Page 55 of The Singing Trees
“Wait,” Annalisa said. “Are you crying? Nonna doesn’t cry.”
In that moment, Annalisa felt like she was abandoning her grandmother. She’d been so caught up in her own dream of getting out of the Mills that she hadn’t considered what she was doing to Nonna, leaving her alone. As much as Annalisa had been a pain in the butt, maybe Nonna did like having her around.
Guilt caught her like a spiderweb as she considered Nonna’s life going forward. She’d have family over as always, but she’d lost her son, her husband, whom she’d lived with for more than forty years. Now she was losing Annalisa.
With her back to her granddaughter, Nonna said, “You behave and go to Mass every Sunday.EverySunday. And say your prayers.”
Annalisa went to her and touched her arm. “I will.”
Still hiding her moist eyes, Nonna shook her head. “And on holy days.” She turned, and they hugged like they never had before. Both women choked up, knowing they’d fought the odds and were still standing.
Letting go of her grandmother, Annalisa asked, “Why don’t you come with me to Portland? Sell the house and move with me. Into your own place, of course. But close by. Not too close but close enough.”
Nonna blew out a blast of air. “Pazza!This is my home.” How unfair that she had loved her husband her whole life, only to be forced to live the last of her years alone. Love seemed quite awful, if Annalisa was being honest. Still, she wished Nonna could find someone. As dogged as she was, she might easily live twenty more years.
“I’m gonna keep working on you. Could be a fresh start for both of us.”
Nonna crossed her arms. “I’ll never move from this house.”
Annalisa smiled at her grandmother’s defiance as if she were looking in the mirror. “I’m going to get you out of here one day, whether you like it or not.”
Nonna shook her head, and Annalisa thought she heard a growl.
“Though I haven’t always shown it, I’m so grateful for all that you’ve done for me,” Annalisa said. “So incredibly grateful.”
Nonna pinched Annalisa’s cheek. “Your mother would be proud. Just like I am.”
God, Annalisa was going to miss this woman.
Chapter 19
ONENEEDSMONEY TOEAT
Before Annalisa had even bought groceries for her new place, she rang Sharon Maxwell to announce her arrival to Portland and make sure classes were on for that coming Tuesday, the last day of June. When Sharon mentioned the cost of the classes (almost as much as her rent per month), Annalisa nearly choked, but this was why she was here: to excel. She’d rather take classes than eat.
As she’d done back in the Mills, she put one easel in the corner of her bedroom and the other outside. Then, after apologizing to the plant for stealing its hook, she hung her mother’s wind chimes. They instantly broke into their first Portland song.
Overcome with a need to start a new piece—her first in the city—she decided to put off her other errands until the next day and carried her trunk out to the balcony. Thank God she was young, she thought. Dragging it up the stairs had not been easy.
With Van Morrison singing to her from the record player inside, she sat with her canvas pad in one of the two chairs. Knowing her most inspired ideas came in moments of silence, she sat back and breathed in her view. This was her city now. She could see so much more than her little block with the people and the cars rushing by. She could see her dreams coming alive.
Even the dark clouds that had marched in to swallow the blue above didn’t hamper her enthusiasm. In fact, she relished the abutment of colors, those gray shades seeping into the June sky. As she readied her pencil and framed her scene, the sky opened up with water. Protected from the rain by the overhang above, she looked down to the street and saw a businessman dashing past the left-leaning tree and into the phone booth. There was something so incredibly urgent in his movements, and Annalisa reached for her sketch pad and pencil.
“That’s it,” she said to herself. What captured city life better than the urgency that Payton Mills lacked? Once she was satisfied with her sketch, she reached into her trunk for the rest of her supplies and went to work.
Annalisa plugged into the city as much as she could over the next few days, searching for inspiration. She went on long walks to take in all the new sights and sounds. She checked out her first stack of art books from the library. Needless to say, the options in the Portland Library were much more abundant than those back in the Mills. She dipped into all the galleries to get an idea of her competition, and she went back to the museum a few times to remind herself of what she wanted. Of course it never failed that the museum reminded her of Thomas—and even Emma—and she had to almost ruthlessly push away thoughts of them.
Portland, however, lived up to her assertion that the city buzzed with a current of urgency. The quote to fix Walt’s and Thomas’s cars was much more than she’d anticipated, which meant she needed a job immediately. No more walking dizzily through the city without a care in the world. As if her meager bowls of homemade chicken soup for each meal weren’t a constant reminder. Nonna had taught her all about repurposing bones and carcasses and fat in every way she could.
Not having a car, she marched all over the city, looking for jobs. She even revisited the places she’d already dropped résumés. Her initial hope that she might find something in the art world melted away quickly, and by the third day, she was desperate.
On Monday, she decided to spend one more day trying to find something more enjoyable than taking people’s orders and delivering food. Not that she was above being a waiter, it was just that she would have preferred something more in line with her skills as an artist. But as she’d been reminded by the wall of rejections she kept collecting, a lack of a degree meant a lack of choices.
Walking by Pride’s on Congress Street, she decided to try one more time. Pride’s was the fanciest department store in all of Maine—at least of any that she’d seen. She’d first dropped off an application for the fashion illustrator position when she’d come with Nino. Then she’d followed up with several phone calls and a visit the second day after moving in. Fashion illustrators used pen and ink, which was a medium Annalisa felt very comfortable with after first learning in Bangor.
Annalisa strolled with dazzled senses through the cosmetic counters, where girls offered to show her the latest lipsticks and blush and let her take sniffs of the most popular perfumes. How nice to be one of the women in the dressing rooms, trying on the latest styles or having her hair done in the salon.
Fantasies aside, she wasn’t afraid of doing the hard work to get there. Reaching the center of the store, she looked at the escalators teeming with people either riding down to the Bargain Bin in the basement or up to the second floor where they had Men’s Fashions and the Personnel Department.
