The Kiss: An Anthology About Love and Other Close Encounters

by C. A. Newsome

  “Do tell.”

  “Another artist and I were talking and I saw this man across the room. A little voice inside my head said, ‘That’s him.’”

  “Really? A voice?

  “It was audible; a tiny, female voice in my left ear. I’ve never heard voices in my life, before or since. Sounds a bit crazy, doesn’t it?”

  “Love at first sight, how romantic!”

  “That’s what was strange. He was very handsome, a lot like Christian Bale, but I didn’t feel any attraction to him just then. So I just shrugged it off and went back to my conversation.”

  “I adore tall, dark men. What happened?”

  “He was with this burly blond Viking with all this hair, and they made their way around the room and approached us. Apparently his friend knew Lia, the artist I was talking to. So his friend walks up and starts hitting on Lia, and Lia is having fun with it, but I can tell she’s not interested. We were just standing there, looking at each other, a pair of third wheels, while this sculptor, Ralph . . . “

  “Ralph? Ralph Mays? Is that who you’re talking about?”

  “I don’t know, I never got his last name.”

  “I bet it was him,” Amalie tossed off, “There aren’t too many sculptors named Ralph in Boston.”

  “So you know him?”

  “I only know of him. Was your Christian Bale an artist, too?”

  “No, that’s the funny thing. I never did find out exactly what he did, but he wasn’t an artist.”

  “Don’t let me interrupt, I’m dying to know what happened next.”

  ”Well, we just stood there looking at each other, and Ralph is still trying to pick up Lia. He seems to be getting off on the challenge. Lee, that’s his name, rolls his eyes and shrugs, then he nods at the bar. So we wander off to get a glass of wine, and we start talking, and it’s like we knew each other in another life. We went outside into the sculpture garden, and . . .”

  “And?”

  “We had this moment. We looked at each other and our conversation stopped. You know that moment, when the air is alive with tension, when you know what’s going to happen next, but everyone is still poised on the edge of deciding whether or not they want it to happen? That second that seems to last forever? It’s like being at the top of a roller coaster, right before it plunges over the edge.”

  “That sounds extraordinary.”

  I detected a hint of jealousy in Amalie’s voice.

  “It was. There was such clarity in that moment. He kissed me, and it was bells ringing, the earth moving, and that kiss became the center of the universe, like my entire life had been leading up to it.”

  “That sounds like some kiss.”

  “I’ve never experienced anything close to it. He confessed that Ralph hitting on Lia was a set up so he could get me alone. Can you imagine? We had this magical night together, and then we both had to go home. He was from out of town, too. We lost contact. I never saw him again.”

  “Lost contact? In this day and age?”

  “I know, it’s weird. I woke up and he was gone, but he’d left this sweet note to meet him at Top of the Hub. Then he never showed. I think something must have happened, and then there was no way for us to contact each other. So this was more Serendipity than Bridges of Madison County.

  “Serendipity?”

  “John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale? I’ve never been able to get him out of my head.”

  “So tragic! How do you stand it?” Amalie’s face was all sympathy. I knew she was lapping up Joss’s pain like a tasty cre`me brûle´e.

  “I keep thinking, somehow we’ll be together again. You’ve given me hope. I can track down Ralph Mays, and maybe he can help me. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try, don’t you think?“

  Joss’s story was interrupted as the bell on the door tinkled. A tall man sporting a dark mustache and soul patch entered. He had a lean, interesting face that lit up when he spotted the women.

  “Lee!” Joss clapped a hand to her chest, eyes wide with shock. “I can’t believe it’s you! How did you find me?”

  He looked confused. “Excuse me? I uh, came here to meet Amalie . . .”

  Joss spun to face Amalie’s raised eyebrows and folded arms. “This,” Amalie pronounced imperiously, “is Jonathan. My Jonathan.”

  Joss looked from Amalie to Jonathan. “Lee?” She pleaded, “Don’t you remember me? Boston? Painted Vision at the Patrick Davis Gallery? Walking along the Charles? That lovely fountain? You said we were soul mates.”

  “Miss, ah, I think you have me mixed up with someone else.”

  I was about to intercede when Amalie spoke, gluing me to my spot.

  “Does she, Jonathan Leighton Mathers?” Amalie asked, her voice dangerously soft, her posture rigid. “Didn’t your wingman, Ralph, call you Lee back at Harvard?”

  “Amalie, I don’t know this woman!”

  “Then she isn’t your soul-mate? How tedious, Jonathan.”

  Joss’s chin trembled as her ideal love was exposed as a sham, a chimera invented out of a tawdry one-night stand, her magnificent passion, her raison d’etre, mocking her from every wall.

  “Lee?” she implored, her voice not penetrating the domestic squabble.

  Amalie remembered I was there. “David! You can tell Phillip we are not buying this painting, or anything else from him. I am not coming back, ever!”

  She grabbed Jonathan by the arm and hauled all six feet of him to the exit, her Persian cat of a scarf fluttering behind her like a banner of war. Jonathan looked over his shoulder at Joss as he was being dragged, still trying to place her.

  The chime jangled as the waif-turned-Hulk wrenched the door open. “Really Jonathan. That woman isn’t even white.”

  I walked up behind Joss, placed my hands on her shoulders as the door slammed. We watched through the glass as Amalie stormed away, Jonathan dogging her heels while she shrilled at him, the sound diminishing as they distanced themselves from ground zero of this disaster.

  “Joss, darling,” I said. “When are you going to stop doing this? Phillip is going to be furious when he gets back from Baja. Amalie was his favorite customer.”

  Joss turned and took my hands. She kissed my cheek. Her eyes sparkled, but not with tears. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “That’s three sales you’ve blown this week, in rather spectacular fashion. Are you going to tell me what’s going on? This show is going to be a bust if this keeps up. I could get fired.”

  “Exactly. And if I alienate enough customers, Phillip will dump me. If he fires you, it voids the non-compete clause in your contract.” She took my hand and placed it on her arm, patting it as she led me back to our abandoned lattes in the kitchenette.

  “Ralph and I decided it’s time for you to open your own gallery, and I want to go with you.”

  “You’re destroying your career for me?” I was aghast.

  “This is a plot of many layers. After you introduced me to Ralph, we sat around comparing notes. Turns out he knew Amalie back when her name was Amelia.

  “Amelia? You’re joking!”

  “She’s a 24 karat gold digger. Ralph hates her even more than you do. He’s been hoping something would happen to open Jonathan’s eyes before the wedding. So we sat around drinking beer and dreaming up crazy scenarios, and the more we drank, the wilder they got. Then, all of a sudden, we realized we could pull it off, and the results would have some delightful ramifications. One of which would be to get you out from under Phillip’s thumb.”

  “But, darling, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Plausible deniability, sweetie. Besides, you can’t act your way out of a paper bag. Ralph knows the owner of a lovely little space that’s going to be available in two months. It’s near The New Museum. Aren’t you tired of Soho?”

  “So this whole ‘emo’ thing you’ve been doing has been an act? I thought I was going to have to get you medicated!”

  “‘Fraid so. Do you forgive me?”
>
  I pulled a bottle of Phillip’s special reserve out of the cabinet and poured two shots.

  “You know,” David ventured, lifting his glass, “I really must confess, I rather enjoyed the look on Mrs. Vaughn’s face when you told her you’d found the lover who inspired Kiss No. 24, dead in his apartment after his pugs had been dining on him. She’ll never be able to look at her Louie the same way again.”

  * * *

  C. A. (Carol Ann) Newsome writes the Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries, a series of mysteries inspired by mornings at the Mount Airy Dog Park with her trio of rescues.

  She is also an artist with an M.F.A. from the University of Cincinnati. You'll see portraits of some of her favorite four-footed friends on the covers of her books. She enjoys creating community-based public artworks. As an artist, she is best known for her New Leaf Global Good-Will Guerrilla Art Project.

  Her other interests include astrology, raw food and all forms of psychic phenomena. She likes to sing to her dogs. The dogs are the only ones who like to listen.

  http://canewsome.com

  *

  Moving On

  Anna J. McIntyre

  “Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it,” Maddison said as Vincent pulled his car up in front of her townhouse. The sun was just starting to set, and the skeletal figures of the leafless trees lining the quiet street swayed slightly from the breeze.

  “Hey, no problem. Anytime.” Vincent put the vehicle in park and reached for the key. He held his hand on it for a moment as if trying to decide if he wanted to turn off the ignition or leave the motor running.

  “If you want to…” Maddison was about to ask Vincent to come in for a glass of wine when she glanced toward her townhouse. She had left the front blind open that morning. Her husband, Lucas was standing at the window, watching them. Her unfinished sentence ended in a little gasp of surprise. These days, she never knew when Lucas would show up.

  Vincent glanced in the direction of Maddison’s fixed gaze and frowned. He removed his hand from the key and placed it back on the steering wheel. The car’s engine remained running.

  “Umm… thanks again.” Without saying another word, Maddison hastily unfastened her seatbelt and hurried to get out from the vehicle.

  “Maddison,” Vincent called out just as she was about to close the car door. She stood on the sidewalk. “Are you still going to Cindy and Chad’s New Year’s party?”

  Before answering, Maddison glanced from the car back to the townhouse. Lucas was still at the window, looking out, watching.

  “I think so,” Maddison told him, yet her tone was uncertain. “Thanks again, Vincent.”

  He flashed a sad smile, then put his car in drive and pulled away from the sidewalk.

  Instead of going immediately to her front door, Maddison stood by the side of the road and watched him drive away.

  She had known Vincent since high school. He and Lucas had been best friends. The two had joked about being brothers separated at birth, which Maddison had always found amusing considering they looked—and acted—nothing alike. Lucas was tall and dark with brooding brown eyes and darker hair. In high school, he’d been a member of the band; in college, he’d studied music and gone on to be a music teacher.

  Vincent was the high school quarterback, and while he pursued law in college instead of football, he remained active in recreational sports, which kept him physically fit. His sandy-colored hair, clear blue eyes and perpetually tanned complexion made him look like he belonged on the beach rather than in the courtroom.

  When Maddison married Lucas a week after graduating from college, Vincent was best man. When Vincent married Cheryl a year later, Lucas was his best man. The two couples were inseparable—spending holidays and vacations together. It came as quite a shock to Maddison when Vincent’s wife asked for a divorce. A week after the divorce was finalized, Cheryl married her boss.

  While Maddison no longer saw Vincent’s ex-wife, he remained a constant in her life. Until recently, the thought of Vincent as anything but a platonic friend was never a consideration. Yet, all that had changed.

  Maddison shivered from December’s chilly breeze. She wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging the wool coat tighter to her slender body, her purse hanging from one shoulder as she turned and made her way up the walk to the front door.

  “Why didn’t Vincent come in?” Lucas asked when Maddison entered the house and closed the door behind her. No longer standing by the window, he stood at the edge of the living room near the entry.

  “You know why,” Maddison said as she hung her purse on the brass coat rack in the entry and removed her coat.

  “That’s silly, Maddie. You need to get over it.”

  Maddison rolled her eyes at his comment and walked passed him into the living room, where she took a seat on the rocking chair. Lucas followed her into the room, making his way back to the window. He looked outside. It was almost dark.

  “How long will you be here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I never know.” Lucas turned and faced Maddison. “Would you prefer I didn’t come back?”

  “I love you, Lucas,” Maddison insisted in a quiet whisper. Lucas turned to face her. He smiled sadly.

  “Have you kissed him yet?” he asked.

  “Why would you ask something like that?” Maddison scowled.

  “I don’t know. I guess I keep thinking of the first time we kissed.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” Maddison bit down on her lower lip; she didn’t want to cry. She refused to cry. Damn him.

  Ignoring her discomfort, Lucas continued. “It was homecoming. I couldn’t believe you agreed to go with me. I wasn’t one of the popular jocks. Just a band nerd.”

  “You were never a nerd,” Maddison said with a dry chuckle in spite of the tears filling her green eyes. She remembered how her girlfriends swooned over the quiet band boy, with his dark good looks and unique musical ability. There was not an instrument he couldn’t play.

  “After that first kiss, everything changed between us, Maddie. I knew I loved you. And you knew you loved me. Sometimes, a kiss is all that it takes for someone to know what’s in his heart.”

  “We had some wonderful times, didn’t we?” Maddison’s voice was barely a whisper. A tear escaped and slid down her face.

  “Yes, we did. But some things don’t last forever.”

  “I still love you, Lucas. For me, our love is forever.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Would you just kiss him, damn it.”

  “I would rather kiss you.”

  “I don’t think so, Maddie. It’s too late for us now.”

  *

  Reluctantly, Maddison agreed to go to Cindy and Chad’s New Year’s Eve Party. She wondered if Lucas would show up. She had asked him to go with her, but he’d only laughed at the request and told her if he went she would never get around to kissing Vincent. A New Year’s Eve Party, Lucas reminded her, was an ideal place to steal a kiss.

  When Maddison arrived at the party, she had to admit she was happy to discover Vincent hadn’t brought a date. By the way he greeted her, it was obvious he was happy she’d come to the party alone.

  “Did you have a nice Christmas?” Vincent asked after the two made their way to a quiet alcove off Cindy and Chad’s living room.

  “I spent it with my sister’s family. It was strange not having Lucas there.” He could have been there, Maddison said to herself. I don’t know why he refused to go.

  “I almost called you.”

  “I wish you had.”

  Before Vincent could respond, several of their friends join them and the conversation shifted into another, less personal direction. Cocktails were served, appetizers consumed, and the evening moved toward midnight.

  Maddison couldn’t recall the last time she had laughed so much—or laughed at all. Vincent had a way of making her smile. For the first time in months, she felt happy and hopeful. Perhaps things hadn’t w
orked out for her and Lucas, but maybe they weren’t meant to. She wondered what Lucas would say if she shared that bit of insight with him.

  Wanting to escape the swelling crowd of party guests, Vincent and Maddison slipped out onto the back patio. It was almost midnight. The night air was frigid but the propane heater Chad had set up on the patio earlier made it tolerable. Vincent wrapped his arm around Maddison and pulled her close as the two looked out to the swimming pool. Its lights were on, yet the water did not look inviting.

  “I’m glad I decided to come,” Maddison said at last. She leaned against Vincent, comfortable in the intimacy.

  “You weren’t going to?” Vincent asked.

  “I wasn’t sure. It feels strange to come to these things alone.”

  “You aren’t alone now,” he reminded her.

  “You’re a good friend, Vincent. You always have been.”

  Vincent turned to face Maddison, his one hand moving from her waist to her shoulder as he looked into her eyes.

  “I want more, Maddison. Do you think it might be possible… that someday…” Vincent searched her eyes without finishing his question.

  Maddison lifted her hand and lightly caressed the side of Vincent’s face. When had the friendship shifted, changed, blossomed into something deeper? Was Lucas right? Had the feelings she had for Vincent grown into love? Love not for a brother but the love a woman has for a man.

  Sounds of noisemakers drifted from the house, with shouts and calls heralding the arrival of the New Year.

  Maddison didn’t clasp Vincent’s face in her hands and bring his lips to hers because the clock struck midnight but because she needed to know. Was she in love with Vincent?

  His lips met hers, hesitant at first, familiar and yet so different. Something burst within Maddison’s heart, and she pulled Vincent closer.

  Wrapping his arms around Maddison, Vincent returned the kiss with all the pent up passion and longing that had been festering in his heart for months. Neither was certain if the fireworks going off overhead were real–or simply their hearts rejoicing at the discovery of their love.