Page 66 of The Singing Trees
TREMBLINGLIPS AND AHEART ON AWINDOW
Annalisa worked long days at Pride’s and was at the same time attempting to break through the veil of doubt Sharon had draped over her eyes. All of it, she knew, was a distraction from Thomas, though. The busier she kept herself, the less she thought about him being back in Davenport, saying his goodbyes. He most likely was putting all his focus on his sister, trying to comfort her before his departure. Was he also being driven mad to know Annalisa was so close?
The problem was that she had become a terror to work with at Pride’s, snapping at anyone who dared to challenge her, just as she’d done to Sharon, and with regard to her art, she felt like she’d lost her groove. Sure, Sharon had knocked her down pretty harshly, but even more so, Thomas was still waving his darn arms and making bird sounds behind her easel.
Leaving him out of it for a moment—as if she could—how could she not be onto something with her new style? Customers specifically sought out her work at Walt’s shop. Bottom line, Sharon had broken the pact of a great teacher by shattering Annalisa’s excitement. Maybe Annalisa could do better, and she was trying, but why couldn’t Sharon offer just a bit of praise for once? Annalisa knew it wasn’t Sharon’s jealousy or her need for Annalisa’s weekly payment, as she’d so rudely suggested before marching out.
She couldn’t exactly say why Sharon was so opposed to her new pieces, and maybe that was why it hurt so badly. If, in fact, she hadn’t found her voice, then she was worse off than she had been even before moving. Perhaps out of shame more than anything else, she chose to drop out of Sharon’s classes.
Though it never seemed to get easier, Annalisa was no stranger to fighting through emotional turmoil in order to break through the plateaus of her creative journey, and that was what she worked toward, finding a place of confidence again, despite Sharon and Thomas.
On Tuesday, January 5, 1971, Thomas called, and she’d never needed to hear his voice more. In fact, she’d stared at her phone more than once, waiting for his call. Her world was unraveling, and he was the only one who could understand. In fairness to him, though, she had no right to lean on him anymore, having hidden from him for three weeks. She wondered if he could feel all this turmoil through the phone line as they spoke.
“Anyway,” he said, moving on from a klutzy chat about each other’s Christmas, “I was hoping we could have lunch on my way through town to drop off the Beetle.” Then he gave her a lifeline. “No pressure, though; I know you’re busy.”
With the demands of Pride’s and this uphill battle against her creative demons, the entire thing with Thomas being in town was absolutely killing her. No matter how much she was workingorhow bad an idea it was to see each other, she needed to make time for him. What kind of person couldn’t find an hour for lunch to spend with someone she cared about before he went off to war?
In a moment of weakness, as her mind debated his proposal, she knew that she was simply justifying her much-deeper need to see him. Between her emotional and artistic rut, she felt like he might be the escape she needed. It wasn’t that she could allow their relationship to go back to what it had once been, but maybe a little time with himcould quell this heartache, which was more obstinate than Annalisa or even Nonna.
“Let’s do it,” she said, thinking:What did you just get yourself into?They agreed to noon, and she asked him to buzz her apartment upon arrival. She would pop down to meet him. As she’d said as much, though, she froze. Surely, he would want to come up and see her life as she’d described it in her letters. It was one thing to have lunch, entirely another to let him into her new life.
Having dropped out of Sharon’s classes, she finally had Tuesday nights free. In the case that she did let him up, she decided to clean for a while. She wasn’t exactly messy, but her crazy workload definitely didn’t leave much time for house chores. Staying busy seemed to be her only medicine, and every Tuesday night wrought fresh pain as she imagined the rest of her class hard at work under Sharon’s tutelage.
In the morning, she put a little extra time into her attire. She wore a double-breasted shearling coat that fell almost exactly to the length of her black wool miniskirt—a cut of which Nonna would not have approved. To complement her outfit, she first tried her black leather knee-high boots with turquoise jewels she’d attached to the buckles, but questioning her motives, she’d changed into a pair of Tony Lama boots that she’d found in a vintage store.
First thing she did when she walked into work was ask Patty if she could take a little longer lunch to spend time with her ex-boyfriend before he shipped off.
“Take a couple of hours. By the way, you look extra good today,” Patty said, eyeing her outfit. “Are we still claiming not to like him?”
Annalisa glanced down at her jacket and skirt. “We’re just friends. Doesn’t mean I can’t look good, though.”
“Well, you give him a reason to come home, okay?”
After an eye roll, Annalisa replied, “He’ll need a reason other than me, or he’ll be one disappointed soldier when he steps off the plane.” Even Annalisa didn’t believe what she was saying. In truth, she had noidea what she was doing allowing herself to see him. She was damned either way.
Wearing a smock to protect her outfit, she spent the morning on her stool, attempting to draw an imaginary woman wearing a lightweight green coat over blue denim that hung on a metal rack a few feet past her slanted drawing desk.
After months of illustrating these dresses, she was still having fun being in the industry and enjoying first peeks at the newest fashions, but the actual work of drawing the ads with pen and ink had become easy, essentially a rote experience. Not today, though. Nothing was coming easy. She didn’t feel connected at all to the women she was trying to draw to life.
On cloudy days like today, they opened the drapes on the windows overlooking Congress Street, so she spent more time than usual with her pen resting next to the inkwell and her eyes looking out over the city she now called home. Seeing Thomas was wreaking all sorts of havoc in her heart, like she’d downed a second and third cup of coffee. She was nervous to see him for so many reasons, the strongest being that today might be the last day sheeversaw him. The idea was a knife to the gut. She hated to think that way, to give any light to the idea, but the war was far from over, and the news seemed to get only uglier.
A few minutes before noon, she went out into the dreary and cold day. The recent snow had partially melted, leaving the sidewalks slippery with hidden patches of ice. Rounding the corner to her apartment, she saw that he was early, the yellow Beetle parked in the small lot by the stairs. He stepped out to greet her, and she gasped.
The army had transformed and even consumed him. His head was shaved, and he had the steel-rod posture of a soldier. She’d thought he might have been in uniform, but she also knew that soldiers preferred not to draw attention these days due to the ever-growing antiwar sentiment. He was dressed simply in jeans and a sweater.
He stopped five feet from her. They stared at each other for a moment, and she could hear her heart thump. What if the men in green had cut all his kindness out of him? He smiled warmly, though, calming her worry, and she sensed that he hadn’t changedthatmuch. More to the point, she realized that she loved him more than ever. Seven months it had been. Wasn’t time supposed to heal all? If anything, time had thrown gas on the flames of her longing for him.
One of the many lessons that Walt had taught Annalisa about time was that not all seconds were equal. Some lasted longer than others. The following seconds inched by as if they were waiting on a seed to sprout. What in the hell was she doing here? Everything—both of their lives—was on the line.
“Wow,” he whispered with a grin that showed her how much he’d truly missed her. “You look good.”
She thanked him with a smile, then, trying to lighten the energy, said, “You’ve thickened up, haven’t you?”
He glanced down at his arms. “They put me to work; that’s for sure.”
Agonizing seconds ticked by. She was so thrilled and excited and terrified to see him. No other man could ever make her feel this way, and she wondered if she’d done it all wrong by leaving him.
“I missed you,” he said, his words blowing up her skirt.
