Free The Understory by Elizabeth Leiknes Page B

pool of her own silver-gray hair, which had cascaded down from her eighty-two-year-old scalp and piled up so high around her, she made Crystal Gayle’s hair seem short. “Nothing good about it. Nothing good at all,” she said in a formal, cranky English accent. “And I must kindly remind you not to call me Florence, as it is not my name.”
    “Of course,” Claire said, directing Florence and her hair into her office. Florence Dickerson was convinced, with every strand of her six-foot long hair, that she was Rapunzel, from the Grimm Brothers’ famous fairy tale. It had all started seven years ago, when she’d come across a picture of her former lover, a fallen World War II soldier, and for some reason, at the very moment she laid eyes on it, neurotransmitters in her brain exploded in a fireworks show fueled by sad memories, bad luck, and old age. From that moment on, even though part of her, buried deep, knew time had moved on, Florence Dickerson’s subconscious redirected all her emotions toward the notion that she was still waiting for her lover to return from war. When she saw the picture, she recaptured that pining, incessant need to see him again by living in a metaphorical tower—being ready, at any miraculous moment, to unleash her locks on which her prince would climb. And thus, in her fairy-tale mind, she morphed into Rapunzel, the most patient woman in all fairy tales combined.
    In medical school, Claire was taught not to fight the pivotal moments in her patients’ pasts that dictated who they were. Her mentors said that if she did, she’d have to take up battle with not only World War II, but also burning infernos, neglectful parents, tuberculosis, and unrequited love—tragedies in people’s pasts that forever dictated the paths of their futures.
    “Here, let me . . .” Claire said, as she helped Florence step over her hair and settle in an overstuffed patient recliner. “How’s your daughter, Karen? Did she drop you off today?”
    “Yes. Yes, she did,” Florence said, “but she’s needed back at the tower.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes, it is in need of immense repair.”
    “Really?”
    “The bricks are failing—it’s old.” She looked out Claire’s office window with a longing gaze. “I’m getting old, too, you know,” she said, looking more like a Florence now than a Rapunzel.
    “How old are you, if you don’t mind?” Claire asked from behind her big, polished desk.
    “I don’t mind your asking,” Florence said. “How old I am—now that I mind.” Both women stared at each other. “I’m tired of waiting,” Florence said with authority. But then she looked to her psychiatrist for advice.
    Claire called upon her extensive training, poring over a decade of education and volumes of information stored in her brain, looking for appropriate counsel, and then made the executive decision to borrow words from a rose-toting retarded man.
    “Rise above,” Claire told her, leaning back in her chair. Now, Claire had no idea what it meant, but she hoped Florence would have a meaningful interpretation of it.
    Florence wasted no time interpreting. “I don’t get it.”
    “Well . . .” Claire said, stalling. She then conjured up her high school drama club voice intermixed with a splash of cheerleader. “You’re Rapunzel with a capital friggin’ ‘R’! You’ve survived imprisonment, abandonment, and bad tower food. You, my dear, are one magical, brazen bitch—”
    “I am, aren’t I?” Florence said, sitting up a bit straighter and holding her head a little higher.
    “Damn straight. And you’ve been stuck, but it’s time to move on. No more waiting. Rise above your comfort zone. Join the new millennium. Seriously, how old is your fairy tale? Nineteenth century?”
    “Eighteen-twenties,” Florence said, nodding. “But how am I going to rise above with all this hair weighing me down?”
    “Get rid of it. Let him take the goddamned stairs!”
    “The tower has stairs?” Florence