interviewed?”

“You know I don’t want to be interviewed. It’s my idea of hell,” says Joy Marie. “And nobody in their right mind would want to interview Clemens. You never know what he’s going to say. Besides, Clemens looks like a geek and Cody looks like a movie star.”

“Um … duh, Joy Marie,” says Waneeda. “It’s radio.”

“OK…” Joy Marie smiles. “Then maybe they’ve heard about Clemens’ speech last Earth Day and they don’t want to risk alienating their entire audience.”

“Oh, ha ha ha.” Waneeda scowls over her mug.

“The thing is that Cody’s really charismatic…” Joy Marie peers at the bowl on the tray. It seems to be filled with nuts and raisins. Was every store in Clifton Springs out of candy? “He’ll probably grow up to be President.”

“So I guess that means Clemens will be his entire cabinet,” says Waneeda.

Joy Marie chews thoughtfully on a cashew. “He’ll probably be Vice-President and Secretary of State, too.”

It isn’t until she’s getting ready to go that Joy Marie notices the egg cartons covered with plastic on top of the bookcase by the bedroom window. “What is that?”

“It’s my nursery.”

Joy Marie isn’t sure whether this is a joke or not, so she only smiles with half her mouth. “Your nursery? You’re hatching chicks?”

“Yeah. And next I’m going to get some burger boxes and grow cows.” Waneeda peels back the plastic from one of the crates so Joy Marie can see the tiny seedling underneath. “See?” She points to each box in line. “I have basil, corn, beans, zucchini, cucumber, peppers and tomatoes.” She beams like a proud mother. “I’ve started a garden in the backyard. These’ll be ready to go outside pretty soon. And then I’m going to plant some pumpkins. And some flowers too. I already put some bulbs by the fence.”

“You? You’re growing vegetables and flowers?” Although by now she is certain that Waneeda isn’t joking, Joy Marie laughs. “Waneeda, you’ve never grown anything in your life. Not even your nails.”

“Well, now I am.” She points out of the window. “Look! See, I’ve dug up the beds! And I’ve already planted the onions and potatoes. See there where I have those stakes in the ground?”

Joy Marie looks down at the freshly made beds where the grass used to grow. “You got down on your knees and dug all that up? Waneeda, you didn’t used to eat vegetables, let alone grow them.”

“It’s very meditative,” says Waneeda. “Plus, my parents are afraid of nature, so I get a lot of peace and quiet.”

“What’s happened to you?”

“I don’t know.” She doesn’t. “But this growing thing is really incredible.” Waneeda picks up an open packet from the bookcase and shakes a few seeds into her hand. She points at one of them. “Look at that, Joy Marie. That’s going to be a tomato plant. Can you believe it? That tiny little dot is going to be a tomato plant. Don’t you think that’s amazing?”

Joy Marie’s eyes move from Waneeda’s hair, fluffed out around her head like a cloud, to the original Clemens Reis T-shirt she’s wearing and, instead of her usual tracksuit bottoms, the long, floral skirt. “It’s not the only thing that’s amazing,” says Joy Marie.