The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love (23 page)

“Heads, damn it.” Clemens ruefully shakes his head. “I swear you have to be psychic.”

“Just lucky.” Waneeda tugs on a strand of hair. “Anyway, you’re better at talking than I am.”

Clemens pushes his glasses back up his nose. “Yeah, but people like you more.” He sighs. “Everybody thinks I’m weird.”

“You’re not weird.” She gives him an encouraging smile. Today, Clemens is wearing an old black beret and one of his grandmother’s many knitting projects, a scarf patterned with pine trees. “You’re just different.”

This time, the door is opened by a middle-aged man who listens patiently to Clemens’ plea, but when he’s finished says, “You don’t think maybe the town needs a new sports centre more than it needs a couple of trees? We’ve got plenty of trees, you know, but we don’t have plenty of sports centres.”

“But these aren’t just any trees,” argues Clemens. “Sports centres can be built anywhere, but these trees can never be replaced. They were here way before the white man. They’re the living past and have witnessed hundreds of years of history. They’ve seen whole peoples come and go and the sky black with passenger pigeons. If these trees could talk they—”

“Yeah, but they can’t talk, can they?” interrupts the man. “They’re just trees.” He grins in an I’m-laughing-at-you-not-with-you way. “And do you know what another name for trees is? Do you know what else they’re called?”

Clemens and Waneeda glance at each other, but neither answers.

“Wood!” shouts the man. “That’s the other name for trees! Wood!”

They can still hear him laughing after he’s shut the door.

“I think it’s time to take up our post at the village square for a while.” Clemens slips his clipboard into his backpack. “This neighbourhood’s got some kind of juju curse on it.”

“At least that last guy was original,” says Waneeda as they head back to town. “That’s the first time we’ve heard that one. I think that should go on the list. Which makes … what? Five or six for today?”

Truly great reasons not to save the trees
is the game Clemens invented to keep them from getting too depressed.

“Well, let’s see.” He frowns, thinking. “The first three were:
I can’t find the ferret
,
It’s too early
and
I once fell out of a tree and broke my leg
. So that guy who said,
Son, you just don’t get it, do you? The thing about trees is they grow back
was number four.”

Waneeda laughs. “
You know what would happen if we didn’t chop down trees? We wouldn’t be able to get our cars out of the garages
was five.”

“Well, what about the lady in the tracksuit and the shower cap? What was it she said?”

“
Trees cause pollution
.”

Clemens looks as if he can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “And even when I said that they only cause pollution when you cut them down, she still wouldn’t sign the petition.”

They turn into the historic town of Clifton Springs.

“Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute.” Waneeda pulls on Clemens’ arm as if she’s literally trying to slow him down. “What about that man with the funny-looking dog? The one who said that if I had to rake up the leaves I wouldn’t be so eager not to cut down trees? He’s number seven.”

Clemens takes her elbow and guides her across the road to the square. “And how about Mr Where-would-we-be-if-the-pioneers-had-felt-like-that?”

“And you said that we wouldn’t be shopping in Wal-Mart, that was for sure,” gasps Waneeda. “And he slammed the door in your face. Just like the woman with the Yorkshire terrier that time. Remember her?”

“Remember her? Even if she hadn’t had that dumb dog up her sleeve, I’d never forget her,” says Clemens. “She shut that door so hard she would’ve broken my foot if I hadn’t been wearing my steel-toed boots.”

“Well, at least you know that if you don’t become some kind of environmentalist, you can always get a job as a door-to-door salesman,” says Waneeda. “You’re pretty good with that sticking-your-foot-in-the-door routine.”

Clemens leans against the old cast-iron railings that surround the churchyard, solemnly shaking his head. “I couldn’t take the constant rejection. It’s soul destroying.”

“We haven’t had
total
rejection, though,” argues Waneeda. “We’ve got at least twenty signatures so far today. That’s not so bad.”

Clemens sighs. “Except that I bet we would’ve made a lot more than twenty sales if we were Avon ladies selling make-up and not just students trying to save the environment.”

“I doubt it,” says Waneeda. “I think that the sight of you in drag would make them slam their doors even harder.”

They are still laughing when Waneeda, who is facing the church, grabs his arm. “I think I must be hallucinating, Clemens – I could swear I see Sicilee Kewe coming out of the thrift store. With bags.”

Clemens turns around. “Well, shuck my corn.” He gives a low whistle. “It’s either her or her twin sister.”

“Hey! Clemens! Waneeda!” Sicilee comes hurrying towards them. “Look at all this cool stuff I got for, like, absolutely nothing.” She starts pulling things from one of the bags. “Can you believe it? They’ve hardly even been worn!”

On the other side of the road, Mr Huddlesfield, on his way to the hardware store for a washer to fix the leaking faucet in the bathroom (an environmental act inspired by his daughter, who taped a note on the bathroom mirror stating exactly how many gallons of water are dripping away every week), happens to glance over and see that very same daughter standing in front of the village square with Clemens Reis and a girl who definitely isn’t Joy Marie Lutz. Mr Huddlesfield rarely sees his only child out of the house or from any distance, and for a few seconds he doesn’t recognize her. This is partly because he still isn’t used to seeing her with her hair down and partly because she is animated and smiling (which is another way her father rarely sees her), talking and laughing with her friends. Mr Huddlesfield changes direction and goes over to see what’s going on.

“Well, maybe you’d like to sign our petition.” Clemens thrusts his clipboard into Mr Huddlesfield’s hands.

“You can’t fight city hall, you know,” says Mr Huddlesfield as he takes hold of the pen.

“That’s number nine,” says Waneeda.

Chapter Thirty-seven
Shop and drop

A
light rain falls over the concrete sprawl that is Wildwood Mall, making the parking lot shine. There are no budding trees or early blooms outside the mall to herald the start of a new season, but to make up for that, the windows are brightly dressed for spring: pastel outfits and paper flowers; fluffy bunnies and baskets of coloured eggs; floral rubber boots and bright umbrellas under cellophane showers. You can almost hear Gene Autry singing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail”.

To complete the picture, Sicilee, Kristin, Loretta and Ash, dressed as gaily as a May garden, climb out of the Shepls’ people carrier and scurry through the drizzle to the south-east entrance. The doors open silently as they approach, and bright lights and potted trees welcome them inside to where it is always a dry and pleasant day with background music and plenty of benches.

Ash waves her hand at the concourse that stretches invitingly ahead of them. “It’s really hard to imagine life before they invented malls, isn’t it?” The walk from the car, though brief, has apparently put Ash in a reflective mood. “I mean, it must’ve been just
gross
back then – you’d have to go all over the place just to put a decent outfit together.”

Loretta thinks she may have stepped in a puddle and is examining her feet. “And you’d be out in the snow and rain the whole time, trudging from one store to another,” she says. “My God, if you didn’t get pneumonia or destroy your hair, your shoes would be totally ruined.”

“And what did you do in the summer?” asks Kristin. “Just think of it – lugging all those bags around in the heat…” She wrinkles her nose and shivers with distaste. “I mean, who’d want to shop
outside
when it’s ninety degrees and just breathing makes you sweat? You wouldn’t be able to go more than a block without having to change.”

Were he here, Clemens Reis would point out that people only used to shop when they actually needed something. That they replaced things when they were worn out, not when they got tired of the colour or fashion changed or they had nothing else to do but go to the stores. Clemens, of course, is not here – but Sicilee is, and Sicilee has now walked that last block to school with him and the others long enough to know that that is what he would say – and even to think of saying it herself. She catches herself just in time.

Today she is making up for not showing up for lunch last week, for the other Saturdays she’s bailed on, for the Diamonds meeting she missed and for trying to make them aware so that they’d care. She doesn’t want them to think that she’s changed. Though that, of course, is not the only reason.

Lately, Sicilee’s begun to wonder if nerds really have taken over her body. She no longer sneaks a burger or piece of chicken or BLT whenever she has the chance. She’s pretending that her shoes are made of vegetarian leather when they actually are. She went into a thrift shop without being dragged in by a team of wild horses. She bought stuff. She’d thought that buying second-hand clothes would make her feel like some charity case, but it made her feel kind of smart. And then, when she could still have gone to the mall for the rest of the afternoon if she’d really wanted to, she hung out with Waneeda and Clemens instead. They’re not cool – merciful Mother, no one would ever call either of them cool – but they’re OK. Their conversations can be pretty interesting. They laugh a lot. She had a good time. What’s happening to her? Which, of course, is the other reason Sicilee is here today: to prove to herself that she hasn’t changed.

So rather than make a remark that will only cause her friends to look at her as though she’s dyed her hair green and stuck a safety pin through her nose, Sicilee says, “And plus, there’d be nowhere to sit down and no place to get a halfway decent latte. I mean, just think about that.”

Arms linked and laughing, they set off down the concourse, as they have done so many times before.

The first couple of hours are fairly happy ones.

Chatting and joking, the girls go from store to store, from department to department, searching through the racks and piles of clothes like professional poultry sorters looking for defective chicks. Sicilee doesn’t say that she doesn’t really need to buy anything new, because not very long ago she went on something of a spending spree in the church thrift store (and she certainly doesn’t mention that everything she bought used to belong to her and that her parents have yet to stop laughing). She doesn’t mention the concept of need over greed, or repeat the Green mantra –
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
– either. Nor does she dare to suggest that liking a shirt doesn’t mean that you need to have it in five different colours. She pushes such thoughts to the furthest corner of her mind, and as the morning passes, they fade as if they were part of a dream. She is back in the fold, and she is having fun.

They get on Loretta’s case for having to try on everything twice. They tease Ash for always buying something pink. They joke about how long it takes Kristin to make up her mind.

“Maybe you should buy two or three new pairs of boots,” Loretta says to Sicilee. “You know, now that you do so much walking!”

They all crack up.

The coloured plastic bags hang from their hands like party balloons. Sicilee, who now knows exactly how toxic the production of plastic is and exactly how long it takes a plastic bag to biodegrade, swings them as she walks and says nothing.

Shoulder to shoulder, Sicilee, Ash, Loretta and Kristin all gather around the mall directory, choosing where they’ll go for lunch. Burgers? Pizza? Thai? Mexican?

“Maybe Sicilee wants to go to that vegetarian place and eat bean sprouts,” says Loretta. They all giggle, leaning against each other, bags bouncing.

They go to the gourmet burger bar for lunch. Although she has no desire for meat, Sicilee keeps smiling and orders the day’s special, rare, served with salad and fries, like everybody else. Only she can’t eat the burger. She has no trouble with the salad or the fries or even the bun, but every time she bites into the patty, she thinks of some poor cow, terrified out of its mind, being prodded with electric shocks. What if even just
some
of the things she’s been told about industrialized farming are true? What if only
one
is? Which one would Sicilee want it to be? The gross over-crowding? The mutilations? The disease? It isn’t a choice she wants to make. Loretta tells a story about the time her sister’s head swelled up from her hair dye that is so funny that tears are streaming from their eyes, and Sicilee is doubled up over her plate, gasping for air. While everyone is shrieking and laughing, Sicilee slips the burger from its bun and into her napkin, and slips that into the pocket of her jacket.

It is after lunch – in the cosmetics section of the biggest department store in the mall – that things take a sharp turn for the worse.

Loretta and Ash fool around with the perfumes, while Kristin and Sicilee wander through the counters of make-up. Kristin wants a new lipstick. And maybe a new blusher. And maybe something that will really bring out the colour of her eyes. Sicilee, however, is showing none of the girlish enthusiasm she usually exhibits in the cosmetics department. Instead she looks almost nervous, as if what she’s entered isn’t a temple of beauty but a haunted house.

Kristin picks up a lipstick called Blood Wedding and puts some on the back of her hand. “What do you think of this?” she asks.

Sicilee picks up a lipstick too and reads the box.
Blood
seems to be the operative word.
What could make that vivid shade of red?
she wonders.

“Well…” says Sicilee.

Kristin tilts her head, considering. “Too dark?” She holds her hand to the side of her face and turns to the mirror. “Maybe you’re right. It’s practically spring. Maybe I should go for something lighter. You know, a more natural shade.”