The Understory (15 page)

Story turned the page, read the introduction, and then began. “Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Hope, who lived in the heart of the rainforest.” As soon as she said it, Cooper was in another world, a world he clung to as tightly as he clung to the green umbrella handle in his hand. Story went on for several pages, using her best little-girl voice, but when she got to the part where a talking capybara described the magic treasure box that Hope would need to find, Cooper sat up a little straighter and twirled his umbrella a little faster. As Story read the description of the box, she tucked it away in her mind for future use. “‘It will be hidden underneath leaves and roots, and on it you’ll see an intricately carved kapok tree, the tree of life,” she read. “Its lid will have a curvy, inviting handle made of several woody vines called lianas, interwoven in an arc.’”

“A
braided
arc,” Cooper said, interrupting Story’s reading. When she gave him a confused look, he said, “The woody vine lianas are interwoven in a
braided
arc.”

“Oops, sorry,” she said, accidentally in Hope’s voice. That sounded silly, so she repeated “Sorry,” in her own voice. Story continued, and by now, Claire Payne, more attached to the ritual than she thought, found herself standing just outside the living room’s entryway, unbeknownst to Story and Cooper, and sat down on the hallway floor to listen to and mouth the words as Story read the advice everyone in the rainforest kept giving Hope: “First the treasure box, then the moonflower.”

Story noticed Cooper smiling, so she looked up at him and smiled back. “What?” she said.

“Dad said when we found the magic treasure, we wouldn’t become fairies or anything, ‘cuz we’re boys, but we’d become Rainforest Superheroes, and instead of lanterns, we’d carry his grown-up flashlight, and show everyone the way out of the jungle.” Then Cooper looked up at his umbrella.

When Story asked Cooper about it—why he’d need an umbrella, because it never rained in Phoenix—he remembered what his dad had told him when he gave him the umbrella. He remembered the words because it was something his dad had said often. And just as Cooper delivered the familiar words to Story on the living room couch, Claire Payne mouthed them from the nearby hallway. “Because it’s unexpected. That’s why.”

As Claire sat alone, wiping a lone tear from her cheek, Cooper explained how the umbrella would be their other superhero tool in the forest. “My dad said umbrellas protected people from lots of things besides rain—that’s why me and mom started collecting them.” He then flashed an embarrassed, little boy smile. “Plus, he said all the girls would stand next to us if we had one.”

The timbre of Cooper’s voice, which so approximated happiness, made Story ache for him.
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice.
Story felt more sorry for Cooper Payne than she’d ever felt for anyone, including herself. She wanted to say something to him, to comfort him, but she’d never been good at that, so she turned to the written word. It was time to put her
Life’s a Crapshoot
collection to good use. After reaching into her bag, she chose the perfect card for this imperfect situation, and handed it to Cooper.

It was blank inside, but the front said everything she wanted to say. In fact, it said the only thing that can be said to someone who’s endured true tragedy.

Sorry.

With the start of a smirk forming, Cooper softly said, “Life sucketh,” feeling less alone than he had in a long time. And then he replaced his almost-smirk with a passionate reiteration. “Life
does
sucketh!” He looked up at Story, and stared at her for a long time, as if he’d known her forever. “I heard someone on TV say that nothing good lasts forever,” he said.

She snuggled a little closer to him. “But nothing bad lasts forever either,” she said, hoping he would believe it. As she watched him try to wrap his little mind around the big, elusive idea of hope, she shoved her inner cynic aside and said her silent prayer.
Abracadabra. Abracadabra. Abracadabra.

“So what do you do?” he finally said.

Story thought of advice she’d heard a long, long time ago. “Ten percent of life is what happens to us, Coop, but ninety percent is what we
do
.” As Cooper absorbed the concept, Story said, “So . . . we’ll
do
. Magic doesn’t happen to those who wait. It happens to those who go get it.” She took his hand in hers. “So let’s go get it. Your birthday’s Friday?” After he nodded, she said, “Well, we have a lot to do. We have to pack, and—”

“Convince my mom to let us go . . .” He laughed.

“Yes, among other things,” Story said. “Let’s finish the story, so we can get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

As Story picked up where they left off, Cooper lifted his head high, took the book in his hands, and closed it with gusto.

Story wondered if she’d pushed him too hard. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “We don’t need to finish it.” He smiled. “I know how it ends.”

Out in the hall sat a stunned Claire Payne. She had tried hundreds of times to wean Cooper from the book, and now as she listened to her son divert from the story on his own terms, she sat up straight, proud, and grateful.

“I wish Dad was here,” Cooper said in a dreamy stare.

Story resisted the urge to say, “He is here, in spirit,” because sometimes the truth hurts.

Then Claire Payne resisted something as well—the urge to be sensible, predictable, and faithless. She resisted the urge to
wait
. At that moment, she prescribed for herself a change that seemed not only possible, but necessary. She dove head-first, waving at Florence Dickerson mid-dive. And instead of entering the living room to deliver a rational and prudent “no,” she did the unexpected. She said “yes.”

C
laire and Cooper walked Story out of the living room and down the hall to their newly repaired front door. They made a meet time for the next day, and after Cooper said goodnight to Story, Claire gave her one last look. Story knew it was a look of warning, a friendly reminder not to mess with a mother and her offspring, and in response she mouthed, “Trust me,” right before she went to her car.

But Claire had no idea how untrustworthy Story really was. Her mother’s infectious fear of not achieving perfection made success difficult, and thus, her past was riddled with how
not
to do things: how
not
to win your seventh-grade spelling bee by spelling “discotheque” correctly, how
not
to find the secret code in your Wheaties box, how
not
to get your lab partner to ask you out, how
not
to get an internship at
Glimmer Train,
how
not
to write a book.
That’s it!
she thought.
That will be my new book title.
How Not to Write a Book
, by Story Easton. Step One: Be a complete failure of a human being. Step Two: Have nothing interesting to say. Step Three: Instead of writing, spend your time eating cheeseburgers and contemplating the upsides of suicide instead of writing. Step Four: Replace potential plotline ideas with fantasies about kissing sexy handymen, saving heartbroken eight year olds, and completing unrealistic journeys filled with nonexistent magic.

Now that Story had Claire and Cooper on board, she realized for the first time just what she’d done. As she left the Paynes’ home and drove away under a starry Arizona sky, she tried to focus on the confident stars instead of the unending blackness before her. What
was
magic, anyway? A false hope peddled by those who either didn’t need it, or were so desperate to get it they perpetuated the lie? Was she as bad as they were? How could she, of all people, really believe this could work?

On that Christmas Eve years ago, Story had found her mother ripping the crotch out of Santa. She looked at the already eaten cookies, empty milk glass, and the Santa doll, which had become a massacred pile of arms, legs, and not-so-jolly torso. Her mother, uncomfortable with the stare, said, “I need some extra stuffing for my pillow prototype.” That year’s Socra-Tot brainchild was the Learn-While-You-Sleep educational pillow—a serious, rigid pillow designed with hands-on activities like tying shoelaces and telling time. Each activity came complete with Socrates-inspired philosophical questions to haunt small children in their sleep:
How Do You Really Know What Time It Is? Why Is It Important To Tie A Double-Knot?
In the months after Story’s father’s unexpected death, her mother had put all of her energy into their
future
—Socra-Tots®.

“What are Santa and the reindeer gonna eat, Momma?” Story asked her mother, covered in Santa’s white, fluffy innards.

“Grow up, Story.”

Story recognized the phrase as the first line of a story she’d heard about a wonderful place called Neverland.
All children, except one, grow up.

Her mother let out a long, controlled sigh. “Okay. I might as well tell you. You’re six now—”

“I’m five—”

“The Santa legend derives from stories about a real man, Saint Nicholas, who most historians believe was from Patara, which is now Turkey. Anyway, he helped some girls get dowries so men would marry them, and over the years, willing participants in the mythology of Christmas have him flying through the air with reindeer, which can’t be done, and bringing presents to billions of people in one night, which is impossible.” She threw her hands up. “The wind chill at the North Pole would induce hypothermia before he even got out of the damn toy shop.”

“So he’s not bringing me my magic kit?” Story asked, envisioning subzero Santa and his reindeer dying miserable deaths, frozen and facedown in an unrelenting blizzard.

“Magic is rubbish. It’s a whole lot of waiting around for things to happen,” said her mother. “Let me tell you how life breaks down, in terms of percentages: Ten percent is what happens to you, but ninety percent,” and here she took Story’s little face in her hands, “is what you
do
.” She reached beside the rocking chair, picked up a wrapped present from the floor, and invited Story closer. “Here.”

Story opened up the very flat present, revealing not magic, but the latest Socra-Tots® publication, a large, hardcover children’s book, titled
Knowledge Is Power: The Debunking of All Things Magical and Mystical
.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Story,” she said sternly. She then raised her voice and her eyebrows, looking and sounding like a maniacal kindergarten teacher, and asked one of her favorite questions: “And what do you and I know to be true?”

Story raised her head in an expected robotic movement. “That it’s better to be a smartass than a dumbass.”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” she said. “Knowledge is power.”

With that, Story returned to bed, and as she was falling asleep, she knew she was no longer waiting for Santa, nor her magic kit. “Abracadabra,” she whispered, to will away the desire for magic in her life.

And after a few hundred repetitions, it worked.

A
s Story made her way home, Cooper snuck into the den to say goodnight to Sonny, and to see the newspaper article hidden in his dad’s bottom desk drawer. Claire didn’t know Cooper knew about it, but kids have a way of finding what their parents don’t want them to discover. He couldn’t read all of the words, but what he really wanted to see was his dad’s name in print. Cooper liked the way it looked on the page. It was only three words, but the letters were clear and bold, as vivid as Cooper’s memories of his perfect, strong dad.

He pulled it out from the bottom of the drawer, unfolded it, and read the headline that had made that day’s first page. “LOCAL ATTORNEY-TURNED-HERO SAVES THE DAY BUT NOT HIS LIFE.” And then came the words he was looking for:
David “Sonny” Payne
called out to him in the first sentence, slapping him with the reality he needed. Cooper didn’t know all the details of the “tragic incident,” but he did remember that morning.