The Understory (20 page)

“You couldn’t have known,” said Story. “How could you possibly have known what he would do? Some people are just plain criminals, they’re sick—”

“Are they?” he blurted. “Or are they simply products of pivotal moments in their lives that turned out wrong?” He stared at the circle that united the garden’s pathways, and said, “Maybe if I’d listened to him, tried to help him.” His gaze looked past the garden, out to the horizon. “Then maybe David Payne wouldn’t have tried to help him and . . .” Harold Stone started to cry, hid it, pretended to clear his throat, and changed the subject.

“It’s all connected, you know. Those flowers,” he said, pointing to the back of the garden where tall desert sand verbenas stretched toward the sky, “those bees, that hummingbird, the ants you can’t see, the fungus you don’t even know exists.”

He laughed a little when he said, “I never used to care. They call it companion planting—putting tarragon by the vegetables keeps the pests away, putting anise by the roses repels aphids while improving the strength of the flowers. Sometimes it takes a long time . . . I planted those Spanish daisies months ago, but they’re thriving now that the creeping thyme has taken hold.”

Story wondered if Harold Stone had a companion beyond his thyme. “If you help me get Cooper to the rainforest,” she said, “I can make his moment turn out right.”

Turning back to her now, Harold smiled sadly and said, “Why do you think I’m watering my own flowers?”

“Because you like gardening?” a confused Story said.

“No, because I had to let the gardener go after I lost all my money.”

“What?!” Story sounded like a disgruntled toddler.

“I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m broke,” he said. “Right after I quit my job, I was in quite a state—I sold all my properties, cashed in my other investments, and went to Vegas, thinking I could make enough money to justify not working, and then I could travel and forget my worries.”

As they watched from the veranda above, a homeless tabby cat sauntered into Harold’s perfect garden and took a perfect, steamy crap near his catnip, which he’d planted there as a companion to his other mints.

“Shit, Harry,” Story said as she hit the top of the elaborate veranda guard rail, “how is it possible to lose that much money?”

“Easy. A full week of one bad decision after another, and poof!” he said, stretching out his fingers, “it’s all gone.” He turned around to look at his mansion. “Thank God this was paid for. The front double-door was the last purchase I made as a wealthy man—that, and Martin’s expedition.”

The cat covered up his dirty little secret with sandy Arizona soil and ran off for his next exploit, just as Story came to the realization that she was back to square one. “So you can’t help me.”

Harold Stone became a stammering explosion of indecision. “Maybe I should call Martin, tell him to take the kid . . . but maybe I shouldn’t intervene . . . The last time I followed my gut . . . I don’t know.” He stared straight ahead, and as Story looked at and through him, she realized failure wasn’t all she’d tried to convince herself it was.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

Story could tell he wasn’t going to do it, and she felt the disappointment as he continued his tentative declaration. “Afraid not. Not in two days, anyway.” He did look sorry. “For Cooper’s sake, I hope—”

“Hope is for fairy godmothers and pansies, Harry. We need money.”

The two of them, too poor to buy their way out of their problems and too smart to hope for the best, leaned on the railing and let the sunlight try to warm their dampened spirits.

Harold felt grateful for his flowers, shining in the sun, and was satisfied to have a less glamorous role than his mariposa lilies. “At least that’s free,” he said, of the ball of fire in the sky, born as a star, ninety-three million miles away.

Before Story departed, she asked him the only question left to ask. “Why the moonflower?”

He remembered the first time he’d read about the decisive moonflower, blossoming just once in its lifetime, but blooming with resolute determination. And finally, Harold Stone answered with authority, “It lives and dies without regret.”

C
lueless as to how to get twenty-thousand dollars in twenty-nine hours, Story Easton moped her way to her car, but at that same moment, Claire and Cooper Payne skipped around their house with a newfound sense of joy. Joy had been gone from the Payne house for a full year, and they were happy to welcome the stranger back into their lives by playing hooky from work and school, and by eating chocolate cake as a late breakfast.

When Claire called her office to explain her upcoming absence, Jessica snapped at her, shocked. “What you mean, you’re leaving? You never go anywhere.”

“Cancel my appointments, Jess,” Claire said, smiling at a giggling Cooper.

“The Carls are going to have a fit, you know,” said Jessica. Carl Daniels, a long-time patient, suffered from multiple personality disorder and saw Claire four times a week, showing up as a different Carl each time. Jessica needed to keep track of them for scheduling, so she gave each of Carl’s personalities a different name: Anxious Carl came on Tuesdays, Show Tune Carl on Wednesdays, Mute Carl on Thursdays, and Horny Carl on Fridays.

“Well, I suggest telling him on Thursday when he can’t talk back,” said Claire. And then she laughed. “Otherwise, be prepared to show some serious affection and major cleavage on Friday.”

Jessica was still miffed. “And what am I supposed to tell Rapunzel?”

Claire wiped chocolate frosting from Cooper’s bottom lip. “Tell her not to wait up for me,” she said.

O
nce upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
Story couldn’t get that line out of her head. As she drove away from Judge Stone’s house, she let the line bounce around, aimless and lost in her mind, and she decided that the annoyingly successful Anne Tyler was a fraud; she didn’t write fiction, she wrote about Story’s disappointing existence, and Story wanted a percentage of her earnings for exploiting her mistaken identity.

Perhaps she’s spying on me,
she thought.
Perhaps Anne Tyler is actually watching me from afar.
She pictured Anne Tyler wearing a brooding black turtleneck, smart glasses, and a chic, writerly scarf, putting last-minute touches on already perfect metaphors, and felt sick. She looked down at her ratty, second-hand T-shirt adorned with a faded Sex Pistols silk-screen decal—a shirt once cool in a thrifty,
I don’t care
way, but now easily found in the juniors department at every major clothing store.

Having struck out with Harold Stone, Story retreated to her house instead of going back to the office to be interrogated by Ivy. She sat on her couch, daydreaming about the money she needed, and thought about potential stick-up lines for a bank robbery.
Give me twenty-thousand dollars or four tickets to the Amazon, suckers!
And when she realized what a horrible bank robber she’d be, she thought of the most successful person she knew. She figured her mother could probably rob a bank, conduct a conference call, and receive a pedicure all at the same time. And her stick-up line, or lines rather, would be a series of annoying questions designed to stun the clerks long enough for her to steal the loot.
What is money, really? Isn’t it just a bunch of germ-infested paper? How do you really know what it’s worth? How do you feel about being zealots of greed?

Her mother’s gala party was only a few hours away, she had no date and nothing to wear, and she felt more like a failure than she ever had before. At least when she screwed up in the past, it was only her own life. Now, she’d have to face her mother’s mountain of success having just completely failed to make one lousy dream come true for one poor kid who desperately needed it. On top of that, she’d have to break the bad news to Cooper, who was probably packing at that very moment for the adventure of his life. But the bad news would have to wait until tomorrow—she just couldn’t deal with it today—and for now, she could fulfill at least one promise by going to her mother’s party.

She’d been to one other Socra-Tots® function in her past, and it had made a
Star Trek
convention seem normal. The giant convention center’s main floor overflowed with ultra-happy vendors, each peddling Socra-Tots® products and singing the praises of the
Knowledge Is Power
motto and its ability to change children’s lives. The event was so large and involved that Story had gotten lost among the bustling consumers, who waved checkbooks as they dreamed of Ivy League educations for their lazy toddlers who they were sure could be fixed with one more set of flashcards. By the time her mother took the podium to vocalize her vision of the company’s next fiscal year, Story had set up at the children’s table, in a tiny chair, coloring outside the lines—a disappointment even among her four-year-old peers.

According to her mother, tonight’s event at the Gurston Library and Museum was going to be more formal than prior Socra-Tots® functions, “less commercial and more celebratory.” Story hoped she’d be able to disappear into the crowd, free to hide from questions about her accomplishments as a Socra-Tots baby, all grown up. Most of all, she wanted to hide from her mother. Though Story knew her mother was a taskmaster with a glaring intolerance for imperfection, deep down, she couldn’t help but feel Beverly Easton deserved a more vibrant daughter than her, someone who lived up to the Easton tradition, someone who lived up to her own name by weaving an interesting yarn of a life.

Story held her head high, trying to convince herself she could pull this off with a bit of grace, but then, realizing she couldn’t do it alone, she picked up the phone and dialed Hans.

“Story. Hey,” said Hans.

Story took a deep breath and swallowed her pride, again. “I called for two reasons: to ask you for a favor, and to deliver some bad news.” She envisioned Hans massaging his hands.

“I’m all about giving,” he said. “Ask your favor first.”

After a frustrated sigh, she said, “Okay, I feel dumb having to ask you this, because you barely know me, and normally, I wouldn’t be going to one of these stupid, pretentious parties, but I promised—”

“I’ll go,” Hans said.

“Oh,” Story said, followed by a pause. “Great. Pick me up at six?”

“Tux or jeans?”

“Um, tux,” she said, starting to worry about her own wardrobe. She gave him her address.

“So what’s the bad news?”

“The trip isn’t going to happen.” When Hans didn’t say anything, she added, “And if you want to tell Claire Payne I’m a liar, and have the police arrest me for breaking and entering, then have at it.”

“That sounds more like a second date.” Hans remained quiet for a moment. “What happened to
doing something right for once
? What could possibly be holding you back from that?”

“Twenty-thousand dollars.”

“I see,” Hans said. “It’s only a trip, right? It’s not like someone’s life depends on it.”

Story let out a sad, defeated, “Right.”

“See you at six,” he said.

“See you at six.”

As soon as she hung up, Story heard a knock at her door. When she opened it, no one was there. Instead, she found a white box wrapped with a red ribbon. She picked it up, held her ear close to the box to check for a ticking sound, and then untied the ribbon and lifted off the lid. A gold sticker held together two edges of carnation pink tissue paper, and inside, folded in perfect symmetry, was a black, beaded cocktail dress, way too beautiful for Story’s budget. And next to it were a pair of black Dolce & Gabbana pumps. Underneath it all was a hidden envelope and card with a handwritten note:
Have you shaved your legs today?
As soon as she saw the annoying question mark, Story knew who’d sent the package.

The answer to the question was “no,” so she showered and shaved her legs, for her mother, and for her date—just in case. She then tried to look presentable by putting her hair in a French twist, applying mascara, and glossing up her lips. After dressing, she looked in the full-length mirror at her shaved legs, made-up face, and cleavage framed by the sweetheart neckline on the form-fitting dress. The newness of Story’s dress felt good as it connected with her skin, as if she could get used to its freshness as opposed to her usual used, worn, and stale garments. But though she was pretty, she still felt like a failure—a failure dressed expensively.