The Singing Trees by Boo Walker
Chapter 26
A SIDE TRIP FOR LOVE
Accepting a much more meager salary than her pay at Pride’s, Annalisa started working for Walt that very day. The commute (all the way down the stairs and around the corner) was about as good as it gets, and she found plenty to do.
For a week straight, she cleaned every square inch of the shop, filling a dumpster with useless parts and ridding the place of dust. She still hadn’t created any new pieces but had plenty to sell, so she cleared more space for art and set up a nice leather couch facing the main wall.
Though she didn’t have much experience with finance, he taught her in the following weeks how to run the books. He was a patient and good teacher, and when she’d get frustrated, he’d urge her to keep pushing through. As she got better, she discovered he’d missed collections from multiple customers, and she started tracking down payments via phone.
She used what she’d learned at Pride’s to start an advertising campaign in the Portland Press Herald, urging people interested in the finer things of life such as art and timepieces to come visit. The ads worked, and even in the dead of winter, Walt enjoyed more foot traffic than he’d seen in years. The excitement seemed to be just what he’d needed, and he started to come alive. In truth, they both did, and Annalisa found her muse again.
Whereas getting in front of the easel had been such a labor since Sharon had let her down, the act of painting began to tug at her again, as if there was nothing she’d rather do. Was this newfound creative surge a result of what she was doing for Walt? If so, she wanted more. The idea reminded her of those times when she’d tried to convince Nonna that she couldn’t truly paint unless she got out into the world. Well, maybe it wasn’t just about living, but about loving too.
After a lot of convincing, she dragged him to the Bargain Bin to replace his dreadful sweaters, and she had tremendous fun cleaning him up. She’d even talked him into letting her clean his apartment, which was a shocking experience, seeing the life he’d been living only one story below her.
When Annalisa entered his place the first week of February, her heart broke. She pondered what he’d said about love and how losing his wife must have been a death sentence. That was what the apartment felt like, a place for him to wait until he could join her. She thought she’d recognized a spark of youth in Walt after she’d helped him with his appearance and the shop, but that spark had not burned bright enough to lead toward a clean apartment.
A musty odor struck her nose. His furniture was as tattered as the one sweater he used to wear. The walls were mostly bare, save one painting she’d given him recently. Making herself at home, she opened up the fridge to find exactly six items: a jar of peanut butter, a gallon of milk, a plate of leftovers, two apples, and a stick of butter.
“Walt Burzinski, do you even eat?”
“Yes, I eat,” he replied from behind her.
She turned to him, wagging a finger. “You can’t live like this.”
Walt stood with his fists on his waist. “I’ve made it quite some time without any assistance at all.”
She matched his stance. “No more. I’m not having it. You’re too good a man not to take care of yourself.”
He let his hands fall to his sides. “You’ll see when you get older, young lady.”
“Then I hope someone is there to snap me out of it like I am to you.”
Several minutes later, as she gawked at an old mattress that rested on the floor in his bedroom—no frame at all—thinking this man needed and deserved love more than anyone in the world, she said, “Would you like to have dinner with Nonna and me Friday night? She’s coming down for the weekend.”
He brushed the idea off. “Oh, no, that’s too much.”
“No, really. Please. You’ll be doing me a favor. She’s much better behaved when we have company.” She pulled open the window blinds to let the light come in, and as the sun shot across the floors, she felt that same light filling her heart.
“I haven’t eaten this well in a long time,” Walt admitted, sitting around the wobbly table that served to separate the living area from the kitchen with Annalisa and Nonna. Bowls of Annalisa’s Italian wedding soup steamed up in front of them. A baguette and a large chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano rested on a cutting board next to an open bottle of Chianti.
This might have been only the third or fourth time Walt and Nonna had shared conversation since Annalisa had moved to Portland, and Annalisa thought the two would make an adorable pair if they both weren’t so grumpy and stubborn.
“Elena,” Walt said, having taken to Nonna’s real name, “when did you come over from Italy? Was it straight to Payton Mills?”
Nonna looked offended by the question. Annalisa could see she was fiddling with her hands under the table. With her bottom lip jutting out, Nonna said, “I was about Annalisa’s age. Came over with my father from Naples.”
Walt straightened his glasses. “I see.”
Nonna paused, and the air filled with tension. Annalisa was about to say something when Nonna let out, “My mother was dead.”
That’s how you reel him in,Annalisa thought to herself, taking a long sip of her red wine.
Walt made a brief humming noise, as if that was his way of saying he was sorry for intruding on her personal space.
Annalisa wanted to tell Walt he needed to up his game, and she wanted to tell Nonna that if she ever wanted to find love again, she’d better warm up a little.
Finally, Walt leaned toward Nonna. “I’m sure you weren’t even born yet when I came over in nineteen oh four from Białystok.”
Annalisa grinned to herself. Maybe Walt did have a few cards to play.
Nonna read right through it. “No, no. I won’t tell you my age.”
“Sorry,” Walt said, throwing up his hand. “I’m not asking your age. I’m simply wondering when you came and if you came through New York like me.”
Nonna nodded with an ever-so-slight look his way. “Yes.”
“Yes, what, Nonna?” Annalisa said, nudging her grandmother with a foot under the table.
Nonna glared at her granddaughter like she was about to launch across the table. As she answered Walt with a quick, “Yes, New York,” she kicked Annalisa right back, much harder than a nudge.
Annalisa’s mouth sprang open in shock, feeling a bruise coming on from the therapeutic-shoe attack.
The two had one of their stare downs, which Annalisa had missed. But only slightly.
Poor Walt sat there quietly, and Annalisa thought he had a long way to go in understanding Italians.
Annalisa won the contest as Nonna crossed her arms and slid her eyes left. The place where Nonna had kicked her throbbed.
Walt stepped in to save the dinner from all-out war. He said to Nonna, “Can you believe what your granddaughter has done with the shop?” Annalisa had given the tour upon arrival that afternoon.
“I’m very impressed,” Nonna admitted, almost like she was confessing to a crime.
“If she’s not careful,” he said, “we might have to rename the place. Maybe the Clock Shop Gallery. I’ve never seen someone work so hard.”
Annalisa thanked him. She couldn’t have been more proud or thrilled of how she’d helped Walt with his shop, and maybe his life some too. He looked sharp tonight, a far cry from the man she’d found coughing blood a month earlier. Helping him in the last month had put wonderful smiles on her face and had somehow returned her love of painting to her. She wasn’t stopping, and that short commute allowed her to even grab a few minutes during lunch.
She pointed at Nonna, who still stared off to her left with her arms crossed. “I guess I have a little bit of Nonna’s Roman gladiator, fight-to-the-death blood in me.”
Nonna spun toward Annalisa. “How dare you.”
“Relax.” Annalisa broke into a laugh, and Walt followed closely behind, though his was more conservative and careful, like he was a firefighter touching a doorknob.
“I’m very happy to be here,” he said, clearing his throat, “and to know you all. You’re both very charming.”
“If you say so,” Annalisa said, thinking that, judging by the rare smile on his face, maybe he did understand Italians.
Nonna finally spoke up in a surprisingly warm way. “We’re both very grateful for what you’ve done for Annalisa, Walt.”
“I don’t know exactly what I’ve done for her,” he said. “She’s the one who bravely stuck her hand down and pulled me out of my hole.”
After a rough start, the rest of the dinner went wonderfully, and Annalisa was so happy to see both Nonna and Walt lightening up so.
Between bites of a tiramisu that she’d made, Annalisa thought of a way to gently nudge their relationship forward. Asking forgiveness for the deceit she was about to enact, she asked, “Walt, when are you going to take us for a drive in your Plymouth? I think Nonna would have a blast.”
“Anytime you’d like,” he replied, looking like she’d asked a dog to play fetch. An old dog but a happy one nonetheless.
“How about tomorrow before we open?” Annalisa asked.
Walt looked perfectly delighted. “You’re on.”
Minutes before eight the next morning, Annalisa and Nonna descended the stairs to find Walt polishing the hood of his Plymouth Belvedere, the one Annalisa had backed into last June. The air hovered around freezing, the sky mostly clear of clouds.
“Look at this beauty,” Annalisa said, seeing that the front bumper was as good as new.
“Good morning,” Walt said, hitting one last spot on the hood. He folded the rag. “What a day for a drive.”
Knowing she was about to get in all kinds of trouble, Annalisa jumped into her lie. “You won’t believe this, but I just got a call from a friend of mine. Her boyfriend’s broken up with her, and she’s crying, and . . . anyway. She really needs me.”
She looked at both Nonna and Walt, who showed you-can’t-fool-me looks on their faces. “Maybe just the two of you could go?” Annalisa felt bad for lying, but not bad enough. Even when Nonna fired missiles with her eyes, she shrugged it off. “I was going to be stuck in the back seat anyway.”
Walt took a confident step toward Elena. “I’d love to still take you, if you’re interested.”
Annalisa’s heart swooned.
Until Nonna looked at her, as if she either needed permission or a way out. She couldn’t be sure, but Annalisa thought she saw in her grandmother’s face the fear of risking her heart again after losing Nonno.
“Are you kidding me?” Annalisa said, deciding to answer for her grandmother. “She’d love to go.” Walt was a gift that Nonna was being given, and she couldn’t dare turn it away.
“Maybe we can do it another time,” Walt conceded, clearly reading Nonna’s skeptical face. “I think we all know what’s going on here.” Walt was just as afraid as Nonna.
To everyone’s surprise, Nonna made the leap. “I suppose I still have time for a drive.”
“Really?” he asked.
Nonna’s face warmed. “It would be nice.”
Annalisa would never forget the change in both of them, their bodies, their faces, their energy, as if their decision to let the light in on their lives had snuffed the pain they’d been suffering for so long in missing the ones they used to love.
Walt opened up the passenger-side door, took Nonna’s hand, and guided her in. Annalisa wondered when either one of them had touched the hand of the opposite sex. It was very much the cutest thing she had ever seen, and she couldn’t help but feel like she’d done something that actually mattered for once.
He scurried over to his side and cracked open his own door. Looking back at Annalisa, he said, “Don’t worry; I’ll take good care of her.”
“I know you will,” Annalisa said with a sly wink.
He let out a subtle smirk that said it all. Walt Burzinski was smitten with her grandmother.
Annalisa ducked down to say goodbye to Nonna one more time. She waved through the closed window.
Nonna shooed her away.
“I can’t believe you,” Nonna spat as Annalisa pushed into the apartment after work that day. “I don’t want you meddling with my life.” She stood at the stove, making soffritto, the holy trinity of celery, carrots, and onions. Funny how Nonna could take over any kitchen she was in.
Thomas had written his first letter from Vietnam, and Annalisa felt hesitant to read it. Was she making the right decision by corresponding with him, leading him on? They couldn’t keep playing this game for long. With them, it felt like they needed to fully love each other or shut each other out.
“What can’t you believe?” Annalisa asked, looking at his handwriting on the envelope. Not only was this proof of life, but it was proof that she was still on his mind. As dangerous as that idea was, it was also utterly delightful.
Nonna waved her knife at Annalisa. “That was very embarrassing, the game you played today. Don’t meddle with my life. You worry about yourself.”
Annalisa crossed over the black and white tiles of the kitchen and invaded Nonna’s space. “It worked, didn’t it? How was the drive? Don’t tell me you didn’t have fun. Walt says he had a blast and that you’re a very interesting woman.”
The volume of Nonna’s knife hitting the chopping board increased. She pretended to ignore Annalisa breathing down her neck.
“Nonna, how was it?” She put a hand on Nonna’s shoulder. “You had fun, didn’t you? Walt’s adorable.”
Nonna slid her pile of celery to the side with her knife and then reached for a peeled carrot from a ceramic bowl. “Back away or I’ll stick you.”
Annalisa gave her a little space. “He likes you, you know?”
Nonna chopped the carrot like nothing else in the world mattered.
“And you like him,” Annalisa said. “Don’t you? Why won’t you admit it?”
“We had a nice morning,” Nonna said, as if she had confessed to Father Laduca back in the Mills.
Annalisa looked back at Thomas’s letter, and it tugged at her. She might be hesitant to read it, knowing it would be like opening Pandora’s box, but that wasn’t going to stop her. No way.
“I’d say you had a nice time,” she said. “Walt was late to his shop for the first time in . . . who knows? Just admit that you had fun.”
Nonna set down the knife with great gusto. “It was cold.”
“Yeah? And? What did you talk about?”
Nonna twisted her head to Annalisa. “Enough of this. I have dinner to cook.”
Annalisa stared at her for a long time, craning her neck dramatically, until Nonna broke into a Nonna smile with her signature discretion. She buried it as quickly as possible.
Annalisa touched her own nose, a gesture of love between them. “That’s what I thought.” She held up the letter. “Thomas wrote. I’m going to go read it in my room.”
“You and your Thomas,” she heard Nonna say as she raced to the bedroom. Tearing it open, she read each word as if it were a kiss.
You know what I miss? French fries. And I miss Nonna’s meatballs. More than anything, though, I miss your smile.
She missed his too. She missed everything about him.
I’m safe and sound, by the way. Not that this is a walk in the park, but it could be worse. I am marking the days on a calendar I keep in my pocket. Though I won’t know my DEROS for a while, I’ll be home before the end of the year. Please tell me you’re painting again; I can’t bear the thought of you giving up.
Annalisa sketched Thomas a giant plate of pasta with meatballs, and she accompanied it with a long letter about what she’d been doing, helping Walt and painting prolifically.
She told him all about Walt and the shop and how she’d attempted to set Walt and Nonna up. As she relayed the story to him, she felt so much joy inside, and to her great surprise, she ended her note with: Maybe Sharon was right, that I need to do better at connecting with people. You might have told me something like that too one time.
After signing her name, she lifted the paper toward her face, but she stopped an inch away from sealing her letter with a kiss of plum lipstick. Connecting with Walt was one thing; committing to Thomas was quite another—and that was what such a gesture would mean. She couldn’t send him mixed signals, and she still had to choose her art over him if she was ever to master her craft. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if she should read any more of his letters as she reminded herself what was at stake. So much worse than losing him would be resenting him for destroying her dreams.