The Art of the Kiss

by Holly Schindler

  “I don’t make my column special,” Minyard said in his acceptance speech. “The people of Fairyland do. My neighbors and fellow townspeople have been graciously allowing me to document their comings and goings for decades. I have traveled with them through their trials and triumphs. Seen their vacation slides while we shared pie and coffee. Attended funerals, and sat with them on porches or in backyards long after the reception was over, listening to them tell me about their loved one. I have sat on the town square and listened to soldiers and mothers, the young and heartbroken, the gray-headed and lonely. People who had lost loves or money or work. People at a crossroads. People who still didn’t know how their own stories might end. I’ve also been delighted by the voices who called my name on the street, the people who raced to my side, breathless, anxious to tell me about a happy new turn. I have listened as night began to encroach or rain began to fall on myself and the storyteller, neither one of us daring to move. Not while there was still more to say.

  “I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone out to clear the snow from my front walk or pick up the dry cleaning or even just collect my mail without being met by a Fairyland resident with a story to tell. The people of Fairyland have trusted me with their most private possession: their stories. They’ve acknowledged me as a safe place. They opened up. Let loose with feelings and insights.

  “Fairyland is a medium-sized town not unlike every town throughout our state. The people of Fairyland are just like your own neighbors. Your own families. You see yourself in my column because the people of Fairyland have been honest with me. Without them, there would be no column.

  “I believe...no, not just believe. I have become a better writer as the years have gone on. No doubt about it. But not because of practice or experience. The people of Fairyland made me a better writer. They taught me to listen. And by listening, I found out what makes a good story. A powerful story. The people of Fairyland gave that to me. And they did it all by simply letting me into their lives.”

  ~Sharon~

  My phone pinged, signaling another incoming message.

  The ping sort of echoed gloomily throughout the store.

  The thing was, with Heather around, I decided it was time to get serious about ordering film. It didn’t make sense that I’d let my stock get down so low, anyway. Why’d I keep the developing solutions but not the film? Where had my head gone?

  At any rate, I told myself I was going to have to do plenty of scrounging around for suppliers.

  Or so I’d initially thought. Turned out, scrounging wasn’t the right word at all. My online searches taught me there were still plenty of old-school die-harders out there.

  It was a funny thing to discover. Just when I’d settled deep into the assumption that the world had moved on completely, I was having to face—with each new ping—that maybe the truth was that I hadn’t been looking in the right places. Too much staring at my own empty aisles and not enough reaching out. All this time, my own life, the one I thought had wrapped up, was still going on? For other people? Without me?

  I frowned at my phone and the texts I was receiving from film aficionados. All with their own recommendations. A few suppliers even reached out directly.

  Odd how the digital age worked. Send out a feeler and suddenly, you were bombarded with answers. Almost like getting back some weird chain letter.

  It should have comforted me, I guess, all the pinging signaling new incoming messages. Suggestions. Somehow, it made the old shop feel emptier than it ever had before.

  I stared at the radio propped on the counter.

  Should I or shouldn’t I?

  I twisted the power switch, finding Michael in mid-sentence:

  “…ever notice the age of fairy tale stars? The Snow Whites and the Cinderellas and the Rapunzels?

  “They’re always young.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest—protectively, really. As Michael rattled on, I slowly made my way across the studio, pausing to look up at our portrait. The Art of the Kiss.

  A bunch of echoes bounced against the walls. And not from my phone, either. Echoes of the past, of former customers’ voices: “Do you sell prints of that one?” If I’d been asked once, I’d been asked upwards of ten thousand times. And now, staring up at our portrait, I could hear them all—young and old, male, female...Their familiar request like the chorus of a song sung in a round.

  I’d refused. Sell my love story? It was one thing to put it on display. But put a price tag on it?

  “Nah, you should be displaying your own pictures,” I’d reply, hoping each time that it came across as friendly and kind. Hoping it didn’t sound more like a not in this lifetime or you gotta be kidding. I couldn’t stomach the idea of that photo hanging up in everybody’s living rooms, surrounded by hotel prints and piles of dirty laundry.

  Michael would grin every single time they asked, a geyser of satisfaction bursting from him with each request. There’d never been any denying he’d played a big part in The Kiss’s success. After all, without his handiwork, without him resurrecting the camera from the dead, there’d have never been a photo.

  A similar satisfaction—or maybe it was sheer pride—oozed from me each time someone realized Michael was none other than the writer behind their favorite Fairyland Times column. Why wouldn’t it? As much as he helped in the shop, I helped with that column, listening to his ideas, asking questions, helping him refine his topics. Giving him ideas he ran with from time to time.

  We were together in it all. What a high it was for both of us to be in a shop that buzzed with admiring voices, all that attention. A couple of small-time celebs. Every once in a while, we’d glance across the shop, catch each other’s eye, share this knowing look.

  And still, people came. Still, people asked for a print. The Art of the Kiss.

  In the evenings, though, a new feeling would find me. By this point, Michael and I were several years into our life together. The newspaper article about our traffic jam had yellowed a bit around the edges. In the quiet, I’d flip the evening’s “Closed” sign and grab a hammer. Nail between my lips, I’d scan the walls, searching for a different spot to hang The Art of the Kiss. A better spot. Must have been a thousand better spots during those hectic years—spots, I told Michael, that wouldn’t block seasonal displays or the checkout counter.

  “I know they come to see our picture, but we’ve got to keep the customers moving in here,” I’d say, trying to sound convincing.

  Eventually, I settled on a place so high up, the top of the frame brushed the edge of the ceiling. It would still grab everyone’s attention. But it’d bug people to keep their heads tilted back too long. That would finally, finally, finally ensure the clustering was limited to the briefest of moments.

  That was what I told Michael, anyway.

  In reality, clogged aisles had little if anything to do with my decision to hang that picture as high as possible. I’d hung it there so people would have to look at the rest of my work and, by so doing, finally see me. All of me, not just my love story. My whole life, not a single moment of it.

  I loved the attention The Art of the Kiss brought. I appreciated it. I recognized the power it wielded. Everything it did for me.

  And yet, at times, so much of me still felt ignored.

  “…What do old people do in fairy tales?” Michael was saying now, his voice pouring through my radio. “Old folks are never given a Prince Charming role. They’re around for no other reason than to put roadblocks in the main characters’ way—to throw them in towers, turn them into toads, or feed them poison apples. That, or they become helpmates. They’re fairy godmothers. They don’t have a story of their own. They’re around to help somebody else—the struggling star of the current tale—find their way.

  “Think about that. Old characters don’t have a story of their own anymore. They’re not cast in the starring role. Ever.”

  I flinched, flicked the radio back off. He was still talking about me.

&nb
sp; That time, I was sure of it.

  Worse yet, it was like he was in my head. Didn’t I think something very much like that, when I was on my laptop trying to work on a portrait of the store, one that showed the passage of time? Hadn’t I thought about how long it had been since I’d shown Michael one of my pieces? Hadn’t I wondered if I was afraid of having lost my special something, the talent that defined me?

  I’d become a secondary character. A fairy godmother helping Heather on her way. An old woman who had supposedly gotten her happily ever after.

  My own story was finished. Wrapped. The end.

  That’s what us old women are supposed to be, isn’t it? Over. Through. Used up. Michael was right; that’s what stories have taught us.

  But what were the words that had roared through my mind when Michael brought the Nikon downstairs?

  This camera’s not done yet. Neither am I.

  I glanced down at the inside of my wrist, at my faded tattoo.

  When had I started to let the outside world dictate to me who I was? Now that I’d gotten a few decades under my belt, was I simply going to let the world tell me I was unimportant, unseeable? Or that my only role was helpmate? Observer?

  My phone pinged again. I flinched. I didn’t want to think about film and the old ways.

  Time for a fresh start, Sharon. Time to shake the place up.

  Which meant I didn’t even want one of my digital cameras. Not the ones I’d used before. I chose a new camera from my display of professional-grade options—and started charging it. New life, new camera.

  Time to become the main character in my own story again.

  ~Photography Fact~

  Sharon Minyard’s

  Intro to Photography Class

  1984

  Aperture. Shutter speed. F-stop. Sounds fancy. Technical.

  I’ve worked in this medium so long, I don’t think of these terms as technical at all. I think of them as emotional terms, like love and want and desire. It’s a language that lets you talk to your camera. Tell your camera how to create a fixed image of what’s in your heart.

  Did you come to this class believing that photography was about objectivity? Documenting the world in front of you in a factual way?

  There is no knob that lets you view the world in precise terms.

  Lenses aren’t perfect—they contain some degree of distortion. Recognizing this, you’ll wind up picking settings that capture subjects in the way you’re interpreting them at that moment in time. You can’t remove yourself from any scene. What looks like truth to you can be a skewed presentation according to the person standing next to you.

  Photography is about the subject, but it’s also about the photographer—how we personally see the world. How we want others to see our world. That much is inescapable. You might not even realize it at the time you take a specific photo. But you will. Later on, with distance, you’ll look at a photo, even if it’s of an inanimate object. A street. A building. And you’ll know instantly where you were at the time. You’ll remember what you were going through. You’ll see it imprinted in your image. You’ll see your own thoughts and hopes exposed for the world to see.

  Photography is not merely an objective documentation. It’s not simply preservation of a moment.

  Every image is, unavoidably, a mix of facts, lies, and dreams. It’s a conversation between the photographer and the camera and the viewer.

  But even in the best of conversations, someone can always misinterpret. Mishear. Get the wrong message.

  Don’t start with vague images that are open to misinterpretation. You shouldn’t rely, either, on pretty accidents. Taking hundreds upon hundreds of shots and just hoping something interesting shows up in the darkroom.

  Have a message. And be as clear as possible in your message. Make sure your viewer will understand what you’re trying to say.

  Make them feel what you want them to. Love or revulsion or shock or peace.

  In this class, I’ll show you how to use all those technical tools.

  And then it’s up to you to make sure your story is heard.

  ~Michael~

  Emails were no longer arriving in a slow, steady stream, forwarded occasionally by the radio station. They were coming by the truckload.

  I’d push my glasses up my nose and squint at my computer screen, determined not to miss a word. Reading them, I could hear their voices—high-pitched, gravelly, whispers, shouts. Like they were all standing in the room speaking to me.

  So many of them. I began to doubt I’d be able to keep up with them all.

  Ever notice how sometimes, something can be gone long enough that it doesn’t occur to you to miss it? Years ago, people had come to me. To tell me stories they hoped would inspire a new column. To invite me to their special events. Sharon and I attended high school band concerts. We tasted every single pie entry at the fair. We shivered along with the rest of the town as the Christmas lights went live on the square.

  The stories dried up with my retirement. But the times changed too. The sense of community disappeared. The people of Fairyland stopped picnicking together. Stopped celebrating together.

  Suddenly, though, they were back. Reaching out to me.

  And I realized, with the arrival of each new email, how much I’d craved it. Their words echoed through empty spaces I hadn’t even known were there.

  They wrote for as many reasons as there were messages. Some debated my choice of words. Some flat-up disagreed. Others asked questions. Some of the messages were marriage proposals. Can you believe that? Ancient me.

  My favorites, of course, shared their personal tales. They told me about their spouses—good and bad. They related snippets of fairy tales gone awry. They told me about their own plans and daydreams.

  I heard love. Or, at the very least, the hope for love. In each letter.

  As I read, I could also hear Sharon’s and Heather’s engaged, excited voices floating up from downstairs. Their conversations weren’t only about photography. I could just barely make out fragments of personal anecdotes. Their lives. Heather’s boyfriend, her best friend. Story after story.

  I’d listen for a while, but it was hard to keep at it when I only caught bits and pieces. Tired of trying to fill in the blanks, I’d go back to reading my emails.

  It seemed so strange. Once, Sharon’s Art of the Kiss had made everyone in Fairyland really feel our love. Now, my fairy tale talk (which was a thinly-veiled attempt to talk about my life with Sharon) was kind of waking the town of Fairyland up.

  My words were making everyone think. Or feel. Or relive. Almost the same way that Sharon’s picture had once invaded the hearts of everyone in town.

  Looking at Sharon’s picture, Fairyland had believed in the magic of love.

  Listening to my words, they were coming back to that old belief. Dusting it off. Finding it as sturdy as ever.

  Happy endings seemed possible to them all once more. That much was evident in their messages. Even after failures and disappointments. It was the thread that connected every single one of their notes.

  Their words were brave and admirably honest. Listeners confided in me because they trusted me again. They trusted me with their stories. They did not know who I was, and yet, because I’d laid bare my own feelings, they felt an affection for me.

  In an unexpected way, I’d gotten what I wanted. Part of it, anyway: I’d been hungry for love. Isn’t that what had sent me to the radio station in the first place?

  And now, my inbox had an actual heartbeat.

  If I could have written them all back without exposing my true identity, I’d have told them the same thing. The answer to every one of their questions: that I’d never been a magical person, no real-life sorcerer—not until Sharon came into my life. Magic had happened to us. Not me. It never would have happened to me alone.

  In the evenings, Sharon and I would chat superficially about what was on TV and whether the windows were collecting too much moisture.

&nbs
p; We didn’t talk about Heather. Or my emails. Or the radio station.

  The people of Fairyland might have opened up to me, but Sharon hadn’t.

  I was afraid to find out what she thought of my on-air readings. Isn’t it strange? The one thing I’d wanted to talk about more than anything, and suddenly, I was afraid. That’s what time does. It lets fear saturate everything. Fear can talk you out of anything.

  Even love.

  Which meant that every night, the person in my bed felt a little farther away than she ever had before.

  I’d become the most adored man in Fairyland.

  And I was the loneliest man in Fairyland.

  ~Sharon~

  The more I thought about it, the more Heather’s idea appealed to me. Taking pictures of kisses. She’d mentioned it in the most offhanded way. But a single photo of a kiss had changed the course of my young life. And now, I was beginning to wonder what a photo of a kiss might do for me a second time around. The idea began to burn increasingly hotter in my mind.

  Would anyone ever let me, though? Take pictures of such private moments? Real kisses? Impromptu—not posed.

  Seemed like the ultimate invasion.

  I trekked around the edges of the Fairyland square, camera in hand. Knowing this idea would most likely become a dead-end exercise.

  And still not being able to get it out of my head.

  I raised the new camera to my face, hoping the viewfinder would help me.

  Help me? Really. Seemed I’d been listening too intently to Heather.

  “You a spy?”

  I jumped at the voice. Instead of lowering my camera, I swiveled to face the direction the voice had come from.

  An older man with white hair—or what was left of his white hair, anyway—appeared on the opposite side of the viewfinder. Sitting on a bench outside of an old secondhand bookstore. Frowning at me.