Page 62 of The Singing Trees
A SPEEDSKETCH
Annalisa found Thomas’s response on her way back from work two weeks later, and she dashed up the stairs with Christmas glee, eager to read the letter. It was a Wednesday just after three, and she’d been thinking about her most recent class with Sharon on the walk home. She’d decided she wasn’t quite ready to tell her teacher about her breakthrough with regard to painting these powerful women and wanted to play with the idea more.
Kicking off her shoes, Annalisa settled into the couch to read.
If you knew only how happy it made me to open your letter and find your drawing. Can we call that tree by the phone booth the Leaning Tower of Treeza?How clever he could be, she thought, as she read the rest of his letter.Yes,he said,we heard about Jimi. Terrible. And Janis Joplin too. I’m sure you saw the Wichita State U plane went down. Tell me some good news, Anna.He said that it should be a crime for Louisiana to be so hot in October, that he felt like he already had one foot in the jungles of Asia. Then he asked her for a drawing of one of these women she had written about, wanting to see the style she was going after. He always asked her about her art and was unwavering with his support, which filled her up but also made her question her decision to leave him.
Thinking of Emma, she wondered if she was doing any better, if maybe she’d found some happy moments in the sunshine of summer.Annalisa wished there were something she could do, but Emma had shown she had no interest in continuing their relationship.
She sketched an idea of what she’d been doing and then accompanied it with her response.The good news is that Nixon is finally pulling soldiers out.She’d become an avid watcher of the news since she had such a vested interest now in the outcome. The day before, Nixon had promised to pull forty thousand troops out of Vietnam by Christmas. She felt so hopeful for Michael and for Thomas and for the other soldiers.Is there talk of the war coming to an end? When do you think you’d have to ship out? I pray every day that you won’t have to.She asked him about Emma and if he was still able to keep up with sports and if he was happy at all. She wanted to cheer him up and make more jokes about summer camp and building forts with his pals, but the closer he came to his tour, the less humor she could find.
She’d done this to him. What was funny about that?
As she licked the glue of the envelope, she thought of their last kiss, during one of his driving lessons, and that led her to thinking about backing into Walt’s car. She ultimately decided not to tell him about the accident, as she didn’t want to give him anything else to worry about. His car was as good as new now, so maybe it was a forgivable white lie.
About five o’clock, Annalisa went down the stairs and around the corner to the shop to see if she’d had any success today. “Did we sell any, Walt?” she called out as she entered.
He was on one knee polishing the glass of his watch counter. “About an hour ago,” he said. “That one with the money spilling out of the purse.”
“Really?” Her heart fluttered. That made six paintings at a total of five dollars each. She went to the wall he was letting her use and proudly saw that only five were left.
He grimaced as he stood, then cleared his throat. “Keep this up and your efforts will pay the rent.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?” she called out. Returning to his side of the shop, she reached for the rag. “Let me help. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Oh heavens,” he said, as if she’d insulted him. “I’ve been cleaning glass around here for forty years. I think I can manage on my own.”
“Nonsense.” She snatched the rag from his hands and retrieved the glass cleaner from the counter. “So can I bring down more paintings?”
“Might as well.” He watched her with his hands on his waist, as if he were skeptical of her ability. She’d show him. You didn’t spend three years with her grandmother without coming away knowing how to polish glass.
She moved to the next section. “Tell me something, Walt. Why don’t you ever talk about yourself? We’ve known each other since June, and I still don’t know the first thing.”
“What’s there to know?”
She wanted to ask about his wife but didn’t want to get into more trouble. “Where are you from? What brought you to Portland, Maine? How does one get into repairing timepieces?”
He pointed to a spot she missed—or at least he thought she did. “You must be terribly bored to want to polish glass and ask me questions.”
“I’m curious; that’s all.”
As she polished the case that featured an incredibly stunning collection of wrist and pocket watches, he opened up. “I was always taking things apart—often to my parents’ dismay. The watchmaker next door to my father’s butcher shop in Manhattan took me in and encouraged my curiosity. I worked for him into my thirties, long after my parents passed.”
She glanced back and saw Walt relishing in these memories, even as he coughed into his white handkerchief.
“Then a woman named Gertrude walked through the door,” he continued, “and I was smitten immediately. I suppose we both were,and it was the Roaring Twenties, you see. Oh, you missed those years, Annalisa. The war was over, and New York was the place to be. I pranced her around like I was the king of Manhattan ...”
Walt stopped and paused, and Annalisa knew he could see through the years back to one of those moments with Gertrude. “Then the Depression came and I lost my job. Gertrude’s father owned a shipping company in Portland and offered help if we moved north, so that’s what we—”
The bell above the door rang, and they turned.
“Oh good, you’re still open,” a lady said, searching the room, finally setting her gaze on Annalisa. “I’m looking for a gift for my husband. He’s turning sixty tomorrow, and I’ve put it off to the last minute.”
Annalisa had fallen into Walt’s story with him but was ripped right out of the dream when she saw that it was Patty Garner, the manager of the Advertising Department at Pride’s, the woman for whom she’d originally wanted to work. Patty was the hero of every woman in that store, a female who’d somehow shown enough force to climb her way to the top. She was Portland’s own Dorothy Shaver, who had risen to the top of Lord & Taylor, arguably the finest department store chain in the country. Annalisa had painted Shaver a week earlier, so she was heavy on her mind.
Patty must have been in her fifties and had thick, wavy hair. Her gray-and-white checkered wool dress was conservative but stylish. Annalisa imagined she took long baths in her claw-foot tub after work and then drank dirty martinis with her obedient husband. No doubt she wore the pants in her marriage. A substantial diamond that was even bigger than that of Thomas’s mother weighed down Patty’s finger.
“I actually don’t work here,” Annalisa said, pulling her eyes away from the diamond.
