The Academie (16 page)

We laughed, and I realized how good it
felt to be with him. So natural; not forced the way it always
seemed to be with others I had tried to date.

He grabbed my hand again and led me to
the garage. I headed for the passenger side door and went to grab
for the handle, but he interrupted me, “Allow me,” he said, opening
the door. I had never been offered such service before. It took me
off guard and I felt silly for a moment. Then I realized how sweet
it was.

Bryan closed the door behind me, ran
around to the other side, and sat down next to me. “Okay; ready to
see Dublin, Ohio at night?”

“
Sure,” I said, not
exactly sure what he meant. I didn’t think the store was far, but I
had the impression he was going to take the long way to show me
some of the sights of the town.

“
This stuff is all new in
the last few years,” he said as we passed a large area covered by
shopping centers and restaurants. “A lot of this was still farmland
when we moved here.”

“
Ah, and here’s Dublin’s
landmark,” he said, pulling up beside a park.

It was dark, but there was just enough
light for me to make it out. “It’s cement corn.”

“
Yup.”

“
Why
?”

He shook his head. “I guess there used
to be a farm here, and the guy who owned it worked in creating corn
hybrids. But why they turned his farmland into a field of concrete
corn, I have no idea.”

“
People. Wow. We are
strange creatures, aren’t we?”

“
Yes we are.”

“
So, that’s Dublin,” he
said as he pulled away from the corn graveyard. “Well, that’s it
besides all the office buildings that are going in now of
course.”

He sighed audibly. “You
have no idea how nice it is to see all this again, and to
drive
again,” he said,
reaching his arm out of the open window to feel the night air blow
against his skin.

I didn’t answer. Soon I’d know exactly
how he feels.

He pulled into a plaza, and I could
see that it must be the all-night store he mentioned. As we exited
the car and walked toward the store, he found my hand
again.

20.
flour and flowers

Thinking that we must have passed the
ten minute mark, I opened one eye slightly, to check on Shara. She
appeared to be deep in meditation. Deciding it must not have been
ten minutes yet after all, I closed my eyes and found my happy
place again.

“
Okay. So, chocolate chips
and butter,” I remember Bryan saying inside the grocery store.
“That should do it.” But as we headed toward the dairy section, his
eye caught something, and he pulled me the other way. The next
thing I knew, I was in the middle of the floral department,
standing in front of a case of fresh bouquets.

“
Ah yes, I think this one
should do,” he said as he gathered up a mixed arrangement with a
mini sunflower in the center. “For you,” he said
melodically.

I blushed as I received the bouquet.
I’d never been given flowers before and could tell then why people
made such a big deal about it. Even though I was right there when
he picked them out, it still made me feel so pretty and special to
be given something so delicate and beautiful. “Thank you,” I said,
smiling up at him.

He grinned. “My pleasure. Okay, now,
what were we here for?”

“
Butter and chocolate
chips.”

“
Right! I think this
direction then,” he said, guiding us back toward the section
beneath the large sign marked “Dairy.” He chose pure butter, which
I don’t think I’d ever even seen in a store, but he explained that
it was better for you because it doesn’t contain all the chemicals
margarines do. “Besides, it tastes
way
better. Real butter’s the only
way to make cookies.”

I smiled, happy to go along with
whatever.

We found the chocolate chips, grabbed
up a twelve ounce bag of the semi-sweet kind, and headed toward the
checkout. “Oh wait! I just remembered!” he said, stopping short of
the lines, “we better grab a bag of white flour too. My parents
only ever stock wheat and I’m sure it won’t be the
same.”

He pulled me back to the isles and
after securing a one pound bag, we headed to checkout. I offered to
pay, but he simply smiled and handed the cashier the twenty he’d
brought from home.

Back in the car, I held my flowers
proudly.

“
Do you know how to care
for those once we get them back to the house?” he asked, glancing
over at me and my new prize.

“
Put them in
water?”

“
Yeah. But first you’ll
want to cut off the ends. There’s a special way to cut them that
will help them last longer. I can show you when we get home, if you
like.”

I smiled and nodded. He glanced my way
as he drove and smiled back.

When we returned to his house, the
voices of his parents in their bedroom down the hall had quieted,
so we tried not to make too much noise as we made our way back to
the kitchen.

“
Okay, first things
first,” Bryan said. “We’d better take care of your
flowers.”

“
Sounds good to me,” I
said, still holding them like I’d won a major award.

He grabbed a large knife and a cutting
board.

“
If you don’t mind,” he
asked, gesturing to my flowers, which I passed to him. “What you
want to do,” he said, taking the flowers and gently unwrapping
them, “is to take each stem, remove any leaves that will sit below
the water level, and then cut the end at a diagonal.” He
demonstrated as he talked and I could see that he was a natural
teacher. I guess that was to be expected, given his parentage.
“That will create a larger surface area for the flower to draw in
water.” I had stepped close to watch him, and he stopped and looked
up at me as he finished, “and it will help them stay beautiful
longer.”

I smiled, mesmerized again by those
big brown eyes and by all his knowledge. Never in my life had I met
a guy who knew the kinds of things that he did. It made me feel as
though for once I could be who I was. I could say anything to him
and I knew he’d understand.

“
And then in a couple of
days, if you cut off the stems again, it’ll help them last even
longer.”

And apparently, he felt comfortable
talking about just about anything with me. My smile grew
larger.

“
What?” he asked,
blushing.

“
No, it’s great. That’s
what I was thinking. This is just…great.”

“
Okay, how about I let you
do the rest, and I’ll get out the stuff for the cookies?” he asked,
the blush on his cheeks increasing. I took over at the cutting
board and hoped I was doing as well as he had explained.

“
So, do you know how to
make the perfect chocolate chip cookie?” he asked from his place at
the opposite counter.

“
I don’t know, I just
always use the recipe on the back of the bag,” I
answered.

“
Exactly!” he said,
smiling. “Me too. I’ve never found a better recipe.”

“
Oh, but I do have one
trick—that is, if you like thicker, softer cookies,” I
said.

“
Really? I’ve been trying
for years to figure something out for that. Sometimes mine are
thick, other times they are thin, and I can’t figure out
why.”

“
It’s all in how much you
beat it and how warm the ingredients get,” I said, proud to finally
have something I could teach him. “I never use a beater. I hand mix
all the ingredients. Oh! And keep the bowl away from the hot
stove,” I added, suddenly remembering. “And wait until the pan has
cooled before you put a new batch of cookies on it.”

“
Wow!
Brilliant!”

“
And I always cook them on
the lowest time setting—and sometimes a minute less—better gooshy
than crunchy, I figure.”

He smiled widely, then turned and
began pulling out tools and ingredients. I finished arranging the
flowers and turned to show them. “How’d I do?” I asked, showing off
my masterpiece.

“
Beautiful!” he replied.
“You’re a master.”

“
I don’t know about that,
but thanks,” I said, still smiling. My smile was starting to hurt
from using it, and I had a feeling my face would be aching by the
end of the night.

I saw that Bryan now had a large bowl
and a bag of flour. He ripped open the flour, pulled out a
measuring cup, and as he plunged it into the open bag, a giant
cloud of white puffed up and out, covering his face and hair in
white. I covered my mouth, but it wasn’t enough to contain my
laughter.

“
Oh, you think that’s
funny?” he said, turning in my direction.

I couldn’t help it— now I had an even
better view of his ghostly appearance, and I let out a “Pa-ha!”
loud enough I feared it’d wake his parents.

“
It’s funny, is it?” he
repeated, now reaching his hand into the bag as I made to run the
other way. He caught up to me quickly and I could feel the pile of
white raining down my head and onto my shoulders.

I stood there frozen for a moment.
Then I quickly made my way back to the bag, grabbed out a handful,
taking the bag with me to re-load and protect myself, and made my
way in his direction.

“
Now Allie, let’s not get
crazy here,” he said, responding to my wild grin. But before I’d
had a chance to launch it, he’d run up, wrapped his arms around me
and tickled me until I released. Clouds of white poured everywhere
as I shook with laughter. I could taste the flour and started
coughing from inhaling too much of it. Bryan was still wrapped
around me and I could feel his body shake as he laughed. He patted
my back lightly as I coughed. When the cloud cleared and my
coughing ceased, I looked up to find everything around us layered
in white.

“
Oh, you are in such big
trouble with my parents!” he said in teasing-child
fashion.

“
Oh,
I’m
in trouble? You started it!” I
teased back. I eyed the flour bag. “The important question is: is
there enough flour left for the cookies?”

He grabbed it and peeked inside. “I
don’t know; it’s going to be close.”

THUNK!

My eyes sprang open and I saw Shara
lying on the floor, her head against the base of the
bed.

“
Shara?” I asked gently,
now at her side. “Shara?” My heart began to race as panic set in.
She didn’t respond. “Shara!” Her mouth fell open and what little
color she had drained from her cheeks. “SOMEBODY HELP!”

My voice echoed through the empty
room.

21.
the voodoo prohibition

“
Are you okay?” Ruby asked
as I entered the cafeteria for dinner. The past few hours were
quickly becoming a blur.

“
Yeah, I’m fine.
Shara—“

“
We heard. What
happened?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. We
were talking, and then we meditated, and then I heard a clunk and I
looked up to see her sprawled out on the floor with her head
against the bed.”

“
So she hit her
head?”

“
I guess….She’s in the
medical ward now—or maybe they’ve taken her to the hospital. They
won’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t let me stay with
her.”

Stevie saw us standing in the doorway
and hurried over. “Are you okay?” It was the first time I had seen
her not smiling.

“
Yeah.”

“
She doesn’t know
anything,” Ruby answered for me.

“
All I know is that she
was out. There was no blood, nothing. I have no idea what could
have happened.”

We met Robert at our regular table.
“Hey, girl. How are you holding up?”

I shrugged.

“
Have yourself a seat,” he
said, pulling out a chair and putting his hand on my back to lead
in me into place.

“
Maybe you could talk to
your sources, Robert? You get in good with the staff here. They
won’t tell me anything, but maybe they’ll tell you?”

“
I’ll see what I can do.
For now, how about some food? What can I get you?”

“
I don’t think I can eat.”
I looked up and saw Shara’s empty seat. “I just wish I knew if she
was alright.”

“
I’m sure they will tell
us something soon,” Ruby said.

Stevie tried to smile, but this time
it was clearly forced.

That night I made notes in the journal
grandma gave me. First, I tried to recall everything from earlier,
trying to make sense of what had happened. When that got me
nowhere, I wrote down as much as I could remember about what Shara
told me about yin and yang. It was the one thing I had from her,
and it made me feel like she might be okay somehow. Surely someone
who was alive and with it earlier today had to be okay,
right?