He was very environmentally conscious. He had to be. It was what colleges wanted to see these days. Football and jazz band and an IQ of 180. The latter two were taken care of, but he really did not care to think about his thin frame, thick glasses, and pacifistic ideals on a football field. So he went with choice D, environmental activism, in particular, recycling empty soda cans. He was sure it would look excellent on his resume, but in practicality it meant spending his Saturdays chasing empty cans across windy parking lots and trying to persuade his fellow students to give a damn, primarily via hand-colored posters starring anthropomorphized planets and recycling cans.

He had decided that about fifty a week would be good enough to persuade college interviewers that he really, truly cared about the earth we share. He shuddered. He was starting to think like one of his posters. He pushed his cart full of cans over to the best house in the neighborhood, can-collecting-wise. He had gathered about twenty hanging around outside the 7-11, and with the thirty or so he normally collected here, he was just about ready to head home and do something he actually cared about. It was the only house that he actually stopped at- because he could count on collecting so much.

She filled a bag with her empty diet Coke cans, adding one more as she gulped the last bit down. The environment geek boy would be here soon. She was glad he came around. She supposed the environment was important, or something, and she certainly collected her share of pollution, with all the diet soda she drank.

Show you care! It’s only fair! Help to save to world we share!

Save me, she had thought. But since she had so many empty diet soda cans cluttering up her locker, she might as well dump them in the boy’s bin. He had been amazed by the number of cans she had accumulated.

“You think that’s something?” she had said, “You should see the amount I get by garbage day at home.”

He had asked if he could come by every week, and why not? One less bag to carry to the curb for her.

She had made him a plate of Christmas cookies, because he always came when he said he would, but also as a test, to see how strong a dieter she was. She only needed to lose a few more pounds, but lately all she could think about was food. If she could watch him eat the cookies, and not touch them herself, then she was sure she had the strength to lose those last few pounds.

The doorbell rang.

The Diet Coke Girl answered the door. She looked like a wreck, like she always did. Her stick-thin frame was swathed in a baggy sweatsuit, her hair was dull, her eyes glassy. She looked like a corpse come back from a jog.

“You want some Christmas cookies?” she asked. Her voice was surprisingly pretty.

“I’m Jewish.”

“You can pretend they’re shaped like Hanukkah trees then. Come on.”

He was never one to pass up free food. She placed a tray of nondenominational evergreen-tree cookies on a coffee table, then gestured for him to sit. She perched nervously on the edge of the chair across from him, staring hungrily at the cookies. He reached for the plate and tentatively took one. Her eyes flicked up to him for a second, but then fixed on the cookies again.

“Aren’t you going to have one?” he asked. She looked starved.

“No, I’m not hungry” she said.

“You look hungry.” Understatement of the century.

“I’m not,” she said firmly.

He ate his cookie quietly and left, forgetting the bag of empty cans.

The Environment Geek returned the next day, with a plate of dreidel-shaped cookies.

“Sorry,” he said, “I forgot my empty cans. I brought you some cookies.”

“No thanks. I’m not hungry,” she said.

“You always look hungry.”

“I’m on a diet.”

“You don’t need one.”

“Just a few more pounds…”

“You look perfect to me.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. He blushed and brandished the cookies.

“You can pretend they’re Christmas dreidels.”

She smiled and took a cookie.

“Do you want to get pizza with me tomorrow?” he asked.

“I’d love to,” she replied.