The Academie (15 page)

I smiled and shrugged, still not
getting it.

“
Chinese medicine says
that health is achieved when yin and yang are in balance. So being
a stable atom is the way to be.” Now she was smiling.

“
Where did you learn all
of this?”

“
I’m blessed with really
open-minded parents. Some they’ve taught me, some I’ve learned from
people and places they’ve introduced me to over the years, and some
I learned on my own from books, retreats, you name it.”

“
Wow, that’s really
cool….So is it safe to say that your parents aren’t big fans of The
Academie?” I had to ask.

“
No, not at all.” She
laughed in an unhumored sort of way.

“
Lucky. My parents…ugh…” I
decided not to get into it.

“
Sorry.”

“
How are you so good about
everything then, if you’re not into it—The Academie, I mean. You
never seen unhappy here.”

“
Like I said before, I’m
trying to practice contentment. The goal is to be content despite
suffering.”

“
Well it looks to me like
you are doing a great job,” I said, genuinely impressed.

“
Oh, there’s one more
thing I wanted to say about yin yang. This part I find really
interesting. If you remember what the Tai Chi symbol looks
like—Here, I’ll get some paper.” She grabbed a notebook from her
stack of books and a pen from her desk drawer, then met me again on
the floor. She proceeded to draw the circular image with the black
and white tadpoles. Last, she added eyes.

“
So you’ll notice, in each
half, there’s a dot of the other color. In Chinese philosophy, the
belief is that each contains a seed of the other. So, if you think
of each side as a polarity—or opposite—then each contains a seed of
its opposite. In destruction, for example, there is a seed of
creation, and vice versa. Some say that it also means that
everything contains the seeds of its own destruction….or
redemption—depending on if you are a glass half empty or half full
kind of person.” She smiled again.

“
That’s pretty
deep.”

“
I love this kind of
stuff. I read all kinds of philosophy and metaphysics.”

“
I think it’s great.” I
had never known anyone like her.
Why
hadn’t I met her in high school?

“
What year are you,
Shara?”

“
In Academie
terms?”

“
No, in the real world. In
college. Were you in college?”

“
Junior. Chinese Studies
major, naturally.”

“
I was just wondering how
we never met in high school.”

“
Big school.”

“
Yeah, too big
maybe.”

“
Maybe, but if it weren’t,
then we might not be meeting now either.”

“
I guess….So, you’re a
glass half-full type of person, huh?”

“
I try,” she
said.

“
Me too, but it doesn’t
always work.”

“
Stevie’s a glass full
kind of a person,” Shara said.

“
Definitely. It’s what I
love about her!”

“
Me too. She’s
great.”

“
Okay, I think I’m ready
to meditate now. Balancing the yin and yang. I can do
this.”

“
Do you think you can do
ten minutes?”

“
I don’t know. What have
we been doing so far?”

“
Five.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, it always seems
like longer, doesn’t it?”

“
Definitely.”
Though with thoughts of Bryan, I didn’t
mind…

She crossed her legs and laid her
palms face up on her knees. “Ready?”

“
Yeah.”

She smiled and closed her
eyes.

I closed mine and at first I felt a
great calm. In that moment I felt content, happy. Then I tried to
focus on balancing my yin and yang, but I realized that I hadn’t
actually asked Shara how I might do that. Thoughts of what she had
just told me began to swim in my brain, followed by thoughts of the
five page paper I now had due Monday. I tried to focus back on the
stream Shara had mentioned before, to wash the thoughts away, but I
found my heart beating faster from the thoughts of the paper. So,
at last I gave in. I went to my happy place.

I was back at Bryan’s.

19.
the corn graveyard

“
They are really great,” I
remember saying, breaking the silence that had followed Bryan’s
parents out of the kitchen.

“
Yeah. I told you they
were.”

“
I’ve never met anyone
like them.”

“
Yeah, but my mom; she
sure can get worked up, huh?” He smiled and raised his eyebrows in
an expression that said ‘sometimes I just don’t know what to do
with her.’ “But enough of them,” he said, suddenly moving away from
the island counter he’d be leaning on and moving around to my side.
“What do you want to do tonight?”

“
Great question. Hmm… I
don’t know. There are so many things…. I mean, my gut reaction is
to say that we should watch a movie, since it’s late anyway. But
then we can’t talk and we’ll probably get tired and fall
asleep.”

“
And I really don’t want
to fall asleep any time soon. I don’t care if I sleep at all
tonight.” He was close to me now and his chestnut eyes were right
there, looking ever so gently at me.

“
Me either.” I said,
smiling up at him. I liked the way that neither of us actually
mentioned that we had to use the time as wisely as possible since
it was our
only
time together. This was better. This way I could imagine that
tonight was just the first of many days and nights like this to
come.

“
Oh! You know what I could
go for?” he said, his expression suddenly filled with the
excitement of inspiration.

“
Huh?”

“
Homemade chocolate chip
cookies!”

“
Oh,” I said, a little
surprised. “Yeah, actually, that sounds great,” I added, realizing
how long it’d been since I’d had homemade cookies last. “But wait,
aren’t you guys supposed to be a bunch of health food nuts? And we
already had cake tonight.”

“
Oh come on. You have to
live sometime! And I’ve been dying for these and who knows when
I’ll get another chance. Besides, that was carrot cake. Does that
really count?”

“
I don’t know; you tell
me.”

“
As far as I’m concerned,
if it doesn’t have chocolate, then it doesn’t count.”

“
Oh, I like the way you
think. Well then, I guess we’ll have to make you some birthday
cookies,” I said, grinning again.

“
Hmm… I’m not sure if
they’ll have the stuff,” he said, now rummaging through the
cabinets. “Yeah, no chocolate chips or butter.” He closed the
refrigerator and turned to look at me. “It’s one of the downsides
to living with health nuts. Up for a late-night shopping
run?”

“
Sure.” At the moment, I
loved the idea of going anywhere with him. I think he could have
asked if I wanted to go garbage picking with him, and I would have
agreed. Looking at the clock though, I couldn’t help but ask, “Will
anything be open? It’s after eleven.”

“
There’s an all-night
place not too far away.”

“
Sounds good.”

“
I’ll go get the
keys.”

He came back minutes later, keys and
cash in hand. “Luckily, I remembered to ask for cash too. It felt
weird asking them for money. I’ve had a job and earned my own since
I was about fourteen. But now…” he trailed off but it was obvious
that the rest of the thought explained that The Academie of course
does not let students have outside employment.

I quickly tried to shift the
conversation away from The Academie. “Where’d you work?” Somehow we
had never gotten into his employment history before, probably
because when he was at The Academie it would surely remind him of
his life out here and depress him more than he was already.
Typically I tried to steer our conversations away from anything
that might lead in the direction of real life.

“
I had a lot of different
jobs. I worked at an ice cream stand, as a computer programmer and
web designer of course, and I had a job at a nursery.”

The first two made sense. Ice cream
stand was a typical teenage job and being adept at computers he
naturally would have had jobs related to them, but the nursery….
It’s not that I didn’t think he’d be good with kids, but picturing
him surrounded by a bunch of infants—it’s just not something I
would have envisioned.

“—
a nursery at a garden
center.”

“
Oh.” Still, this
surprised me since he’d never mentioned an interest in plants
before.

“
Yeah, my grandfather was
an avid gardener, and he ran a small nursery as a retirement thing.
I think he gave away more than he ever sold, but he brought me on
part-time to help him out for several summers. I learned a lot from
him. I can’t wait to have my own place to start my own
garden.”

I had never seen this side of him
before.

“
Here, on our way out I’ll
show you where I used to have my garden. I’d like to see if
anything re-seeded itself anyway.” He walked to a drawer on the far
side of the kitchen and grabbed out a flashlight. “Let’s go out the
back.” He held out his hand for me to join him. I took it and
butterflies fluttered inside me as we headed outside.

Through the light of the back patio, I
could see the Allen’s yard was actually quite large despite the
fact that it was seated in a subdivision in the middle of suburbia.
Bryan led me to a back corner, where the light of the porch could
not reach. As he shined the flashlight around, I could see that the
grass in this area was different from that around it. In the
center, a small section was tilled and small sprouts poked out
sporadically.

“
Well…” I could hear the
disappointment in his voice. “This is where my garden used to be.
You can still see the outline of where it was. It looks like they
tried to keep a bit of it going, but…” he looked up and in the glow
of the flashlight I could see his smile, “they aren’t very good
gardeners. They try, but it just doesn’t seem to work out for
them.”

He released my hand, stepped inside
the small garden, and crouched down for a better look. “It was
probably my dad that did this. You can tell because that little
one’s a pepper plant; he loves those.” The plant beside it seemed
to catch his attention then, “This one they hate. I wonder why they
planted it. I’m the only one who likes these.”

It was sweet to see the little ways
his parents showed affection for their son. His dad was certainly
the quieter and less outspoken about his feelings, but it was clear
through what was unfortunately a pathetic little garden, that he
had done it for Bryan.

It was clear too, watching Bryan look
closely at the garden, that he knew it well. I couldn’t tell a weed
from a vegetable, but Bryan seemed to know immediately—even with
what little light we had to view the area. I watched as he tore
open the stalk of one tiny plant, took a small stick and scraped
out what looked like tiny worms and then piled the soil up around
the plant until the open spot was covered. “Vine borers,” he said
as he finished. “Nasty little things. They kill the plant from the
inside. I don’t know if it will live.”

It was fascinating to watch him work.
He went from one plant to the next, examining each. He took such
care—so unlike anyone I knew growing up or anyone I had met in the
past year at college; he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. I
had often wondered if most of the people I went to school with ever
actually ventured outside except to get into a car and move from
one indoor space to the next. (After all, you don’t even have to go
outside for a tan anymore.) But here was this gorgeous, smart,
unusual boy, crouching in a garden in the middle of the night to
care for plants that he clearly loved. It was unlike anything I had
ever seen.

“
I guess I better wash my
hands,” he said, standing up after examining the last plant. It
actually hadn’t taken long; there weren’t many plants.

He rejoined me at the edge of the
garden, and we started back toward the house.

“
It looks like your
grandfather taught you a lot,” I said as we walked. “My parents
only ever kept bushes and a few flowers. I know nothing about
growing fruits or vegetables. Maybe you could teach me someday?” I
knew someday might be a very long time away, but it was fun to
dream and talk about the future as if we’d be together
anyway.

“
Love to,” he said. And in
the light from the patio I could see him smiling at me as we
walked.

Back inside, he cleaned his hands and
grabbed up the keys and money from the counter where he’d set it
while we talked earlier. “Guess it’s a good thing we had to come
back in,” he said, smiling and holding up the keys. “We wouldn’t
have gotten far.”