What a Kiss Can Do

by Kathy Johncox

“Okay, well, he did notice you, I guess. Came over to see what was going on. I told him what happened, with the mistletoe and all.”

  “You told him that?”

  “We were just chatting. You were fairly out of it. He said something to you while you were on the gurney. You were so drugged, you smiled big, so big that he smiled back. First time I ever saw that, him smiling. No pictures of that at the party.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Have you ever even seen a dwarf before?” Fergie asked. “They’re not everywhere, you know.”

  I had to think. Not out in the world I live in, I hadn’t. Only on television, at the circus, or at the state fair.

  “Not in our world,” I said.

  “Who says our worlds are different?”

  “It just seems they might be.”

  “You never know. You’re the reporter. You can get the scoop and do a bit on alternately-sized people.”

  “I think it’s ‘people of small stature’.”

  “See, you’re already on it.”

  First of all, I didn’t like him referring to my writing as “a bit,” a Fergie vernacular that he already was so accustomed to using, he couldn’t give it up now. Secondly, I realized I was on it. I’d been on it ever since the party in some way. Only not the way he thought.

  “But tell me,” I said. “Why the big Diane Arbus obsession?”

  “Photographers admire each other’s work, just like you writerly types do.”

  “But her photos are ‘out there’.”

  “But they each are a story. Each one tells a bit of the life of the subject and makes you wonder more.”

  “And then there’s us,” I said, changing the subject. “And your being cuddling challenged, so called. Is there anything else you think you’re not good at that someone else, like me for example, might think you are great at?”

  “There’s something that I know I’m not great at that other people would agree with me about.”

  “And that is...?”

  “Marriage.”

  “Oh.” I shivered.

  “Surprised?” he said, glancing over at me.

  “It just never occurred to me that a person would say he or she was not great at being married. I mean, it’s not like not being great at golf or cooking or some other activity.”

  “And yet it is an activity of sorts with rules, conventions, judgments, you name it.”

  I knew he’d been married and was divorced, courtesy of a casual comment by Boss, but Fergie and I hadn’t talked about it.

  “So in your case, what happened to the activity you call marriage?” I asked.

  “Like a batch of bad smallpox vaccine, it just didn’t take.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not now. Just wanted you to know it from me.”

  I was quiet, so quiet for so long that Fergie finally offered a dollar for my thoughts. I told him I had at least five dollar’s worth as we pulled into my mother’s driveway.

  My older sister, Jennie, her husband, Sammy, and her kids were already there, probably ensconced in the one spare bedroom. Jody, 11, came running out with her arms wide open to give me my biggest hug of the year—before Fergie, that is—and she stopped dead when she saw him.

  “Honey, this is Fergie.”

  She looked him up and down, embarrassing me and amusing him.

  “Aunt Rita brought a guy,” she said as her brother, Billy, ran out.

  At age nine, he didn’t mince words. “Who’s the dude?”

  I could see him already thinking this person could be competition for Aunt Rita’s attention, big-time.

  I couldn’t quite say boyfriend, although by now that’s probably what we both considered him, so I said. “This is Fergie, guys.”

  They both shook hands with him, then noticed the crutches and the bandage wrap, which recently had replaced the cast on my ankle, and hugged me with more restraint than normal, but I also understood that a limited public display of affection applied here, as it so often did in our family.

  My mother appeared at the door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, and waved us in.

  “Come on, come on, it’s so good to have you here. Oh, it’s so exciting. Oh, are you okay? Your foot! I forgot!”

  She meant Fergie was exciting. Her dream before she died, she would always say, was to have me and Jennie both settled. In her mind that meant husband and kids. Jennie had made it, and now Mom’s focus was on me.

  “Mom, this is Fergie,” I said. I hoped she wouldn’t comment that she had heard so much about him.

  She did worse. She said nothing but extended her hand and gave me the look that said she approved so far. I know he saw it.

  Fergie carried the gifts and luggage down the narrow cellar stairs where the futon awaited, me hobbling behind.

  “Your mother likes me,” he whispered.

  I made it to the futon and threw myself down, puffing a little with the exertion required not to fall down the stairs. I rubbed my aching ankle and figured it probably was swollen, as I could feel the bandages were tighter.

  “One down,” I said. “You’ve still got my sister to contend with.”

  Fergie dropped the luggage, gently swung my legs around so I was half-prone on the futon, and began to massage my ankle as he’d done the past few nights after I’d gotten home from work. I closed my eyes and made happy little noises.

  “Thanks. That feels great,” I said. “Really great. For a non-cuddler, you have great massage technique.”

  “I’ve only done your ankle so far, but I have other skills for you to marvel at,” he said. He continued on the ankle for a few minutes, then wrapped his arms around me. Several heart-warming kisses later, he said, “Oh, and about your sister? I’ll rise to the occasion.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Last minute shopping. Wrapping. Whispering secrets. Lots of food, Norwegian food cooked by all of us, centered on what, for our family is the Norwegian national food—most assuredly potatoes. Potatoes figure prominently in the making of the lefse, a traditional dish that is hard to describe, because what it looks like doesn’t do it justice. I’ll say it’s like a tortilla, but it’s made entirely of potatoes, peeled and mashed and mixed with some milk, or in a more decadent version, cream, to a thick consistency that allows it to be made into patties and rolled out flat. Then the flattened patties are cooked on a special lefse iron resembling an electric griddle until they start to brown. You eat lefse cold, either slathered with butter and cinnamon, or wrapped around a sausage, or filled with a cold pork mixture called sylte. I’m sure the Vikings enjoyed the same fare, especially as the making of the lefse is accompanied by singing and drinking beer and Aquavit, a Scandinavian drink that tastes like gasoline unless accompanied by beer or possibly herring. No, actually it tastes like gasoline anyway. When I ate lefse, I could almost forgive the Norsemen for the mistletoe. But not quite.

  Fergie immediately became part of the lefse cooking contingent, to the delight of my mother and sister. I couldn’t stand for long because of the pain, and watching his hands create the potato patties and smooth them out for the rolling pin made my heart beat faster, so I sat on a kitchen stool at his side, and possessively observed my family relating to him.

  My mother was laughing and giving pointers galore, praising him for his skill at making lefse and probably also for his good taste at being with the daughter who needed to be settled.

  My sister’s flirting with Fergie during the lefse-making process told me she approved. Initially she probably thought that I had gone for the looks again, the tall, Nordic collegiate-looking type, but watching him cook, play with the kids, talk with my mom about the family history and being so focused on me, I think made her jealous. She has always flirted when she gets jealous, or tried to find some way to be the center of attention and she was doing it in spades. This time I didn’t care because Fergie was sharing the fold-out futon with me.

  On Christmas morning, it was obvious Santa had
brought the kids their most coveted gifts, even though, as the story went, he had to travel to Grandma’s house to deliver them.

  The tree was aglow with white lights and Mom had the coffee brewing and a coffee cake in the oven as the adults trickled in after being pounced upon by the kids. Even Fergie and I were invaded, and Fergie carried me up the stairs, where he put me on the ottoman in front of the tree. I sat there in my red robe rubbing my ankle. I was a little sore after using more stairs than normal for the past few days, sleeping with Fergie on the small and unfamiliar futon, and making quiet love in cramped quarters while watching that no one was coming down the stairs. Not that I was complaining, I reminded myself.

  “I can’t believe Santa found us here,” I heard Billy whisper to Fergie amid the tearing of wrapping paper and Jody’s joyful exclamation at her new pink rhinestone studded headphones.

  Fergie and I gave each other the things you would give if you were in a newly developing relationship. After all, we’d known each other for nearly a year, but it had been less than a month that we’d been together, in the real sense of the word.

  “Whoa,” Fergie said. “Can’t believe you knew I wanted these!” He held up the ultra light, ultra warm gloves I’d selected for those wintry photo assignments. He put them on and made sure everyone got to touch their smooth, shiny surface.

  “How cool,” I said as I opened the latest version of Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market complete with its own dvd. “I love and need this so much! How thoughtful.”

  “It’s for all the fiction I know is in you, trying to get out,” he said. “Look at the title page.”

  I flipped to it and saw that he had written, “Release it.”

  I motioned for him to come closer so I wouldn’t have to get up, and I threw my arms around his neck, much more demonstrative than I had ever been with anyone in the presence of my family. He laughed and held me close. This was not lost on my sister and mother, who hurried to the kitchen together, and I don’t think it was to check on the coffee cake.

  After another day or so of eating and mingling with family, I was ready to go home, but Fergie seemed content to stay.

  “Great family,” he said one night after dinner when he and I had drawn dish duty. I was sitting at the table with the dishtowel and he handed me a pot to dry.

  “You really care about each other and it shows. And they even make me feel like I belong here. So different from…” He stopped talking as he reached for the lid.

  “From what?” I said.

  “You know.”

  “Nope. Tell me.”

  “Well, it goes back to when I was married.” He looked over at me.

  I nodded encouragement.

  “Let me start over. My family was nothing like this. Parents argued all the time, part of the arguments caused by the bottle always at my mom’s side. Agreed on nothing. Didn’t have time to raise kids, so we were on our own. My brother’s in California, couldn’t wait to get away. My sister’s much younger and in college now. Always viewed herself as a mistake that my parents made during a drunken night of sex. Nice, huh? She’s had some problems but I think she’s on the right track now. See what I mean?”

  I handed him the dry pot. “How did you escape?”

  “I didn’t really. Went to college on an art scholarship…”

  “An art scholarship?”

  “Yep. But I picked up a camera for a photography elective and couldn’t put it down. Haven’t since. Married my roommate’s sister, an art student as well, and in about a year and a half, she was ready for a family, a place we had never talked about going, and I wasn’t even ready to visit.”

  Here Jody ran into the room winding her long dark hair around her fingers.

  “Can I have some gingerbread cookies and milk?” she asked. “You know grandma makes the best cookies in the world.”

  She stopped playing with her hair and looked at us both.

  “Never mind,” she said and turned around to leave. She’d always been a very perceptive pre-teen. But Fergie was already drying his hands so she stopped and looked at me. I nodded and pushed the cookie jar on the table toward her while Fergie poured her some milk.

  “What a team,” she said, and scurried out of the kitchen with her prizes.

  “You were at the part about your ex-wife and her need for a family,” I said, not ready to have him stop his story, not by a long shot.

  “You really want to hear this?”

  “Why would I not? You gave me the best Christmas present ever and you might be a keeper.” I used the flirtatious wink that is almost an anachronism now. It worked on Fergie. He came over to hand me a platter to dry and hugged me first.

  “She was pretty set on it. And I, I couldn’t remember one good experience I had with my parents as a child. Didn’t even know if I could be a father, let alone a good one. I stalled and rationalized but she wasn’t having any. Finally, one night, I just laid it out for her that I didn’t want a family, that she was enough, that my life was about photography and travel and adventure, that she was enough.

  “Turned out I wasn’t enough for her. She left me—the lawyers called it a legal separation, then I got the divorce papers, but by then, I knew it was for the best. See why I told you I’m not good at marriage?”

  The dishtowel came in handy for the tears rolling down my face. For Fergie, yes, but for me as well. If he only knew, I thought, about my dad and Mrs. Clark and why my mom is alone and why it is that we kids all hover near her. But that was about me and it was for another time.

  “Aunt Rita. Fergie,” yelled Billy as he ran into the kitchen. He always yelled and he always ran, and this time he was a good distraction.

  “Got milk? Got cookies?” He stood expectantly in front of us with his toothy smile and we both burst out laughing. He only sloshed a little of his milk as he ran out of the room. I held out my arms for Fergie and he came to me, lifting me up, and we held each other. My sister walked in and made some smart comment. We didn’t care.

  I love my family, but I know when it’s time to leave. And the next day, it definitely was time. Fergie was getting along so well with everyone that it was a bit irritating, and I felt like I was dragging him out two days after Christmas. I had to get back to my own place and be my own self, not sister, daughter, aunt. Maybe even girlfriend was included in that, because right now I was just tired of everything. I was set to work on my New Year’s resolutions—alone.

  It was supposed to snow so we left early. We didn’t talk much in the car. Every once in a while, Fergie would make an affirming comment about the past few days, and I would agree. I didn’t discourage his radio choices because I really wasn’t listening. I was thinking about my life and his life and wondering what I wanted out of this relationship. Some people might say: Too soon! Too soon! After only a month. But after adding up and analyzing my wrong choices and bad instincts and unluckiness at love pre-Fergie, after only a month, this felt much different. First of all, I had known him as a friend first, as a lover second. I’d heard about his bad experience at marriage but I’d seen him with a family, and he could do it. So a friend, a lover, a family man, these were things I wanted. Is this too much to ask? I asked myself. The question was still unanswered as we pulled into my driveway, just as snow started to fall.

  Chapter Four

  Happy New Year

  The world being the way it is, there is not enough time to focus on changing your own nasty behaviors. You just develop them, and they continue and grow and pretty soon there are things you do that irritate even you, but you feel powerless to change. Nevertheless, at the end of each year, as a New Year’s resolution, I pick something to work on that has stood out for me the previous year as an area needing growth.

  My ankle was improving, but occasionally there would be this stinging pain and subsequent ache that would send me hobbling for the pain meds I was trying to use more and more sparingly. I went back to work, both on my freelance ad jobs and at the newspaper, on t
he day after we returned, slogging on crutches through the snow, having demurred on the several offers I’d had from people volunteering to give me rides to work. I could do it, and my independence was important to me, always had been, with the possible exception of the great ankle massages I could look forward to at the end of each day from Fergie.

  Once back at my desk for the few days left until New Year’s Eve, I immediately got involved in a slew of articles about various suburban Bridgefield issues: urban sprawl, environmental concerns, schools not measuring up to state guidelines, the usual suburban stuff.

  There was one thing though, that really interested me and I couldn’t get to it. People who owned a home backing up to a cornfield in Sweet’s Corners had reported something odd in the sky. Normally all you had to say was odd and I was there, but all this socio-political material had intervened and I didn’t get to follow up on the event, which is what I was calling it, right away. But oddities in the sky equated with unidentified flying objects in my mind, a topic of interest to me ever since the premiere episode of Star Trek on television. Thinking about life on other planets and strange-looking life forms living in places where their lives and daily living to them are much as our lives and daily living are to us, fascinates me, probably because it appeals to the fiction side of my brain. However, being overwhelmed with projects, I turned back to my project prioritization and even though I wrote “Sweet’s Corners” on my planner, I let the cornfield story slip away—temporarily.

  On New Year’s Eve day, I got in very early because I knew I would be alone for a while, and I had to make time for thinking about my resolutions. I was sitting, musing in front of my window on the world, my ankle twinging with pain still because I walked too much, so I carefully had put my feet up on the desk. It was my best thinking posture. Let’s see. Resolutions. I began ticking them off and discounting them immediately. Participating in more demonstrations for important causes? Been there, done that. Learning more about the stock market. Not possible in one year. Being more open to new experiences? Hmmm. More open to new experiences. Perhaps that involved the “R” word. Risk. This could take me a lot of places, some to which I wasn’t sure I would want to go. But what was risk if it wasn’t that. Besides, I didn’t have to go looking for risks, like bungee jumping or snorkeling in shark-infested waters. There are small risks I routinely do not allow to stay on the Rita radar. These are clothes buying risks, travel risks, and relationship risks, to name a few. Writers adept at risk-taking can make many acquaintances out there in the field, doing the writing job, but real true connecting is harder.