The Art of the Kiss

by Holly Schindler

  In fact, as the women smiled and nodded and waved, it was instantly clear that Heather’s bond with Aiden was endearing enough to make the women completely forget the swimsuit faux pas in a matter of seconds.

  What was it with Heather lately?

  Amanda tried to turn her face into a blank page as she and Heather sat side-by-side at the wading pool. Aiden wore floaties on his arms and filled a cup with pool water, emptying it again and again, over and over. The other women drifted back into their conversations, none of them giving Heather a single narrowed side-eyed glance.

  Heather was getting along at the Southern Hills pool perfectly fine. The only judgment she seemed to be receiving was coming from Amanda. And that in itself was really starting to tick Amanda off.

  It was also, quite frankly, making her crave a tequila sunrise.

  But it would be wrong to jerk the kids away from their games. And besides, it would also look bad, especially here, at the wading pool of all places, where the women all appeared to relish time with their babies. Fighting the urge to scream, Amanda graciously allowed Heather to play with Aiden until she knew, from the look on his face, that he was hungry. A pouty, grumpy kind of hungry. And then with a smile and a chipper clap of her hands, she led everyone to the clubhouse.

  Her kids ordered hamburgers, as did Heather, while Amanda stuck to her single piece of skinless, grilled lean chicken and quinoa.

  She couldn’t believe it. Heather was wearing a bikini and eating kid food. Here, in the ornate members’ dining room.

  Yet again, nobody seemed to care.

  Heather had also ordered one of Amanda’s tequila sunrises. Just one wasn’t going to hurt anybody. Or so she’d said.

  “Hey,” Heather barked, pointing skyward. “It’s that guy.”

  “What guy?” Amanda grumbled. Heather was getting awfully giggly. Suddenly, everything was funny. Even the tablecloth.

  “The guy—you know,” Heather persisted. “On the radio? The one everyone’s been talking about? The fairy tale guy? They’re tuned in to that station. Here. At the club. You know which guy I’m talking about? Sure, you do.”

  “What’s with you?” Amanda hissed.

  Heather blushed. “Haven’t had anything to eat yet today. Plus, being out in the sun—I guess it’s hitting me kind of hard.”

  “Since there’s no question I have to be the one to drive home, finish mine,” Amanda muttered, sliding her glass toward her. “I’ll drink water.”

  She might as well. What would it matter if she didn’t get to enjoy her favorite cocktail? Nothing about this day was turning out to be very enjoyable. Yet again, Heather was escaping being taught the rougher truths of the world. She was living in her usual sickeningly sweet little bubble, the same bubble where she got to cry on Amanda’s shoulder, complain in confidence, then snag really fantastic jobs using Amanda’s own husband’s contacts, skipping through life, tra-la-la.

  Never-ending youth. That was what Heather had. More than anything, that was what irked Amanda. Come to think of it, maybe it had been annoying her for eons. Maybe that was why she’d chosen “Sweet Child o’ Mine” as Heather’s ringtone. How was it that everybody on the planet grew up at some point, with the glaring exception of one person? And why did the one lucky person have to be her own best friend? Most of all, why would Heather’s youth not stop pounding Amanda with the force of a tornado?

  Pushing her emptied cocktail glass aside and picking up Amanda’s, Heather asked the twins, “Ish your mom gonna to let you girls spend your whole shummer here at the pool? It’s ’a only place on earth I’d wanna be, if I were your age.” She said it too loudly. And her words were running into each other, like the colors in one of those watercolor portraits the girls had brought Amanda home from school the year before.

  Heather wasn’t tipsy anymore. Heather was flat-out drunk.

  “Whersh my fork?” Heather asked, giggling as she picked up Aiden’s plate and looked underneath it.

  Amanda glanced across the room. One of the grand dames from the pool was staring at them.

  Amanda prepped her face in order to share a look with her. One of those Can you believe this silly woman? kind of expressions.

  But the grand dame, Amanda realized with horror, was glaring at her. Not Heather. She was angry at Amanda for bringing this ridiculous girl into the club and upsetting the upscale, sophisticated atmosphere.

  It was Amanda’s fault. Yet again.

  Women all across the room took turns scowling at her. Younger women. Shaking their heads. Making disapproving tsk-tsk sounds as they lovingly patted their children’s backs.

  Amanda had allowed alcohol—and a drunk woman—around her own children. Amanda was being a Bad Mother. Shame on her.

  She felt like standing up, slamming her hands on her hips, and shouting at the world, “Hey! What gives?” Lately, every single time she tried to take a spin at the game of life, Amanda felt like she only wound up landing on some awful square that declared she had encountered a new setback or a thwarted plan.

  She glared at Heather. She wanted to flick her little plastic game piece off the board.

  “Shhhh,” Heather said, putting a finger to her lips.

  Where did that come from? Why was she trying to quiet Amanda? Could she hear her thoughts?

  “I have a secret,” Heather whispered.

  A secret. Right.

  “You don’t believe me,” Heather said.

  “Sure, I do,” Amanda said. “I have a secret too. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. You’re kind of a cheap drunk.”

  “A really good secret,” Heather insisted, swaying in her chair.

  “Fine. I’ll bite. What is it?”

  “It’s about the camera.”

  “I know Liu liked your picture,” Amanda said with a toss of her hand, no longer in the mood to drill her for details. “Tom told me about it. How he offered you a chance at a job.”

  “Noooooo!” Heather leaned forward and shook her finger at Amanda. She smelled coconuty. It was an obnoxious smell, actually. Strong. Cloyingly floral. Cheap.

  “The camera—that film thing I’ve been using? It’s a Nikon F. Mostly. It’s mostly a Nikon F.” She giggled. “It’s got these replacement parts from a long time ago. And it’s also magic.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Come on—I’ve got to get you home.”

  “No, no, no. I mean it. It’s why she gave it to me. It was magical for her.”

  “For who?”

  “Sharon. Minyard. The one who owns that photography studio. I told you about her. I think I did, anyway. And she gave me this camera. The film one. It was magical for her, and it’s going to be magical for me. It is magic. It’s really magic. It’s why I took the picture Liu liked. And he’s going to hire me. I know he will. Because see, the thing is, I’m taking him a portfolio.”

  “Uh-huh.” Amanda grumbled. “I think we covered that already.”

  Heather leaned back slightly. “Guess what? I even know what he wants.”

  “Who?”

  “Liu.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I emailed Tom.” She grinned.

  “My husband? You emailed my husband?” A fire was bursting and billowing inside her.

  “Yep. I’m networking. I asked him what Liu is working on. He said he wants to get into entertainment, not boring toothpaste and stuff.” Heather tapped the side of her head. “Smart of me, huh?”

  “I don’t see what that—”

  “It’s perrrrrrfect! Ryan called. And I’m going to take pictures of his band—at Murio’s! A live gig! And it’s going to show Liu I can work in entertainment. See? My whoooole portfolio’s going to be this gig. That I’m going to shoot with my magical camera. And everything will be so perfect. I’ll live happily ever after.” Heather grinned again.

  “Okay, okay, Annie Leibovitz,” Amanda grumbled. She was seething. But she had to do something with Heather. “Right now, I’ve got to get you home.”<
br />
  “It’s a rotten apartment.”

  “Not your home. Mine. Where I can watch you.”

  “Good idea. I think. I think it’s a good idea.”

  Amanda helped Heather into the front passenger seat and buckled Aiden in while the twins climbed into their boosters. She drove to her house feeling defeated and lonely. Because she was alone. There. She said it, finally. When had it happened, exactly? When had her life gotten all carved up, little slices of it divvied between so many people—her husband or other country club wives? So much of Tom’s working life was outside of her purview, and with the other wives, she always had to censor herself. There was no longer anyone in her life who really shared all of it, even the ugly parts, the way she and Heather once had. Back when they were kids and they’d whispered through the nights to each other on their flip phones. Back when boys were mysteries to fantasize about, when the future was a glorious anything they could imagine, when they both believed they’d conquer the world, arms linked and walking in time with each other. And in the meantime, before all that conquering could be done, they’d commiserate together about having to abide by the same set of unfair rules.

  Now there were four other people in her car, and Amanda was the only sober adult having to abide by a set of strict, unchanging, unbending rules. It made her feel like a chaperone. And she hated it.

  In the garage, she draped Heather’s arm around her neck and led her inside. She tugged a sheet out of the laundry basket in the living room and covered the couch before dumping Heather on top.

  “You guys go get out of those wet suits,” she told the girls.

  Aiden stood next to the couch, tugging on Heather’s hand. “Okay?” he kept asking.

  But Heather was asleep. And snoring.

  Aiden giggled. And put his fingers across her mouth.

  Amanda changed him in the living room, tossed his suit along with the girls’ in the wash.

  While Aiden drove his cars across the carpet, Amanda opened her MacBook. She Googled “Sharon Minyard.”

  She was greeted by a seemingly unending stream of results. A Wikipedia page. A listing on several photography sites.

  Magic? Could it be? Was it possible?

  Please. Why would she even consider Heather’s drunken ramblings?

  Only, this other woman—this Sharon—had certainly hit it big. At least for a while. Gone surprisingly far. Especially for someone with an old photography store in Fairyland.

  Heather certainly believed it, all that magic stuff. Maybe that was all that mattered.

  Maybe, Amanda’s little black heart mused, this day isn’t turning out to be such a failure after all. Maybe it’s just what I needed.

  As Heather snored from the couch, Amanda clicked over to eBay. And began to search the listings for a vintage Nikon F.

  ~This Story~

  This is the story of a man. And a woman.

  And it’s about a young girl, this Heather, who blustered into their lives.

  You know all that. You were promised as much right at the beginning.

  But it’s also about Fayth. Hasn’t Michael already gotten into her head, told you a story about her and Ryan? About their decades-long friendship? How Fayth is beginning to suspect she feels something more?

  And didn’t Sharon just get inside Amanda’s head, tell you about her fears, her resentments, her attempts (however misguided) to hang on to the best friend she will probably ever have in her life?

  It’s true. When someone comes bursting into your world, they never come alone. They wind up bringing the entirety of their own lives with them. Every last person in it.

  Heather certainly did. All those dreams. All the longing and the hopes. So many hearts aiming in so many directions, you almost need a chart for it all.

  A whole constantly-moving crowd.

  Michael’s words, broadcast regularly on the radio, were stirring all of them up into a bigger frenzy. Heather might have still been in the dark about Amanda becoming her nemesis, but Michael’s words had certainly pushed Fayth to view Heather as a villain. To see her as the one directing Ryan’s attention away from her, the same way Cinderella’s stepsisters strove to take the prince for themselves.

  In Michael’s world, Heather was stealing Sharon’s attention. He saw Heather as a villain too.

  But isn’t that the way it always goes? Aren’t we all, at this very moment, participating in not just one fairy tale but five, ten tales at once? Aren’t we the princess of our own fairy tale and the arch-enemy of another’s? Wasn’t Heather the princess of her own story at the same time she was acting as the wicked barrier between Fayth’s and Michael’s goals? Wasn’t Fayth a Tinker Bell, a supporting character, but also a star? Michael feared Sharon viewed him as her foe, but weren’t his listeners viewing him as a Prince Charming?

  It does explain how Heather could have been a force strong enough to lift Sharon and Michael from their rut. She wasn’t doing it by herself. She’d brought a whole crew with her. An entourage, each member with their own baggage, their own ongoing stories.

  With a crowd, momentum becomes unstoppable.

  Michael and Sharon were swept up in winds far beyond their control.

  The same way the people of Fairyland were getting swept up in Michael’s words.

  Once a crowd is involved, there’s simply no escaping.

  Such is the insidious power of a crowd.

  Sharon’s

  ~Favorite Photo Album~

  It was initially Dad's scrapbook. The one he wanted me to fill with all my successes. But the first image was Michael, anyway. The headshot I took for his column. And for some reason, the next picture I slipped in turned out to be the one I took of Michael and Dad together on the front porch, two cans of Pabst between them, obviously engaged in some sort of spirited discussion.

  Dad liked him from the start.

  No. He loved him. Maybe even before I did.

  After that, I just kept filling it with pictures of Michael.

  In most of them, he’s writing.

  He ages, of course, as the album progresses.

  When I fell for Michael, it wasn’t about attraction and gooey eyes and a handsome face. Please. I fell for his view of the world. It wasn’t unlike my dad’s, really. They both shared the idea that all things are possible. While Dad championed hard work, Michael tended to think success hinged on innate talent. But both believed, above all else, that dreams came true.

  It was almost childlike. Not naïve. But I rarely saw that kind of pureness of vision in an adult. Usually being knocked around by the world meant you no longer viewed dreams as things that were destined to be realized.

  Still. According to Dad and Michael, dreams came true. Period. They did, if you were talented enough and worked hard enough. Nothing—no detour or tragedy, no disappointment or frustration—could ever darken or dampen their belief.

  I don’t think Michael’s faith in dreams becoming reality is clearer than in those pictures I took of him holding a pen. They’ve always looked to me like he was revising. Scratching out all the “no”s the world liked to dole out and replacing them with “yes”es and “of course”s and “just watch us”es.

  He scratched out all the old rules, too, those loaded with “can’t” and “don’t” and “not good enough.” Because Michael wasn’t so much a traditionalist, I learned over the years. That wasn’t why he loved his hometown and the Fourth of July bashes and the three-legged races, every year, right on cue.

  It was because he loved people as he found them. Old, frumpy, silly, grumpy. He took people as they came. He accepted them without reservation. And he celebrated the seasons, the markers of the time he’d spent with the same faces.

  He took me as I came. Me and my dream. And my plant-killing ways.

  All of me. Back then, I was sure of it.

  And in return? I learned not to judge a man by his stuffy dress shirts. I accepted his notebooks piled to the ceiling and the way he invited any fellow Fairyl
and resident who promised a juicy story to join us at our table in our favorite diner. I accepted the fact that there was no Christmas lightning ceremony or Easter egg hunt or Veteran’s Day parade that we wouldn’t be a part of. I accepted that Bingo on Tuesday was a must-do, because Michael promised the guys at the Eagles Lodge we’d be there. I accepted that when Michael told Gladys Miller that we would be by the junior high to see her grandson’s picture in the seventh-grade art exhibit, we were going to that exhibit. And then we’d find Gladys on opening night and make it a point to tell her grandson what we liked the most about his drawing.

  I photographed it. He wrote it. We exchanged our pieces. We smiled. Or we debated. We challenged each other. “That’s simplistic,” we’d say of each other’s work. Or “That’s not it.” Sometimes, “That’s perfect.” In the midst of it all, our edges got a little less defined. Parts of ourselves ran into each other. Our colors started to mix.

  You can see that in the pictures I took of him. You can see, as the years progress, that he is anything but flat. Anything but simple. He is both solid and reliable and somehow also ever-changing. Able to absorb pieces of me and remain himself.

  After a while, because of Michael, I grew to love all the everyday, recurring parts of living in Fairyland. I became a part of the town in a way I had never been before. I saw it differently. Appreciation. That’s a good word. And maybe that changed the way people saw me in return. I, too, was absorbing other pieces while remaining myself. Because after a while, I’d started to believe it right along with him. Dreams came true. Even dreams of love.

  I got all that from some annoying Clark-Kent-minus-the-superpowers character who wouldn’t stop bugging me in a record store.

  Imagine that.

  Excerpt from

  The Fairyland Times

  September 25, 1989

  Winners of the Missouri Associated Press Excellence in Newswriting Awards were announced last Thursday in Kansas City. The Fairyland Times’s own “Observations from the Tower” columnist, Michael Minyard, took top spots in the categories of Opinion Writing and Public Interest. It is the fourth year Minyard’s award-winning column has been recognized.