The Understory (28 page)

Cooper added one more thing, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were asking for a second glass of milk. “But I think I want to be a regular hero. Like him.”

Story bit her lip to keep her cool, and Martin Baxter concentrated on finishing the inscription.
To Cooper . . . A super kid and Superhero any dad would be proud of. – Martin Baxter.

Cooper’s face lit up when he read it. When Claire looked at Martin, her question came out more like a plea. “So,” she said, “will you be coming with us to the—”

“Definitely,” Martin said, walking toward Claire. When he was close enough to look into her eyes and see his own reflection, he said, “We’re going to find the treasure box
and
the moonflower.”

“And he’ll point out all of the plants he’s researched for
National Geographic
,” said Story. “It’s all part of the prize.”

As Cooper, excited, tore up the stairs to finish packing, Claire stared into Martin’s eyes and said, “Thank you. From both of—”

“It’s gonna be a great trip,” he interrupted, before Claire could mention her husband.

On the way out to their cars, halfway down the porch stairs, Story smirked. “So I guess you changed your mind about taking the kid on a
goddamned vision quest
in the jungle.”

Martin smiled. “Guess I did.” He turned to her. “How the hell did you get everyone on my flight?”

I didn’t . . . yet
, she thought.
But I will.
“I work best under pressure,” Story said as she walked across the gravel driveway.

When he reached his car, Martin sighed. “We’re gonna need a box, you know—”

“Yeah,” Story said proudly, thinking of Hans’s masterpiece. “Kapok tree and all.”

Martin gave her a look bordering on respect. “So, you read it.”

“Pretty much,” Story said. “I ran into some trouble at the bookstore, so I still don’t know how it ends.”

With his hand resting tentatively on his door handle, he said to her, “Every
good
story has more than one possible ending.”

Story nodded, feeling particularly
good
, and walked to her car, thinking about what was left of the day. In her mind, she raised a glass and made a toast.

To good stories and happy endings.

T
here is an urban legend involving, of all things, a simple dollar bill. People all over the countryside like to tell the story because it reminds them that everyone and everything, even a worn and wrinkled dollar, has a destiny, and that the millions of souls roaming the planet are undeniably connected.

The story goes like this: A man meets a beautiful woman and, wanting to impress her when it’s time to say goodbye, takes a dollar bill from his pocket and makes a declaration. “If we are meant to be together,” he says, “this dollar bill, this very dollar bill, will find its way back to you.” Smiling, the woman asks how she will know it is the
very
dollar bill, so the man tells her he’ll mark it with something indelible. And when the woman gives the man a desirous, yet skeptical look, inquiring, “How long will I have to wait?” and “Where do you suppose I will come in contact with it again?”, he shakes his head. On the top edge of the bill he writes in red ink,
Live for the journey, not the destination,
shows it to her, adds the date when she coyly lowers her head, then holds it in the air and lets it float out of his hand. He kisses her and walks away before the bill hits the floor.

A month passes. Then a year, two years, five years. Long after the woman, now focused on her own journey, has forgotten about it, she receives the dollar bill back as change after buying a newspaper on a street corner, and as she observes the familiar red lettering from so long ago, she realizes she has never really forgotten about it, only tucked it deep inside, where secret dreams reside. Minutes later, with the dollar bill still in her pocket, the shocked woman sees the man from her past, older, but definitely the same man. What she doesn’t know is that this hopelessly romantic man, to increase his unrealistic odds, had written the same red-lettered phrase on every dollar bill that had passed through his hands for the last seven years. Finally, one had come back to her. But what he didn’t know was that the dollar bill in her pocket was the very one he’d written on seven years ago, because some paths are meant to cross.

What the dreamy reunited couple didn’t know was that the scores of inspired, red-lettered bills with their message of living for the journey had affected hundreds of other people. After a young woman saw the message on her dollar bill, she viewed it as a striking revelation and left her bitter marriage to open a much sweeter pastry shop. After a workaholic father saw the message on his dollar bill, he took the advice to heart and gave up working twelve-hour days to take his son on a year-long sailing trip instead. Every recipient received the message at just the right time in their life’s journey, and found the strength to let go of the past and alter the future.

When a young Hans Turner first heard this story from his idealistic mother, he secretly cherished it, and just like his mother and young Greta, he believed in the warm safety net of fate. But after losing Greta, when fate had its way with Hans and his once-charmed life, he no longer found the story enchanting. In fact, when he heard the same story years later in college from an overly optimistic, pony-tailed blonde, he was unimpressed. “The man should’ve just gotten the woman’s damn phone number in the first place,” Hans scoffed. “Would’ve saved him a lot of red ink.”

Now, as Hans sat at his kitchen table, holding a greenback he would use in his magic gig in an hour, he thought of the red-lettered dollar bill story. He thought about his sister. He thought about people who exit our lives when we least expect it. He thought about people who suddenly enter our lives, changing the way we look at the world forever. And then he thought about Story, and his hands ached.
Did she get the treasure box?
he wondered.
Does it look like the one described in the book? Has she assaulted anyone else in the last two hours?

And then, as an act of faith, or perhaps as a tribute to Greta, the princess who danced in his memory and hovered in his future, but mostly for Story, who made him want to experiment with happily-ever-afters, Hans Turner found a red felt-tip marker and inscribed on the bill a message he thought held some truth, but one he knew would be unread and therefore insignificant.

Hans packed up his magic gear and headed for Officer Hudson’s annual Oktoberfest party. This was a big gathering, so in his head, Hans planned out a few extra tricks he could perform in whatever location Officer Hudson and his wife set aside for him. Hans drove east on the interstate, and let out a deep sigh when he recalled what Officer Hudson had told him when he called with directions. “We won’t put you by the pool. We want to keep the guests out front,” he’d said.

Of course there was a pool. It was blazing hot in Phoenix. Lots of people had pools. But it was ironic. Hans had left watery Florida to get away from its many bodies of water—ocean water, lake water, raging river water—and he’d moved west to the driest place on the map, hoping to leave his memories of water behind.

After checking in his side mirror to change lanes, he caught a glimpse of the simple, black-lettered sign on his truck—
Fix-It-And-Forget-It Man—
and for the first time since he’d purchased it, Hans found it laughable. In a flash of courage brought on by the bold Phoenix sun streaming through his truck window, he knew it was, in fact, a lie. Half of it, anyway. The
Fix It
part was accurate, but the
Forget It
part was a crock of shit and he knew it. He knew right then, on that October afternoon, that he could fix, but he could not forget, no matter how hard he tried. Every day, without acknowledging it, he drowned himself in deep-water memories of a vibrant river princess, and each time his guilt surfaced, he attempted to rescue anything—anyone—in his path.

When he reached Hudson’s house, Hans realized he’d performed in this neighborhood before. He recognized the street, Sunset Drive, and wondered what it would be like to inhabit a street named after a sunset—an event in nature that implied an
ending
—and every morning look at a street sign that contradicted the dawn.

After Hans covered his
Fix-It-And-Forget-It
sign with his
Sleight of Hans
sign, he collected his shiny gray toolbox and approached the house. He followed the sidewalk, which meandered through a crowd of people—dozens of kids, some with hula-hoops, some kicking soccer balls, and several adults mingling by a large buffet table overflowing with bratwurst and potato salad. Hanging from the table was a sign that read “Welcome to the Hudsons’ Annual Oktoberfest Block Party.” Officer Hudson wiped his hands and came from behind the table to greet Hans.

“Hey, thanks for doing this. The kids are gonna flip,” he said, giving Hans a strong, authoritative handshake. After observing Hans’s retro tux and unconventional magic trick carrier, he smiled. “Way cooler than a clown.”

The two of them walked to an empty table in the front yard, which would be Hans’s makeshift stage and designated performance area, and after some brief setup, Hans began his quiet but spectacular show. At first, nobody paid attention, but within a few minutes, an audience gathered, one by one, to watch him pull flower bouquets out of nowhere and create little blue eggs from nothing. Soon, the majority of the guests stood, mesmerized, in front of Hans, and watched him silently work his magic amidst the din of laughter and party music coming from two large speakers.

Hans’s hands, as usual, were his voice; each fluid movement acted as a sentence, a thought, some utterance that needed no sound, only feeling. Pulling a card or holding a small blue egg was simply a series of hanging on and letting go, and on the stage, at least, he was good at doing both. He found comfort in long, drawn-out dramatic moments—his strong grip was the key to making magic. A subtle repositioning of a finger, or a delicate change of his hand position, spoke volumes, and at least one person was listening. Really listening.

As Hans held up the dollar, displaying its authenticity and its special red markings before he attempted to make it disappear, a sweet voice hollered, “Dollar fuck!” Not everyone heard the comment over the other party noises, but Hans did. And he knew it was not a solicitation for an inexpensive sexual act, but an uncontrollable blurt from an old friend who, accompanied by her parents, had walked five blocks to the annual block party. Sarah Hartsinger stood three rows back in the gathered crowd, and when her sorry eyes met Hans’s, she and Hans exchanged smiles.

But before the smile faded, she cried, accidentally, “It’s fake! It’s all f-f-fake!” She looked sorry, and embarrassed, as the word hung in the festive air.

The crowd gasped, but when they returned their focus to Hans, he looked back at Sarah, shook his head, and then flashed a mysterious grin, at her and at the rest of the audience.

With the dollar bill clutched tightly, Hans’s hands danced, exploding like a shimmering firework with a blue-sky backdrop. And just like that—
poof!
—the dollar bill disappeared into the warm Arizona air.

That is, until Hans mimed a request for the audience members to check their pockets. A yardful of hands checked work pants pockets, skirt pockets, jacket pockets. But then one lucky recipient reached into her pocket and pulled out the dollar bill—the same one, with the red-letter message. The crowd went silent when they saw what had happened. Jaws dropped. A low murmur swept through the yard as the music was silenced. With all eyes on Sarah Hartsinger, nerves revolted and her subconscious took her hostage.

“Magic . . . bitch dollar!” she blurted, looking at the dollar bill, adorned with a red-letter message. Then, in a series of detonations, she blew. “October . . . fuck . . . fest!” Sarah Hartsinger mouthed
sorry
and walked slowly toward the Hudsons’ front door.

Hans propped up a sign indicating a brief show intermission, and although the party was still in full force—kids continued to run about, the music resumed—Hans felt consumed by Sarah’s personal pain, and suddenly felt stupid about the message he’d written on the dollar bill. He rubbed the dull ache from his hands, thinking about how Sarah was twelve years old, the age when you don’t want to be told what to do, and the age when the word
journey
is as intangible as the sun.

Then a sense of immediacy overcame Hans, and he began walking toward the Hudsons’ house, retracing Sarah’s steps as if she’d become lost in some metaphorical woods, and would need help finding the right path. The party noises faded away as Hans looked first in the kitchen, then the family room. Finally, after checking in a dining area, he walked past glass French doors and caught a glimpse of something in the backyard.

Through peripheral vision, Hans sensed an unnatural presence—a vast stretch of shimmering turquoise so blue the azure sky paled in comparison. And while Hans’s body was still in motion, before he had a chance to acknowledge his aversion to water, he saw her. Perched on the pool’s unforgiving edge, Sarah Hartsinger leaned forward, extending her right arm toward something floating inches out of her reach.