The Art of the Kiss Read online

  It was hard. It was scary. But it could also be thrilling. The unknown is thrilling, isn’t it?

  And then, as I was trying to claw my way out from underneath my own unexpected journey into the past, Heather’s eyes started pinballing between the frames covering my walls.

  From the

  Studio Walls

  ~

  The Art of the Kiss

  Some works are impossible to title, but not that one. The Art of the Kiss. Those words sprang to Sharon’s mind the moment the image emerged in her darkroom.

  Over the years, some people had looked at her masterpiece—two faces in black and white—and insisted the couple weren’t kissing yet. Said the two were less than a breath away. They saw anticipation, the kind of longing that can make your every cell burst open like cherry tomatoes left too long on the vine. Others argued this interpretation was completely wrong; clearly, their lips were already touching. Barely. But touching nonetheless. That kiss was happening. They would whisper the word emotionally sometimes, like it was three different sentences: Hap. En. Ing.

  Regardless, everyone agreed the kiss—whether it was already taking place or about to happen—was no mere peck. It was the kind of kiss that hit with the force of a hurricane, and could only come after years of searching and heartache and plucking loves me, loves me not petals from forget-me-nots. A kiss that melted the outside world. Stars aligning. One for the storybooks.

  Isn’t that the kind of love everybody longs for? Isn’t it the grand fantasy? And there, in black and white, Sharon’s picture offered proof positive that the search wasn’t futile. Look here, that image shouted. It exists. It’s real.

  As the photo’s fame grew, people came to Sharon’s studio for no other reason than to see that very picture, their eyes growing hazy with dreams. If they hadn’t yet found love for themselves, Sharon’s photo assured them it was right to keep looking. And if they’d already found it, the photo reminded them of the joy it brought them—the first meeting, first kiss. As their memories bobbed up to the surface, those onlookers often repeated, “We’ve been so lucky, so lucky.”

  The Art of the Kiss, Sharon came to realize, was as much about the viewer as it was about the subject.

  And that was exactly why the image was so powerful.

  ~Sharon~

  The thing was, I’d kept the entire studio perpetually covered in my best work, each photo matted and framed. I thought the glass gave the walls a glossy look, almost like the store had been covered in mosaic tiles, the kind that together create a giant cohesive picture. A mural.

  In a way, it was a mural. Together, the images told my story. Where I’d been, what I’d seen, how I’d felt looking at the world through my lens. Portraits. Landscapes. A few close-ups of inanimate objects, new ways of seeing so many everyday items. Even the editorial work I’d gotten over the years. A Time magazine cover of children in a classroom for an issue on the state of American schools. My husband. My customers. A Dodge Dart packed tight with frames going to an out-of-state exhibit.

  A wordless biography. A photographer’s life.

  That first day with Heather, her eyes bounced past it all—including the image of Dad I was always so fond of—and stopped where everyone’s eyes had always stopped. On the old black and white hanging near the ceiling. My magnum opus. The Art of the Kiss.

  I found myself grimacing. If only, I caught myself thinking, she’d looked at it with a critical eye—then moved on to study my other work. Like a photographer should.

  “My boyfriend broke up with me because of a photo I took,” Heather blurted in a half-sob. Her tone suggested, One more rotten thing in the pile of rotten things that keep on happening to me.

  I froze, not sure how to respond. If I even should respond. Sometimes, people don’t want advice. Or consoling. They want to vent.

  “Some dumb selfie,” Heather went on. “Ryan missing my lips, kissing me on the cheek, and me looking at my phone. He said it summed everything up between us. Him trying to kiss me, me looking someplace else. Like I was someplace else.” Her face drooped, and she sucked in a deep breath before murmuring, “‘Look how I get to you.’ That’s what he said. All sarcastic. Like my phone turned me on more than him. But I guess—I kind of do keep choosing pictures over him.

  “And I don’t even know if my pictures are any good or not. What if I’m choosing bad pictures over him? It’s one thing if you’re talented and choose to pursue your passion over a relationship. I mean, at least you could justify it. But what if I’m not, and I didn’t fight for my boyfriend, and in the end, I don’t have a career or Ryan either?”

  She plopped her elbows on the counter and cradled her head in her hands. “I wish I could twist the lens on my life and put everything into focus.”

  I was a statue. Completely mute. Not that it mattered. Not to Heather.

  She raised her head, her eyes going straight back for my old image. “That picture,” she sighed. “I don’t know if I could ever take something like that. It doesn’t even look like a picture. It looks like a painting. Like real artwork, you know? Because it’s so full of emotion. Those two aren’t strangers,” Heather whispered. “They’re—everything to each other.”

  Heather didn’t realize that it was me up there in that photo. Me and Michael. Not that Heather really should have recognized me, really. The Sharon on the wall had long black hair, ’60s-era eyeliner, a youthful face. The Sharon behind the counter possessed none of those things. I had a crown of white hair and a collection of wrinkles. I was not what anyone would describe as young. I hadn’t been for quite some time.

  “It hurts when somebody you love tells you the love you’ve given back isn’t good enough. Like what you’ve offered is broken or faulty or something. I mean, is love some kind of artistic thing? Like drawing or singing? Some people do it really well, and other people not so much? That can’t be right, can it? Isn’t love love? It’s not something you’re supposed to critique, is it? Some love isn’t better than other love, is it?”

  Heather flinched, blushing slightly. “Sorry,” she muttered. “He—I guess—it’s a long story, but my boyfriend’s on my mind because right now, we’re kind of stuck together. Which is my doing too. I mean. My car wouldn’t start. He agreed—since I was going to be a goner without him—to drive me to the shoot. Before I broke my camera. A day alone in a car with your ex.”

  “Sounds interesting,” I managed to croak.

  “Makes giving a root canal to an alligator seem like a pretty swell time, comparatively speaking.”

  I let out a little burst of laughter and started to come out from behind the counter, almost ready to grab her into a hug before I could stop myself. What is it about an offhanded joke that makes you feel you’ve shared something private with another person? As though you’ve become friends, somehow.

  “It’s not like me to babble on this way. I never do that. It’s not—” Heather put her hands to her cheeks in a What have I done? pose. “I’m sorry. I’m wasting your time. I should cancel my shoot. I shouldn’t make my client wait for me.”

  Okay, really. How many times does this ever happen to any of us, in life? There I was, the exact right person to step in and help this poor girl.

  Maybe, if it had been the two of us, just me and Heather, I would have rescued her in the obvious way. I would have grabbed my charged-up DSLR and told her since it was already used but functioning, it was on the house.

  But then I heard it: A slight rustling from the stairs.

  I knew we weren’t alone. Michael was watching me. And Heather.

  Why was he eavesdropping? And another thing—a question that had been bugging me relentlessly, at least until Heather’d shown up: Why’d he bring that old camera down to me in the first place? It almost felt like he was trying to prod me into some kind of action. Goad me.

  Into what? Working? I had been all along. Attempting to change with the times. Didn’t he pay enough attention to me to realize it?

  What d
id he want from me?

  All I knew, right then, was that it felt like he was telling me I wasn’t enough. Before I could stop myself, I was telling Heather, “Wait right there,” and bolting at top speed away from the front counter, racing across the shop toward my shelf with the extra lenses.

  There it was. The Nikon. Our Nikon.

  The magic camera. I knew that was what Michael thought of it.

  Magic.

  Years ago, the word had rung in my head in kind of a quaint way. Right then, I couldn’t turn the questions off. Why magic? Why would Michael ever think that? If I had to have magic to succeed, that would have to mean I had no power of my own, wouldn’t it? Had my hard work not accounted for much in his mind?

  How could it have, if he thought I’d found success because of some dumb camera?

  Magic. At that point, the word was ringing in my head in a darker, almost sarcastic way.

  I didn’t know anything about Heather. The girl could have been a hack. A regular no-talent. She’d already rambled on about a picture she’d taken on her phone. Did that mean she considered selfies with Instagram filters fine art?

  Had Heather broken her own camera in a moment of clumsiness, or out of frustration? Would she break my Nikon? Break it out of ineptitude? Or irritation? Or—worse yet—instead of breaking it, would she decide she hated the ancient thing, and trash it? Dump it off at an electronics recycling location, collect a few dollars to put toward a new digital camera? The girl had no ties to me. A return was not guaranteed.

  Then again, did I want her to return it? Now that she—and all these new questions—had arrived, did I actually want to get rid of it? Would it be a relief?

  I reached for the handle on the case and stopped. I could see myself reflected in the white metal of one of the latches. Blurry and distorted and out of proportion. The black feather tattoo on the inside of my wrist, which had long ago faded to blue, almost looked bigger than my head.

  I snorted a chuckle in the way people do when they’re trying to say something that really isn’t funny at all. The blue tattoo, the white hair…I looked like a woman fading away.

  Like an old photograph.

  He was still there, I knew. On the stairs. Would I hurt him if I actually went through with what was on my mind? It was drastic. Wasn’t it? Giving away this enormous part of our lives together?

  What did I want him to see?

  Again, my eyes settled on my tattoo, the one that had for decades been reminding me how tough and gutsy I could be.

  Gutsy enough, even, to give magic away.

  “I have just the thing,” I blurted, before giving myself a chance to second-guess it. I grabbed the case and raced back toward the counter, toward the poor girl who needed my help.

  “I hope it’s cheap,” Heather moaned.

  “It’s free,” I offered cheerfully.

  The expression on Heather’s face turned accusatory, like she figured I was out to scam her.

  “Best camera in the entire store,” I insisted. I clicked the silver latches open and exposed the 1967 Nikon.

  “It’s used. And it’s…Is that a film camera?” Heather asked, disappointment saturating her tone.

  “Yes. I’ve still got some film in stock, believe it or not—”

  “Don’t bother,” Heather groaned. “I can’t use it. Not for a professional shoot. I barely remember those old junky summer vacation cameras Mom and I had when I was a kid.”

  That was probably true. And it hit me all over again how much time had passed. How different the world was. I didn’t want to set the girl up to fail. I honestly believed the camera had life left in it. I’d built an entire career on photos taken with that Nikon, and I was certain this girl could too—if she gave herself and the camera a chance.

  But I was also filled with so many other wishes. Mostly that Michael would snap out of whatever funk he’d settled into and see me as I was. Not a bunch of dumb fairy tale promises that never come true for anybody, anyway. Me.

  “Maybe there’s a chance I could get by using my phone,” Heather mumbled.

  “No way,” I insisted, leaning over the counter. “I’ll show you how to use it. I know all the tricks to make this particular camera work.” And because I wanted Michael to realize how ludicrous it was to believe that fairy tales were out there walking around on the sidewalks, because I was certain the best way to yank him away from his silly thoughts was to hear them repeated out loud, I said, “If you get in a bind, this camera will show you everything. All you have to do is ask it for help.

  “This camera,” I added, loud enough for Michael to hear every word, “is magic.”

  ~Michael~

  Once upon a time, in Fairyland, magic lived and breathed.

  And then it was given away.

  Just like that. Like it was nothing that mattered anymore.

  I gripped the stairs to keep from falling. Sharon might as well have given me away.

  I stood silently as she walked to the storefront window, propped her hands on her hips, and watched Heather carry our camera away, her figure growing smaller before disappearing altogether.

  Behind her shoulder, I could see my own hazy reflection in the plate glass.

  Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s the fairest thing of all?

  Not this, I caught myself thinking. Not giving your personal magic away to an absolute stranger. Most definitely, not that.

  ~June 14, 1969~

  It was a random thing, really, the way Sharon and Michael met on that early summer day in 1969.

  At least, it would always seem random to Sharon.

  To Michael, it seemed more providential. Inevitable.

  It happened in the jazz section of Bleeker’s Records. Of course it did. If it involved Sharon, it would have to involve the jazz section.

  She bumped Michael—but then again, Sharon had bumped a lot of people that Saturday. The stack of albums in her arms was heavy enough to make her elbows bow out to the sides awkwardly.

  “Sorry,” she’d said. Actually, it was something more along the lines of “Awahhh-y,” since she was talking around the pen in her mouth. She’d been tallying up the grand sum total of what she was buying. At $2.99 a crack for an album, it tended to add up fast. And her available cash supply had been steadily dwindling.

  Her eyes fluttered slightly wider, then narrowed into a squint as she sized him up, quickly deciding he was the epitome of a stuffed shirt. Really, her grunt said. Who goes to a record store on a Saturday afternoon wearing a tie?

  He even had on horn-rimmed glasses. He had the look of Clark Kent, with no superpowers to back it up.

  “Got quite the collection there,” Michael observed, not wanting to let her slip away.

  “Uh-huh.” Still around the pen. More like, “Ulhsh-hah.”

  She raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking him to step aside. The records were getting heavy, and she was trying to point toward the Thelonious Monk portion of the “M”s.

  “Planning a party?” he asked.

  “Ululh-uh.”

  That was a no to Michael and to the party bit both. Michael knew it was. But he slid a giant chunk of her albums out of her grasp anyway. She could hold the rest with one hand. Which meant she could use her free hand to slide the pen out of her mouth.

  “Music to relax my clients,” she explained.

  “Yeah? What kind of clients?”

  She flinched—or maybe grimaced. Asking herself, This guy isn’t looking for a full-blown conversation, is he?

  Michael wasn’t her type. Clearly. They couldn’t be more different, Michael in his business suit and Sharon in her linen bell-bottoms, her long flowing black hair and her black eyeliner looking more well-suited for the pages of Rolling Stone.

  Michael, it turned out, was intrigued enough for the both of them.

  “Photography,” she finally offered.

  “No kidding?” he asked, even though he was already fully aware of what she did for a living. Even though he rem
embered seeing her taking shots outside of Murio’s. He couldn’t let her wiggle away. Not yet.

  She shrugged. “To distract them. You know. Like waving a teddy bear in front of a toddler’s face. Anything to get them to forget their picture is being taken. Get them to relax and smile naturally.”

  “And jazz does that,” Michael challenged. “I didn’t know Fairyland had so many fans.”

  “Look,” she sighed, “you seem like a nice guy. So I’m going to tell you there’s no need to flirt with me. Because there’s a whole story going on here you don’t know about. And I guarantee you, the minute you find out all the gory details, you aren’t going to be interested at all anymore.”

  To emphasize her point, she made a big show of hiking her purse higher on her shoulder—and flashing the inside of her wrist in the process. Michael’s eyes landed on the small feather tattoo. It was an odd thing for a woman to have a tattoo—an odd thing for anyone other than a sailor to have a tattoo in Fairyland in 1969, actually.

  Sharon had no doubt encountered plenty of people who had allowed a few drops of ink to help form their opinion regarding what kind of woman she was. Clearly, Michael thought, she was waiting for him to frown or cringe or show some sign of judgment.

  But really, it only intrigued him more.

  “So what, exactly, is this big story of yours?” he asked. Then quickly apologized, “Sorry—I’m used to asking questions. Digging for information. I’m a journalist.”

  Sharon grumbled, nodding at the tie, “Big interview this morning?”

  “Opening of the new Piggly Wiggly.”

  “Ah. Hard-hitting investigative reporting.”

  Michael grinned. Despite her best efforts, he was yet to be annoyed in the slightest. “You might have seen my column. ‘Observations from the Tower’—”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s got a whaddayacallit—a cartoon-looking castle turret—at the top of it, near the title. Instead of your own picture.”

  “You’ve enjoyed it, then.”