Page 16 of The Singing Trees
Her sudden smile turned into a laugh. “This is ridiculous.”
He smiled too. “Hey, it’s first-class delivery, all the way home to Payton Mills. So what’s your preference?”
“Some saltines for now would be great, thanks.” Maybe Nino wasn’t theonlynice guy out there.
He opened the package for her and handed it over.
Once they’d gotten back on the road and she’d eaten a few crackers, she started coming around even more. She took the last swig of ginger ale and set it near her feet.
“How’s your sister?” she asked. She’d thought about the lonely-looking girl more than once since that night at Davenport High.
He glanced at her. “She’s okay, thanks. Actually, I have to admit something to you. She’s the reason I was there tonight.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“We were already planning on going,” he said, “but when Emma told me you’d mentioned it, I had extra incentive.”
“She ratted me out?” Annalisa asked jokingly, wishing the fogginess in her head would go away. “Wow, I thought we’d bonded.”
He sipped his Coke. “Uh, yeah, I’d say so. My sister really liked you, which is saying a lot. She doesn’t like many people at all. That’s why she told me where to find you. Then she said I’d be lucky if you ever gave me the time of day.”
She was right about that, but considering Annalisa was currently tasting the acidity of her stomach in her mouth after a debauched display of teenage angst, she thought Emma’s comment might have missed the mark.
Annalisa watched the trees go by. “Tell her she’s in trouble with me.” Despite the haziness, she could feel herself having fun talking to him and didn’t know what to make of it. This was exactly the kind of thing her mother would have helped her with; Nonna was great in a lot of ways, but not when it came to girl talk.
“I’ll do that,” he said with an unshakable grin. She wondered if he’d ever had his heart broken. It didn’t seem like it. She wouldn’t be surprised if his friends called him Mr.Sunshine.
He hummed a snatch of song as the highway blurred under their wheels. “So what do you listen to? Who’s your all-time favorite? Hold on, let me guess. I see you as like a...a Motown girl. There’s something kind of old soul about you.” Then he corrected himself. “No, Emma told me. You like Elvis, don’t you?”
She crossed her arms and twisted toward him. “Your sister’s like your spy or something. I thought she was on my side. And what’s wrong with Elvis?”
He found her eyes before looking back to the road. “He’s...fine, but he’s so yesterday.”
She sat back in her seat. “I am an old soul; what can I say? My mother got me into him, so maybe it’s nostalgia.” Annalisa fell back in time to the days when her father was at work, and she and her mother would clean the house listening toHis Hand in MineandG.I.Blues. Not all of her childhood was bad. She cherished memories like that.
Thomas asked more questions, and she talked about her family and then told him about her aspirations of getting out of Payton Mills and her desire to be an artist. At this point, he’d totally bailed on the concert and pretty much rescued her, so she owed him some kindness and conversation. And she had to admit that he was enjoyable to talk to and appeared genuinely interested in her life.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is be a professional artist,” she said. “The same dream as my mother, but she ended up letting it go to be a wife and mom.” She didn’t mention that it was really her father who had dampened her mother’s desire to be an artist for a living. He’d demanded that she stop working and stay home.
Thomas passed a slow truck in the other lane, working the clutch and gearshift with grace. “Was your mother as good as you?”
“Definitely better,” she said, looking at him, noticing his rounded profile. He really was a hunk. “She was like Jackie O; anything she touched turned beautiful. She’d study fashion magazines and then make it all herself. Her friends begged her to make them clothes. And the way she painted was...” Annalisa stopped to revisit her mother’s work in her mind.
Thomas looked over to urge her on.
“She had a certain style with her still lifes. Her arrangements, the shadows and colors.” Thinking of what Jackie Burton had said about finding her voice, she said, “She had a very specific style that you could pick out in a heartbeat. That’s not easy to do.”
“I can’t imagine it is,” he replied. “I’d love to see her work.”
“There are only a couple left in the family,” Annalisa admitted, suddenly aching for her mother while at the same time wondering why she was sharing so much with this almost stranger.
She reached for the pack of gum at the same time that he grabbed the gearshift, and their hands collided. A spark of excitement came racing up her arm, and when she looked at him, they shared a smile. In the intimacy of this car, there was no denying their connection.
Not ready for it, she looked out the window to her right, noticing a sign pointing toward Payton Mills.
“Do you paint still lifes too?”
She shook her head, knowing she’d better stop getting emotional. “Not at all. To be honest, I’m not into them that much. I love my mother’s, for obvious reasons, but it’s not a genre I mess with anymore.”
