earthgirl (6 page)

“This is so lame,” Carmen sniffed over the rangy guitars. “And there's no one here. I'm telling Darren to bail.”

She dug into her perky pink plastic purse for her equally perky and pink cellphone.

“Shane McCardle is here,” Ella giggled with a baby wave in his direction.

“So? He's a stoner,” Carmen answered, flipping open the phone.

“Is not. He just has stoner hair and clothes.”

“Yeah,” Carmen nodded, dragging out the word for extreme emphasis and widening her eyes. “Cause he's a stoner.”

“I feel horrible for Vray,” I shouted. “He worked so hard to make this happen and no one cares enough about the earth to even show up.”

“Maybe that's because his band sucks,” Carmen shrugged as she deftly punched a text message with her long manicured nails. As if Carmen were suddenly the authority on all that was hip and sonically sound (admittedly, they weren't the best band I've ever seen, not that I've seen a ton of bands).

“You can go if you want,” I said, even though I didn't really mean it.

“Thanks, Beanie, you rock,” Carmen said, giving me a hug. “And way more than O-Zone.” And with that she
made the devil horns with her fist as she and Ella turned and headed toward the back of the empty black hole. Making it feel even more empty and a little sad.

•••

I liked the song about toads,” I told Vray as he gulped back water from a dented and stickered SIGG bottle.

“Thanks,” he nodded, running his sleeve across his mouth and making me wish I were his sleeve. He sounded distracted and a bit exhausted. I guess I would be, too, if I'd had a benefit and barely anyone showed up.

I hoped that having a new convert like me offered a bit of consolation. Even if my being there was equal parts interest in the earth and in him.

“You were better than the Monkey Wrench Gang, in my humble opinion, anyway,” I added, wishing I knew Vray well enough to give him a hug to make him feel better for the show totally biting. And to make me feel better, too. It was hardly the explosive experience I wanted for my debut earthgirl activity. But mostly I was disappointed for him.

“Look, Sabine, it's cool you came out, but Finn and me gotta get the amps back to the rental place. Then I have to study for calculus,” he explained.

“Sure,” I nodded, blindsided by the abrupt end. But then he scribbled his coordinates on the back of a cardboard drink coaster.

It's funny how when I sniffed it after he left, I didn't seem to mind the smell of sweat and stale beer.

e a r t h g i r l
Car(e)-free Me...
[ Oct. 12th | 09:53pm ]
[ mood | enthralled ]
[ music | hallelujah by leonard cohen the rufus wainwright version ]

Apparently, in addition to the EAL concert, today was also carfree Sunday. A carnival of non-car-related frolic.

People were dancing and doing yoga on the road! I even saw some people having a picnic, blanket and all, by the curb! The girl pouring tea even put money in the parking machine and had the little paper receiptflflapping fr om the bell of her bike.

Crazy adorable. Except for the honking and cussing drivers in the zombie army who wanted her space for their monster machines. Space she'd paid for and was just as entitled to as them.

Public space. Everybody's space.

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Vague-a-bond 10-12 21:01
sounds like that action league benefit may have had benefits. wink
²
, nudge
²
.
coming soon, some fr-eco action!

e a r t h g i r l
[ Oct. 13th | 07:38am ]
Dearest V, even though I don't know you beyond this special *everybody* space, I'm so happy to know you. Thanks for your kindness and encouragement.

Vague-a-bond 10-13 10:13

aw shucks, grrlfriend. backatcha

Hey Vray
. No, that sounds silly.
Yo Vray
. Not. Maybe just a plain old
hi
. But then what?
Thanks for inviting me to the show.
Too lame. Maybe
Hey, I was totally amped to be at your awesome gig and super choked other people opted out.
Wrong!

Whatever I wrote had to be profound and perfect because (a) that's what and who I wanted to be and (b) Vray seemed like a profound kind of person. Like someone who held onto things that were meaningful. And for all I knew, he might be forwarding my emails to Finn or any of his other eco-associates or bandmates. Nah, most guys probably didn't do that, and he seemed too private, but still if I e-ed him it would have to be stellar. Beyond stellar, if that was even possible.

I guess I could always phone. And say what?
How was your calculus test? Did you get the rental gear back in time?

Ahhhhhhh! This was infuriating. Especially since Carmen's boy-catching expertise could be incredibly helpful at times like this and yet there was absolutely no way in hell I'd enlist her now. Not after her snarky post concert TXT.

Hot-T YES! Also mopey misguided potentially unstable. Seriously ???-able BF material :(

I didn't even give her the dignity of responding. I mean it's not like I forced her to go, or invite then uninvite her own boyfriend, and I never promised it would be interesting. There was absolutely no need to be rude and judgmental and insensitive to both of us. Not that there was an
us
exactly, not precisely yet, anyway.

“Hey, Bean, what's going on?” my dad asked as he shyly poked his head into my room.

“Nothing,” I answered, slamming my laptop shut.

“You're not surfing for dirty pictures, I hope,” he laughed. “Or worse, shopping.”

Dads were so embarrassing when they tried to be funny. I gave him my best what-do-you-want-and-why-are-you-bugging-me-in-my-sacred-space glare. Unfortunately, it didn't work and he wormed his way into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. He picked up my Pokemon pillow (revered for its status as the first and only prize I ever won at the Ex) and started punching it in the face.

“Do you mind?”

“Right, sorry,” he nodded, putting it back amidst my plushy and pillow collection, which suddenly seemed very little girlie. “Pokemons are people, too. Anyway, I see you're busy with that web diary or whatever it is you do all day and night when you probably should be doing homework. I wanted to give you this.” He reached behind his back and passed me a plastic bag from Indigo, this giant megabook-store
chain. I think he'd tucked it into the waist of his chinos.

“Try blogging, streaming, Facebooking or checking MySpace,” I corrected as I peeked inside the bag and pulled out the crunchy new book –
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Global Warming
.

“Since you're getting into the earth-mother-nature-girl thing, I picked it up for you,” he smiled proudly. Like I might have decided to be a dentist like him or could suddenly speak a dozen languages fluently including Elvish.

I thumbed through it, then gave him my most evil gaze.

“I'm not an idiot,” I huffed and threw the book at him. I cringed as it bounced off Chichi, my stuffed lion, and landed on the duvet half open, its cover now crumpled.

“No one said you were,” he answered, looking very startled and ironing the big fold in the cover with his palm. “It's just a book. It's just what they call it, that's all.”

“Then why do you and Mom keep making fun of me?” I asked, completely pissed off he'd proven my theory that parents had nothing better to do than talk about you behind your back and worse, mock you! And more than that also had an annoying knack for interrupting you when you were dealing with the profound implications of contacting the guy you were madly crushing.

“I thought you might like it, that's all,” he said, sounding genuinely hurt. “I can take it back.”

“No,” I said, because the truth was it actually looked like it could be informative, even if it had such a stupid title. “Thanks for getting it, but next time you get me a book you
should support the small independent stores. Ruby from work says we have to or they'll disappear.”

“Okay,” he said giving my hair a ruffle like I was a dog or a baby. “Whatever you say, my little activist.”

And with that he ducked out of my room.

Parents are so utterly lame.

“See how this painting has a blue sky background and this one is gray and hazy?” Vray said, pointing to a dark oil painting of some decrepit old buildings and bridges. “That one dates before the Industrial Revolution. That's why the sky is bright. This one was painted after, when there was smog in the air all the time.”

And here I'd been thinking I'd be lucky if our inaugural face-to-face was at some indie-coffee-shop-type venue. Instead we were wandering through the Art Gallery of Ontario talking about what art revealed about our world. Could there be a more perfect way to expand my burgeoning social consciousness, my artistic sensibilities and world view?

“Come on, that can't be true,” I said, thinking this was all too strange to be possible. That we were discussing politics, the environment and history and it was almost sexy. Plus the fact that even over a hundred years ago, people were apparently as indifferent to pollution as they were now. No wonder things were such a stinky mess.

“We're talking about the 1850s. Photography had been invented, but was in its early stages and pretty experimental
and expensive, so paintings were the main way people documented the world.”

“But why was there so much pollution? I thought cars were one of the biggest problems,” I said, marveling at how clever and informed and insightful Vray was for being only seventeen. And marveling even more at how I could be standing in front of these significant documents of history while the world's history of stupidity and destruction repeated itself.

“They're an issue, but back then people burned coal, one of the dirtiest forms of energy, for almost everything. Manufacturing, heating, cooking. And it made everything gray. Not that we learned anything, since we still burn tons of it every day, instead of demanding cleaner energy.”

We wandered past more ominous paintings of pudgy, pink-faced people in dark, gloomy settings.

“Smog is just a combination of smoke and fog. When the smoke rose into the atmosphere and met with the fog that's so common in Britain, it got stuck there, so you ended up with smog.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, amazed that he obviously read so much stuff outside of school. And especially that he cared enough to get informed. So much for grown-ups whimpering about teen indifference. Vray was a living, breathing example of a social-conscious keener.

“I used to watch Jeopardy a lot.” He smiled that seriously swoon-inducing smile.

“Seriously,” I asked, giving his biceps (his apparently very muscular biceps!) a little squeeze. I realized with a pleasant
shudder that it was the first time I'd actually touched him. Wow. You could fall in love in an art gallery, I thought, wondering if it might be happening right now.

“Books, talking to people. My mom and dad teach at U of T, and their blowhard friends always argue and debate this and that. Mostly useless academic stuff and I want to do more than just talk about ideas.”

“It's like our parents and their generation made a complete mess of everything and it's up to us to fix it.”

“It's debatable how much can be fixed,” Vray said flatly. “So much stuff is beyond the point of no return. The only thing we can do is maybe slow down the inevitable decline of civilization and send out some pretty loud warnings about the consequences.”

“That's awful,” I said, wondering if we really were on our way to the end of the earth in a speeding car with no brakes (and who exactly was driving). “If we can't make a difference, what's the point of your environmental action-hero thing? Or the band? Or anything, for that matter?”

“It's seriously cute how worked up you get about all this,” Vray said as he looked at me.

“I'm not trying to be cute,” I said, even though I was exquisitely thrilled that he thought I was. “I'm just trying to do something and now you're telling me there's no point. You do realize the doomsday stuff is kind of a downer?”

As the words left my mouth, I seriously hoped I didn't sound like Carmen and Ella, since that was a million miles from what I intended. I was just baffled he could be so informed and so defeatist in the same breath.

“Everything we do to acknowledge the mess and strain on the planet helps. It sets an example,” he explained, wrapping his fabulous strong arm around my shoulder and pulling me in for a demi-hug as we walked through the gallery. “But it doesn't change the cycle of humanity, which obviously points to our eventual extinction. It happened before. It'll happen again. Trick is to be the best you can be and keep the world as pristine as you can while you're here.”

His arm had dropped from its contact with my body, but I could still feel the warmth where he'd touched me. I'd probably have melted then and there if we hadn't paused in front of a blue and white iceberg painting by Lawren Harris, my favorite Group of Seven artist. Even though his style was globby and cartoonish, you could almost feel the cool breeze coming off the barren northern landscape. The now-disappearing North of frozen glaciers, icebergs, ice floes and apparently not-so-permanent permafrost.

The moment was so epic, so profound, I was frantic to say something to mark it. Something significant and meaningful and decidedly uncute.

Then I remembered a little blurb I'd found flipping through the Idiot's Guide (which actually turned out to be pretty informative and interesting. Thanks, Daddy!).