The Understory (36 page)

“Cooper,” Story said, smiling. “But he didn’t really mean it—”

“No worries. Cooper and my editor would get along great.”

Then Story said, “Shouldn’t you be at the airport?”

“Change of plans,” he said, smiling with a sense of peace Story had never seen in him. Though Martin had decided the night before that
he
didn’t need to go the rainforest, that morning, upon waking, he knew he could not let Cooper or David Payne down, and had decided to be their guide as promised. “Called the airport to see if you’d checked in, and when you hadn’t, I knew something was wrong.”

“Change of plans here, too.” And after a coy smirk, Story said, “Here to see me?”

Martin shook his head. “Just came to drop this off.” In his left hand he held a wrapped present, thin and rectangular, and when he looked back at the still-smoking book on the sidewalk, he laughed. “I don’t think he’s going to like it.”

Story shrugged and smiled. “Never know.”

Martin smiled back. “Never know,” he said, and then, not sure how to ask, he just said, “Where is everyone?”

She knew who he was asking about. “Come with me.”

Story led Martin Baxter through the Paynes’ home, back to where Claire and Cooper sat on the floor together. When Martin came through the door, Claire sprang to her feet.

“Martin.” She walked toward him. “On your way to the airport?” They stared deep into each other, trying to get a glimpse of what to say next.

“Nah,” he said. “I heard the Amazon is really rainy this time of year.”

“Oh,” she said, holding back a smile.

Cooper perked up, concerned. “What about—”

“She’s—” And then Martin stopped. “Once I see the moonflower in bloom, I have to stop searching for it.” Cooper wasn’t sure he understood, so Martin said, in a gentle voice, “It’ll always be there. I like knowing that.” He paused. “Ya know?”

Cooper nodded.

Martin hadn’t yet said it out loud, and of all people, Cooper deserved to hear it first. “Besides . . .” he said, but his voice cracked and he abandoned his words.

With complete confidence, Cooper calmly, and without emotion, said, “Well, she wants to live there, you know. It’s her new home.”

Martin changed gears and handed Cooper the present. “This is a collector’s edition, but from what I saw, I’m pretty sure you’ll hate it.”

“Did you see the sidewalk?” Cooper asked.

“Don’t worry about it. I burn books all the time.”

“Really?” Cooper asked.

“No,” Martin said, smiling.

Cooper started to laugh but hesitated.

But then Martin looked at Cooper, and his opened treasure box beneath the kapok tree, and said, “Well, isn’t this a home run?”

“You watch baseball?” Cooper asked casually, getting to his feet.

Martin spoke carefully, saying, “Can you believe the Diamondbacks this season? Might be time for a new manager.” He watched for Cooper’s approval.

“Yeah,” Cooper said in a soft voice, “might be.”

Hans, Martin, Claire, and Story sang “Happy Birthday” to Cooper, who was finally able to turn nine. He extinguished the tiny blue candle jutting out of a stack of pancakes. Mid-bite, Story’s phone rang, and she excused herself from the table.

“Story, dear? I just got your messages. Jail? Jesus, Darling. What happened? Do you need a lawyer?”

As Story tried to answer her mother’s barrage of questions, Story heard someone in the background. “Who’s that?” she said.

“I’m, um, having tea with someone,” said Beverly. “For the second day in a row.”

Story let out a suspicious laugh. “You hate tea.”

“I know.” She paused for a second, and then spoke in a slow, intentional tone. “He’s a
gardener,”
she said.

“Oh,” Story said, caught in a pleasant surprise,
“that
kind of tea—good for you, Mom.”

“It’s really weird, actually. Something must have gone haywire on my gas gauge because I thought it said full . . . Anyway, I ran out of gas and I ended up walking up his lane, and one thing led to another, he invited me in, and here we are, on his terrace, looking at his garden.” In a whisper, she said, “He says I make him feel . . . sure of himself. He likes my questions. And he called me a delicate rose. Can you believe it?”

Story heard hammering, and Beverly explained that the gardener was building some sort of shrine for a photo of a special flower. “Sent some guy all the way to the Amazon to capture it on film,” Beverly said with confidence, “but I told him to lower his expectations . . . Things are usually best kept in the imagination.”

How does she always manage to be right?

Beverly Easton returned to her comfort zone and asked a question. “The moonflower. Ever heard of it?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Story said, happy to be interrogated. She almost told her mother there would be no moonflower photo. And she almost got a little sick thinking about how she’d have to explain how she didn’t really work for
National Geographic.
But then she realized everything else had worked out, and this would, too.

Story then heard her mother laugh and talk with her mouth full. “I’m eating Spam for breakfast!” Her voice quieted as she made a declaration. “Broke man living in a mansion.” Then, and in a sweet voice, as tender as a flower, she added, “But he seems to be an extraordinary gardener.”

Story thought of her father tending to heavenly daffodils, and then she embraced, for once, a book’s last line. “So we beat on,” she said, “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

After breakfast, Story looked out the living room’s back window at Claire, Cooper, and Martin, who were in the backyard inspecting the two ailing saplings, not yet ready to perish. And then she closed her eyes and saw the future. She saw herself sleeping with Hans, and not wanting to be anywhere else. She saw herself visiting Cooper on his tenth birthday, Claire and Martin looking on proudly, while Story sought out new ways to invent magic for her own children. In the middle of this warm blanket of a dream, Hans kissed her cheek.

“So, you’re sure you want a third date?” she said in a whisper, leaning into his shoulder. “You should know that I’m a pain in the ass.” She paused so she wouldn’t leave anything out. “I have a crazy mother, I’m unemployed, and I’m one catchphrase away from utter desperation. On a good day.”

Hans put his arm around her. “Any
new
information?”

“Well, sounds like you’re serious about me.” She smiled. “So in that case, I should tell you I’m a millionaire. Probably a billionaire someday.”

Though he looked skeptical at first, he had wondered how she’d come up with the money to send four people to the Amazon inside a week. After staring into Story’s eyes, he focused his gaze toward the sky and performed an enchanting maneuver with his magic hands. “Abracadabra.”

“That’s
my
word.”

“How about I sell it to you?” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “It’s yours for . . . a million dollars.”

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband.

He took a moment to let the last two days sink in. “So, you’ve earned it now,” he said. “Wanna know how it ends?”

“And so it goes,” said Story.

He smiled. “Not that one.”

“Enlighten me.”

Looking into Story’s eyes, Hans proudly recalled his favorite closing line from a book and recited it softly: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Ah, real sleep,
Story thought.
At home.

When Story saw Cooper sit down next to Martin on the couch and open his new copy
of Once Upon A Moonflower,
she asked to hear the rest of the story. Martin asked Story where she’d left off, so she pointed to a picture of Hope standing before a vicious leopard, and said, “Right about here.”

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

After taking a deep, cleansing breath, Martin read the story he knew would eventually have to end.

As if he wanted to give me one last lecture before he ate me, the Fierce One purred a final bit of predator wisdom. “You know, everything in the rainforest happens in unexplained synchronicity,” he said, sounding more like my dad than a preachy jaguar. “A bird’s flutter shakes an ant off its leaf home, the ant falls and is gobbled by an anteater below, and when a droplet of water falls from another leaf on another tree, it launches another chain reaction, starting the whole cycle all over again and—”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re all connected. I get it,” I said. “And your teeth are gonna connect with me, so—”

“It all happens for a reason,” he interrupted, his furry ears now twitching with excitement, “much like in your world.”

My impending death having purpose confused me even more, so I looked down at the treasure box still in my arms. If everything happened for a reason, why was I holding this pseudo (fake) magic box? I figured I might as well die with treasure in my arms, so I said, “Here’s to you, Pandora,” remembering a story I’d read in
Greek Myths for Dummies
, and gently pushed the Fierce One’s head aside in order to lift the lid.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” was all I could say when I saw my so-called treasure. Lying at the bottom of the wooden box was an infinitesimal (diminutive) (small) lantern, so tiny it looked like it’d been plucked from a doll’s dollhouse. Its shiny metal was painted lavender, the same color as my pajamas. When I picked it up and placed it in the palm of my hand, a tiny, midnight-blue light flickered inside, as if to beckon its secret small owner.

The Fierce One, now breathing in my face, let out a growl, and this time it was truly fierce. But just as he was about to lash out at me, something weird happened. Suddenly, the lantern got bigger. Lots bigger. Or was I smaller? Clearly, I was smaller, because the leaf I stood on now stretched before me like a picnic blanket. That’s when I remembered I was dinner.

When his paw swiped at me from above, at first it looked like a giant furry cloud closing in on me, but when he swiped the ground near me, it felt like an earthquake’s first rumble. There was no more small talk, only me running for my life in-between giant piles of dirt and mazes of tangled tree roots while he searched for my new small self.

His paws hit the ground with T-Rex-sized thumps. As I ran as fast as my small legs would go, lugging my lantern as I sprinted, I noticed my pajamas were gone, and I now wore a gauzy, lavender dress, adorned with some sort of glittery dust, and what felt like crazy big shoulder pads attached to the back of my shoulders. (So 1990s.) We continued our cat-and-whatever-I-was chase for quite a while, until I noticed a familiar face.

“Sloth?” I whispered from underneath a big bucket-like plant filled with water. “Where am I?” I asked softly, just like I’d asked him before. “The Fierce One is after me, my outfit is horrible, and I’ve turned into Barbie’s dwarf cousin!”