The Singing Trees by Boo Walker
Chapter 25
WHO IS WE?
That Thursday, after a visit with the girls in the Bargain Bin, Annalisa rode back up the escalator and went into the small kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. She was debating whether or not to even attend Sharon Maxwell’s art show in three months, as Annalisa had not once spoken to her since walking out of her studio. She wasn’t even sure if she was welcome and knew an apology was long overdue.
Annalisa was painting, though. Armed with a newfound resolve—no doubt spurred by Thomas’s visit—she was back at it with an almost vitriolic assertiveness. If she couldn’t have him, she better damn well keep chasing her voice.
As she passed through the hall of offices leading to the Advertising Department, coffee in hand, Ted Miller appeared.
She still avoided him at all costs and was mid-pivot in an attempt to escape when he said, “Ah, there she is. We haven’t seen you in a while.”
Annalisa’s first thought was, Who is we? She couldn’t stand it when people did that.
Stalling her retreat, she flattened the disgust on her face and let out a happy, “How are you, Mr. Miller?”
“I’m very fine,” he said. His shirt was moist with sweat near his underarms, and she sipped tiny breaths so as not to smell his body odor.
“What are you working on today?” As he asked the question, he unabashedly ran his eyes up and down, inspecting her.
Swallowing her disgust, she said, “We’re trying to wrap up all the Demi Flores stuff now.” Flores was whom everyone in fashion was into right now. She sidestepped and started toward her destination. A group of managers was huddled in a circle, chatting farther down the hall.
“Now hold on,” he said. “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Lots of work to be done, Mr. Miller.”
“I’d like to ask you something.”
She stopped, closed her eyes, took a long breath, and then turned back to him.
“My nephew just moved to town from Boston—a smart kid—and he needs someone to show him around. I thought a good-looking broad like yourself would do the trick. Care to meet him?”
Annalisa shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t have time for anyone right now. I’ve got so much going on here and outside of work.” Not that he cared, but if he only knew how heavy Thomas was on her mind, he wouldn’t be wasting his time.
Mr. Miller dipped his chin and looked at her hand. “Still no ring, though, huh? Shame a girl like you hasn’t found anybody yet.” Oh, she had, and that was the problem.
Annalisa couldn’t take another moment of conversation. As she bade him a good day and turned to rush away, he said, “Let me know if you change your mind about my nephew. Who knows what could happen with your soldier boy?” With that, he smacked her on the bottom.
Annalisa spun so quickly she nearly broke the heels off her shoes. Not today. She had no tolerance whatsoever. Here she was having given up love to establish herself, and he had no right to touch her, to get in the way.
A part of her tried to suppress the rage. She knew as well as anyone in this building that this was a man’s world, and anything she did other than let this go would be detrimental to her career.
That thought was so far down the tunnel, though, that it didn’t stop her from raising her right hand. “Don’t you ever touch me again,” she spat through gritted teeth. Her hand was ready to swat him. She could feel hot coffee spilling out of the cup in her left hand.
“Whoa, little lady,” he said, lifting up his hands in retreat, as if he’d done nothing wrong. “Let’s settle down here.”
Annalisa looked in his dirty little eyes and felt rage boiling up inside. There was no amount of rationality strong enough to stop her. Instead of hitting him, she slung the coffee toward his shoes, spilling half of it on his pant legs below the knees.
The steam rose as he reached for the burn, rubbing his legs like they were on fire. The huddled managers all turned, and Annalisa could feel her job—the one she’d fought so hard to earn—slipping away.
The fire inside burned too hot, though. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” she snapped. “Or any other woman in this building. A fanabla!” Go to hell.
He glared at her. Annalisa thought he might hit her, but at the last second, he glanced at their coworkers gawking at the spectacle.
Breathing like a bull through his nose, he said, “I hope that was worth it.” Lowering his voice, he continued, “You just ruined your whole life. You’ll never find another job in this whole fucking town.”
Tapping into the deepest part of her core as a woman, she asked, “Do you think you’re the first man to get in my way?”
Then, as she stared into his beady eyes twinkling with victory, the reality of what she’d done hit her. She’d just let him win. She wasn’t the first in Pride’s to get a smack on the bottom. Maybe this week. A woman had to tolerate this sort of thing if she wanted to work and not sit at home all day, and she knew that. Even Patty, who was as strong as any woman Annalisa had ever known, let men get away with unacceptable comments. Otherwise, you were waging a war that you might not win. Whether Annalisa liked it or not, she’d just risked her job to stand up for all the women at Pride’s and everywhere else who were fed up with such injustice.
Without engaging further, she marched down the hall past the others. As she disappeared into the Advertising Department, she heard Mr. Miller ranting about how she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.
It was quiet as she entered, a sleepy feeling, especially compared to the commotion she’d just escaped. Her coworkers thankfully hadn’t heard. Trying to breathe through her feelings—the fury, the determination, the regret—she walked past the cubicles filled with copy editors to her desk by the window. She said hello to her neighbors and perched on her stool, knowing it was only a matter of time before she’d be fighting for her job.
Sure enough, she heard Patty’s high heels crossing the floor ten minutes later. Annalisa had been sitting there, staring at her empty illustration board, thinking that what he’d done should be a crime. But she knew reporting him would do nothing. In fact, her slinging coffee on him was the more serious offense. No one would care that he’d touched her. No one would care that she’d stood up for her fellow women.
Annalisa closed her eyes, feeling Fate wrapping her fingers around her neck. Patty asked her to follow her to her office. Once she’d closed the door, she said, “I don’t like him any more than you do.”
Annalisa paced back and forth, explaining to Patty that she had no choice but to defend herself.
Patty sat back in her chair. “I admire what you did, but you can’t. You just can’t.”
“What was I supposed to do? He smacked my butt.”
Patty shook her head. “You’re preaching to the choir. If it was up to me, he would be pushed out the window.”
Annalisa stopped pacing and put a panicky hand on her chest. “Patty, I need this job. I’ve worked so hard to get here.” Had she really just lost everything she’d worked for?
“There’s no doubting your work either,” Patty said. “You’re my favorite employee, but this is out of my hands. I fought for you, but I only have so much pull. You attacked Ted, honey. I want to pin a medal on you, but you and I are alone in this one. Men run Pride’s, and we’re just lucky to have a role. I hate to say that, but it’s true. You know I’ll help you find another job, but your time here is done.”
With the only strength she had left, she thanked Patty for the opportunity, stood up, and exited the building through the revolving doors.
Ted Miller had won, and Annalisa had failed Patty and all the other women who would have killed to have her job. She’d failed herself and even her family back home, who’d been cheering for her. She’d been making so much money that she sent monthly checks back to Nonna. What would Nonna say? Annalisa had enough savings and was making enough from selling her pieces at Walt’s shop to not have to retreat back home yet, but still, what would she do now?
She couldn’t make a living selling pieces out of a silly clock shop. What she needed was a gallery to finally take her in, but who would? Annalisa couldn’t bear the idea of showing her latest portfolio to Jackie after walking out on Sharon. Surely the two had spoken about it.
“Yeah, Jackie,” Sharon probably said, “that Annalisa didn’t stick around.” Jackie might have replied, “Oh, what a shame. She was good.”
“I know, but I’m not sure she had what it takes.”
Annalisa felt like a child, telling Sharon Maxwell of all people that Portland loved her paintings as evidenced by her selling out of them at the clock shop, as though that was proof of her greatness. Maybe she needed to go somewhere else, maybe Boston or even farther—anywhere to get away from this madness. But would running really help? She gave up love to be an artist, and that was what she had to do. Or both her and Thomas’s heartache would be for naught.
Pushing into Walt’s shop, she called out his name. “You wouldn’t believe what just happened. I’m now out of a job because . . .”
He was having a coughing fit at his desk in the back, and she rushed his way in a panic. This was a much more serious cough than she was used to. “You okay, Walt?”
As she reached the counter with the cash register, where she’d had countless conversations with him, she saw that the handkerchief he was coughing into was covered in blood.
“What in the world is COPD?” Annalisa asked Walt, taking a seat on a neighboring chair. It had been twenty minutes, and he’d finally stopped coughing and gone to the restroom to clean himself up.
Back at his work desk, he said, “A symptom of getting old is what it is. Chronic something or other . . .”
“No, seriously, Walt.” She had come to care so much about him and couldn’t fathom losing him.
“Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” he said. “I should have quit smoking long before Gertrude made me.”
“When was that?”
He sat back and crossed his legs, then cleared his throat. “Which time?”
She gave a chuckle. He was such a sweet man.
“Gertrude died in sixty-one, so the last time I quit must have been nineteen fifty-seven or so. She’d been after me about it since the day we met.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about being sick, Walt? Why aren’t you taking better care of yourself? What’s the doctor say? I keep telling you that it’s too dusty in here, and now you tell me you have some sort of lung disease. I’m not going to let you work in here one more day without cleaning it up.”
“My goodness, young lady, don’t get all worked up. I’ve been on medicine for a while now, and this is just the way it is, part of getting old.”
She felt so frustrated with him and grilled him about the details. She finally said, “I’m going to spend the rest of the day cleaning this place up, and if it takes me all week, then fine.” This man needed help right now, and Annalisa wondered if sometimes things did happen for a reason. Maybe she’d lost her job just in time. The poor guy had no one—except her, of course. Walt had come to feel like the father her real father never could be.
“Don’t you have work today?” he asked.
“Yeah, about that. I was fired for dumping coffee on the shoes of an ass . . . er, I mean, chauvinist pig. So I happen to have a lot of time on my hands.” Annalisa caught him up.
“My goodness,” he said. “You’re right. It’s the world we live in. You know what, though? To me it means you’re meant for bigger and better things.”
She tossed up her hands like she was throwing confetti. “Like what? I’m doing my best to paint, but it’s not coming out easily, which means I’m in trouble. It’s either I wait tables or crawl back to Payton Mills with my tail between my legs.”
“I’d hire you,” he said. “I mean full-time.”
“That would be a wise move,” she joked. “I’ll take over all the clocks. I’ll take your little tool set and twist the thingies until they start working again. Your shop will sing around the clock.”
“I’d be happy to teach you horology, but I could also use more help around the shop.” He cleared his throat. “As you can see, I’m slowing down. If you’re willing to help me get this place cleaned up—as you yourself suggested—then I don’t see why you couldn’t do a few other things too. You could help me advertise, run the books, keep things clean, and keep selling your paintings—maybe raise the prices. I’m sure you can sell them better than I.”
She stood on the other side of the counter and was blown away by the kindness of his offer. “Don’t think I’m not appreciative, but I don’t want to be your charity case.”
“As much as I’d like to disagree, I can’t do this by myself anymore, and I’d be lucky to have you. That’s the bottom line. Your paintings are already bringing me new business. Let’s get you in here to breathe new life into the place, just like you do with your illustrations. You can take over every wall if you like. This is not about charity. I would have offered earlier, had you not had a job.”
“If you’re not careful,” she said, losing herself to the idea as the clocks ticked around her, “I’ll take you up on it.”
“I hope you do. Believe it or not, I think adding more of your art to my shop might bring new visitors in and make me more money. It’s starting to feel like a museum in here. Just the other day, someone mistook me for taxidermy.”
Feeling a hint of excitement, she popped out of her chair. “I’d put everything I have into it, Walt.” It wasn’t an art gig, but she’d be helping him, and he’d mentioned giving her more wall space. If she could tap back into her muse, she could keep selling pieces until a better option came around.
He uncrossed his legs and sat up. “That is one thing I’ve no doubt. Your commitment to everything you do is a wonderful virtue.”
She opened her arms. “I want a hug.”
He waved her off. “C’mon, now. Don’t embarrass me.”
She didn’t back down and lifted him up into a big hug, feeling in his weary and weak body a surrender of sorts, like he didn’t have much fight left. How had she not even noticed?
She felt like such a terrible neighbor and person for not seeing that he was in trouble. Yes, she saw that he was hurting over the loss of his wife, and she’d been listening to him cough, but how had she not offered more assistance? Why hadn’t she offered to cook him dinner or to help him clean his shop?
She’d been so darn involved with her own grief at losing her parents and Thomas, and she’d been so focused on a career, that she hadn’t done anything for this kind and lonely man. It felt very much like her life back in the Mills. She’d let her grief prevent her from loving Nonna the way her grandmother deserved to be loved. Well, that wasn’t going to happen again. As Annalisa let go of Walt, she decided that not only was she going to breathe life back into his shop, but she was going to attempt to breathe life back into him.