The Singing Trees by Boo Walker
Chapter 27
PASTA AND SAUCE
Walt was right about Annalisa being better than him at selling her paintings. She was clearing out a year’s worth of work, selling a piece a day at a time, even at higher prices. As word spread, other artists—some from her circles, others out of the blue—asked if she’d sell their paintings, too, for a commission, of course, and she thought it was a great idea.
Annalisa felt like a mini–Jackie Burton as Walt’s clock shop attracted customers strictly interested in the art on the walls. And between collecting old debts, selling art, and the increase in watch and clock sales due to foot traffic, March would be the most profitable month for the store in six years. She’d finally recovered from being fired and had proved she didn’t have to go back to Payton Mills, that she could continue the pursuit of her voice.
On March 19, she received Thomas’s second letter, and she found herself debating whether to even read it. Most important, the letter was verification that he was alive. Not a day had passed since she’d watched him drive away on that bus when she didn’t feel her worry for him. Maybe that was all she needed from this letter. Every rational part of her knew that he had crept back into her life like a burglar and that he was dangerous, and reading his words would only prolong the heartache.
She set the letter on the table and went into her room to paint. Proving her point, she felt distracted by the darn thing, as if it were taunting her, and she couldn’t tap into her muse on any level. Having taken a break from painting her strong women, she’d been working on a series of portraits from her imagination—modern-day men and women searching for belonging in the world. With his words waiting in the next room, she couldn’t focus at all.
Giving in, she dropped her brush into a cup of water and retrieved the envelope. Getting comfy on the couch, she dived into his words.
You know what I miss? he wrote this time. You.
Annalisa stopped and read the first line again. He seemed to have the ability to strike like a dart to the bull’s-eye of her heart.
I know we’re friends, and if that’s all we’ll ever be, then fine. I refuse to keep pretending like I don’t love you though. You are what is keeping me alive over here, and you’re the reason I want to come home.
She paused, knowing he’d reached the point of no return. She was either leading him with her correspondence, or she was officially pulling him.
I wanted to ask you something. I’ll understand if you can’t or don’t want to, but I’d like you to come see me. I have a week of leave in Hawaii starting May 24, and I’m getting a hotel room on Waikiki Beach. Come stay with me. Even if only as a friend, it would be so nice to spend some time together. By the way, I’m not mentioning it to my family, so let’s keep it between us.
She finished his letter, which included an address in DC that would get her response back to him faster if she chose to come. Setting the letter down, Annalisa sat back and closed her eyes, letting his request marinate. How nice it would be to set eyes on him, to touch him, to tell him that maybe she could make room for both him and her art. And . . . it was Hawaii. She saw them strolling the beach at sunset, hand in hand, laughing once again.
Reality hit her. Never once had she flown in her life, and she had no idea how much a ticket to Hawaii would cost. Money aside, could Walt handle things for a week if she did leave? Wait, was she really considering the idea? Getting on that plane would be another leap toward love, and the last time she’d done that, it hadn’t worked out so well. Who was to say this time couldn’t be different, though?
She had no idea what to do. Not until a little bit later that night. The highlight of Annalisa’s year—maybe even her life—had been that her efforts in matchmaking Walt and Nonna had paid off. As much as they’d tried to hide it, Walt had admitted that they spoke on the phone regularly and had seen each other a couple of times.
It just so happened that Nonna was in town when Annalisa received the letter from Thomas, and while Annalisa debated his invitation, Nonna was out with Walt having dinner. Thinking a walk might clear her head, she pulled on a jacket and scarf and went out into the early evening. She walked all over town, thinking the cold was good for her, distracting in a way. She dipped into a dive burger joint for dinner on her way home.
Meandering back along Congress Street, lost in her internal dilemmas, she noticed Walt and Nonna strolling ahead, hand in hand. Unable to resist, Annalisa watched them with a full heart.
The couple stopped under the curtain of Walt’s shop and stood very close, laughing with each other. To see both of those grumps laughing would have been enough to satisfy Annalisa, but then Walt planted a kiss on Nonna’s lips.
Annalisa squealed so loudly that both Walt and Nonna turned, but Annalisa was able to duck behind the corner of a building before they could see her.
It was a quick glimpse she had of the two, their happy faces and lonely lips meeting one another under the warm and filtered yellow of the streetlight above them, but it was long enough for the image to imprint like fingers in warm wax into Annalisa’s memory.
As she watched Walt escort Nonna to the steps, Annalisa felt like a veil had been pulled from her eyes. What kind of fool was she to think that her love for Thomas was getting in the way? He wasn’t her father, and she wasn’t like her mother. He’d done nothing but support her, and she knew he always would. All she had to do was have faith in him. And in herself. No one would ever pry the brush from her hands.
With this newfound clarity, she realized that she didn’t even own a bathing suit, and she was going to need one. Because she was getting on that damn plane to go see Thomas, no matter the cost or consequences. Enough of letting fear win. A life without love was not worth living.
Almost equally as powerful as her pull to Thomas was her urge to get in front of her easel to capture what she’d just seen. She could so clearly see the faces of these two people who had buried their first loves now finding love again, and she realized how important love truly was—no matter the risks.
No, she couldn’t bury her love for Thomas for one more minute.
Modigliani’s words rang in her ears: “When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes.” She felt a deep, visceral connection to both Walt’s and Nonna’s souls, and now she could paint their eyes. How could she ever forget seeing Nonna standing on her toes in her orthopedic shoes, reaching up for the lips on Walt’s wrinkled and dazzled face, his loving eyes?
Not wanting to interrupt their moment, Annalisa circled the block before ascending the stairs to her apartment. She found yet another smile when she saw that Nonna wasn’t home. Was she spending the night with Walt?
Deciding to write Thomas back in the morning, Annalisa went straight to the studio in her bedroom and went to work on the image of Walt and Nonna, knowing beyond all doubt that it would be the finest piece of her entire life. She worked through the night, taking nary a break until after the sun had risen and only when she heard her front door open and shut.
She chose not to pick on Nonna for wearing the same clothes as the night before and instead tugged her grandmother into the bedroom to show her the piece Annalisa had spent all night working on. This one she’d done on canvas, and it captured the entire scene, from the top of the awning that read WALT BURZINSKI’S WATCH AND CLOCK REPAIR all the way down to Nonna’s feet up on their toes. Right smack in the middle were their lips touching in quite possibly the most beautiful vision Annalisa had ever experienced.
She thought Nonna might snap at her for spying, but she did no such thing. Instead, her lower lip pushed out, and she turned to Annalisa. “It’s . . . it’s wonderful, nipotina.”
Annalisa’s heart soared, and she knew that she’d found her voice by looking through the lens of love, and she knew she could never stop painting—even if she never made another dime. She also knew that not only could love and art coexist, but that art—at least her art—required love just as pasta required a sauce and just as she required Thomas in her life.
She crossed her arms. “I have to tell you something, Nonna.”
Nonna slapped her own forehead. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph . . . what is it now?”
“Thomas wrote me and has asked that I come visit him in Hawaii while he’s on leave. In May.”
Annalisa didn’t know what kind of reaction to expect, but she was pleased that Nonna didn’t instantly scold her. After a brief moment of thought, her grandmother said, “And are you going?”
As if someone had asked her if she would be interested in having wine and cheese with Michelangelo, she nodded the strongest yes of her life. “Seeing you with Walt last night . . . it woke me up. I’ve been so freaked out that I’d end up like my mother, but I’ve never really let myself consider that I could get lucky and end up like you. I know losing Nonno almost killed you, but I know it was worth the pain to have him in your life. And now you have Walt, and it’s . . . it’s so beautiful.”
Annalisa breathed in her rich feelings for Thomas, and she burned with an urge to race to Vietnam and track him down and tell him that she’d finally figured it out, that not only could love and art live in parallel but she could only realize her true potential with him in her life.
“I love Thomas, Nonna. Like you loved Nonno and maybe how you feel about Walt. And as much as I’ve tried to be smart about it, and carry on without him, it’s not working. I don’t want a life without him in it. He’s my everything.”
Nonna crossed her arms, and Annalisa feared the worst. But her grandmother once again surprised her. “Then you’d better go find him and tell him how you feel.”
Annalisa’s eyes widened, and her mouth popped open. “Really?”
Nonna gave a mild chuckle. “If it’s been this long and you still can’t shake him, then maybe it’s time to let yourself love him instead.”
The hairs on her arms rose, and her spine tingled. Though she was going to Hawaii no matter what the outcome of this conversation, Nonna’s support validated both her feelings and her decision. Stepping toward her grandmother, she wrapped her arms around her and squeezed her tight.
After leaving a travel agent to discuss a ticket to Hawaii, Annalisa found Sharon Maxwell at her warehouse space. She had red hair now and was deep into working on a piece on a massive canvas. Annalisa felt bad disturbing her, but she couldn’t go another minute without sharing her latest breakthrough—and, of course, apologizing.
She knocked on the door, and Sharon put down her brush to answer. Annalisa glanced down at her tote, wondering if Sharon would even want to see what she’d done. Or if she even wanted to see Annalisa.
“I was wondering if I’d ever see you again,” Sharon said, her smock covered in wet splotches of reds and purples. A large sparkly beaded necklace hung from her neck.
Annalisa realized how much she’d missed her teacher. Perhaps the biggest of those lessons Sharon had taught her was right at the end, when she’d said that Annalisa’s women were empty.
“I’m sorry, Sharon. I don’t even know what to say. I was a brat and a know-it-all.”
Sharon opened the door wider, almost as if she’d been waiting on Annalisa. “Do you think I’ve never walked out of a lesson before? It’s the artists who don’t lose their temper that sadden me, because they are the ones who don’t care.”
“I care so much,” Annalisa confessed, feeling like she was about to go to her knees. “All I want is to be great. Not for anyone else but for me. I want to know that I’ve done something with my life and the little bit of talent I’ve been given.”
“You already have, Annalisa. No doubt in my mind. At the same time, you’re just getting started, right? I’m hoping you’ve come to say you’ll join my classes again.”
With desperation flushing her face, Annalisa said, “I absolutely want to join your classes again.”
Sharon clapped her hands together, her bracelets jiggling. “You’ve made my entire week.” Inviting Annalisa in, she caught her up on who had left and who the new students were.
Then she pointed at the tote. “What do you have?”
Annalisa smiled, and that same fear she’d had in the past rose back up. It wasn’t quite as bad, though, and she was able to swallow it. In fact, even if Sharon hated what she’d done, it didn’t matter. Because Annalisa knew what did matter—what she’d put on the canvas in the last few hours and what she’d done these past months in her own life mattered. Love wasn’t a potion you drank to distract yourself from reality. Love was the key to living a life that mattered.
They went into the studio, and Annalisa unclasped the button and pulled out the stretched canvas of Nonna and Walt. Setting it on Sharon’s desk, Annalisa backed away, once again admiring what she’d done. It might not be a Picasso or a Mary Cassatt, but by God it was an Annalisa Mancuso. It was her subject’s eyes, the windows into their souls, and in their movement, the way Nonna was reaching up to Walt, leaping into his heart. And Walt, his lifting her up, telling her to trust him, that he’d love her with everything he had for as long as he could.
Sharon looked at it for a long time, and when she turned, Annalisa steadied herself for whatever was coming.
“It’s about time,” Sharon said. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing and where you found it, but you did. You found you, honey.”
Annalisa felt her shoulders shake as she broke into a cry. She opened up her arms to Sharon, and the two embraced. Annalisa cried tears of joy for finally doing something with her life—and not just with this painting. She cried for all the hard work she’d put in and for her mother, who’d never gotten a real chance.
As she wiped her eyes after the hardest cry that she could remember, Sharon lifted up the painting and handed it back. “Now go do this again. And again. And again.”