The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love by Dyan Sheldon Read Free Book Online Page B

environment and stuff like that.”
    “Oh, come on!” Waneeda picks up her burger. “I know you don’t notice that kind of thing, but Cody is seriously attractive and—”
    “And what?” Joy Marie stabs a piece of tomato with her fork. “He’s good looking so he must be shallow?”
    “And pretty much the anti-nerd,” finishes Waneeda. “Boys who look like Cody don’t hang out with boys who look like Clemens.”
    Joy Marie groans. “Oh, not you too.”
    It’s not easy to look indignant with a cheeseburger dripping ketchup in your hand, but Waneeda pulls it off with considerable panache. “Not me too, what?”
    “Not you have a crush on Cody Lightfoot too.” Joy Marie points the speared tomato at her. “You do realize that practically every girl in this school has a thing about him, don’t you?”
    “No, I didn’t realize,” says Waneeda. “I didn’t want to tell you in case you got upset, but I’m actually totally blind.”
    “I was only saying—”
    “And I was only stating a simple fact – not swooning with lust,” snaps Waneeda. “Forget I said anything.” Now would be a good time to change the subject, before she reveals anything else. She bites into a French fry. “So what’s happening with the club? Isn’t it your big meeting today? You think old Firestone will really shut you down if you don’t get any new members?”
    Joy Marie shrugs. “I don’t see how he can,” she says. “I mean, you have to look at all the ramifications and issues.” And she starts explaining what she sees the ramifications and issues to be.
    Waneeda feels herself start to drift off – the way she does during classes that are especially boring, lectures from her mother and conversations with Joy Marie when she’s in serious, earnest mode. She’s thinking about what it would be like to sit at the same table as Cody – to ask him, for instance, if he’d like a couple of fries. She is imagining him coaxing her to eat her salad – Come on, Waneeda, vegetables are really good for you – when she notices something out of the corner of her eye. It is Cody Lightfoot, the real Cody Lightfoot, gliding up the far aisle so smoothly that his feet don’t seem to touch the ground.
    Almost level with their row, Cody turns and heads towards their side of the cafeteria, edging his way between tables. Where is he going?
    Waneeda glances behind her, but there is no one there except Sicilee Kewe, rummaging through the cutlery, and Miss Artsy-fartsy, Maya Baraberra, looking as if she doesn’t know why she’s there. Waneeda turns to her right, but there is no one there at all now, just a tabletop covered with crumbs and spills to show where the other girls had been.
    “You know what I mean,” Joy Marie is saying. “Lots of schools are starting to get on the bandwagon now – it would look pretty dumb if Clifton Springs suddenly got off.”
    Waneeda kicks her under the table.
    “Ow!” Joy Marie scowls. “What did you do that for?”
    But Waneeda, of course, can’t answer. Cody Lightfoot is only thirty centimetres away. Twenty. Ten.
    “Hi,” he says, those tropical-sea eyes aimed at Joy Marie. “You’re Mary Jo, right? Clem’s friend?”
    She blinks. “I’m Joy Marie.”
    “Right. And I’m Cody. Cody Lightfoot.” He holds out his hand, and Joy Marie, still looking as nervous as a cat on a raft, takes it. “I just wanted to introduce myself. You know, before the meeting.”
    Joy Marie smiles uncertainly. “The meeting?”
    “Yeah. The Environmental Club meeting? Clemens said you’re the vice-president and the secretary? He said you’re looking for new members.”
    “Yeah.” Joy Marie nods. “Yeah, we are.”
    “Right,” says Cody. “Well, I wanted you to know that you can count me in. I was totally committed to the movement in my old school – we did some real cool stuff – and I want to keep it up. You know, different space but same place, right?”
    Joy Marie nods.
    “So I’ll see you this