Thwonk

by Joan Bauer

  A Heinz ketchup bottle washed up on shore and I remembered sitting on this very beach with Todd Kovich who said I was rare and pretty and who kissed me like he meant it. Two hours later he went to Yale.

  I jammed the Heinz ketchup bottle between two rocks and tore off five quick shots. It spoke to me. About rich people in big boats who dump their trash without paying the price. About massive oil spills and disappearing rain forests. About mounting nuclear waste and Julia Hart.

  That’s when I saw it.

  Just to the left of the embankment that jutted out to the Sound. It was painted on a huge, craggy rock set apart from the rest. It read:

  DONNA LOVES STEVE

  GARY

  DEREK

  NATHANIEL

  DONNA IS CONFUSED

  I laughed as snow twinkled down. Love in the age of angst! It was perfect Valentine funk.

  “Of course it’s perfect,” the cupid said hovering over the rock.

  “How did you know about this? I was here five days ago; I didn’t see it.”

  A sunbeam illuminated the scene. “Make available light work for you, my friend.”

  “Yes. I know what to do.”

  I focused my F2 to the left of the rock, I studied the rock, looking for the best angle—from the right, I decided. The sun soaked into Donna’s muddle, the rock sparkled like quartz. I tore off four shots that would immortalize Donna in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans. I worked quickly, not knowing how long the sunbeam effect would last. I remembered my father’s words: “Let the camera know what you’re feeling.”

  I took a deep breath. I was feeling strangely in control. I moved in close (amateurs forget this), caught the rock in stark detail at an angle that made it look like a gravestone, and blurred the surrounding elements by going to a wide aperture setting. A pigeon landed on the rock.

  “Perfect,” I whispered, “keep it steady, steady…”

  The pigeon posed standing, pecking. I watched for small moments when he would reveal himself. He squawked. I caught it. He scratched. I got that too.

  “Fly,” I told him.

  He fluttered like a butterfly and I jiggled the camera on purpose to get an impressionistic blur that would no doubt get me a four-year photography scholarship at NYU. I was perspiring despite the cold and focused in close for the Ultimate Rock Shot, capturing the consummate confusion of my generation. My finger lowered the shutter, light streaked against the film.

  “You’ve got it,” the cupid said, fluttering down.

  “I want another roll.” I plopped new film into the camera.

  He shook his head. “Another roll is not necessary.”

  “I’m the photographer,” I reminded him. “You’re—”

  “Jonathan,” the cupid said, extending his hand.

  I took it gently. It was the size of a fingernail, weird and marvelous. “Jonathan,” I said softly.

  Suddenly the sunbeam brilliance disappeared; clouds covered the sky. Without that light we had nothing. You can’t trust a natural phenomenon.

  “There is very little time, my friend!” The cupid whistled to Stieglitz, who bounded over. “We must press on!”

  I unzippered my jacket. The cupid fluttered his wings impatiently.

  “What kind of cupid are you?” I whispered.

  Jonathan smiled and motioned me toward home.

  Jonathan was zooming around my darkroom like a euphoric bee while I was in the critical stage of developing high-contrast film, when the image must be brought out without losing the detail. This stage made the difference between a nice photograph you put in an album and one that sold for cold cash. I was agitating the film-developer tank assertively like I always do for the first thirty seconds. I was then going to agitate it in twenty-second intervals, going a full four minutes to bring out the light, when Jonathan said I would lose the textures if I agitated that long. That’s when I said that I could do this in my sleep, thank you, I didn’t need advice from a dinky Ansel Adams. Jonathan fluttered his wings, which caused me to lose count, which left me no choice except to fix and rinse the film early rather than risk overdevelopment. The prints were stellar: the early light beamed across the DONNA IS CONFUSED like a laser.

  “You’re welcome,” said Jonathan.

  “All right,” I sighed, “I was wrong.” I hung the wet shot on my clothesline to dry and sat back, supremely satisfied. “They’re great, Jonathan. Thank you.”

  Jonathan took out his arrow, fixed it expertly in his bow…

  “What do you do with that thing?” I asked.

  Jonathan pulled his muscled right arm back, pulled the string tighter, tighter; his eyes squinted at the minuscule root-beer stain on my wall, hardly visible through the glow of my red safelight. He concentrated on his target, pulled the arrow back to cheek level, never losing control. He let the arrow fly; it shot through the air sure and true and landed dead center in the small brown blob.

  Thwonk.

  Jonathan stayed in shoot position until his breathing returned to normal.

  “I bring truth,” he said quietly, and flew to retrieve the arrow.

  I pulled the Volvo into Pearly’s steep driveway. Her two-story front window was framed with cupid posters proclaiming, IT’S COMING SOON. I got out of the Volvo and smirked. “I’ve got news for you, Pearly. It’s here!”

  Jonathan glared at the cupid posters in Pearly’s window. “Positively boorish!” he declared.

  Pearly’s house was a flashy, modern concoction of steel and glass that was the bane of the Crestport Beautification Council, which had declared it “anti–New England.” I trudged up the walkway that was bordered with jutting rocks. Jonathan flew alongside me; I was getting used to this, and it concerned me. I rang the doorbell and waited.

  Pearly answered the door in an electric-pink jumpsuit with matching glasses. “Is this good news or bad news?” she asked.

  I dangled four DONNA IS CONFUSED enlargements in her face. Great art needs no introduction.

  Pearly’s face turned to sunshine.

  Not massive sunshine, because getting Pearly to beam was like waking the dead. “Ooooohhhhh,” she said excitedly, looking at the prints. “It’s weird, but it’s—it’s…totally today! I take back everything I’ve ever said about you, A.J.—everything I was thinking even, which, believe me, was much worse.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “It’s not traditional; it’s not lacy; it’s not…”

  “Trite?” I suggested. “Overdone?”

  “Let’s not kill the moment, A.J.”

  “Pearly, have I ever let you down before?”

  “Once,” she said, frowning at the memory.

  She was referring to the fiasco over my Oracle Christmas cover of Mr. Kendrake, the senior-class advisor, dressed in a Santa suit and smoking a Camel in the teachers’ lounge. Dr. Strictland, the principal, had split a kidney when she saw it and lambasted the Oracle staff about sensitivity versus journalistic fervor as one of the iridescent fish in the aquarium behind her desk went belly-up like an omen of things to come.

  “That cover captured the anxiety of public-school teachers in America!” I protested. “It became an underground classic!”

  “It became,” she hissed, “my personal nightmare.”

  She held the prints to the light as Jonathan fluttered in, perched on the steel staircase, and waved. Pearly put her hand on my shoulder. “Who is Donna?”

  “A tortured soul, Pearly. I like to think that in some small way we all know Donna.”

  She nodded. “What do you think about putting a cute little cupid in the corner?”

  Jonathan brightened.

  “Spare me, Pearly.”

  “A Nude Dude.” She giggled, her face awash in headlines. “What rhymes with dude, A.J.?”

  “Crude, Pearly. Lewd.”

  Jonathan fluttered his wings. “Really!”

  She shook her curls. “I’m knocked out by this, A.J.; besieged! It stands on its own. Forge
t the cupid.”

  Pearly stood in front of a large modern painting that resembled a pencil. “Maybe we should print three thousand copies. With this cover and my vision we can take America by storm!” Pearly ran to get a folder. “The Valentine issue is a hit, A.J.! Advertisers have embraced my vision!” She waved an ad in my face. “Haggermeyer’s Funeral Home Salutes Love and the Teenage Years. Does that get you or what?”

  “It gets me, Pearly.”

  “Here’s a coupon from Jocko’s Towing.”

  “What to give the Valentine who has everything…”

  “And Sudderman’s Jiffy Lube took out a full page ad, A.J., to announce their frequent-luber discount plan. I’ve got articles coming on Blind Dates, Cheap Restaurants, What’s In/What’s Out, How to Tell If You’re Really in Love, and”—she lowered her voice for impact—“Embarrassing Dating Moments!”

  I could write that one. “We have to go, Pearly.”

  “We do?” Pearly looked confused.

  “Careful,” warned Jonathan.

  “I mean, I have to go. I, singular, one entity…”

  Jonathan flew through the closed door, a pretty decent trick, considering. Pearly’s Siamese slinked down the stairs and rubbed against me; my sinuses clogged. Jonathan zipped back inside and asked if I was coming.

  “I’m coming,” I said.

  Pearly’s face froze.

  “I mean I’m going…”

  I sneezed.

  “Say good-bye,” said Jonathan.

  I said it and tore down her front steps with Jonathan zigging and zagging.

  “We can now proceed to the next level of the Visitation,” Jonathan informed me. “A level that is fraught with complications.”

  “I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “Passing,” said Jonathan, plucking the string on his little bow, “is not an option.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jonathan perched on the ceiling fan, pouting. I had asked about the Other Teenager again, just in passing. He said, “The subject is closed.”

  I was slumped on the kitchen couch, wondering if I had the strength to make it upstairs. The phone rang; I reached for it shakily.

  “Hello….” I croaked.

  “A.J.! Are you all right?”

  It was my mother sounding Very Worried. Smart woman. “We’ve left a few messages, honey.”

  I looked at the answering machine that was blinking madly and opted for the pithy teenage avoidance version. “I was out, Mom.”

  Mom paused, her keen parental antenna picking up latent child stress. “You sound strained,” she offered.

  I nodded; I was strained.

  “You sound…exhausted…”

  I nodded again; she was two for two. “Are you guys having fun?” I asked, hoping someone was.

  “The food is not to be believed. The weather is gorgeous. We’ve gained five pounds in twelve hours. We slept until nine!” She paused, “A.J., is everything okay?”

  “Things are—”

  “Careful,” warned Jonathan, peeking down from the ceiling fan.

  “Wide open at this point, Mother.”

  “A.J., you don’t sound like yourself.”

  Tell me about it. Jonathan fluttered his wings toward the phone; I closed my eyes and said everything was perfectly fine, a barefaced whopper. My mother sounded immensely relieved.

  “Take care, sweetie,” Mom said. “Dad sends his love.”

  My eyelids crashed shut. I curled into the fetal position. A certain winged being landed on my knee and tapped it with his quiver.

  “What?” I cried.

  “I want you,” Jonathan directed, “to think about your three choices before answering. Once you decide, we cannot go back.”

  “What choices?”

  “My short time with you,” he explained firmly, fingering his arrow, “is to provide on-the-job training. I can help you with your professional life as an artist. You have already seen my keen artistic sense there. I can assist you academically.” He raised his whisper-thin eyebrows. “Given your last report card, my friend, this could be terribly useful.”

  I cleared my throat. I’d gone from an A to a C in English Lit—Miss Bright had leveled my term paper because I had called Elizabeth Barrett Browning a “hopeless romantic who didn’t know the first thing about modern relationships.”

  I leaned forward. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you can make me a better photographer or a better student?”

  “Precisely.”

  I grinned as that sank in.

  “What’s the third choice?”

  “That, my dear, is not for you at this time.”

  “You said there were three choices!”

  “I am duty bound to report that, yes, but such assistance is not appropriate for—”

  “Tell me the third choice!”

  He spun around like a thing on fire. “I can also assist you romantically, but I would vehemently advise against that!”

  I leapt up. “Romantically how?”

  Jonathan ricocheted off the wall. “It is my professional opinion that romantic assistance would not be beneficial to you at this point!”

  “Do you mean…that you shoot one of those things at somebody, somebody I choose, and they…”

  “Succumb,” Jonathan whispered.

  I was thunderstruck. “Succumb to, like, being in love with me?”

  “Unfortunately,” he said, “but I must tell you that history has shown that manipulated relationships are never satisfying for long.”

  I pictured a golden arrow whizzing through space, ripping into Peter Terris’s heart with an eensy, weensy thwonk.

  Fire shot through me. “Is this my decision?”

  He lowered his head. “Appallingly, yes.”

  “You do what I say?”

  He nodded glumly. “But let me point out that I come with a breadth of experience and not to consult me would be highly—!”

  “I know what I want!”

  I leaned forward, my heart ablaze. “I want you to shoot Peter Terris with one of your arrows, Jonathan! I want you to get him for me!”

  Jonathan flopped down, dejected. “I am not adept at Teenage Visitations!”

  “You and I are going to drive to Peter’s house,” I shouted with ecstasy. “You are going to zap him with a poisoned arrow and I’m going to live happily ever after!”

  Love, he ranted, isn’t all it’s drummed up to be, especially if we don’t know the other person well at all, especially if we’re crazy about a person just because of how they look! I assured him that how Peter looked was only a minuscule part of why I was mad about him.

  He eyed me wearily. “Infatuation cannot be sustained indefinitely, my friend. Love that embraces the entire person is a monumental gift that takes time to grow!”

  “I don’t have time to grow! The King of Hearts Dance is six days away, and I’m going! I’m going with Peter Terris because you’re going to shoot him, Jonathan!”

  I grabbed my car keys, flung on my black bomber jacket, and headed to my Volvo and destiny.

  Peter’s Dutch Colonial was at the end of the Sweetwater Lane cul-de-sac; I drove up to it slowly, my heart thumping in my larynx. The Sunday Times was still in the driveway. The windows sparkled with promise and eternity. Peter’s mother walked past the big bay window in a red robe, scratching her head and yawning. I smiled. Soon we would spend holidays together. I would be a model daughter-in-law: caring, hospitable, impervious to stinging criticism. I would keep my judgmental thoughts to myself, especially about the stupid stone pig statue on the front lawn that made a perfectly fine house look like an indoor petting zoo. Peter’s mother glared out the window at the Times at the far end of the driveway and made an unsavory gesture in honor of the paper person. Maybe Jonathan should sprinkle her with something. I opened the car door to get out; Jonathan held up his hand.

  “Stay here,” he said quietly. “You cannot be present at the shooting.”

  He fluttered out
of the car.

  “This will be the last opportunity, my friend, for you to change your mind. Once the arrow pierces his heart, there is no turning back!”

  “Pierce it, Jonathan!”

  He whooshed out the door past a nervous woman walking a toy poodle. Love was in the air. I breathed it in deep as the poodle peed on my car. Jonathan flew past the stone pig statue and approached the green front door. He disappeared through it without a trace. I put on my sunglasses, slumped down, and waited with the engine running like the driver in a bank heist.

  My ears strained, listening for the thwonk. I might not hear it, of course, since Jonathan’s thwonks were quiet—not surprising, given his size.

  The sun hit my car windshield like a beacon. I sensed the eyes of every neighbor upon me. I looked suspicious. I drove around and around the cul-de-sac, waiting for Jonathan to appear. My sinuses filled; I blew my nose and told myself there were lots of reasons to be calm.

  I checked my watch. Twenty-two minutes had passed and still no cupid. Something awful had happened!

  A rush of guilt poured over me. Manipulating someone was an awful thing to do. I was a terrible person and now I was being punished!

  I tore off my sunglasses. I’m sorry, I wailed inside.

  Suddenly, like an angry bird, Jonathan shot out the Terrises’ upstairs window and dived into my front seat.

  “Go!” he shouted, breathing hard.

  I rammed the Volvo into drive and took off. “What happened? Did you do it?”

  “He kept moving,” Jonathan said. “I am not certain that I got him.”

  I ripped the car to a stop.

  “He was very resistant.”

  “You introduced yourself?”

  “Of course not! His heart is hard!”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that we wait.”

  “How long do we wait?”

  He looked at me with piercing eyes. “That depends upon the dimension of resistance.”

  I attempted to collect myself. “But if it didn’t take, you go back, right?”

  He was silent.

  “You shoot him again, right?”

  Jonathan looked sadly out the car window and said nothing.