by Dyan Sheldon
Sicilee isn’t really listening. She seems to be smiling at Loretta and Ash, but really she is gazing beyond them, to a table at the side of the room where today Cody Lightfoot sits with Clemens Reis and his loser friends, looking like a movie star visiting a homeless shelter at Thanksgiving. Why is he sitting with them? They’re nobodies. They’re less than nobodies. They’re crustaceous growths on the skin of society. If anybody else – anybody, even Kristin, even her own mother – was to eat lunch with Clemens, Sicilee would be so grossed out that she would never be able to speak to them again. But that, of course, is not the way she feels about Cody. All that really bothers her is the fact that he isn’t sitting with her.
Last week ended no better than it began. Even though Sicilee shares a classroom with Cody Lightfoot every day, she knew him no better on Friday afternoon than she had on Tuesday morning.
She watches Cody put the Thermos back into his old-fashioned workman’s lunchbox and take out a small container as though he is doing something truly remarkable that no human teenager has ever done before. Sicilee stifles a sigh. None of the boys she considers her friend ever brings his lunch from home. None of them wears his hair the length Cody does, or dresses the way Cody dresses – or causes Sicilee’s heart to miss a beat when he smiles either.
Cody removes half a sandwich from the container. Her eyes follow the sandwich as it moves towards his squashy, kissable lips. Sicilee’s own sandwich sits untouched on her tray. She has less interest in food right now than in learning to weave straw baskets.
“Don’t you think so, Siss?” asks Loretta.
Sicilee nods automatically. “Uh huh.”
Last Friday, Sicilee finally managed to be right behind Cody as they left English, and asked him, conversationally, about changing schools in the middle of the year. “It must be such a drag,” said Sicilee. “Starting all over again, I mean.”
Cody said that it wasn’t a problem. He embraces change.
To stop herself from saying that she wished he’d embrace her, Sicilee offered to show him the town.
But this wasn’t a problem either.
“I’ve been here before. You know, visiting my dad. So I know my way around.”
But Sicilee still wasn’t daunted. She invited him to a party on Saturday night. “You know,” said Sicilee, “so you can meet everybody.”
“Everybody?” Cody grinned. “That’s going to be a pretty big party.”
Unsure as to whether or not he was making fun of her, Sicilee laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not really a party person,” said Cody. And then (just when she was starting to think that, for some unfathomable reason, he was being deliberately dense) he gave her a smile that could have heated every house in Clifton Springs for the rest of the winter, lowered his voice intimately and added, “I’m much more into one-on-one.”
Now, as she watches him lick something from his fingers, Sicilee wonders again what he meant by that. Was it a come-on? Did he mean one-on-one with her? Or did he mean one-on-one with someone else?
Cody brushes crumbs from his mouth. His hand is wide and solid, the fingers delicate and long. Sicilee gulps her flavoured water, stifling a sigh.
If he meant he’d rather see her alone than with dozens of strangers, then why on Earth doesn’t he ask her out? It’s not as if she hasn’t given him plenty of encouragement. The only way she could do more to bring attention to herself would be to wear bells. Risking sweat and dishevelment, Sicilee rushes to English every day in the hope of sitting beside him. She used to lurk at the back of the class with Kristin, passing notes or checking her texts, but now she puts herself right near the front, raising her hand whenever Mrs Sotomayor asks a question, whether she knows the answer or not, and loudly agreeing with everything Cody says. Oh, I think so, too, she says. At the end of English, she risks broken bones again, frantic to be the person behind Cody as he leaves the room. She is always strolling through the corridor when he goes to his locker in the morning. She is always in the main hall when he leaves in the afternoon. If it weren’t for the fact that she gets a ride every day from Mrs Shepl after school, she’d be tempted to follow him home.
And does Cody notice all her efforts? Does he not. Any other boy would be flattered. Pleased with himself. Any other boy would go straight to the seat she’d saved for him every day, not just when there’s nowhere else to sit. Any other boy would lean close to compare notes. Borrow a pen. Compliment her. Tease her to find out if she has a steady boyfriend. Beg her for a date.
But Cody, of course, is not just any boy. Which is both a point in his favour and an obvious drawback, because he could only notice Sicilee less if she were invisible. Or someone else. Some dull, dumpy girl with limp hair and no dress sense. Sure, he smiles back when Sicilee smiles at him; he nods when they pass in the hallway; he talks to her when she strikes up a conversation. But he smiles and nods at and talks to a lot of people (including people Sicilee didn’t know were in the school before she saw him smiling and nodding at and talking to them). Sicilee stifles another sigh. That first glimpse of Cody, crossing the main hall with his schedule in his hand, was the last time she’s ever seen him alone.
Sicilee can’t figure out what’s going wrong. What can the problem be? Sure, her mouth is a little small and her laugh has been unfavourably compared to the distress call of a young seagull, but, those small imperfections aside, she is hands down the prettiest, most popular and most desirable girl in the entire school. Everyone knows that.
“He’s probably just so used to looking at himself in the mirror that he doesn’t notice when somebody else is gorgeous,” suggested Kristin when Sicilee was trying to solve the mystery.
“But I’m used to looking at me,” argued Sicilee, “and I notice him.”
Now, the other girls move on to where they’ll have lunch at the mall next Saturday. The hamburger bar’s getting kind of passé. Ditto the taqueria. The pizzeria is out for the moment because Loretta is back on her diet. Kristin doesn’t like Chinese food. Ash won’t go to the deli since the time they gave her tuna instead of chicken salad. Loretta says they could always go to that new vegetarian place, and they all laugh.
Sicilee laughs, too, but inside she is closer to tears. So this is what it’s like to be in love, she thinks as she watches Cody clap Clemens on the shoulder like they’re old, old friends. Obsessed. Fixated. Riddled with doubt and despair. It drives her totally crazy that he shows no interest in her. It drives her even crazier that she cares.
On the other side of the room, the oblivious object of Sicilee’s affections suddenly pushes back his chair and gets to his feet. He starts strolling towards the back of the room. He must need something from the kitchen.
A piece of cutlery clatters to the floor.
“Don’t you think so, Sicilee?” asks Loretta.
“Yeah,” says Ash. “What do you think?”
“I’ll be right back,” says Sicilee. “I need a clean fork.”
Chapter Nine
Sicilee isn’t the only one who is unhappy about being ignored
Maya is late for lunch. She texts Alice as she scurries to the cafeteria. IS HE THR? ON MY WY. Maya has been late a lot in the past week. She has been late for each of her classes at least once. Late for homeroom every day. Late for school this morning. Late picking up her little sister from her cello lesson on Wednesday. So late for her appointment with the dentist last Thursday that she missed it.
“But you don’t understand – it wasn’t my fault,” she told her mother during their discussion of where she’d been when she was supposed to be in Mr Barley’s waiting room.
“Oh, really? And whose fault was it?” Mrs Baraberra sounded genuinely curious.
“Ms Kimodo’s,” said Maya. “If she hadn’t given us that assignment, I wouldn’t have had to race over to the library like that, would I?”
This excuse came under the heading of Necessary Lies. Obviously, there was no way Maya could expl
ain to her mother that she is under the control of forces far greater than herself – so great that they could stop the moon in its orbit and drop every star from the sky, never mind make her miss her six-month check-up. Her mother is a practical woman who alphabetizes her canned goods and checks the spare tyre in her car at least once a month. Passion is as foreign a language to her as Norwegian. If Maya told her mother that she’s the Plaything of Destiny, a Victim of Love, her mother would think she’s taking drugs. Even though that would have been the truth, of course: love has Maya by the heart. The realization hit her as she and Alice trudged home on Thursday afternoon. Naturally, Maya has had crushes before, but she’s never felt like this. She thinks about Cody Lightfoot all the time. She turns into a bowl of hot fudge sauce every time she gets near him. If she even thinks she sees him, she feels as though she’s just been pushed out of a plane. This isn’t just a passing infatuation. This is l-o-v-e, love.
Which, in something of a history-making event, gives Maya and Sicilee two things in common. Being in love and being ignored.
The debacle on Thursday was, of course, not Maya’s first attempt to snare Cody Lightfoot’s attention. It took her two days to piece together his schedule. His locker is near Mallory’s. Shelby has English across the hall from Cody’s class. Jason is in his gym class and Shayla in history. Maya’s lab partner, Daisy, sits behind him in Cantonese. Daisy’s boyfriend Theo is in his homeroom. Brion has media studies with him, and Finn has maths. This information has allowed Maya to plot where Cody Lightfoot will be at the beginning or end of almost every period, and to be there, too. If Maya could be in two places at once, Cody wouldn’t be able to go anywhere but the toilet without tripping over her.
Which, of course, explains why she’s always late. Late for classes and homeroom because she’s upstairs when she should be downstairs, in the east wing when she should be in the west.
Not that any of this running around has done Maya any good so far. She lingers with Theo at his homeroom door every morning – and Cody nods at Theo, and slips inside. She stands with Daisy outside the Cantonese classroom – and Cody gives Daisy one of his blind-that-girl smiles, and sails right in. She hovers in the English corridor, but she always winds up talking to Shelby, watching Cody drift past with a girl on each side like a ship being escorted into harbour by tugboats. She has sidled up to both Brion and Jason when they were talking to Cody, grinning like a salesman, and Cody has finished what he was saying and walked away. On Friday, Cody suddenly appeared in the doorway of the art room, but it was to the boy next to Maya that he said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Mr Zin.” And twice a day she goes with Mallory to her locker, but the only time Cody’s so much as glanced at her was when she accidentally hit him with her book bag.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked Alice.
Alice says she shouldn’t take it personally. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” said Alice. “For the love of God, he hasn’t been here a week yet. You have to cut him a little slack.”
“He talked to you,” snapped Maya.
“He asked me what time the library closes,” sighed Alice. “If you’d been there, he would’ve asked you.”
“Maybe,” grumped Maya.
But if something isn’t wrong with her, then something isn’t right.
“Like what?” asked Alice.
Like maybe he likes girlier girls. Or shorter girls. Or taller girls. Or girls who are really thin. Or girls who look cuddly. Or girls who have curly hair. Or blonde hair. Or hair so black it’s almost blue. Girls who listen to commercial radio. Girls who look as though they’ve never seen a foreign film in their lives.
“Maybe he isn’t into girls at all,” said Alice.
“Oh, right.” Maya laughed. “You haven’t noticed that he’s almost always got at least two girls trailing after him?”
“Well then, maybe he’s just shy,” said Alice.
“I repeat my original question,” said Maya.
It is because she spent 45 minutes getting dressed this morning that Maya is now hurrying down the hall. In her rush to leave the house on time, she forgot her homework for history. Ms Kimodo made her stay after class to explain why.
Her phone starts to shiver as she nears the cafeteria. It’s Alice. HURRY. C AT BCK. Maya runs the last few metres, and yanks open the door with so much force she fairly shoots into the room.
Chapter Ten
Waneeda, at least, is used to being ignored
Unlike Sicilee and Maya, Waneeda hasn’t spent so much as a second brooding, plotting, scheming or wondering why Cody Lightfoot ignores her. There would be no point. And as much as she would like Cody to talk to her and smile at her in the real world, that isn’t really necessary either. Just his presence is enough. Waneeda keeps the knowledge of her crush on Cody locked in her heart, happy enough to have the secret of it, like something rare and special just for her. For Waneeda, being sweet on Cody makes her feel warm and content the way watching a movie in which everyone is beautiful and funny and endearing and guaranteed a happy ending does. It comforts her. It’s light entertainment.
Excited that she is about to have the chance to see Cody Lightfoot for a matter of minutes rather than seconds, Waneeda emerges from the lunch queue with her loaded tray, her eyes automatically scanning the room. She and Joy Marie, belonging to no group, sit right outside the kitchen with the other landless peasants, flanked by vending machines, garbage cans and the recycling bins that everyone ignores, but instead of crossing those few metres to their table, Waneeda stops suddenly in the exit, transfixed by something on the left side of the room. There, sitting with Clemens and his oddball friends, is Cody Lightfoot, laughing and talking and, of course, eating.
Joy Marie, though not really interested in boys or campus gossip, has nonetheless mentioned Cody Lightfoot several times in the course of the past week, in an I-hear-he-did-this, I-hear-he-did-that type of way, but Waneeda never brings up his name lest she give herself away and end up with scorn and ridicule heaped on her head. Now, however, as she finally takes her seat across from Joy Marie, Waneeda says, “Do you see what I see? Cody Lightfoot’s eating lunch with the Brotherhood of the Nerd!”
Joy Marie finds this piece of news so totally unnoteworthy that she doesn’t so much as glance behind her.
“Didn’t I tell you that he talks to Clem?” Joy Marie removes her cheese on wholewheat sandwich from the reused plastic bag she’s wrapped it in. “What did you think I meant?”
“I thought you meant that he asks him things like what he got for question three in the maths homework. Not that he hangs out with him.”
“Well, that’s not what I meant. I meant that they’re friends.” Joy Marie takes a bite of her sandwich. “Clemens says he and Cody have a lot in common.”
This seems so unlikely that Waneeda laughs. “That must be a nice change for Clemens.”
“I’m serious.” Joy Marie helps herself to the bowl of salad on Waneeda’s tray. Waneeda doesn’t really do vegetables. “Clem said that he and Cody are more or less on the same page. You know, about the 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.”
