The Art of the Kiss Page 13

  Meanwhile, they’re out to wreak havoc on your life.

  That’s how they survive, you know. By using the most unsuspected disguises. That’s why they don’t have people instantly trying to crush them on sight, give them the boot out of town. Why good people don’t immediately send them packing.

  Come on, now, you say. Puppies and sweet little girls in a bind are vulnerable creatures. What kind of danger can a villain pose if the villain takes on such a powerless form?

  Think about the villains in fairy tales. Take Cinderella, for instance. Her stepsisters and stepmother were arguably not particularly powerful creatures themselves. So what was the worst harm they could do?

  Wasn’t it to deny poor Cinderella a chance? Keep her from the ball? So the prince would never be able to meet her?

  Had there not been a fairy godmother, they would have succeeded. Poor Cinderella would have been hidden away, out of the prince’s view.

  The true danger those stepsisters and their mother posed, then? Why, they were barriers to true love.

  In my mind, you can’t find a worse villain than that—one who plants their feet firmly, one that stands in the way of true love.

  Maybe you have a different picture in your head. I’ll pose the question to the people of Fairyland: What in your own life would be the worst imaginable villain? The destroyer of your success, your happiness, your love? The lines are open. Talk to me.

  ~Michael~

  You bet, I had villains on my mind.

   Heather had become something of a villain. At least, she’d become one to me, stealing what was left of my princess’s attention.

  But Heather also had a villain of her own, remember?

  One that was becoming increasingly more villain-y all the time.

  What was going on with Amanda?

  Simply put, she’d been doing a bit of celebrating. Because she actually believed she’d kept Heather from her grand opportunity. Her shot at real success.

  It had happened by accident, of course. The camera thing wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t like she’d purposefully tricked Goldilocks into crawling into the wrong bed or shoved Rapunzel up a tower, never to be heard from again.

  Aiden had knocked the camera out of Heather’s hands.

  Simple as that.

  That’s what she told herself, anyway. Of course, that ignored the fact that she could have whipped out her gold card to buy poor Heather another camera. Surely there was some big box store close by that still carried a few digitals.

  Amanda rolled her eyes at herself. Why did Heather even need a new camera? Why couldn’t she use her phone? Do some artistic editing in Photoshop?

  There, Amanda thought with satisfaction. That showed she wasn’t a horrible person at all.

  Still, Amanda was very aware that her best friend (the poor little waif) had taken hit after hit while she had spent the last decade-plus collecting markers of success. It had all been relatively easy. Almost as easy as it had been when she was a little girl and had racked up achievements playing the old Life board game at sleepovers: a husband and babies, an enviable lifestyle. Being married to Tom, a corporate attorney as well as the majority shareholder in a boat manufacturer and a partner in a growing fitness franchise, meant she had more than a comfortable existence. She had clout. Places to wear gowns at night. Actual ball gowns. To evening galas. Dinner parties and events, so much networking to do. Year after year, she was still sticking blue and pink people pegs in her plastic car-shaped game piece, spinning the multi-colored wheel, working her way around the board.

  Amanda had far surpassed Heather in the game of life. When she thought about it, she really did feel a sad mix of regret and guilt about the incident with Aiden and the camera.

  And yet, she also felt quite happy.

  The happiness was harder to understand. In fact, her happiness kind of stung.

  Here’s the thing: Nobody ever cheers for a black-hearted villain. Nobody likes villains. Not even the villains themselves. The true quest for a storybook enemy isn’t to triumph over good. It’s not to conquer and crush the hero. It’s to stop being the villain. It’s to get on the right side of the story.

  And so Amanda sent Tom off with Aiden and the twins for pizza at one of those kids’ places with Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole. Told him to stay extra long because she’d invited Heather over. It wasn’t the first time, either—it had, over the years, become something of a habit: inviting her best friend over while the kids were with their grandmother, the husband off fishing with his buddies, like a scene straight out of a 1950s sitcom. Amanda loved the evenings they spent commiserating like teenagers. Only, instead of parents and boys, the troubles were now rent (Heather) and contractors for the additional room (Amanda). By the third glass of wine, there was also Heather’s career. Amanda would listen and play with her hair, and when Heather finally wound down, Amanda wrapped her in her mother-in-law’s hand-crocheted afghan and let her sleep it off on the Anthropologie velvet-upholstered couch.

  Knowing that Heather could not have possibly made her shoot with Liu, Amanda had (without mentioning Liu directly) tonight offered Heather a shoulder to cry on. And an empty house to do it in.

  She’d even offered to pick her up. But Heather’d said her car hadn’t been quite as doornail-dead as she’d suspected. She’d found a few YouTube videos that helped diagnose and fix her car. Another Band-Aid for another injury, sure to fall off in another thirty miles or so, exposing a still bigger problem underneath.

  When the doorbell rang, Amanda expected to find a familiar face wrenched into a giant wad of tears.

  Instead, Heather was smiling. And holding up a plate.

  “You made brownies?” Amanda asked.

  “You love brownies,” Heather said with a shrug. “Don’t get too excited. They’re from the oldies but goodies bin at the grocery store.”

  Heather had brought treats, even after Amanda’s own son had wrecked her camera?

  Amanda tried to swallow. It was hard, since she was getting all choked up. She needed a drink.

  “I’m so sorry you didn’t make it to your shoot,” she said after gulping down half a glass of chardonnay.

  “Oh, I made it,” Heather said, plopping down on the couch.

  “You—you did?”

  “Sure. Darth Billy came to my rescue.”

  “Darth Billy? How could he?”

  “Hey, don’t be so suspicious. Little boys rescue girls all the time. Even mean little evil ones. It happens that way sometimes. Enemies can turn out to be guys waiting for an excuse to quit being jerks. Enemies are guys who play havoc with your life only because they resent not being part of it somehow. Green with envy.”

  Amanda’s smile faded. Was that pointed?

  “Yeah, as it turned out, car trouble was catching like the flu. After Ryan filled up, his car wouldn’t start. Lucky for me, Darth Billy and his mother had been riding bikes near the gas station.”

  “Were they.”

  “Yes!” Heather’s eyes sparkled.

  Amanda recognized this right off. It was a game the two of them had played through the years—trying to one-up each other, story-wise. They’d bragged about make-out sessions under the bleachers and about chance meetings with favorite musicians, and even told a few heartbreakers—about fathers being transferred and having to move, or about being given a semester of detention. It was up to the other to guess which stories were true and which were complete fiction.

  “So Billy’s mom offered me a bike.”

  “To go all the way to Goldeneye.”

  “No! Of course not. To the bus station, silly.”

  “Of course,” Amanda said, giggling as she handed Heather the bottle of wine.

  “Of course,” Heather giggled back.

  After pouring herself an extra-large glass, Heather continued, “I had started to pedal away when Darth Billy surprised me by calling out, ‘Wait! I’ll come with you!’”

  “Small wonders.”

  “Yes
. And you and I both know that it has been well documented that road trips can work wonders at forging friendships.”

  “Even when they’re on bicycles?”

  “Especially when they’re on bicycles. Darth Billy and I sang in harmony as we pedaled, block after block. ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ and a few of Duran Duran’s greatest hits.”

  “Darth Billy knows Duran Duran?”

  “Apparently, Darth Billy’s mother has a surprising number of ’80s bands on vinyl.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes! At one point, we ended up following a pre-Flag Day parade.”

  “You don’t say!”

  “A woman on an Uncle Sam float tossed the two of us red, white, and blue crepe paper streamers. We wound them around our handlebars.

  “When the bus station came into view, I hugged my new pal Darth Billy. And I started to say goodbye to one of my fellow crepe paper wavers when I realized she happened to be wearing a name badge declaring she was the high school principal and therefore trustworthy with children. I pointed toward Billy and shouted, ‘He lives on Robberson.’”

  “What’d the principal do?”

  “Promised to make sure he’d get home safely. And return his mom’s bike for me.”

  “As any good principal would,” Amanda agreed.

  “He called out to me, ‘Bye, Heather!’ And you know, Darth Billy promised he would never, ever, ever be a jerk supreme again. Not to me, the person who had risen to the top of his buddy list.”

  “What a tale!” Amanda said through laughter. She loved Heather at that moment. Loved her with all her heart. Heather had told her that preposterous story for the same reason she’d brought sweets: to show her that all was forgiven. Heather bore no grudges.

  Yes, Amanda was forgiven. Aiden was forgiven. When her husband returned home, he’d surely ask something like, “What’s up, ladies?” She’d sigh and roll her eyes. And before Tom could get the least bit worried about whether his photographer recommendation had put him on some sort of unsteady footing with Liu, his potential future colleague or business favor-doer, Amanda would shake her head, flash a you should know better warning frown at him. The same frown she had often flashed at him during his hobnobbery work events. The look that would wordlessly reprimand him before he could blurt something awful, the kind of thing polite society inevitably punished you for saying. The same look that had the weekend before kept him from asking after a business acquaintance’s wife. Once said acquaintance had stepped out of earshot, she’d explained, in a whisper, “She ran off with her yoga instructor, remember?” Tom’s fingers had searched the thin Georgette of her skirt; finding her hand, he’d squeezed in wordless gratitude.

  This would be just like that. Cover Heather’s failure, save her feelings. Later on, when they were alone, Amanda would suggest to Tom, “Why don’t I go ahead and hire that photographer who worked the Richardsons’ daughter’s wedding? Pay for a reshoot ourselves? Once it’s all over, we could invite the Lius over. Informal barbecue. And have a good laugh. In the long run, that’ll give you more mileage with Liu than a successful shoot with Heather ever could.”

  He’d agree. And squeeze her hand again. Grateful.

  Amanda really did have it all: Heather’s forgiveness and her lovely life—the one she adored. The one with the always-filled wineglasses and her children’s laughter, the notes of their giggles as easy to memorize as the chorus of a song. Oh, she loved all of it. The loud, boisterous comings and goings of a family she had helped to create. At that moment, it was every bit as delicious as Heather’s brownies promised to be. It nourished her.

  She was still quite good at the game of life.

  “There’s only one problem,” Amanda said, ready to show Heather that her story was complete and utter fiction, ready for the two of them to fall into hysterics. “Why did you even go to the shoot at all? After that job Aiden did on your camera?”

  Heather’s face fell. She looked at Amanda in a kind of wounded way, as though reliving the whole scene. Maybe even wondering why Amanda hadn’t swooped in to offer her gold-card help.

  “The store across the street—you know, with the awning? It was a camera store.”

  “It was?”

  “Yeah, the lady in there gave me a deal I couldn’t refuse,” Heather joked with a wink.

  “So—wait. Are you being serious or not? I mean—is that another story? A made-up one? Like Darth Billy?”

  “I really made it to the shoot.” Heather shrugged. “Why? Didn’t you think I did?”

  “No, no, between you and Ryan—you had it covered.” Amanda tossed a hand at Heather in an of course kind of way.

  But on the inside, Amanda’s black, festering sore spot began to ache all over again. Her light mood turned instantly dark.

  She didn’t want to feel this way. But she couldn’t stop it. She was spiraling downward. She was angry. Furious. She felt like punching drywall.

  Why?

  Because what she’d wanted to happen hadn’t. And that wasn’t the ending Amanda was accustomed to.

  She was losing Heather. Of course she was. She’d been here before—not with friends as close as she and Heather had always been. But this was how it happened. Success was going to rip Amanda’s oldest, best, and perhaps last real friend away.

  That’s what success did, after all. It sent people into their own private circles. Heather would attend her own galas and hobnobbery work events, and they wouldn’t be the same ones Amanda and her husband would attend.

  Amanda was about to lose one of the pink pegs in the backseat of her little plastic Life car.

  Quite simply, she was terrified.

  One of Amanda’s three garage doors went up.

  “Is that Tom?” Heather asked.

  Before Amanda could get her mouth to work, her family was banging back into the house.

  “Hey, girls,” Tom bellowed.

  Amanda’s head was spinning. Tom was smiling at her. Tom, the college sweetheart who had started out as her study buddy, the one who still laughed with her, teased her, consulted her, comforted her. She wanted to talk to him like she once had, when it was the two of them out for beers after their Thursday night philosophy class. She wanted to grab him, push him into the dining room and whisper, “You’ll never believe what’s been going on with me and Heather.” She ached to confess her cattiness, tell him all about the business cards and the busted Nikon and Heather making it to the Liu shoot and how horrible it was making her feel. How this was like some twisted breakup in slow motion.

  But she couldn’t, because more than anything, she didn’t want him to know what she’d been up to. She’d be humiliated. And he’d be shocked. He’d think less of her.

  Besides, Tom no longer talked to anyone from high school. His friends were all business associates. How could he sympathize?

  “Grease fire over at the pizza place,” Tom explained. “So we decided to grab us some ribeyes. I grabbed the adults ribeyes, anyway. Got some great squashed-flat patties for the kids. And chocolate chip mint ice cream! Right, guys?”

  The kids cheered. Tom opened the back door to the deck. “You’re staying, aren’t you, Heather? For dinner?”

  “Only if you let me take a few family shots,” Heather announced. “My camera’s out in the car.”

  “I was hoping you’d say yes,” Tom called out to her. “Got you a ribeye too. And it’s going to be delicious because I’m grilling. Amanda chars meat to smithereens.”

  “I do not—” Amanda started, but Tom and Heather were laughing. Just beyond the back door, her children were squealing joyfully on the swings. No one could hear her.

  It was a little lonely knowing that the two people closest to Amanda never would have guessed that her devious mind was already searching for a new idea. Some way to thwart Heather’s momentum.

  Neither one of them would have ever thought to look suspiciously at her.

  Which meant they did not see both of her hands curled into fists.


  From the

  Studio Walls

  ~

  Minyard’s Photography Interior

  1980-1989

  To a great extent, the studio walls inside Minyard’s showcased the photos Sharon had taken across the entirety of Fairyland. People of all ages. Some frames surrounded children at the park—their smiling faces enjoying the rush of a swing swooping high above the tree line, or their tears being wiped from their cheeks as skinned knees were tended to. Other frames held teenagers clustered in rowdy groups outside of Fairyland’s movie theater. Or the painted-up, almost clown-like adult faces inside Murio’s.

  But the section closest to the front counter featured the figures who had once occupied the interior of the shop. Because when Sharon’s popularity exploded, interesting subjects started coming to her.

  Sure, she continued to venture outside during these busy years, taking photos of Fairyland streets and restaurants and parks, Fairyland gatherings and celebrations. But some of her very best shots were taken, during this time, without even having to step outside her own door.

  And so they were given a special place of honor in Sharon’s ever-changing mural.

  Some pictures captured full-on crowds. Too many people to count. Hovering near displays, leaning against the glass front counter. Wandering the aisles. Sharon caught individuals with their faces upturned, staring admiringly at The Art of the Kiss. She photographed those who showed up for her classes, a brand-new Minyard’s-purchased camera in hand. Candid shots of expectant faces racing to see their prints for the first time were easy to come by. Occasionally, the candid studio shots were even used in print ads.

  Sharon did not have to ask for permission.

  By then, the people of Fairyland were seeking her out. Asking to be included in her studio mural. In the ads for Minyard’s. Hoping she would let them borrow, for a slice of time, just a taste of her own fame.

  From

  ~Sharon’s Laptop~