The Singing Trees by Boo Walker
Chapter 5
A RIDE HOME
Annalisa’s head spun, and she felt like she might throw up at any minute. She was conscious enough to know that Thomas had helped her off the floor and was carrying her out of the barn. With one arm under her back and another under her legs, he pushed through the crowd of people, who were all dancing to a fast-paced song that combined with the flashing lights to make Annalisa feel all the worse.
She noticed people turn to see what was wrong with her and heard Thomas speaking with someone, but she was beyond blitzed. When the cool night air hit her, though, she felt a wave of clarity. Thank God she was out of there. She wanted nothing more than to be home in bed.
“Where are you taking me?” she mumbled, wondering if she’d made sense.
Thomas was still talking to someone, something about getting her home. “It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m just getting you some fresh air.”
The sky looked like a swirling black hole, and she could feel her eyes rolling back. This had to be the worst she’d ever felt, and she just wanted it to go away.
He set her down on a patch of grass, and she saw that there were two of them. Or three, maybe.
“I need to go home,” she mumbled.
Thomas knelt beside her and asked a few questions, and none of it made any sense. She heard herself saying something about coming with her cousin Nino. He replied with more questions, none of them registering. She tried to speak but wasn’t sure anything was coming out at all.
He seemed to be asking the same questions repeatedly. Something about who she came with, what he looked like, what he drove. She felt her mouth moving to attempt an answer, but she was so close to throwing up that she closed her eyes and wished it all away.
She heard, “. . . get you outta here before you get into trouble for drinking underage.”
That sounded like a good idea, so she said, “I just wanna go home.”
He said more gibberish, and she tried hard to make sense of it. Something about her cousin’s car. Leaving a note.
“A big ugly brown car near the back,” she said. “With a pineapple air freshener.”
More gibberish.
“Home, please,” she muttered. “I want to go home.”
Thomas took her hand. “I’m taking you back to the Mills. You remember Mitch from the game? He’ll make sure your cousin knows what’s going on.”
She heard his words, but they made little sense, as if he were saying things at random. Either way, his voice was comforting and reassuring, and he seemed to have a much better grasp of the situation than she did, so she nodded.
A moment later, he picked her up again and carried her down the hill, telling her everything would be okay. For some reason, she trusted him and let her eyes close. The next few minutes were doors opening and closing, a car engine coming alive, Annalisa finally able to sit back into a chair, some sharp movements until things were smooth—and then the darkness of her eyelids consumed her.
Annalisa peeled open her eyes and saw with foggy vision the highway lines lit up with headlights. She looked around, assessing her surroundings. She was in a car. The windows were cracked, letting in a welcome stream of cold air. Looking left, she saw Thomas, one hand on the wheel and the other resting against the door.
“There you are,” he said. “How ya feeling?”
Some of what had happened came to her like a movie playing in slow motion. She could see him in the barn, approaching her under the strobe lights. She remembered talking to him before falling backward. Then he was carrying her out.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her mouth feeling like she’d been sucking on cotton. She sat up in the yellow-and-white-striped seat. Was this a VW? She pulled off her scarf and let it fall to the floorboard. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“I’m taking you home,” he said. “We’re about halfway back to Payton Mills.”
“What about my cousin?” Nino would kill her for disappearing.
“My friend Mitch went to find him. Tall Italian guy with a crucifix, beat-up brown car. If he can’t, he’ll find the car and leave a note. Don’t worry; Mitch is good like that.”
“But the concert. Why did you leave? I . . .” She was still out of it, feeling overwhelmingly nauseated.
“It’s no big deal,” he assured her. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble, and you kept asking me to take you home.”
Was she out of her mind? Why would she have asked him to take her home? Had she led him on? Her memory was hazy; even putting thoughts together was a task. God, she never wanted to drink or smoke again.
He pointed at a pack of Clark’s Teaberry gum on the mesh parcel shelf hanging under the dashboard. “You want a piece?”
Her nausea worsened. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Serious? You want me to pull over?” He let his foot off the gas.
Annalisa nodded, feeling embarrassment coat her stomach.
He came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. It was probably close to midnight, and there were no other cars. If he wanted to take advantage of her, he could have easily done so. Thinking about the Zodiac killer, who was back in the news, she felt the thought clawing at her as she opened up the door and tumbled out.
Running a few feet into the grass, she bent over. It took a few seconds, but then it all came up, her dinner and beers.
When she was done, she wiped her mouth and eyes and turned back. He stepped out of his banana-yellow VW Beetle and asked her if she was okay. Of course she wasn’t okay. This sucked. Considering he’d left the concert for her, though, and that he looked far from threatening, she thanked him and said she was fine.
Back on the road, she took him up on that piece of gum. She was feeling better, and as a wave of clarity returned, shame overwhelmed her. This is exactly how her father might have acted, and her mother would be disgusted. She wondered what Jackie Burton would think of her now.
Thomas left her alone and sang along quietly to “Tell All the People” by the Doors. A Texaco gas station came up on the right, and he pulled in. “I’ll go grab you a soda and something to eat. Any preference?”
“No, thank you,” she said, still trying to process what an idiot she’d been. She was such a mess. And here she was being prickly to a guy who was trying to take care of her.
He returned to the car with two brown bags. Once he sat, he dug into one and said, “You pick. I have ginger ale or Coke.”
She reached for the ginger ale and took a big, long sip, feeling more grateful by the minute.
“As far as food,” he said, digging back in, “not sure what’s good for your stomach, but I got two red snappers, one with ketchup, one with mustard and relish. If that doesn’t work, I’ve got saltines, Ring Dings, pretzels, and a Twinkie. Have whatever you’d like.”
Her sudden smile turned into a laugh. “This is ridiculous.”
He smiled too. “Hey, it’s first-class delivery, all the way home to Payton Mills. So what’s your preference?”
“Some saltines for now would be great, thanks.” Maybe Nino wasn’t the only nice guy out there.
He opened the package for her and handed it over.
Once they’d gotten back on the road and she’d eaten a few crackers, she started coming around even more. She took the last swig of ginger ale and set it near her feet.
“How’s your sister?” she asked. She’d thought about the lonely-looking girl more than once since that night at Davenport High.
He glanced at her. “She’s okay, thanks. Actually, I have to admit something to you. She’s the reason I was there tonight.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“We were already planning on going,” he said, “but when Emma told me you’d mentioned it, I had extra incentive.”
“She ratted me out?” Annalisa asked jokingly, wishing the fogginess in her head would go away. “Wow, I thought we’d bonded.”
He sipped his Coke. “Uh, yeah, I’d say so. My sister really liked you, which is saying a lot. She doesn’t like many people at all. That’s why she told me where to find you. Then she said I’d be lucky if you ever gave me the time of day.”
She was right about that, but considering Annalisa was currently tasting the acidity of her stomach in her mouth after a debauched display of teenage angst, she thought Emma’s comment might have missed the mark.
Annalisa watched the trees go by. “Tell her she’s in trouble with me.” Despite the haziness, she could feel herself having fun talking to him and didn’t know what to make of it. This was exactly the kind of thing her mother would have helped her with; Nonna was great in a lot of ways, but not when it came to girl talk.
“I’ll do that,” he said with an unshakable grin. She wondered if he’d ever had his heart broken. It didn’t seem like it. She wouldn’t be surprised if his friends called him Mr. Sunshine.
He hummed a snatch of song as the highway blurred under their wheels. “So what do you listen to? Who’s your all-time favorite? Hold on, let me guess. I see you as like a . . . a Motown girl. There’s something kind of old soul about you.” Then he corrected himself. “No, Emma told me. You like Elvis, don’t you?”
She crossed her arms and twisted toward him. “Your sister’s like your spy or something. I thought she was on my side. And what’s wrong with Elvis?”
He found her eyes before looking back to the road. “He’s . . . fine, but he’s so yesterday.”
She sat back in her seat. “I am an old soul; what can I say? My mother got me into him, so maybe it’s nostalgia.” Annalisa fell back in time to the days when her father was at work, and she and her mother would clean the house listening to His Hand in Mine and G.I. Blues. Not all of her childhood was bad. She cherished memories like that.
Thomas asked more questions, and she talked about her family and then told him about her aspirations of getting out of Payton Mills and her desire to be an artist. At this point, he’d totally bailed on the concert and pretty much rescued her, so she owed him some kindness and conversation. And she had to admit that he was enjoyable to talk to and appeared genuinely interested in her life.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is be a professional artist,” she said. “The same dream as my mother, but she ended up letting it go to be a wife and mom.” She didn’t mention that it was really her father who had dampened her mother’s desire to be an artist for a living. He’d demanded that she stop working and stay home.
Thomas passed a slow truck in the other lane, working the clutch and gearshift with grace. “Was your mother as good as you?”
“Definitely better,” she said, looking at him, noticing his rounded profile. He really was a hunk. “She was like Jackie O; anything she touched turned beautiful. She’d study fashion magazines and then make it all herself. Her friends begged her to make them clothes. And the way she painted was . . .” Annalisa stopped to revisit her mother’s work in her mind.
Thomas looked over to urge her on.
“She had a certain style with her still lifes. Her arrangements, the shadows and colors.” Thinking of what Jackie Burton had said about finding her voice, she said, “She had a very specific style that you could pick out in a heartbeat. That’s not easy to do.”
“I can’t imagine it is,” he replied. “I’d love to see her work.”
“There are only a couple left in the family,” Annalisa admitted, suddenly aching for her mother while at the same time wondering why she was sharing so much with this almost stranger.
She reached for the pack of gum at the same time that he grabbed the gearshift, and their hands collided. A spark of excitement came racing up her arm, and when she looked at him, they shared a smile. In the intimacy of this car, there was no denying their connection.
Not ready for it, she looked out the window to her right, noticing a sign pointing toward Payton Mills.
“Do you paint still lifes too?”
She shook her head, knowing she’d better stop getting emotional. “Not at all. To be honest, I’m not into them that much. I love my mother’s, for obvious reasons, but it’s not a genre I mess with anymore.”
“What’s your thing then?”
“Isn’t that the question? I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Not that I’m as studied or into art as you,” Thomas admitted, “but I don’t get still lifes either.” In a geeky and nasally voice, he said, “Here’s a painting of a bowl of fruit. Enjoy!”
They laughed together. “Yeah, I know. They can be boring. My mom did have a way with them, though.”
He looked over until she met his eyes. “So you’re a seeker, then, as far as art goes? Trying to find what Annalisa Mancuso is meant to paint.”
How astute of him. “That’s why I want to get out of here, to get a taste of . . . I don’t know, a wider world.”
He switched lanes to pass another car. “I admire that about you,” he confessed, looking at her a little longer this time. “I don’t know that I’ve ever known an artist before, like one who actually takes it seriously. You’re going to be a big deal one day. I could see your dedication at the museum, and I can hear it in your words now. I dig it.”
As they drew closer to the Mills, she steered the conversation toward him. He told her about hoping to attend the NYU College of Dentistry after Weston, despite his father wanting him to join the family law firm.
“The last thing I want to do is sit in a courtroom all day,” he said, glancing over so much now that she wondered if he might drive off the road. “Or work with my father and grandfather, two of the most difficult men on earth. All they do is argue; I’m sure that’s half the reason my dad comes home being an asshole. Representing criminals all your life starts to consume your morals.”
Unable to resist, she kept sneaking peeks at him, wondering if he was really this good of a guy. “So your sister doesn’t want to join the firm?”
Thomas shook his head so quickly she thought he might hurt himself. “For reasons I don’t want to get into, my father and sister don’t get along, so she wouldn’t join his firm for anything in the world, not that he’d let any woman join his firm, for that matter. It’s an all-boys club at Barnes and Barnes.”
Annalisa found herself worried about the girl. “What’s going on with her?”
Thomas slowed to a stop at an intersection. Only a few more miles to go. “Ever since she was ten or eleven she’s been pretty down, but some family stuff made it all worse. And the kids at school are mean to her, which doesn’t help. She can’t seem to get a break.”
“Why are the kids like that?” Annalisa asked. What was it with people? Had it not been for Nino always sticking up for her and including her, she might have been in a similar situation when she’d first moved to the Mills.
He turned left and shifted into a higher gear. “She doesn’t have the whole social interaction thing down and never fails to say the wrong thing. Like, I don’t know. She’s that person that makes a joke and no one laughs. She’s honest to a fault, so no one wants to be friends with her. She literally sits by herself at lunch—not like she eats anyway.”
“That’s so sad,” Annalisa said, knowing exactly what that was like, the not eating, the wanting to be alone. “Being a girl at fourteen isn’t easy.”
“Yeah, I guess it all starts at home with my parents. My dad can be the biggest jerk in Davenport. Can be. Is. One of the two. Depending on the time of day and the quantity of pills or martinis flowing through her veins, my mom bounces somewhere between being his cheerleader and his punching bag—not literally, but you know what I mean.”
Yes, she did know what he meant.
“Anyway, that’s way more than you want to know.”
“We have a lot in common,” she admitted, “especially when it comes to fathers.” Her mother never abused alcohol or drugs—in fact, she would have killed Annalisa for tonight—but Celia Mancuso had certainly played her role as a punching bag for the last part of her life. Clearly Annalisa wasn’t the only one who had it rough.
He was driving much slower than he had been, and she wondered if he was taking his time on purpose. In fact, she didn’t recognize a couple of the roads and wondered if he was extending the drive. She wasn’t exactly bothered.
“Emma’s just always been so up and down,” he said. “Sometimes I think she’s strong enough to take on the world, but then she’ll turn on a dime. My parents don’t know how to handle her, so it’s been up to me lately. That’s why I haven’t moved out yet. She needs me.”
“She’s lucky to have you.” Annalisa couldn’t imagine what she would have done if Nonna hadn’t been there to scoop her up.
“I don’t mean it like that, like I’m some sort of saint. I’ve had no choice, really. We had some things go down in our family, and I’m trying to help her work through it before I move on. I probably should stop there, though. As a lawyer’s son, I’ve just laid out a pretty good case why you should steer clear of me.”
She noticed they were finally back in civilization as they passed another gas station and hardware store. “No judgment here. Who doesn’t have family issues?” More and more, he reminded her of Nino, a man with a kind heart and, perhaps, even good intentions.
When they crossed the bridge into Payton Mills, Annalisa glanced over at the mill, thinking that her father had been a charming guy just like Thomas—but he’d changed.
Sure, Thomas might be nice and handsome and potentially genuine, but she could guess what would happen if she let it go any further. They might date for a minute, even have some fun. Who knows how long they might last? By the end, though, their relationship would end up in a ravine, literally or figuratively, and she’d be holding an empty orange tote with a nonexistent portfolio, wondering how she’d let her dream melt away.
They drove along Main Street through the quaint and quiet downtown. They passed Harry’s General Store, which was wedged between a salon and a casual restaurant called the River Place, with the best fried fish and clams in town. She didn’t mention that she worked at Harry’s. He’d probably show up for a scoop the next day.
Once through town, Annalisa directed him through the neighborhoods toward her house. When they were two houses down, she asked him to stop. “I can get out here. That’s me down there.”
“You don’t want me to walk you in?”
“No. God no.” Hearing the abruptness of her tone, she pulled back. “My grandmother would put you in her garlic chopper. She doesn’t know I left.”
He held up the two brown bags in the back seat. “Want all your snacks?”
“No, thank you,” she said with a nervous smile. She put her hand on the door. “I really appreciate the lift and you taking care of me.” To her surprise, she found that she meant it.
Before he could ask to see her again, she said goodbye and slipped out of the car. When an urge to turn back and wave hit her, she fought it off and started walking home. If she was intent on going to Portland and figuring out a way to make it in the art world, the last thing she needed was him tugging at her.