Dyan Sheldon - The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

Mrs Sotomayor, who in her fifteen years of teaching has no memory of a student ever volunteering for work he or she could avoid, recovers enough from this shock to say, “Well if you’re certain you have the time…” And, possibly because Cody is still looking into her eyes, she drops her pen on the floor. Which is when she notices Sicilee, hovering beside her like an exceptionally brightly dressed ghost.

“Sicilee?” Sicilee is not a girl her English teacher has ever been tempted to describe as ethereal, but she does look as though she may be having an out-of-body experience. “Sicilee? Is there something you wanted?”

Sicilee returns to reality with a start. “What?” She drags her smile from the scenic experience that is Cody Lightfoot to the dingy alley that is the head of the English department. “Oh, yeah, right, yeah. I just wanted to check with you about the book report? I know we’ve got a minimum length, but is there a maximum? You know, because the book I’m doing, it works on so many levels…?” Sicilee steams on like a runaway train, hoping to impress Cody Lightfoot with her sophistication and intelligence. She doesn’t distract herself by glancing over to see his reaction. She’ll wait until she’s done, and then she’ll turn and give him one of her biggest smiles. And as they sit down, she’ll introduce herself and welcome him to Clifton Springs. “…I picked it because it really is a modern classic, and I think you could say not just an American modern classic but a world—”

“You write as much as you want, Sicilee,” cuts in Mrs Sotomayor, who knows very well that Sicilee picked this particular book because she can watch the movie and not have to read it. “Now if you’ll take your seat, I think it’s about time we started this class.”

“Oh, sure, right…” Sicilee turns, her smile bright as sunshine. It is, perhaps, a testament to the indefatigable human spirit that Sicilee’s smile doesn’t dim when she realizes that Cody Lightfoot is not at the desk next to the one that holds her orange backpack. He is sitting at the back of the room. Between Kristin and Farley Hubble. Which is where Sicilee usually sits.

“Sicilee?” prompts Mrs Sotomayor.

Sicilee takes her new seat. She is still smiling.

This, of course, is not further evidence of the indefatigable human spirit. It is simply to stop her from groaning out loud.

Within minutes of her first sight of him, Maya Baraberra decided that it wasn’t a 747 that brought Cody Lightfoot to Clifton Springs, but Fate. They were destined to meet. Didn’t she have a feeling that this year was going to be seriously significant? Didn’t she say? It made total sense.

But when Cody didn’t materialize in her homeroom or her first class of the day, Maya realized that if she wanted to get him into her group before someone else claimed him, she was going to have to give Destiny a hand.

Which is why, at this very moment, she and Alice are slouching away from school in the rain, following the figure in the old army parka (winter issue), hood up, several yards ahead of them.

“I can’t believe that I let you talk me into this,” grumbles Alice. “I feel like a stalker.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. We’re more like spies. We’re having an adventure.”

Alice isn’t really the adventurous type. “What if he turns around and sees us?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Unlike Sicilee, Maya doesn’t feel she always has to smile. “I don’t think he’d notice me if I was wrapped in Christmas lights.” Wrapped in Christmas lights and holding a flaming torch between her teeth. “Besides, what if he does? We just happen to be going in the same direction. It is a free country, you know.”

Alice’s sigh is drowned out by someone shouting behind them. “Cody! Cody, man! Wait up!”

Cody stops and half turns around, and Maya stops breathing. If proof was needed that either she is invisible or he is blind, he waves amiably at someone behind her. Maya’s heart resumes beating as Clifton Springs’ two token goths splash past them.

“He may be seriously gorgeous and charming and charismatic and everything,” says Alice, summarizing the general opinion of a large percentage of the student body as they resume walking, “but he sure isn’t picky about who he hangs out with.”

“Maybe he’s a true free spirit, you know?” says Maya. “I mean, it’s kind of Christ-like, isn’t it? He hung out with whoever he wanted to, too.”

“I guess.” Alice’s shrug suggests that she isn’t convinced. “But, he’s new here. Aren’t you supposed to try and fit in when you’re new?”

And, as Maya knows only too well, the people Cody Lightfoot should be trying to fit in with, of course, are Maya and her friends.

But Cody has changed schools before, and fitting in – even with the hippest and coolest group in the school – is not his way. He prefers that things fit in with him. Although Clifton Springs is a school with a social hierarchy slightly more rigid than that of feudal Europe, he has already made it clear that he has no intention of aligning himself with any one group. He is friendly to everyone in a laid-back, effortless way – as likely to eat lunch with the Emos as the jocks, as likely to walk down the hallway with the class president as the class clown. This is a method that has always worked for Cody in the past, and, on the whole, it is working now. The girls like him because, despite his break-your-heart good looks, he is neither arrogant nor aloof. The boys like him because, despite the several ways in which he stands out (he’s into qigong, t’ai chi, all-weather climbing, yoga, swimming and white-water rafting – not football, basketball, baseball or wrestling), he is neither competitive nor threatening.

Indeed, the only person who has had a negative word for Cody is Jason Coombs, until a few days ago probably the hippest boy in their class. Jason thinks Cody’s a little weird because of the yoga. All that standing like a tree and omming, said Jason, is pretty much a girl’s thing. Maya, who has been on the brink of dating Jason for the last few months, said nothing but eyed him critically, noticing new flaws.

At the end of the road the goths turn left and Cody turns right, away from town.

“What did I say?” Maya’s nails dig into Alice’s arm. “Didn’t I say I had a hunch he was going home?” Maya has it all planned. As Cody reaches his front door, she’ll suddenly call out, Hello? Excuse me, but my friend and I are lost. And then he’ll turn around, eager to help, and she’ll act all surprised and say, Hey, don’t you go to Clifton Springs? Haven’t I seen you at school? He’ll hurry back to the sidewalk to talk to her, amazed that he doesn’t remember seeing her before. Yes , he’ll say, I just moved to town. She’ll hold out her hand. Well, welcome to Clifton Springs. She’ll smile. My name’s Maya. He’ll say that his name’s Cody and invite her in.

“I just hope it isn’t too far,” mutters Alice. “My feet are already soaked.”

But, as so often happens in life, Alice’s hope is not to be fulfilled. Block after block goes by, but Cody never turns up a path nor breaks his stride. Instead, he marches straight through puddles in his vintage galoshes like a man on a mission, but the girls, whose footwear is less rugged, have to scurry around the larger pools and leap across the smaller – all while trying to keep him in their sight and them out of his. Maya, warmed and protected by her fantasies, is oblivious to the distance and the weather, but as the blocks become a mile and then another, their adventure loses the little interest it had for her friend.