Dyan Sheldon - The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

“You’d better make sure it doesn’t give you malaria first,” says Maya.

Waneeda, Joy Marie and Clemens shut the door to Room III behind them and head down the stairs. Waneeda and Joy Marie are talking about the meeting. Which is to say that Waneeda is complaining that the meetings have turned into The Maya and Sicilee Show (or Two Princesses in Pursuit of a Prince, as Waneeda also calls it when she and Joy Marie are alone). They have more opinions than the Supreme Court and a psychotic need to share them with everyone else. Any time one of them volunteers to do something for Earth Day, the other will volunteer to do two things. Their exclamations of approval, agreement and admiration follow everything Cody says like a particularly cheerful Greek Chorus. The only consolation Waneeda has is that they obviously irritate each other even more than they irritate her. “I just don’t understand how Cody doesn’t notice,” Waneeda grumbles as they reach the main doors.

From behind them, someone shouts out, “Hey, wait up!”

The three of them stop and turn around to see Cody, who has just stepped out of the office, trotting towards them.

“I’m really glad I caught up with you guys,” he says as he follows them outside, “because we’re going to need your help here, with the Things You Can Do and Did You Know? campaigns.” Several steps behind Waneeda and Joy Marie, he nonetheless manages to give the impression that he has his arms around their shoulders. So there’s no doubt which guys he means. “You know, laying out the posters and typing them up and copying them and everything? Dr Firestone is really enthused about these ideas. He thinks we should get started pronto.”

Here is another thing of which Cody is apparently unaware. Although Joy Marie was well disposed towards him to begin with because he was saving the club and Waneeda was well disposed towards him because of his breathtaking good looks, neither of them is feeling that well disposed towards him now. While the other girls volunteer for all the look-at-me Earth Day projects to win Cody’s approval, it is Waneeda and Joy Marie whom Cody volunteers for all the boring scut work – typing and photocopying, emailing and gathering information, putting up notices and flyers – that keeps everything going. Though not in what you could call a cheerful way.

“Don’t look at me,” says Joy Marie. “I have enough to do already.”

“Why us?” asks Waneeda. “Why can’t the geniuses do it themselves?”

“Well, you know, they have pretty full agendas already. They’re both on a bunch of committees for Earth Day.” He flashes a smile that is a heck of a lot less disarming now than it used to be. Now, it always accompanies something Cody wants them to do. “Anyway, you ladies are so good at that stuff.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” asks Joy Marie. “I already have enough to do.”

“Me too,” lies Waneeda.

“There’s no big hurry for it,” Cody assures them. “Why don’t you think about it? You can let me know later in the week.” He falls into step beside Clemens.

Despite this slight setback, Cody is still as happy as a bear in salmon season – or, possibly, even two bears – talking excitedly about the awesome meeting and Sicilee and Maya’s mind-blowing ideas, while Clemens walks beside him, silent except for the occasional “yeah” or “um”, and Waneeda and Joy Marie walk a few paces behind.

“Man, I can’t believe that I didn’t think of that stuff myself,” Cody is saying as they reach the road. “I mean, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? People can’t know what they don’t know. I mean, there are things you know you know – like how to make spaghetti – and there are things you know you don’t know – like how to build a house – and then there’s all the stuff you don’t know you don’t know – like—”

“What happens after we decimate every old-growth forest on the planet?” mutters Clemens.

Cody seems not to have heard him. “I guess that I’ve been so wrapped up in Earth Day, I totally shot past the exit,” says Cody, more or less shooting past an exit again. “You know, I was concentrating on one tiny detail and I missed the big picture.” He laughs in his easy, good-natured way. “There’s none so blind as he who will not see, right?”

You can say that again, thinks Waneeda.

But it is Clemens who says, “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Cody raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, Clem?” he asks. “You seem a trifle ponderous.”

“I’m not ponderous,” says Clemens. “I’m just agreeing with you. You’re right, there’s nobody as blind as someone who refuses to see.”

“We’re talking about me now, right?” Cody stops walking. “What is it I’m not seeing, bro? What’ve I missed?”

“What aren’t you seeing?” Clemens stops as well. “The trees, Cody. There aren’t any woods left around here, but you still don’t see the trees. We were supposed to be trying to save the trees, remember? That was going to be our big push this year. But you’ve completely ditched them. All we talk about now is Earth Day.”

“Man…” Cody sucks in his bottom lip. “Earth Day’s important.”

“So are the trees.”

Waneeda and Joy Marie have also come to a stop, deliberately not looking at each other, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder just close enough not to miss anything.

“Look, I know you’re irked that the trees are off the agenda.” Cody makes an it’s-not-my-fault gesture. “But I thought you understood that we have to focus. The trees aren’t in our frame.”

“Well, they’re in my frame.” Clemens stares at a point to the left of Cody’s head. “We can’t just abandon them. They need us. They’re prisoners of time.”

“Be reasonable, Clem. You’ve tried your best. You wrote all those letters. You gave your tree speech at Christmas. You spent a week trying to get people to sign your petition.” This is true. Clemens and Joy Marie sat outside the office every morning and afternoon for two weeks, attracting the disapproval of Dr Firestone, but little else. “And what did you get? Fifty signatures? Fifty signatures aren’t going to persuade anybody.”

“Then we have to try harder, not quit,” insists Clemens. “We have to cut our losses, forget the school and expand our efforts into the community.”

“You don’t get it, do you, bro?” Cody shakes his head sadly. “It’s a done deal, Clem. The town council’s OK’d it. The planning permission’s gone through. It’s going to be the last word in sports excellence – the biggest facility in the state. Plus, the school gets a sports scholarship to make it even sweeter. There’s nothing anybody can do.”

“You’re wrong,” says Clemens. “Firestone and the developer railroaded it through. If we get enough signatures, we can stop them before they start. Launch an appeal. Let everybody in the town vote on whether the trees should go or not.”

“And you’ll still lose.” Cody’s voice has lost some of its usual lightness. “Get real, man. You can’t stop progress.”

“But we have to. That’s the whole point of this. We can’t just keep burying the planet in asphalt and concrete. We have to draw a line somewhere. Enough is enough. We’re murdering the earth, for God’s sake. We don’t need progress – we need sustainability.”

“Clemens…” Cody’s sigh is soft but heartfelt. “It’s just a couple of trees. And they’re going to plant more trees for the ones they cut down. Three times more. So where’s the pain? Nobody thinks it’s a big deal except you. We need to concentrate on things people can get really excited about.”

Clemens pushes his glasses back into position. “Like using bags that say I AM NOT A PLASTIC BAG for shopping?”

“Why not? What’s wrong with that?” Although seemingly unaware that he and Clemens aren’t alone, Cody suddenly turns to Joy Marie and Waneeda. “Mary Jo! Juanita!” He holds up his hands in mock despair. “Help me out here. What do you ladies think?”

“I wish you’d stop calling me Mary Jo,” says Joy Marie. “My name’s Joy Marie.”

As if she just agreed with him, Cody shifts his charmingly imploring smile to Waneeda. “Juanita?” he prompts.

Waneeda’s voice has yet to be heard this afternoon – or any other afternoon, for that matter. At the first meeting, when the other new members stood up to talk about themselves and their love of gorillas and tofu burgers and walking twenty miles a day, Waneeda stayed in her seat, chewing. At the next meeting, when everyone else was shouting out ideas for the Earth Day celebration, Waneeda unwrapped another candy. And so the weeks have passed, with the other new members all bursting with enthusiasm and bubbling with suggestions, and Waneeda eating and listening. Today, while just about every other girl in the room only had eyes for Cody, Waneeda found herself watching Clemens, slumped in his chair with his usual bad posture, fiddling with the paperclip on his glasses, not saying anything either. Like the last polar bear on the last ice floe, floating off into oblivion.

Waneeda looks over at Clemens. She feels sorry for him. “I’ll help you with the trees, if you want,” she says.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Sicilee puts her lunch bag on the table and slides into the empty chair next to Ash. “I left something in my locker and I had to go all the way back for it.”

“Oh, that’s where you were.” Kristin smiles over her slice of pizza. “We thought you were outside hugging a tree.”