The Art of the Kiss

by Holly Schindler

  I shrugged. “A photographer.”

  “Clearly, you’re a photographer,” the man sighed. “Are you a spy too?”

  “Pretty bad spy if I’m taking pictures out here in the open like this, aren’t I? I mean, being a spy requires a girl to be a little more covert.” I edged closer.

  “Didn’t ask if you were a good one.”

  I chuckled as I finally lowered my camera—only a little, to chin-height. “What would make you think I was a spy?” Frankly, it was the most interesting thing anyone had accused me of being in years. Now that the camera was no longer obscuring a large chunk of my vision, I could see that he wasn’t alone.

  He elbowed the woman beside him. Her own white head of hair and the easiness between them had me guessing she was his wife. “Told you she was a spy,” he told her. “They always deny it.”

  Turning back toward me, he asked, “What is this, corporate espionage? You going to open a bar across the way from Murio’s? Trying to get a handle on the competition’s secrets first?”

  “No—affection espionage,” I dared to say.

  “Come again?”

  “I’m attempting to uncover Cupid’s secrets.”

  The man propped his elbows on the back of the bench. His frown evaporated, and he appeared in the mood to play a bit. Actually, truth be told, even the frown had probably been more of a tease. He stretched his feet out in front of him, as if readying himself to tell a good long story. “You want to know something about real affection.”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced over at his wife, who smiled back at him.

  “Not passion?” he pressed.

  “Passion’s another subject entirely.”

  The couple let out a burst of laughter. “Yes,” the man eventually agreed, staring into his wife’s eyes. “I suppose that’d be right.”

  The couple was no longer merely looking at each other. They were reliving the decades they’d spent together. There it was, all that time, reflected like moonlight in their faces. I wanted to ask them how it had all started. I wanted their story. I wanted to know where they’d been before they were each other.

  But then again, if I really was going into the business of affection espionage, I couldn’t exactly come right out and ask, could I? Wasn’t it going to require me to be a bit sneakier? Silently probe into secret moments like this one? Edge stealthily closer to it?

  Emotions and memories whipped through the air. I wanted to capture it, take this very moment with me. Like it was a map, a way back to Michael. When their lips touched, I was quick to snap their photo.

  “Oh!” his wife exclaimed, surprised. She touched the fringes of her windblown hair. Then tossed a hand at me in a way that said she was only putting up a halfhearted fight at best. She didn’t really mind being photographed. Not if she was the subject of my great investigation. Not if she was someone a photographer might want to preserve, highlight, shine her flash on.

  I thanked the pair and turned to go, but stopped to offer, “If you don’t mind sharing your address, I’d be happy to send you a print.”

  I almost expected them to laugh again. A print. How old-fashioned could it get?

  But instead of laughter, a dig ensued, all three of us diving into purses and pockets. I was the first to unearth a pen and an old receipt. A flurry of thank-yous fluttered into the air before I walked away, leaving the pair smiling, holding hands—deeper in private conversation than before.

  Excitement burned inside me, giving me strength. Where could I find other couples willing to be photographed? No dead ends today.

  I smiled and took a shortcut to the Fairyland bus station.

  Excerpt from

  The Fairyland Times

  About Town

  September 3, 1974

  Local photographer Sharon Minyard said of her upcoming show, “It might sound odd, at first, the idea of holding a photography exhibit at a bar. But I’ve spent the past few years documenting the nightlife at Murio’s. My pictures have changed over time, of course. My own life changed enormously as I was taking them. I got married, got my career off the ground, opened my studio. I see my own story here in my pictures of Murio’s after-dark scene, even though I’m not in a single one of the shots. I’ve spent so many nights here, I really can’t imagine hosting the show in another location. I can’t think of a better backdrop for my photos than the actual walls of the building where the images were taken.”

  Murio Vargas, owner of the namesake bar along the southeast corner of the Fairyland town square, added, “Reinvention’s what it’s all about. Isn’t it?” He pointed out the wooden platforms along the sides of the establishment, areas where he claimed the original business, a mortuary, drained body fluids from the deceased. “Kind of a frightening sight, if you think about it. Now,” he was quick to point out, “folks dance on them most nights.”

  Vargas welcomed the idea of hosting an exhibition of Minyard’s work, stating, “The thing about a town is that it’s not just one person who writes its story. We all do. Heck, this bar could be a book by itself. Sad chapters, dark chapters, gruesome chapters, triumphant chapters. A story’s not much of a story without all of that. The people of Fairyland have been helping to write the story of this bar for years. Sharon’s show adds another new chapter—a happy one.”

  ~Sharon~

  Ryan would be the first to tell you that sometimes, a song showed up fully formed. It bumped and crowded you, demanded you pay attention. A new song could fill up the space in your brain until it felt like you were stuck on an elevator with a stranger. At a certain point, there was no ignoring it. You might as well extend your hand and introduce yourself.

  Other times…

  This particular song—the one he and Fayth had been struggling with for the past two hours—had turned into pure, undeniable torture. Every time he managed to get closer to capturing it, it wound up shooting in another direction.

  Much like Heather.

  He kept replaying the scene in his mind—her showing up to Slade Music, knocking on his lesson room door before his first student arrived. Thanking him for driving her to the Liu shoot. How he had kissed her. Without thinking. And she had…

  Nothing. She had done nothing. Said nothing.

  Just sent a business-sounding text confirming she’d be at their gig at Murio’s. To photograph the band.

  Why hadn’t she even mentioned the kiss? Why didn’t she call him to talk? Say, “About the other day, at Slade…” The possibilities tortured him.

  His idea had been to write a song saying how he felt about her. In his head, he had planned that it would be a momentous thing. A soaring, beautiful love song. He would play it during the same gig at Murio’s Heather had agreed to photograph. After the first chorus, she would realize that the song was about her. She would lower her camera. Stop snapping pics. The rest of the world would melt away. It would be the two of them, Ryan and Heather, sharing the spotlight. Their hearts would beat in time, to the same rhythm as his song.

  And he would know. She would know. Meant to be.

  It was outlandish and laughable—Ryan knew that. But it was the story he told himself, the beautiful, happy ending he held to.

  Every single time he strummed a chord, he could already feel that spotlight. He could feel Heather standing in front of him. Listening. Because he’d attached so much importance to the writing of this song, nothing felt good enough. It all sounded mediocre. Ordinary. Slipshod.

  Fayth tapped a pen against her notebook. As a first-grade teacher, Fayth was well-versed in all things sparkly and organizational in nature. Her whole apartment was cataloged, coordinated, and systematically arranged, down to the last paper clip. The cans in her kitchen cabinet were perfectly aligned, the eyeshadows on her bathroom counter were artistically assorted (greens on one side, purples on the other), and even the to-be-read books on her coffee table were stacked alphabetically by author.

  At least somebody’s life is in perfect order, Ryan caught himse
lf thinking sourly.

  “Want me to get my rhyming dictionary?”

  Ryan grimaced. “God, no.”

  “Might give us some direction. If you grab a word you like the sound of…”

  “No, no, no,” Ryan grumbled. “I hate writing songs that way.”

  “What way?”

  “A contrived way. Cut and pasted. I want it to sound like I had something I had to get off my chest, something I had to say or I’d burst. I don’t want it to be a bunch of refrigerator poetry, and I don’t want a bunch of blue and moon and cutesy stuff.”

  “I kind of figured, from the sound of your call, that you did already have an idea for this masterpiece. I figured it was about Heather.”

  Ryan slumped, scowling. Why had everything gotten so complicated lately? He’d kissed Heather, and he could not stop asking himself why Heather hadn’t been moved by the kiss. Had she considered it kind of perfunctory? Nothing more than a congratulations?

  He’d kissed her, and now, he felt rejected. He didn’t even have the right to feel rejected. He’d broken up with her, after all.

  Like he’d broken up with all the others.

  Ryan had never been dumped. Not once.

  Which meant he’d never been rejected before.

  Poor Ryan’s thoughts turned into whirlpool, circling around the same questions: Was I afraid of her not wanting me? Was that why I really broke things off? Reject before being rejected?

  A surge of feelings bubbled inside of him, threatening to burst. He needed to release the pressure.

  Mostly, right then, he needed Fayth to stop staring at him.

  “I think I’m tapped,” Ryan finally said. Not that he meant it, really. He just hoped it might snag him a little sympathy. “Three-chord pop songs have to be written by seventeen-year-olds. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

  He shot her a pitiful hangdog expression, expecting one of her b.s.-calling eyebrow raises any second.

  “Good grief.” Fayth uncrossed her long legs, capped her pen, and shoved her feet into a pair of sneakers.

  “You’re not giving up, are you?” Ryan challenged.

  “You want me to sit here while you pout?”

  “Yes! I do!” he announced, realizing it was exactly what he wanted. “I’m heartbroken and I can’t write a single decent song. The best pop songs—rock songs—country songs are all about heartache. It’s the number one source of inspiration for musicians. And I can’t write one single decent verse? Can’t come up with one measly hook? That’s a sign. It’s a sign that something is seriously wrong.”

  She glared at him from beneath her purple hair. She turned toward the kitchen, filling a cooler with ice and Cokes and grabbing a couple of insulated drink containers. Still the picture of preparedness.

  “Keys. Come. With me. Now,” she ordered.

  He could have argued. But there was rarely any arguing with Fayth. And besides, Ryan was anxious to get away from it all—away from the song he couldn’t write and the questions about Heather that remained mostly unanswered. Ryan grabbed her keys from her coffee table and tossed them at her.

  Fayth wasn’t one for long drives, but she steered her Toyota with the enormous bike rack toward the city limits, zipping past the “Leaving Fairyland” sign. She slipped onto the highway, the late afternoon slowly fading away. The car purred beneath her, seeming to be grateful for a chance to make an out-of-town getaway. The evening air was delicious pouring through the open windows. Ryan hummed—still working on that awful song about Heather. Fayth listened with a clenched jaw.

  She turned on the radio, successfully redirecting his thoughts.

  Until she cut the engine.

  Ryan’s eyes were still closed.

  “We didn’t come out here so you could daydream about Princess Flashbulb,” Fayth snapped, whacking the side of his arm. “Out,” she barked, and popped her own door.

  Ryan finally cracked an eye, finding that Fayth had driven them both to a cemetery. An ancient and familiar one at that—little more than a cluster of headstones beside a dirt road. The remnants of a family burial ground on farmland that had once belonged to Ryan’s great-grandmother.

  Ryan chuckled. He knew exactly why they’d come.

  He headed straight for the hollow base of an old oak tree.

  “It’s still here.” He reached into the trunk, pulling out a bag of small gardening tools.

  “Of course it is,” Fayth said softly.

  They found a spot inside the rusty old barbed wire fence that surrounded three crumbling headstones, and they dug a shallow hole.

  They buried what they’d always buried at this spot, starting way back when they were kids: all their bad feelings.

  A childish thing, perhaps. “A bunch of tomfoolery,” that was how his great-grandmother had put it.

  Ryan buried his doubt. He buried the overly critical voice that was keeping him from writing a decent song.

  What did Fayth decide to put away? The unexpected feelings that had surfaced? Her hope that friendship would give way to love? Could you ever dislodge those feelings once they’d taken root?

  They didn’t tell each other exactly what they buried, but then again, they never had. Not even when they were kids and had come up with the idea.

  Fayth tagged Ryan in a You’re it! kind of way, and took off running.

  A mile away, they were still walking along a stretch of old railroad tracks, like they had when they were twelve. Pretending the tracks were a bridge, and the first one to stumble would actually fall to their death.

  Ryan laughed. He laughed in a way he hadn’t in ages. That free way children have, when they laugh with their whole bodies. And when they looked at each other, they both acknowledged, silently, that burying bad feelings had cleared the air.

  Fayth still wasn’t sure she wanted her feelings to stay buried. She wasn’t even sure they were bad. Unrealized hopes weren’t necessarily things you needed to get rid of.

  Often, they were something that needed pursuing.

  Had she rescued herself yet? Sure didn’t feel like it.

  They both wanted to keep walking. Keep the game going. Oh, it was so much fun to play-pretend like this. To make things up. To live in a world of complete fantasy.

  Take my hand and make-believe. Ryan was chanting it, like a chorus.

  Fayth joined in, harmonizing, their voices a perfect fit.

  They started playing with lyrics. Even songwriting stopped being a torture and started being a game as they sang and danced along the railroad tracks.

  I’ll be the king and you’ll be the queen. Take my hand and make-believe with me.

  They were together, and it was easy. So easy.

  They were still singing when Ryan forgot to pay close attention to where he planted his feet. He slipped on the track.

  Fayth scrambled to catch him or at least brace his fall. Instead, they both went tumbling, a regular Jack and Jill, falling into the wildflowers beside the silver tracks gleaming in the orange-red hues of sunset.

  “Owoh—” Ryan yelped, lifting his fingers out of some purple blooms. “Those stupid flowers stung me,” he moaned.

  Fayth took his hand in her own. A giant bumblebee squirmed, still attached to his palm. Her hand was warm as she brushed the bee away and gently removed the stinger. He stared into her dark eyes.

  “Who would’ve known flowers could be so dangerous?” he croaked.

  Fayth quickly opened the insulated cup she’d brought from home and poured ice into the palm of his hand to kill the pain. Just like that. So, so easy.

  “What are these things, anyway?” Ryan asked, nodding once at the blooms.

  Fayth raised her dark eyes again to meet his own. “Cupid’s darts.”

  Excerpt from

  The Fairyland Times

  Michael Minyard’s

  “Observations from the Tower” Column

  March 12, 2012

  For more than five decades, Murio’s has been open for business
on our Fairyland square. A bar, some might call it when looking at the building from afar or passing by on the sidewalk.

  But to designate Murio’s as nothing more than a bar is to oversimplify.

  Murio’s is a gathering place, a lingering melody. It is a keeper of stories told and retold again, a site for first dates and ten-year anniversaries. Through the decades, the ever-changing fads—polyester collars and sideburns, parachute pants, torn jeans—one thing has stayed the same: Murio’s has thrived.

  To have ever been young in Fairyland is to have known Murio’s.

  Murio Vargas, longtime owner of the establishment, has announced he will retire at the end of this month. No need for sad goodbyes. Murio’s Bar and Grill will simply sing another chorus under the leadership of Murio’s son, Sebastian.

  The baton will be passed without missing a beat.

  And so we bid Murio a happy retirement. Sad to see the end of his era, glad to have shared so many years with him.

  It is similarly with a sad heart—but also a glad one—that I announce my own retirement. I have loved listening to and delving into the stories of Fairyland. It has been my honor and privilege to translate your stories into print. As you know, this column has never been the place for breaking news. No car crashes or political scandals, no indictments or exonerations.

  In this column, I was proud to celebrate Fairyland. But I am now laying down my baton. The column will print its last story next week. The Fairyland Times, like so many papers, is cutting back, shrinking. My column will end.

  If this column ever moved you, entertained you, made you smile, honor it by gathering at Murio’s, just as you always have. Let Sebastian pour you a drink, and share with each other all the stories that you once told me. Should you see me on the street, the old story man who used to accompany you through your first cup of coffee each morning, say hello. Tell me a tale or two worthy of retelling.

  It is my hope that the wonderful stories of our Fairyland will live on.