The Singing Trees by Boo Walker
Chapter 8
THE DRIVE-IN
After the school bus dropped her back home Monday, she found Nonna sitting at the small two-top table in the kitchen. If her grandmother ever took a minute to get off her feet, it was either here or her recliner in the living room. Above the table hung a calendar with a portrait of the Virgin Mary. Aside from the occasional doctor’s appointment, the calendar was mostly filled with Nonna’s obligations to the church, such as feeding a new widow, or providing flowers for the altar, or contributing to a bake sale.
“What’s going on with you?” Annalisa questioned, studying the jagged lines on her grandmother’s forehead.
Nonna shook her head, ignoring the question. “How much homework do you have?”
Annalisa couldn’t stand it when her grandmother got into these moods, so she tried to lighten her up. “Seniors don’t have homework. Something about spreading us too thin.”
Nonna removed her glasses and set them on the table. Playing along, she said, “Bene. I have a long list of chores. What would you like to start with? The toilets and sinks need scrubbing. You know where the Clorox and gloves are.”
“Actually,” Annalisa said, continuing their joust, “I have more homework this year than ever before. I don’t even know if I’ll have time to paint this afternoon.”
“Oh, is that so?” Her grandmother let out a smirk that might have required a magnifying glass to detect.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Annalisa said sarcastically, “algebra, biology, reading. I have to finish The Great Gatsby tonight.”
“Tonight? Didn’t you just start it?”
“I know! And I don’t even like it, what with Jay’s absurd obsession with Daisy. I’d honestly rather scrub toilets.”
Nonna rolled her eyes. “I bet you would.”
Annalisa put her arm on Nonna’s shoulder. “I’m just kidding. Can I paint for a little while, and then I’ll happily do chores all the way to dinner?”
The phone rang.
Nonna pointed to the living room. “Yes, you can paint for an hour, but answer the call first.”
The phone rested next to a starched doily on a wooden table between her grandmother’s recliner and the couch. Lifting the receiver to her ear, Annalisa said dutifully, “Mancuso residence.”
“Annalisa, is that you?”
She instantly turned into a statue, as frozen as the statue of the Virgin Mary staring back at her from the cabinet by the television.
Thomas.
Nerves shot off like fireworks, sparks working their way up her legs like fuses. She eyed Mother Mary and mouthed, “Stop looking at me.” Then to Thomas, “May I ask who’s calling?”
He announced himself as if she didn’t know.
She sank down on the couch covered in plastic, her grandmother’s way to ensure the furniture would always be brand new. Whenever Annalisa made fun of it, Nonna would say, “Italian men put too much grease in their hair.”
“Oh, hi,” she replied. Casual, not a care in the world, as if he were the fourth boy to call this afternoon.
“I was hoping you’d like to go to a movie tomorrow.”
A flash of excitement straightened her spine. “Um . . . uh.” She looked toward the kitchen to make sure Nonna hadn’t poked her nosy head around the corner. There was no evidence of eavesdropping, but Annalisa couldn’t be too careful.
Filling the silence, he said, “They’re showing Alice’s Restaurant at seven at the Davenport Drive-In. It seemed fitting for some reason.”
Alice. He was funny. She could almost hear Mr. Sunshine’s smile, enjoying his own joke. “You’ll never let that one go, will you?”
“I couldn’t resist. So have you seen it?”
“Not yet . . . the one with . . . ?” She bought time in an attempt to wrangle her racing thoughts. Her conversation with Nonna the previous night was still fresh in her mind, but she had a strong urge to accept his invitation.
“With Arlo Guthrie. What do you say? We’ll have fun.”
The voices in her head went to war. Do it. Don’t do it. What’s wrong with a little date? Everything is wrong with it! She liked him, though; she really did.
Remembering the napkin he’d waved in surrender at the dinner table, she smiled. A boy so committed at least deserved a date. “Yes, I’d love . . . I mean, I’d like to.”
As they made arrangements, Annalisa debated whether to tell Nonna. A little fib might be best. After ending the call, she returned to the living room. “That was Christina, asking if I could go to a movie tomorrow after work.”
Nonna turned, one eye squinted in skepticism. “Christina, huh?”
“Please, Nonna. They’re showing Alice’s Restaurant, a comedy.” Nonna knew next to nothing about movies, so Annalisa didn’t expand further. She certainly wasn’t going to mention the movie starred Arlo Guthrie, who’d performed at Woodstock a couple of months earlier.
“How stupid do you think I am?” Nonna asked. “I hear when my granddaughter sneaks out, and I know when a boy calls.”
Annalisa’s eyes turned to silver dollars. Nonna knew she’d sneaked out?
“That’s right,” Nonna said. “You think I’m hard on you, but I let you get away with a lot. You can go to the movies with him, but no more lies. Promise me.”
Annalisa almost denied the allegations, but then she realized what a gift her grandmother had given her. That little bit of slack was the biggest hug in the world. She found it hard to do anything but love her grandmother in that moment.
“Thank you. I promise, no more lies. And I promise I’ll be careful with him.”
Nonna pointed at her. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Annalisa fondly remembered watching Easy Come, Easy Go and Paradise, Hawaiian Style and a long list of other Elvis movies at the Bangor Drive-In with her mother. Her father couldn’t stand the King, so going to the movies was an unspoken escape. She remembered cuddling with her mother under a gray wool blanket, a texture she could still feel, the Yves Saint Laurent perfume her mother wore still lingering. Annalisa could still hear both their gasps when Elvis first appeared.
As the sun fell over the Davenport Drive-In and the previews lit up the giant screen, Annalisa and Thomas laughed hysterically at the people scrambling out of the trunks of cars. They’d do anything to avoid the two-dollar admission. Annalisa recalled it all from Bangor: the swath of light shooting from the projector to the screen up front, the fogged-up cars with kids making out in the back seat, the savory smell of buttery popcorn wafting through the air.
With a bag of popcorn between them and drinks in their hands, they chatted away as they waited for the feature. “What makes you want to be a dentist?” she asked. “Don’t they have a high suicide rate?”
He finished chewing his popcorn. “Yeah, I heard that, too, but I’m not sure it’s true. I caddy for a dentist at the club. A really good guy, a good dad. Only works four days a week, home by five, always has time for his two boys. All I want is to give my kids a good home life; it’s the one thing I’ve always craved. I must sound so vanilla to an artist.”
“I think it’s sweet.” Had she just said that out loud? It was true, though; he was sweet. What if she’d been wrong about love?
When they looked at each other, she saw a genuineness in his eyes that felt like a warm pair of socks for her heart. He said, “I don’t need our big house and our Hinckley and our cabin up north to be happy. All I’ve ever wanted is a normal life. A wife and kids, a nice neighborhood. Maybe a sailboat, but it doesn’t have to be the biggest on the water. And—”
“If you say a white picket fence,” she interrupted, “I’ll hurl . . . again.” She wasn’t exactly joking.
“No, I don’t want a white picket fence. What about a . . .” He paused to think. “What about a nice blue picket fence?”
She reached for a handful of popcorn. “You are so in the car with the wrong girl.”
“Why is that?” he asked, sliding his eyes toward her with his Mr. Sunshine grin. “If you don’t like blue, I’ll let you pick the color. You’re the artist.”
Popping a couple of salty kernels into her mouth, she thought that this notion was exactly him. He seemed so flexible, like he’d do whatever it took to include her in his life, even if that meant changing his plans—or the color of his fence.
A few minutes into the movie, Thomas turned to her and rested his arm over the back of the seat. When he leaned toward her, completely abandoning the story on the screen, she thought she saw her heart leap out of her chest, break the window, and go scrambling out into the night.
“If I haven’t made it clear yet,” he said, “I want you to know that I like you a lot.”
Annalisa held her nervous hands up to the portable heater plugged into the ashtray. “Is that right?”
“You make me laugh,” he said. “Even when you’re not trying to. Even when I’m back in Davenport thinking about you.”
How was she to respond? If only her mother were here to see Annalisa acting all squirmy and girlish. Celia Mancuso wouldn’t know what to do, her daughter always the one shooing boys away. Studying the warmth that seemed to coat Thomas’s face, she thought her mother would be delighted at the news.
“You’re the one girl in all of Maine I can’t wrap my head around, and I love that about you. All the girls at Weston are so . . . into themselves and so shallow. You are . . .” His sincerity couldn’t have been more evident as he paused to find the right words. “You are so complicated, in a good way, I mean. I feel like you don’t stop questioning things while so many around here are so quick to accept what they’re told.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You can say that again.”
“So where does your curiosity come from? Is it the artist in you? And your drive and passion . . . I wish I had something I wanted as badly. Seriously, I don’t mean to blow smoke. I look up to you, Annalisa.”
Realizing she was smoothing her hands in front of the heater with such speed that they might spontaneously burst into flame, she pulled them back and rested them on her lap. “I don’t know where it all comes from,” she finally admitted. “Maybe because I feel like I have something to prove.”
Thomas studied her eyes, as if he were searching for answers. He finally whispered, “I think you’ve proved it.”
She knew it was coming. The way he was looking at her, taking a quick peek at her lips, zeroing in on them, his head inching her way. It was the moment before jumping off Braden Rock into the lake back in Bangor, standing there looking down at the cold water, the exhilaration surging through her body like electricity, taking her breath away.
“You’re one of a kind, Annalisa,” he said softly. “One of a kind.”
His other hand went to her waist as he leaned in, and she almost jumped at his touch. Then their lips met in what was her first real kiss, and her worry inside washed away like it had never existed.
For the first time in a while, Annalisa peered through the windshield of Thomas’s VW at the movie screen. They were about ten rows back.
“Is this still the same movie?” she joked.
Thomas cracked a grin as he looked up. “Arlo’s still up there, so I think so.”
Having not stopped talking—except to meet lips—they’d missed most of the feature. Annalisa looked toward his door and at the speaker, which he’d turned down almost all the way. “Let’s just hope my grandmother doesn’t quiz me when I get home.” Annalisa wagged her finger. “Or I’m sending her after you.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t get the feeling she keeps up with the latest releases, so I think we’re safe. That being said, if she comes after me, I will run very, very quickly.”
She conceded his point with her own smile. “If it’s not General Hospital or Days of Our Lives, then she’s clueless.” He was so easy to talk to, Annalisa thought, like she’d known him forever.
At the same time, she felt like she’d just hopped off a motorcycle after racing down the highway, her hair blown back, her legs quivering. What had she done? Was this okay? She almost felt guilty, wondering if she should be back home in front of her easel.
“Tell me more about this dream of yours to go to Portland,” Thomas said, twisting her way and putting his arm back over the seat.
“It’s not a dream,” she assured him. “It’s happening. The end of May.”
“Ah.” He slumped, as if she’d just broken his heart.
“What? You don’t believe me?” She heard herself take the offensive, like a tiger who’d just been challenged in the wild.
“Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t dare doubt you. I just hate the idea of adding more miles between us. What is it about Portland exactly, though? I’m just wondering.”
Annalisa told him how it had always been on her mind, but Jackie’s urging had given her the final push. “That was the day you stalked me in the museum. I’d just left her gallery.”
He looked at her the way she stared at a captivating painting.
“Are you even listening to me?” she asked, laughing. “Will you quit with the eyes?”
“I can’t help it.” He pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “I’m just wondering why you made me work so hard. You and I . . . we’re good together. I could talk to you forever. Why did you do everything you could to keep it from happening?”
Annalisa looked at the screen. Arlo Guthrie was behind bars, talking to a cop. She had no idea why he’d been arrested. “I guess I don’t believe in happily ever after. Or maybe even true love at all. How’s that for a reason?”
“It does present a challenge, doesn’t it?” He didn’t look discouraged, though, more curious than anything else.
A puzzling thought came to her. Admitting she didn’t believe in love felt like saying she didn’t believe in gravity after an apple dropped onto her head.
With his right arm still over the back of the seat, Thomas reached his left hand toward hers. “You shouldn’t be afraid of finding love.”
She turned more toward him, enjoying the tingle of his touch. “Says Mr. Sunshine and Picket Fences. Of course you believe in love.”
He pulled her hand up and kissed the tops of her knuckles. “All I’m asking is . . . quit resisting.”
She looked at her hand in his. “This doesn’t feel very resistant.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” Then, in a whisper, he said, “I’m not going to hurt you, Anna. I promise.”
If he wasn’t the real thing, then he was the sneakiest guy she’d ever come across. As her doubt fell away like bricks tumbling from a wall, she felt a need to explain herself. She pulled her hand away and sat back. “One of the last memories of my father and mother together was when he stumbled in drunk after being gone for a few days. He liked to take these weeklong sabbaticals from being a part of the family. I was sitting in a chair, talking to my mom while she painted, when he burst in and started yelling.”
Annalisa could so clearly see her father’s face, his thick mustache, his raging dark eyes. “He grabbed the painting she’d been working on from her easel and cracked it on his knee. I can still hear the wood of the frame splintering. And then he held the canvas in front of her face and tore it, so slowly and deliberately. I ran at him and he flung me to the ground. My mom rushed to me on the floor. Then we watched him rip another painting off the wall. He tore that one up, too, and then another, and another . . .”
“I can’t imagine,” he said, giving her hand a light squeeze. “You deserve nothing but to be loved.”
Why was this memory still so fresh and painful? But even so, she felt comfortable telling him, like he was the only one in the world who could understand. He said he couldn’t imagine, but he could. His father wasn’t that different.
After a long breath, she said, “He was always so opposed to her doing anything other than raising me and cleaning the house and cooking. She would have been a great artist if he hadn’t killed her dreams.”
“For what it’s worth,” Thomas said, “I’ll never kill your dreams, Anna. I wouldn’t dare.”
She offered a close-lipped smile. “Well . . . now you know what you’re up against.”
He pressed his forehead against hers, and she smelled his popcorn breath as he said, “We can’t let our fathers affect us for the rest of our lives, you know? What about all the great love stories out there? Don’t you want to feel what that’s like?”
She pulled her hand away. “Oh, you mean like Romeo and Juliet? That ended well.”
“We’re different,” Thomas insisted, not letting her make light of the conversation.
“We barely know each other,” she replied, seeing that imaginary apple on the ground. “We aren’t even a we.”
He straightened. “I want to be.”
She had no doubt about that, and as her heart kicked, she knew she wanted the same thing. It wasn’t that easy, though. There was her mother, who’d been burned so badly by love. And Nonna, who not only was opposed to this relationship but was still suffering herself from losing her husband.
And yet . . . Annalisa knew she couldn’t walk away from this guy, because she’d regret it for the rest of her life. So if she wasn’t going to walk away now, then she better jump right into the fire.
“Okay, then,” she said, leaning in. Tapping into her own confidence, in both herself and in her decision, she grazed her lips over his cheek and whispered into his ear, “Let’s be a we.”
Time seemed to slip away after that, and then a light flashed inside the car. “Okay, girls and boys,” a voice said. “Time to go home.”
They both looked up to see the credits rolling on the screen.
“Not yet,” Thomas complained as he fished the keys out of his pocket. “I’d kill for a double feature right now.” He went in for one last kiss, and she felt how excited he was that she was giving them a real chance. She was excited too. Annalisa Mancuso had her first boyfriend.
He started the VW and pulled away, following the car ahead of him. They didn’t get far before hearing a snap and pop.
“Oh shit!” Thomas yelled. “I forgot to take the speaker off.”
They laughed like crazy as he backed up, and she thought that even if they didn’t work out, tonight had been worth it.