The Field (15 page)

“The fields and sky are really beautiful here,” Renee says, interrupting my thoughts. “The sky is so huge, like an enormous blue dome, and the clouds are amazing to watch.”

“There isn't much to block your view, that's for sure. It's pretty flat up here, not hilly like in the southern part of the state. But you're right, it is beautiful.” A flock of birds flies overhead, looking like a swiftly moving grey cloud. Several minutes pass as the birds flow by in a continuous stream. There must be thousands of birds moving together, migrating south. “It's too bad, what they said on the field trip, about the wind turbines interfering with bird migrations. I guess there's always a downside, even with something good.”

“Yes, but I think interfering with bird migrations and some ground vibrations are pretty minor drawbacks when you compare it to the pollution created by burning coal and oil. That probably kills more birds anyway,” Renee says indignantly. I'm preaching to the choir here.

We round a bend in the road and the wind turbines rise up from the farmland before us. There are dozens of them spaced
out evenly across the fields; enormous white sentinels soaring into the sky. Somehow they always seem alien to me, like they are visitors from another planet or giant transmitters sending messages into space. Each tower is topped by three curved blades, like a child's whirligig, and they appear to be moving slowly in circles when, in fact, they are whizzing around at 80 to 120 miles an hour. They move in a sort of choreographed dance. I don't get why some people consider them eyesores. To me they seem majestic and almost awe-inspiring.

I pull over into a small park with a playground in an unnamed town on the country road. We sit side by side on the top of a wooden picnic table to one side of the swing set. Renee rests her hand on my knee and I pick it up and hold it between my hands. I have big hands—good for catching the ball—and her smaller hand disappears between mine. She smiles at me and tugs her hand free. I reach over to smooth her hair back from her forehead and then put my arm around her, pulling her close. She leans her head on my shoulder. The sun is just now setting, and we have a clear view of the western sky across the cornfields ablaze with color. We watch the sun go down and the sky change from pink and blue to orange and lavender and then dark blue and purple.

“It's really lovely—like an impressionist painting. Wonderful colors,” Renee says. As night gradually replaces the day, lights on the top of the turbines begin to flash a warning to planes. Hundreds of red lights blink on and off in unison, appearing to be sending a message to more than just passing planes, reinforcing my feeling that they are communicating with some far-off galaxy.

“Somehow the wind mills mean more to me than just green energy. Having so many of them all together, spinning at the same speed and flashing in unison is so harmonious, almost cooperative.”
I feel so at ease with Renee, like old friends, that I can say stuff to her that I wouldn't talk about with anyone else.

“They're quite magnificent. Like gentle giants. Simple and elegant. We have wind turbines in Europe, but I've never seen so many of them together.”

“Didn't they say on the field trip that it's the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi? It's good for the farmers, too. Extra money.” I hop off the table and stretch out my back, leaning side to side. “I think it's dark enough to use the telescope now, but we have to get away from the flashing lights.” I hold my hand out to Renee as she steps down from the table. “McCloud State Park is a little bit south of here on the way home. There's a good place there for star gazing.”

The air is cooler now after the sun has set, and I put on my sweatshirt before getting back into the car. In the twilight we pass by more fields of corn and see fireflies hovering over the tops of the stalks, blinking on and off like little satellites. “I like the scenery of the Midwest,” Renee says. “It's a more subtle beauty than the mountains or the ocean.”

The drive into the park from the road winds through open fields of tall grass and fading wildflowers, illuminated now by the full moon that's risen in the east. I've come here before with my dad and the amateur astronomer's club. They have an area cleared on top of a hill with level spots to set up the telescopes. My dad's scope is a ten-inch Dobsonian, which weighs about 50 pounds. It's a good scope for an amateur. Easy to maneuver, but powerful enough to see space objects really clearly.

There are three other groups with telescopes already set up when we get to the top of the hill. I pick a spot off to the side and set up the Dobsonian.

“I've never done this before. What kinds of things are we going to look at? Galaxies and nebulas?” Renee seems excited.

“I thought we'd start by looking at the moon, since it's the Harvest Moon, and it's the closest thing to Earth.” The moon hangs in the eastern sky, a silver orb reflecting the light of the sun. I position the telescope toward it and focus on its surface.

“What's the Harvest Moon?”

“It just means the full moon closest to the Fall Equinox.” I have a clear view of its pitted surface in the viewfinder. “Here, have a look.”

Renee puts her eye on the viewfinder and a moment later exclaims, “Wow! It's so bright and so clear. I can see all the craters and everything,” which is the reaction I was hoping for. After a moment she asks, “How big do you think the craters are?”

“A hundred miles or more across.”

“It feels so close through the telescope. It's incredible to think that it's out there in space orbiting around us.”

“I know, right? Let's look at some things that are much farther away.” I locate M13 in the sky by its neighboring stars and focus the scope on it. “Here, this is M13 a globular star cluster.” I move to the side so she can look.

“What am I looking for?” she asks. “I don't see anything except what looks like a faint white cotton ball. Is that it?” She sounds disappointed.

“Yeah, that's it. It's a star cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars, tens of thousands of light years away.” I know this because I read up on it this afternoon in the stuff I printed off from the website. It's not like I've got it memorized or anything, but I wanted to appear like I knew what I was doing. “That's hundreds of thousands of stars like our sun in that one little puff of cotton. You have to remember that we're just using a ten-inch
scope. The pictures you usually see of stars and galaxies are taken over a really long period of time. With much more powerful telescopes.” I don't want her to be disappointed. I want her to feel the same awe I feel when I look at the stars.

“It's hard to get your mind around a concept like that. Hundreds of thousands of stars in that tiny spot in the sky.” She's stepped back from the scope and is standing next to me looking upward. “You can see so many more stars here in the country. Even with the moon out.”

“I'll tell you a story that will really blow your mind. A while back astronomers decided to focus the Hubble telescope on what they thought was empty space, to see what they would find. The first time, they focused it on a point in the sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length. They left it there ten days to gather light from that one spot. They found there were over 3,000 galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars in that one tiny spot. The next time they did it, they chose a different spot, and the technology was even better. They found 10,000 galaxies. The stars we see in our sky are all from our own galaxy, the Milky Way. There are over 100 billion galaxies in the Universe.”

“That's absolutely incredible.” Her face is lit from the moon above. “What's that reddish pulsating star over there?” Renee points to a spot in the southern sky just above the treetops.

“I think that's the red super-giant star Antares.” I pull out the map of the sky I printed from the website and look for it. “Let me get it into view.” I move the scope to that section of sky.

We look at several more objects and check out what the other groups are looking at through their scopes before the chilly air makes us decide to call it a night. On the ride home we hold hands, but we're both quiet, lost in our own thoughts.

I pull up in front of Renee's house and we spend several enjoyable minutes kissing each other good night. I've pushed the driver's seat way back and Renee's climbed over the gear shift and is sitting on my lap. She sucks my lower lip into her mouth and lightly bites me, sending shivers up my neck and making my hair practically stand on end. Then she leans away from me against the steering wheel.

“I don't think I've ever had such a wonderful date. Thank you for showing me the wind farm and taking me star gazing. You are so much more than you seem, American boy.”

“In a good way, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, in a very good way.” She kisses the tip of my nose. “My dad wanted me to tell you to bring a personal item from a family member to your session this week. He wants to work with you alone on some more in-depth stuff.”

“Just the two of us?” I can't help that my voice comes out a bit froggy. I mean, Dr. Auberge is pretty cool and all that, but he's still Renee's dad and it's not like we're best buds or anything. Mostly I've been doing remote viewing with Renee and Stephen and sometimes Will, but Will hasn't been all that committed to going.

“No, not just the two of you, I'm sure Stephen will be there too.” She shakes her head at me. “I think he's been impressed by what you've done in the lab and wants to take it a step further.” She presses her palms against my chest and splays out her fingers, resting them at the base of my throat. I can feel my pulse beating against the tips of her fingers.

“What does that mean, ‘take it a step further?'” It has a slightly scary connotation to it. “He's not going to hook me up to a machine or something, is he? And then measure my brain waves?” I bring my face down to kiss her just below her ear
where her jawline meets her throat. “Because that doesn't sound like fun to me.”

“Mmmmm,” she murmurs, leaning her head back. “Maybe some brain wave measuring, but it doesn't hurt or anything like that.”

“Okay, then. I'll do it.”

“I need to go in now.” She gives me one last kiss and then crawls back to the passenger seat and gets out of the car. I wait in the car until she gets the front door open. The porch light above her reflects off her hair, making it shine. She gives me a little wave before going inside.

“T
HE WINNING STREAK
continues!” Will announces as he arrives at my locker during passing periods. We won again last night against Dublin Heights with Brett in the goal. “My mom just texted me that the state rankings came out, and we're number one!” He holds up his hand to high five me.

“Awesome,” I say, smacking his hand. I'll take that even with Brett playing.

“And,” he pauses for emphasis, “we're nationally ranked—number twelve in the country.” Paul has just come up behind him to hear this piece of news.

“Only number twelve?!” he says in mock indignation. “We are totally number one!”
He
raises his hand to fist bump me, too.

“So the game on Saturday in Fort Benjamin is critical,” Will continues. “It's our last game of the season before Sectionals. We could have an undefeated season—and they're ranked number two in the state. It'll almost be like a championship game.” He pokes his finger into my chest. “You'll be starting, big guy, so you've got to be on your game.”

“Always,” I say curtly. I don't think Will even notices. I'm trying to keep it light, but that really pisses me off. What happened to the old Will who always had my back? This new Will is into
partying and hanging out with the ‘cool' crowd who he never would have had time for before.

“Hey, man, Eric's the beast,” Paul says. “Chill out.”

“Yeah,” Will says distractedly. He's looking down the hall at a group of guys coming our way.

“Asplunth!” one of them calls out when they see him.

“Hey!” he calls back. Turning to Paul and me, he says, “I'll catch up with you guys later.” Then he joins the group of guys who start pounding him on the back and saying ‘number one!' Will is smiling and laughing. I turn back to my locker to get my books.

“What is with him?” asks Paul. “He's all about the party crowd now. When did he start hanging out with them?”

I straighten up and shut my locker. “I don't know. I guess that night at Allison Fisher's party.”

“I thought you guys were best friends, and he could so totally get busted and kicked off the team. No more ‘
Mr. Number One
' then.” He looks after Will, who's almost at the end of the hallway, then at me and smacks me on the shoulder. “Don't sweat Saturday, dude. You are going to rock that goal. Nothing's gonna get past you.”

R
ENEE SAID
I should bring a personal item from someone in my family to the session with Stephen and her Dad, so I decided to bring one of Drew's stuffed animals. It's a llama that he sleeps with every night. He named it Bacon when he was about three because he loved bacon so much. He still loves bacon and has been known to eat the entire pound of bacon my Dad makes sometimes on Saturday mornings, if the rest of us don't get to it in time.

Drew was really excited to be included in my session with Dr. Auberge when I asked him if I could borrow Bacon. “What are you gonna do with him?” he asked.

“I'm not really sure. Maybe use it to see if I can spy on you from the lab.”

“Really? Cool! Do you want to take Round, too?” Round is a stuffed horse. We never could figure out why he named it Round.

“Nope, I think Bacon will do it. I'll let you know how it goes in the morning.”