Love in the Time of Climate Change (33 page)

“Our apartment,” Hannah replied.

“Your apartment?”

“Yeah. And our dishes. We just moved in together and it's still a mess.”

“You moved in together?”

“Just this past weekend.”

“So you're like …”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, smiling. “Who would have thought, huh?”

I took a step backward and braced myself against my car.

Who would have thought? Who would have thought? Jesus! That was the understatement of a lifetime. While there had been plenty of hints and teasers liberally thrown our way, I still had not seen this one coming. I always thought that “opposites attract” was bullshit, but here, clearly, was a case in point. Not that they were really opposites, but still.

Hannah and Trevor? A couple?

Just on cue, Trevor came driving up, skidding on slush, and Hannah raced to the car. He opened the window, she yelled at him for being late, he gave her the finger, and
then they kissed. Not a peck on the cheek kiss. Not an “I'm sort of happy to see you” kiss. But a deep, passionate, intimate kiss. A Hollywood movie kind of kiss, when the music rises and the camera moves in for a close-up and then pans away and the credits begin to roll and the audience stands and applauds and applauds and applauds.

I awkwardly stood, along with the nine other equally stunned Climate Changers, and gawked away, all of us unable to avert our eyes.

It was a totally unexpected, beautiful sight.

Wow
, I thought.

You witness something like this and it makes you realize that anything is possible.

First the Roommate and Sarah. Then my two favorite students (next to She-Who-Now-Will-Not-Be-Named).

Double, even triple Wow!

And then the Climate Changers began to laugh. A deep, raucous, collective laugh that rocked the parking lot and drowned out the freezing rain.

Trevor had emerged from the car, his arm around Hannah, holding her tightly. Over his long, shaggy hair was the sweetest purple cap you've ever seen.

He took it off and tipped it to the crowd, bowing dramatically.

Another sparkling Hollywood highlight.

Hannah joined in the laughter, just for a moment, and then instantaneously switched gears.

“Let's move!” she ordered, reverting back to drill sergeant mode. “Time's a-wasting. We'll meet up in the lobby. Everybody drive safe.”

The drive to the Downtown Center where the foundation's offices were was a quick seven minutes. I sat in the back seat of Trevor's car and listened in amazement as Trevor went on and on about how he thought the best places for dishes was the cabinet to the left of the sink,
not the cabinet to the right, and Hannah, with her hand on his thigh, was giving him the most adoring of looks.

Abbie and Meagan, sitting hand in hand next to me, gave me a surreptitious nudge and smiled.

Once again. Who would have thought?

And then we were there.

Assembling on the front foyer, Hannah barked her final commands, and marched us into the building.

Filing up the stairs and down the hall, signs and petitions and information folders in hand, pumped up, roused and ready to do battle, we rounded the corner into the conference room.

There was no one there.

Empty.

Nobody.

Not a soul around.

“Shit!” Hannah said, despair in her voice.

“You sure you have the right room?” I asked.

She shot me the evil eye.

“Of course I have the right room. Here is the e-mail. December 13. Downtown Center. 3:00 pm. Room 206.
Shit!
”

We rushed back down the stairs to confront the foundation's work-study student, who was busily updating her Facebook status.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “The meeting was changed at the last minute to the main campus. I was so swamped I must have forgotten to tell you.”

I could see Hannah clenching and unclenching her fists, a look on her face that was the opposite of forgiving.

She was about to open her mouth when Trevor grabbed her hand.

“It's okay. We can deal. Let's go.”

One more look to kill from Hannah and off we rushed.

On the ride back to campus, Hannah gave the universe an earful. And I thought Jesse's sister's language was bad. I
didn't even know some of the definitions of Hannah's, but I assumed the worst.

Not that I could blame her. The Climate Changers had put their hearts and souls into this divestment endeavor, and to have it sabotaged by an incompetent work-study student was beyond belief.

We parked illegally and ran into the main building, up three flights of stairs to the president's conference room.

Just in time to hear the motion for the meeting to adjourn.

“Shit,” Hannah muttered once more.

Entering the room, still breathless, she explained the screw-up to the foundation's board president.

“That's Celeste for you!” he said, rolling his eyes. “I can't tell you how many empty rooms I've entered thanks to her. Given all the members' schedules, we just couldn't delay the meeting for you. Please accept my apologies.”

“So …” Hannah began.

“Forgive me for interrupting. Let me explain where we are with this,” Mister Foundation continued.

“We've read all that you've already sent to us. Quite impressive. You've done a wonderful job making your case. It seems to all of us that socially responsible investing is an idea whose time has come, particularly given the threat of climate change and those bastards running the damn energy companies.”

Did Mister Foundation actually say “bastards”?

“Anyway, Ted here, our treasurer and investment analyst extraordinaire, has done a good bit of research himself on this. He seems to think that we should be able to make as much money from socially responsible investments as we can from fossil fuels, so student scholarships won't take a hit. We might even be able to make more! Given that, hell, it seems like a no-brainer to us. We're all in agreement. It'll take a while to move the money, but I shouldn't think more than a few months. Anyway, great work. I'm
sorry to run but I've got to get to another meeting. Hopefully it'll be in the right place.”

He smiled at Hannah.

“Hats off to all of you,” he said, giving a wink to Trevor, “for a compelling, well-researched argument.” He pointed to the divestment folders. “You've done outstanding work. It's students like you who really make a difference. Great for the foundation to put our money where our mouth is. We're with you all the way. And we'll be in touch. Don't worry. Next time, I'll be the one e-mailing the room number to you.”

He shook hands with Hannah and scooted out the door, followed by the rest of the committee.

It had barely begun and, just like that, it was over.

One would have thought that the Climate Changers would be on the rapture side of euphoric. I had thrown my relationship (or lack thereof) depression out the window and was a stroke away from orgasm myself! I was floored that the foundation would acquiesce so quickly to a proposal with such significant economic implications. To act as decisively as this was, for a board known for its inertia, nothing short of amazing.

Far from being ecstatic, the Climate Changers were oddly silent. All of them. As the last of the foundation board members left, they collapsed around the conference-room table, looking deflated, morose, defeated.

You would have thought they'd just gotten a definitive NO rather than a resounding YES!

“Am I missing something here?” I asked, incredulously. “You guys just did an unbelievable thing and you're looking like something the cat dragged in. Talk to me!”

“I don't know,” Hannah stammered, her fingers intertwined in Trevor's. “I thought it was going to be much harder than this. I thought we'd have to fight tooth and nail for it. You know, refuse to take no for an answer. Picket and petition and rabble rouse and do all that cool stuff.
Sit-in at the foundation office. Maybe even get arrested. I never expected them to just say yes! And now, just like that, it's over. It's weird. I'm like, I don't know, disappointed. It sort of took the fun out of it.”

I couldn't help but smile, but I got it.

It was a bloodless victory, triumph with no casualties, a successful storming of the Bastille without ever having taken the sword out of the scabbard. Adrenalin was flowing, blood was boiling, hackles were up … and the enemy had ruined everything by not being the enemy! By being on our side. A win handed to you on a silver platter seemed somewhat less deserved, less fulfilling.

Oh to be young again! At my age, I took the victories, few and far between as they were, any way I could get them.

Damn the foundation! Why did they have to go and do the right thing so quickly? What were they thinking?

Bastards!

“Well, if you'd like,” I suggested, “I could ask them to reconsider? Would that make you feel better?”

Hannah sheepishly shook her head.

There were glasses from the meeting still on the conference room table along with a pitcher of water, all untouched.

I poured a round for everyone.

“I propose a toast!” I announced. “To the greatest student activist group in the country. I take that back. To the greatest student activist group in the world! To a group who cares not only about their Facebook status, their reality TV shows, their wardrobe, but about shit that actually matters.”

“To shit that matters!” Hannah and Trevor and the rest of the Climate Changers repeated to the clinking of glasses.

“Thanks to all of you, we may well be the first community college in the country that will divest our endowment
from fossil fuels. Think about it. The first in the friggin' country! That's huge. Really huge. Gigantically huge!”

“To shit that's gigantically huge!” Hannah yelled. More glass clinking. The Climate Changers were perking up considerably.

“I sympathize. It would have been way more fun to hunker down in the trenches and take fire from all sides, and ultimately come out victorious. But don't forget, you worked your asses off on this. You gave them what they needed to make the right choice. And they did it. They did it!”

“To all of our asses!” Trevor yelled, his hand straying down from Hannah's back to her rear end. Clinking, laughing, smiling.

I was on a roll.

“Seriously. I have so much respect for all of you. You're amazing. There is nothing, nothing you can't do. It's because of all of you I have faith in the world. It's because of you I can get up in the morning and do the work that I have to do. It's because of you I can cast off this bout of …” I caught myself and stopped short.

“Thank you,” I continued. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you!”

Hannah paused for a moment trying to find a segue into yet another toast, but it proved too elusive.

“To shit that matters!” she yelled once more.

In no time at all, the Climate Changers were patting themselves on the back, pounding and high-fiving, telling each other how wonderful they all were.

Hannah and Trevor gave each other another long sensual kiss, much to the delight of the rest of the gang, who hooted and hollered.

We marched out of the conference room down the hall, and back to class or work or home or wherever.

To shit that matters!

Here here!

WELCOME TO THE PVCC PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAYS!
Look behind the East Building. These are solar electric or photovoltaic (PV) modules that convert sunlight directly into electricity to provide lighting, power computers, and maintain proper ventilation in our buildings. Photovoltaic modules harvest a renewable, inexhaustible, and free source of energy: the sun. They do not burn any fossil fuels—coal, oil, or natural gas—and do not release any harmful pollutants or greenhouse gasses (such as CO
₂
) into the atmosphere. Installing photovoltaic modules is one way to decrease our reliance on nonrenewable forms of energy.

Photovoltaic modules have no moving parts, require very little maintenance, and last for decades. They act like electron pumps. On one side of the solar cells that make up a module there are atoms that produce a surplus of electrons, and on the other side there are atoms that produce a deficit of electrons. This establishes a voltage difference between the two sides. When the sun is shining, bundles of light energy, called photons, strike the cell. Electrons get “excited” and begin to flow down the voltage difference,
much as water flows down a slope. This flow forms an electric current, producing electricity. Photovoltaics provide us with electricity without contributing to climate change.

—From the signage next to the PV panels at PVCC

J
ESSE'S SISTER
, C
LARA
, the second-grade teacher with the mouth, was developing a rather acute case of OCD. I took total credit for it, thank you very much. I prided myself on my ability to pass on this crippling, devastating, mind-numbing, incurable condition to those whom I cared deeply about.