What a Kiss Can Do

by Kathy Johncox

  “Pretty sure you can’t shoot inside the town limits,” Fergie told her.

  “Yeah, well,” she said. “It’s them or us.”

  “Is that a good lead?” I asked as we walked to the car. “Or is it too menacing?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to focus on what will sell papers?”

  I didn’t answer that for two reasons. One. He was right. Two. My mind again was wandering to Thursday.

  “Hey. Where are you anyway?” Fergie said, grabbing my coatsleeve and pulling me back to the present.

  “Out in the wild, being a wolf, scoping out the ‘burbs, wondering where my next meal will come from.” There it was, I was lying instinctively. That couldn’t be good.

  Fergie laughed. “Forget about selling papers, then. Think about coffee.” He steered the Jeep in the direction of Gracie’s.

  Thursday morning, I had to decide what to wear. I already had determined that it had to be something businesslike, so I chose one of the suits I mostly wore to interviews, a deep green shade to match my eyes. A funky beaded brown, gold and green necklace would go with the silk blouse underneath. I wore my athletic shoes to work and kept heels in the car. This was what all the big girls did, the working nine-to-fivers downtown. My usual attire was more business casual, and maybe even down a notch from that, if I was going to be traipsing around in cornfields looking for wildlife.

  My clothing selection fit in with the big lie I was telling virtually everyone, and I confess I had a moment where I was glad my New Year’s resolution wasn’t to stop lying, because I had just started. The lie was that I had a business meeting with a local advertising group that night and would be home late. That it had to do with my future freelance writing career. Yeah. The real truth was, I didn’t want Fergie to know I was meeting Derek and there were two reasons. First, I thought he’d have a comment about me having dinner with a person of short stature. There were, after all, the past Diane Arbus comments and grins and photos to give me pause. And second, I wondered if he’d be jealous, and I didn’t want to risk it. And maybe there was a third reason. A bad third reason. Was I embarrassed to be going out with Derek for dinner? I’d like to think not, but that required some self-analysis that would take more time.

  Work was crazy that day. An ice storm had downed power lines and made the world look like a giant crystal. Tree branches were breaking with sharp firecracker noises. It was frightening but beautiful, especially when, in the distance there was a gas and electric repair truck with a crew working on repairing a live wire, sparkling and crackling with thousands of volts of electricity. I was musing about our dependence on those wires for just about everything and starting to formulate a philosophical piece about it for the local daily newspaper when Derek called.

  “Just confirming,” he said.

  “Where shall I meet you?”

  “I’ll pick you up there.”

  “No, I may not end up here today,” I said. “Just tell me where.”

  He was quiet. Was it because he was not getting his way or because he was thinking of a place? Last minute thinking didn’t seem like Derek so I assumed he already had selected the restaurant. Or maybe he was, as they say in England, put out that I wouldn’t let him pick me up. Or maybe, it hit me, that he might be thinking I wouldn’t want anyone, make that Fergie, to see me getting into his car.

  “Rodney’s. At seven, then?”

  Rodney’s was an upscale eatery in an old mansion with many dark corners. The local professional crowd hung out there, the ones with considerable expendable income, and that did not include me. I did a food review there once when Caitlyn, the paper’s freelance food critic had food poisoning, which she got from some other nouveau cuisine place that is now closed. The cuisine at Rodney’s was, as I remembered, scrumptious. There had been steaks drizzled with mouth-watering sauces, fish rubbed with exotic spices of the diner’s choice, appetizers presented with uncommon beauty.

  That was the good news. The bad news was that the parking lot was icy and I figured I had to keep my athletic shoes on because my ankle was still a bit swollen and I didn’t dare teeter on it, something I was almost sure to do in my heels.

  It was a clear but cold night, and I had just made it up on the porch, which seemed to be “our place,” when Derek pulled up in his BMW, parked decisively and strode toward the porch. That’s the way I would have to describe it even though you normally think of a taller person striding. If striding is purposeful, long steps, he was doing it. I had a minute to look him over in the fading light.

  Again GQ clothing, perfectly tailored, tweed and black. A very stylish, what I like to call, New York City haircut. A glint of the flashy watch I remembered from Caroline’s porch. Persons of short stature I had seen, mostly in movies, seemed to be shaped differently, or pardon the non PC language, misshapen. Derek looked more like an attractive average size man would look, only with shorter legs. Oh yes, and I knew from the several times he’d shared his jacket that his arms were short as well, although you couldn’t tell by the exquisite cut of the jacket.

  “Sorry.” He looked concerned. “Keeping ladies waiting is not my style.”

  Thinking back now, I might have blushed at that, and all the tension surrounding the anticipation of this evening vanished at the word “ladies.” I felt ready to have a good time. I shook his hand, half expecting him to give it a European charmed-I’m-sure kiss, which he did not. Instead, he allowed me to precede him into the restaurant where they obviously knew him because they seated us at a table in the back corner, away from all the doors I normally get seated near—notably kitchen and bathroom. The table was surrounded by a semi-circular upholstered bench with a cushy back and we both slid in. A small candelabra with hanging pieces of crystal, lit up our corner somewhat and the several cut glass goblets arranged by each place setting glittered. Linen tablecloths and napkins with napkin holders completed the nineteenth century Jane Austen dinner party look of the restaurant. The smell of the different foods cooking was, in itself, a powerful appetizer.

  “Your ankle must be better,” Derek said. “I see you have no cane and are wearing shoes of some sort again without the flesh colored thing with the stretchy bandage.”

  I wished I had gambled with the heels.

  “It’s better, but not a hundred percent,” I said. “It’s been a long month trying to get around with a crutch and cane in upstate New York in the winter. Hence the athletic shoes.”

  “Sorry for keeping you waiting,” he said again. “Court appearances don’t lend themselves to keeping appointments on time.”

  “So I’m an appointment?”

  I was flirting. Suddenly I saw myself in a Victorian-type gown waving a fan in front of my face and not saying anywhere near what I really meant. I chalked it up to the British accent.

  “The definition of an appointment is an engagement….” he said.

  “So now I’m an engagement.”

  “An engagement otherwise called an arrangement for a meeting,” he finished. “You should really let people finish.”

  “It also can be a designation, like when you appoint someone.”

  “This isn’t a meeting. It’s one person wanting to know the other better and taking that person out to dinner to make that happen. Call it whatever you wish within those parameters.”

  Ah. So maybe this was not about the comp claim, but I had to be sure.

  “And you want to know me better because…?” I asked.

  “Well, for one thing, because you don’t mince words.”

  “Not because of my beauty or eloquence or because, dare I say this, you like tall women?”

  He laughed.

  “Well, those other things also are true, but it’s the honesty I am drawn to. It’s the curse of being an attorney.”

  “But then your clients must not tell the truth.”

  “Too true. Let’s have some wine. D’you have a preference?”

  “As in red or white?” I said.

  “Or Fr
ench, Australian, German or Italian?”

  “French,” I said, because it seemed the thing to say.

  He summoned the waiter with a nod and said a lot of French words. The waiter bowed and backed away.

  “This has been far too long in happening,” he said.

  I was very surprised when he added, “I’ve been looking forward to a quiet evening out with an intelligent woman.”

  “That’s the next to the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I blurted out, because it was.

  “And the nicest is…? Are you willing to share it?”

  “I could, but it’s a story, and there’s a twist.”

  “I love twists,” he said. “And the writers I know are great story tellers.” He smiled and sat back in the booth.

  “All right. When I was in seventh grade, I had this English teacher, a dapper, yet kind of fatherly type, who said I should be a writer, said my style of stories reminded him of John Updike’s writing. I thought I was an okay writer but I loved and admired Updike, so his comments kicked it all up a notch and made me feel like an excellent writer. And to feel special, sometimes at that age, is hard to do. At least it was hard for me.”

  “It always helps to have a mentor at that age,” Derek said. “I had someone I looked up to and chose as my go-to advisor in the history field, which got me interested in law. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. “

  “So here comes the twist. I was greatly flattered and motivated by his interest until two girls in the ninth grade told me about their experiences in his class, that he really was pretty lascivious, a word I had to look up, and had his stable of pet favorite students, all girls with short skirts and tight sweaters who he assigned to sit in the front row. Well, then I realized I had been assigned a seat in the front row and I can’t tell you how badly I felt, how diminished I felt by realizing that my looks were more important than my writing talent. Crestfallen might be the word.”

  Then I stopped because something, some feeling or look coming at me from Derek, was powerful. I don’t believe in auras but there was something that connected us when I told that story, a story I really had never told anyone else.

  The waiter arrived with the wine, showing the bottle, uncorking it, giving the first taste, pouring with a flourish. And all the while, going through all this, Derek didn’t take his eyes off of me. In my big girl suit, I felt naked, almost more naked than in a big fluffy red towel in my bathroom with a plastic bag on my foot.

  Finally, thank God, he took the glass the waiter extended and swirled the wine. The deep red color gleamed in the candlelight. He tasted it.

  “Rich and robust,” he said. He nodded at the waiter.

  “What were you looking at?” I asked softly.

  “If I said your soul, would it scare you off?”

  I was holding my wineglass so that the flames from the fireplace, at least to my eyes, looked like one of Dante’s levels of hell.

  “Scare me off from what?”

  “Another date. A walk in the park. Coffee at Starbucks. A trip to the Cannes Film Festival.”

  “None of the above. It doesn’t scare me.” I said, but inside I was quaking because I felt he really meant none of those things. He was really talking about something between us in the future, a relationship. I can always tell when men are talking about that because they so seldom do.

  He changed the subject abruptly, before I had a chance to, and started talking about Caroline’s party and the people there. He said he normally wouldn’t even have bothered to go but the circus was a client of his, a comp client. And somewhere at the party had been the circus owner and manager.

  “You and I talked for a while but then you started walking around talking with everyone and looking at everything and it was intriguing the way you were going about it. A bit tentative yet also determined. I liked that. As you recall, I tried to ask you out that night.”

  The waiter came with the menus. I didn’t really care what I ate but I didn’t want Derek to order for me, so I scanned the offerings. They had an appetizer called Dwarf Shrimp Diablo. I sure as hell wasn’t going to order that, but the thought of ordering it did make me smile.

  He looked at me quizzically.

  I looked back at him.

  They were out of Yorkshire pudding so I ordered a Hungarian dish, something “paprikesh” with beef, and he ordered the same. I got the feeling that he didn’t care what he ate either.

  Dinner arrived. A magazine cover could not have done it justice. The beef was moist and seasoned with exotic Hungarian spices, if there are such things. It was served with potatoes in a delicate creamy white sauce and a side serving of baby corn and asparagus sautéed with pearl onions and tomatoes. And of course the wine Derek selected for dinner was perfect. We began eating, still talking, about what books we were reading. Our discussion was soon punctuated by comments about the delicious dinner, the best either of us had eaten at a restaurant in a long time. When everything comes together—the place, the food, the conversation—when it all goes well, it’s like there’s nothing else out there. Like the focus of life is in the moment, where I normally spend so little time living. You’re floating on a cloud of well-being. Everything you say is interesting or thought provoking, your comments are witty and your arguments cogent.

  Our conversation was all in the present; nothing much about family or history or high school or college. We were like two business colleagues or co-workers, after that one aura moment.

  That is not to say there was not some disagreement. Derek, having been brought up outside of London, was very partial to the Rolling Stones. I was a Beatles fan thanks to my mother who definitely was of that era, to the point where we never had a normal “Happy Birthday” chorus, always “Na-na-na-na-na-na…Today it’s your birthday!”

  He liked to dabble in local politics and I avoided it because of my role as impartial disseminator of information to the community. He considered running for office, he said, but did not have the time to put his face “out there” so that potential voters would remember him. I wondered how he could think they would not remember him.

  We proceeded to dessert, a “Midnight Madness” torte with caramel, dark chocolate and raspberries layered into a whipped cream-covered milk chocolate meringue, and hot, rich coffee.

  I savored the first bite of the confection and the first sip of coffee. “Ummmm. Delicious doesn’t even begin to describe this. I don’t eat desserts that often, but this is one of the best I’ve ever had,” I said.

  “Perhaps one of the best,” Derek said, “but my mum’s trifle, that’s got to be the best. Creamy pudding, very dense, made from scratch pound cake, assorted fruits and whipped cream toppings.” He closed his eyes. “Ah, I can even smell it.”

  His next bite was on his fork ready to eat but he stopped and said, “You chocolate fanatics, can drizzle hot melted fudge on the top of the whipped cream. And why don’t you eat dessert much?”

  “I haven’t thought much about that but guess because it’s too expensive, both calorically and financially.”

  “Really, I think calorically, you’re doing just fine. You’re quite attractive, you know. And financially, writers must do okay.”

  “They do, but more money is always good,” I said. “Writing is what I want to do, and I’m doing it. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just wish I had a little more money—and more time.”

  “I’m doing law which is what I want to do, and you’re right, there’s nothing wrong with that. But why do you need more time?” Derek asked. “More time for what?”

  “My novel. The one I know I will write. I just need to get started.”

  This launched into a lively and humorous discussion of dreams and goals and tactics and strategies for how I could get more time to write my book. He was making the case and I was refuting his points one by one.

  We were still laughing when we realized it was close to ten o’clock and time for the restaurant to close.

  “I really enjoyed th
is evening,” I said as he walked me to my car. His hand was on my back to stop me if I started to slide on the ice.

  “I, as well,” Derek said. He waited while I unlocked the car, did a kind of a wave from the head, maybe a salute, then hurried to his car before I could thank him.

  I sat there for a few minutes replaying the evening in my head, wondering what just happened.

  Chapter Six

  Probably the Doldrums

  T. S. Eliot was wrong. April is not the cruelest month. February is the worst. Days are unremittingly bleak and those people who are energized by sun don’t stand a chance. I don’t happen to be one of those. I don’t do winter sports either, so there is not much for me to do outside of self-reflection, and that can get old fast. Some people thrive on finding ways to better themselves. Those are the tai chi, kick-boxing, community college self-improvement class types who, when you say “How are you?” in that innocuous way people have of saying and not really caring, think you do care, and they tell you about their activities ad nauseum. That would be Boss.

  We writers relish the opportunity to be introspective and actually think about things, and the newspaper’s lifecycle provided that opportunity. February was a month when we actually had to search for news, and I enjoyed being a story detective. I looked to the artsy set for my stories as this was the time that plays were popular, high school and otherwise, movies were nominated for Academy Awards, books were released for publication.

  It was as I was sitting in my window on the world, I came up with the idea for an insert. In newspaper language, that means a part of the paper, usually its own magazine, featuring something special. We usually did our inserts on the subjects of services for seniors, healthy eating and encouraging good health, generally because the paper could sell a lot of ads related to those topics. I was sick to death of all that. This one should be about the arts.

  The arts occupy a special place in my heart. Acting, painting, sculpting, composing, singing, filmmaking, and writing all require something special—a thought, a feeling, a word—that takes hold of you and grows. But no one pays much attention to this process. Artistic pursuits were rarely accepted as real jobs and the creative process was seldom valued, exhibited by the cuts to the arts programs in schools and communities, always the first to go.