Page 27 of The Singing Trees
After the night at the drive-in, her paintings took on a lightness that she used to avoid, almost lovey-dovey with butterflies and pastel colors and big silly hearts, all the result of the flighty feeling dancing in her stomach. Annalisa didn’t think Jackie would think much of this phase as her voice, but for the moment she didn’t care. The lighter colors and mood were a welcome change from the somber paintings she’d done since her parents’ deaths.
They saw each other four more times in the following two weeks, twice including his sister. Though her fear—of potential heartache, of not heeding Nonna’s warnings, of letting him get in the way of her art—seemed to follow her growing attraction to him like a black sedan in the rearview mirror, she committed to giving in to their relationship. She kept thinking about how happy Nonna’s life had been with Nonno. Not all couples ended up like Annalisa’s parents.
Surely there were great artists out there who had made their best works while bathing in these same feelings of love. She’d been painting nude women lately, mostly conjuring them up from her imagination after emulating a few Goyas she’d discovered. It was obvious she was wrestling with her own sexuality, knowing that with each time they were together, she and Thomas were moving closer to going all the way.
Not long after parking in a secluded spot on Sebago Lake on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, she let Thomas take off her shirt and continue where they’d left off at the beach a week before. A cold wind blew through the cracked windows, but the heat between them kept her warm as he encroached on her side of the car. Sly and the Family Stone played on the radio. She was not passive and matched his cravings as she pulled him into her, letting out moans that she couldn’t control. It felt like it was only a matter of time before she’d take the next step with him.
When he slipped two fingers into her waistband, though, she felt her entire body turn to steel.
She grabbed his hand. “Stop. I...no.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She couldn’t have said exactly what caused this sudden rigidity. Was it her grandmother’s warnings? Could it really have been a result of witnessing her parents’ marriage fall apart? Or did it have more to do with their deaths? Was this a symptom of grief?
Thomas’s hand felt like an impostor down there, and she was uncomfortably vulnerable. She was well aware that the unwieldy traffic lights in her head—the red and green randomly changing at any given moment—were as confusing to him as they were to her.
Collecting her thoughts, she said, “I’m not ready, okay?”
“No rush here; don’t worry.” He showed no frustration as he respectfully kissed her on the cheek and reached for her hand, assuring her he would stand by her no matter what.
She didn’t want him to think she didn’t like him. That wasn’t the case at all. Trying to turn her mood around, she pulled two beers from the bag behind them. “Let’s go explore.”
They put on their clothes, pulling on jackets and gloves to fight the cold, and walked hand in hand along the trail wrapping around the lake. The sun dropped down behind the mostly leafless trees and painted the water the color of tangerines.
He talked about his family, saying that his parents had asked to meet her soon. “They want me to bring you to the country club,” he said, “but I keep putting it off. I hope you don’t feel like I am trying to keep you a secret. It’s the other way around. I’m trying to keepthema secret.”
“I know that. Don’t worry.” She almost said, “Don’t feel like you need to force it,” but let the thought go. She did want to meet them—eventually, but the idea rattled her nerves. The last thing she needed was more people like her father in her life.
“So, Emma,” she started, feeling comfortable probing deeper into his family’s life. “What’s going on with her? You said she’s been down for a long time.”
He picked up a stick and tossed it into the water. As the splash shot out a ring of ripples, he said, “She almost killed herself.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, Thomas.” Annalisa hadn’t actually tried to hurt herself, but she’d certainly thought about it after her parents had died.
He faced her. “Mitch saved her.”
She’d originally met Mitch at the game, and he was the one who had found Nino in the crowd to report Thomas was taking her home. He was in advanced infantry training at Fort Polk in Louisiana, so she had yet to see him again.
Thomas kicked a pine cone, and it rolled farther down the trail, settling at the base of a tall fir. “At least we think she was about to. The three of us were at my family’s cabin up north. I’d talked her into coming, just to get her out of the house. We woke up after that first night, and she was gone. Mitch and I split up and searched everywhere. He found her standing on the edge of a cliff—like a deadly one-hundred-foot drop—and she looked like she was going to jump. He brought her back.”
Annalisa slipped her arm around Thomas’s waist. “That’s so sad. I hate that she’d ever feel that way.” Emma’s and Thomas’s pain filled her heart. “Did you tell your parents? She might need some help.”
He sighed as he gazed over the tangerine water at a flock of wood ducks landing near a fallen tree. A violet hue shaded the edges of orange sky. “That’s not the way my family works. No daughter of Bill and Elizabeth Barnes needs to seek help. We’re the perfect family.” A humorless smile lifted his lips. “Absolutely perfect.”
On December 1, Annalisa sat shoulder to shoulder with Emma and Thomas in a booth that offered a view of the small television resting on top of the Coke machine at the restaurant next to her work. The River Place was a small joint, mostly takeout. Three girls in matching red T-shirts stood behind the counter, taking orders. Behind them a giant menu offered all types of fried seafood in various combinations.
The other diners who had filled the six tables were glued to the CBS broadcast of the first draft lottery since 1942. On the far right of the screen, a large whiteboard displayed rows of numbers that would soon be populated with birth dates drawn from the bucket of blue capsules waiting in the center of the stage. The men in suits looked somber as they waited to begin.
Annalisa pushed her basket of fried clams and french fries away. The savory smell was tempting, but she was too unsettled to eat. It wasn’t just Thomas’s birth date being drawn tonight. Three of her cousins were eligible as well. Thomas promised her he was safe because of his 2-S student deferment, but his assurance wasn’t enough to ease her mind. The idea of losing him to the war was terrifying.
She’d heard talk of some deferments going away because of both the Selective Service’s attempt at making the draft more equitable and also the dropping number of enlistees due to the explosive antiwar sentiment. Though Thomas didn’t agree with Annalisa’s worry, the government could pull his deferment at any minute.
When Alexander Pirnie, a congressman from New York, drew out the first capsule, Annalisa wrapped her arm around Emma. Thomas wasn’t the only one whose life was on the line—and that was what it was. She had been hearing horror stories for years, long before she was even old enough to understand them, about men dying or being wounded in the war.
To her left, by her soda, was a piece of paper with all her cousins’ birth dates on them. Unlike Thomas, though, her cousins had no way to get a deferment. A low number for them was pretty much a death sentence. Thankfully, Nino was still too young.
Mr.Pirnie handed the blue capsule to another man in a black suit, probably someone from the Selective Service. The man cracked open the capsule and spoke into the microphone, “September 14.”
