The Art of the Kiss

by Holly Schindler

  This was it. His one shot. It had to be done.

  Michael raised his head, meeting Reed’s eyes. Slowly, Reed’s frown smoothed out beneath his head of wiry gray hair. “Shoulda known it was about some woman,” he grumbled.

  He turned to go.

  He was wrong, of course. It wasn’t about some woman. It was about the woman. If he’d ever met Sharon, he’d have understood.

  But Michael didn’t have time to argue. He rubbed his scratchy eyes and returned to his work. To sliding pieces into place, one after another. Pieces that should have fought him every step of the way.

  He began to hum softly. Sharon would see the magic he had worked on her camera. And she would know that together, they could be every bit as magical.

  His fingers worked nimbly as he filled the gadget with all of his dreams.

  ~Michael~

  I got bumped, my beer sloshing over the top of my glass.

  “Sorry. Sorry.” Apologies bubbled all around me. A group of three had arrived and were balancing their own beers as they searched for a table. Or a decent place to stand. Two men, one woman. The men had a business relationship. The formality of it was a dead giveaway: the slacks, the straight backs, the polite discussions, the way they held each other’s eyes. Sometimes, eye contact becomes like a handshake—firm and unwavering, a testament to a person’s intentions. Each of the men refused to be the first to glance away.

  The woman who accompanied them seemed on a different sort of mission—mostly, to dissolve. Shoulders curled forward, head down toward her chest, auburn hair like a curtain.

  Heather recognized her. “Amanda,” she called. Poor girl must’ve said it eight, nine times before the woman finally looked her way.

  Amanda. A name that had floated up from the basement, through the floor grates in the apartment.

  Up until that moment, I’d been focused on Heather, on that camera in her hand. But as she hugged her old friend, I realized every last character in our intertwining story had all arrived in the same place, at the same time: Heather, Amanda, Ryan, his band members. Introductions and hellos meant that I also knew Amanda had come with her husband and Charles Liu, the same Liu whose shoot had sent Heather to our door.

  But I was after the camera. The magic. Sharon’s dream. Me. I was good at fixing things. I’d fixed them before. Inexplicably. Sometimes, when you want something enough, you will the universe to bend just enough so that this one little measly miraculous thing can happen to you.

  Yes, that was the way it had felt back then.

  The universe had bent enough to let me put together all the little delicate pieces of Sharon’s camera. And now, the universe was going to bend enough for me to put all the delicate pieces of us back together again too.

  The universe couldn’t let magic drift away that easily.

  I kept my eyes on the girls, trying to take it all in. Trying to listen for clues. Some way to edge myself in, get my hands on that camera. I wasn’t sure what I had in mind yet. I was just waiting for some opportunity to open up.

  It felt like I was crouched on the starting line, listening for the sound of the starting pistol. And still the girls rattled on about clothes. “Thanks so much for the suit,” Heather said into Amanda’s ear. “You were so right.”

  Ryan called out to get Heather’s attention. Heather smiled, juggling her gear enough to be able to wave back while Fayth watched from the stage, frozen in place, hands on her hips.

  “Gotta go,” Heather told Amanda. “Hey, maybe I can get Ryan to play that old song from high school. The one at the talent show. You remember, the one you liked so much? Think they still know it?”

  Amanda offered a limp attempt at a smile before Heather turned to bump her way through the crowd, banging the camera case along the way. I could almost feel a new bruise form on my body every single time she clunked the case against a table.

  Heather caught Sebastian’s attention quickly. He leaned forward, seeming to drink in Heather’s attributes. She stood out, of course—for the same reason I’d once stood out in Bleeker’s all those years ago, a man in a tie on a Saturday. Yes, there she was, dressed in a linen suit that had to be growing hotter by the millisecond. She slipped her arms out of the jacket and handed it to Sebastian for storage behind the bar, leaving herself in a sleeveless white blouse.

  Ryan began to gain speed, trying to catch up to her, his face registering anger. There was no need for Sebastian to look her over quite so hungrily, he was surely thinking. She wasn’t exactly fruit that needed to be inspected for flaws.

  I laughed softly, edging my own way through the crowd. Two princes, ready to do battle to win the fair maiden’s heart.

  Heather did look prettier than I’d ever seen her. But it couldn’t have just been about new pants and a blouse. Was it because she’d freed herself from Ryan? Moved on? It happened that way with women sometimes. Breakups didn’t necessarily send them crying over cocktails. Often, after a bit of introspection, they bloomed.

  Fairy tales never say that. But the prettiest women are the ones who stand on their own feet, have their own lives. That’s the true beauty—not the rosebud lips and long wavy hair.

  Regardless, Ryan would never accept that Heather had gotten prettier in the days without him. What man would? It would have to mean that he wasn’t a Prince Charming at all, but a frog.

  Ah, but Sebastian wasn’t the only one in Murio’s who’d noticed her. A man about Heather’s age pointed at an empty stool next to his own.

  Another wolf. Vicious, dangerous, salivating. Holding his arm out in a chivalrous manner.

  Don’t fall for it, Ryan seemed to silently cry out as he collided with the edge of a small table. He glanced about as if realizing wolves were all over the place, inside the bar and guarding the door. Smacking their lips—on the prowl.

  Heather shook her head, waving the wolf off. No need for Ryan’s intervention; no rescue junk for that one.

  Heather passed some of her gear over to Sebastian for safekeeping behind the bar too. She maintained a firm grip on the camera case.

  I slipped between the bodies, coming closer to them both. Close enough to hear Heather telling Ryan, “You know, I was poking around online, and I saw this thing about another bar—a couple states over, but anyway, the place does open mic nights that give bands a shot at a record deal.”

  Prince Charming’s eyes widened and his head jutted back. He looked startled, as if he’d been stretched out on one of those legendary mortuary platforms—like her words had completely and totally drained him. I could read it all in his face: Did Heather think he was struggling? Failing? Unhappy? Wished he was someplace else? A place with more fans? Didn’t she know what she said was coming across as downright cruel? Unthinking?

  “What’s that mean?” he asked. But she didn’t seem to hear him.

  “I’m paying my bills,” he shouted at her over the din, “and I’m surrounded by music. Even my day job involves music. And I’m playing at night. We’ve got a couple of videos up on YouTube. They don’t have millions of views. I have to pay attention to what I spend. But so what? Isn’t that actually living the dream? To make a living doing what you love? What’s success, anyway? Does it have to be worldwide fame? Do you have to have millions in the bank? Is there just one definition?”

  “But if you’re not constantly pushing for more,” Heather argued, “doesn’t it get boring? Shouldn’t there always be a new challenge, a new rung to climb onto? Otherwise…” Her voice trailed before she could finish.

  What’s the point? Those words dangled in the air, unsaid.

  Funny, the power unsaid words wield.

  “I’m not as good as you? I’m somehow not living up to your standards?” he asked. “What, you got a little slice of success, and now, I need to catch up? Is that it?”

  It was Heather’s turn to jut her head backward in shock.

  “I mean, you were always into my stuff. It didn’t matter to you back when I first heard you singing my s
ong in your car whether or not I was signed to some big-time label. Right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I—and you—want to strive for more? Why would either of us stop? Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  “You’re here,” Ryan said, “because I wanted to see you.”

  “But not because I can do the job better than anyone else?” Heather asked.

  Ryan frowned.

  “Don’t you believe?” she asked.

  “In what?”

  “In me. In—more.”

  “In more,” Ryan repeated. “There we go again.”

  Their words began to swivel, like the dots of light coming from the disco ball. Two different viewpoints, each of them swirling and swirling and chasing one another, never stopping to rest on the same point.

  Fayth appeared with the rest of The Tommies in tow, ending what had become a somewhat prickly conversation. She carried a tray of shot glasses with one hand, shoulder-height.

  “Sorry,” Fayth said. “Didn’t mean to intrude. Just thought I’d start a new pre-gig tradition.” She pointed to one of the glasses, telling Heather, “Got you one too.”

  “What is it?” Heather asked. She peered into the brown liquid as the drummer and the bass player reached for their own shots.

  “What is it?” Fayth repeated, in a tone that insisted it should have been obvious. “A shot of good luck!” And she winked. “A toast!”

  “To good luck!” Matt bellowed, holding up his sticks triumphantly.

  “To good luck,” Ryan echoed, grimacing a bit as he raised his own glass.

  The band—and Heather—all clinked their glasses together at the same time, but Heather seemed less than enthusiastic.

  Ryan handed his empty shot glass back to Fayth, a look flashing across his face that said it had finally begun to occur to him what—or who—might actually be the true symbol of his own good luck.

  ~From Michael’s Notebook~

  2018

  Dear Sharon,

  Here’s the truth, which I have been too afraid to say. Not because it’s bad, not because it would inflict some sort of damage. Because it is the bareness of everything. It is the vulnerable, the exposed. And that’s terrifying. But here goes, finally:

  You are, without question, the most exciting—and the most aggravating—woman I have ever met. There is a world inside you. A whole world. With landscapes and rooms and hidden corners. I think I knew, when I first saw you on the street, taking your photos, that I could spend decades trying to see it all.

  I still think so. I think that much is left to explore.

  You took a hit when people stopped coming by the shop.

  Of course you did. How could it have happened any other way? You don’t go from causing traffic jams to being ignored and not have that hurt.

  But don’t you see we’re one and the same? I invited people, Shar. In my last column. “Come find me,” I told them. “Tell me your stories.”

  They never did.

  I retired. The world promptly disappeared.

  I know how it feels.

  There’s a loss. Part of you is dead. And nobody even seems to have cared enough to mourn. Nobody but you.

  Still. You withdrew inside yourself, putting out a very obvious “No Visitors” sign. The message blared like neon.

  If they didn’t want you, why, you didn’t want them back.

  It’s understandable. Nobody gets that quite like I do.

  But I live in that outside world too.

  Do I wish we were back there, in those early years? Yes. I wish it because we were closer then. Why wouldn’t I want to get back to that?

  I never thought you had to have that camera, Shar. Not the one I fixed. You used the camera —it didn’t use you. But the fact is, I was there. That was me helping out at the shop. And more. That was me dragging you out to all the boring Fairyland events. The bowling tournaments. The parades. The picnics. I was the one who made you see it all in a certain way, changed your mind—made it fun. And didn’t it have an impact on the kinds of pictures you took?

  My abilities and yours, all tangled. I said that to you at the very beginning. What you accomplished wasn’t because of me. But I was there. I was part of it. My hand was in it.

  I never stopped wanting to be part of it, all of it. All of you.

  I wasn’t trying to put the blame for where we wound up on you. Not when I was on the radio. But I was desperate. We don’t behave the same way when we’re desperate as we do when we’re calm. We overshoot. We broadcast instead of whisper. I just wanted to reach out to you.

  Look at me here, an old man talking to his wife in a notebook.

  You don’t even read my notebooks. Not anymore. You used to sometimes, remember? I’d leave them lying around for you to find. Or you’d listen, head on my chest, while I read pieces to you out loud.

  They were love letters. Did you know that? All of them. Even when they weren’t about you. They were still because of you. Because you were the thing that electrified me. Not so much my inspiration as the person I wanted to impress more than any other.

  You don’t read my notebooks, and I don’t look at your pictures.

  We’ve been living side-by-side, really. Almost like neighbors in the same house, reaching out only for polite chain-link fence talk.

  How can that be? We rode into this sunset together, remember?

  I never imagined I’d get so much attention being on the radio. People were listening. You know what that’s like when people pay attention.

  It takes over. Lights a fire.

  But so does silence. The silence between us, anyway.

  For my part, my dear Sharon, I’m so sorry.

  All I wanted was to get closer to you. To impress you. See the “No Visitors” sign come down, be let back in.

  The world inside you is an amazing place. Every time I get a glimpse of it, I can’t catch my breath.

  I’d give anything to get back there now.

  It is, in fact, the only place I never truly wanted to leave.

  ~Sharon~

  “Everyone is here tonight,” Heather shouted  in my ear.

  Her smile trembled.

  She said something else to me, but it was hard to hear over the band. The same band that she was so excited to have been hired to photograph.

  So why wasn’t she?

  Heather rubbed her forehead. “I think that shot Fayth gave me did something to me. I need some water.”

  She tried to motion for Sebastian’s attention. But he was wrapped into some wild conversation with his dad and a group of other former regulars.

  And that band—they were so loud, their amps buzzed with feedback. Playing something about make-believe.

  Heather gave up on Sebastian and turned her big worried eyes back at me. “My maybe-boss even showed up. Mr. Liu.”

  I nodded.

  “I really need this to go well,” Heather groaned.

  I clenched my jaw. She had my camera. My entire past right there in her hand. What else did she need?

  On the other side of the room, Fayth’s voice wobbled. She backed away from the mic. She shook her head.

  The band faltered, falling out of time. The song clunked to a stop.

  Fayth climbed down from the stage, the crowd parting as she raced toward the entrance. Toward Cody, the protective wolf who surely wasn’t going to be able to make things right. Not for her.

  But she was Fayth, after all. She would make things right for herself. It was what she’d always done. Right then, it meant refusing to be in the room while Ryan sang to another woman using the song she’d written with him. Refusing to participate as he offered someone else his heart.

  “Sorry, guys,” Ryan said into Fayth’s mic. “We’ve got some technical problems. Back in ten.” He slipped his head back out of his guitar strap and hurried off the stage, following Fayth’s footsteps.

  “Fayth!” he shouted as he raced to catch up.

  Now, I will assure you, this scene was enti
rely real. I know it doesn’t seem like it. It seems like one of those rom-com scenes we’ve all watched play out a thousand times. The When Harry Met Sally running down the street, racing to catch up to the one person in the world you suddenly just had to declare your undying love to.

  Sometimes, though, don’t we mimic our favorite scenes? Don’t we fall in line with the way our favorite stories tell us to behave?

  I think we do. I think Michael definitely gets that part right.

  But listen, the bar itself? Murio’s. That was real. Fayth and Ryan weaving through the crowd, struggling to get outside. Yes. Real.

  This next part? It’s primarily blanks that have been filled in. Oh, sure, Heather’d told me all about Fayth and Ryan being long-time friends. If I felt the need to verify it, I could have. Their friendship could even be found in archives of the paper, in all those stories about The Tommies through the years. But how they all really felt? Well, okay, that’s me telling you how I’d react if I were in their places. I know what it’s like. I’ve been there before. I’ve loved. I’ve also seen the most important person start to slip away.

  Just not with the same speed as Fayth racing for the exit.

  “Fayth!” Ryan shouted again, calling for his best friend. His co-writer. His lead singer. The voice that had been in his head every single day. It had always been so easy to be around her. Maybe too easy. The kind of easy that you can take for granted.

  Fayth had dreamed all his dreams. Stayed beside him in his jerk moods. Taken him out to bury his bad feelings. Goofy as that was, it had also been wonderful.

  Ryan’s face displayed a whole album worth of soaring sentimental ballads, love songs. He wore the kind of desperate expression that begged her to stop, to listen.

  This wasn’t about the hurtful thing Heather had said. Or being on the rebound. It wasn’t even about realizing, finally, that he and Heather really had fallen for two different reasons. It wasn’t about needing to cover up the burned spot Heather’d made on his heart with someone else. Anyone else.