Prom Night in Purgatory (Slow Dance in P)

~11~

A Time to Keep





When Lizzie and Maggie left The Malt, the sun was setting, and as long as Maggie’s eyes stayed trained on the horizon, she could almost believe she was in the same Honeyville, in spite of all the changes in the last 53 years. Maggie convinced Lizzie to ride farther down Main, past Gene’s Automotive. But the place was locked up, and the plaque on the door read “closed.” There was no sign of the Kinross brothers or Johnny’s car. Maggie felt a surge of panic. How could she shrug her shoulders and pedal meekly back to her house, to Lizzie’s house, knowing that at any minute she could be whisked back to where she had come from.

“Are you okay, Maggie?” Lizzie said softly, straddling her bike next to Maggie, who sat staring dejectedly at the quiet automotive shop.

“I am in love with someone who doesn’t know I exist,” Maggie tried to laugh at what she’d meant to be an inside joke, but the laughter stuck in her throat.

Lizzie looked at the automotive shop and back at Maggie. Lizzie Honeycutt was many things, but dumb wasn’t one of them. “You’re in love with Billy Kinross? Already?”

“No. I’m not in love with Billy.” Maggie smiled ruefully and turned away from the empty storefront, climbing back onto the seat of her bike and positioning one foot on the ground and one on a pedal.

“Johnny?” Lizzie squeaked, as if Maggie had just confessed her love for the King of England. “You love Johnny Kinross?”

Maggie felt tears prick her eyes. It seemed Johnny was out of her league even in 1958. She started to pedal back down Main Street, Lizzie trying to keep pace behind her. She knew her way home, but the return trip was not as filled with wonder and excitement as the trip to town had been. Maggie felt a sluggishness in her muscles and a fatigue in her weary head that had her fearing her time was closing fast. When they reached the house, she climbed the stairs and fell across Lizzie’s bed, barely able to keep her eyes open.

“Maggie?” Lizzie’s voice was small and scared, and Maggie opened her eyes with great effort. “Are you sick?”

“No, Lizzie. I don’t think so. I just think I might not be able to stay much longer.” Maggie felt Lizzie pull off her shoes and cover her with a light blanket. “Please don’t go yet Maggie. I’ll be right back. Hold on, okay?”

Maggie nodded a little, her head feeling like it weighed eighty pounds. In what could have been only a minute or two, Lizzie was back. She crawled up beside Maggie on the bed and, snuggling close, tucked her hand inside Maggie’s.

“I’ve told Nana that I’m feeling tired; I have been sick after all. I told her I was going to bed. She is waiting for the Mod Squad to come on. I don’t think she’ll move from the sofa for the rest of the night. I am going to hold your hand while you sleep. I’m going to hold your hand so tight that you won’t be able to go.”

“Thank you, Lizzie,” Maggie sighed.

“I was thinking. You have to stay at least one more day. If you’re going to make Johnny Kinross fall in love with you, that is.”

“Hmm?” Maggie was trying desperately to follow the conversation and fading fast.

“How do all the princesses get the princes to fall in love with them? They go to the ball, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So tomorrow is the prom. You go to the prom, ask Johnny to dance, make him fall in love with you. Simple. So you can’t leave yet.”

The problem was that when the clock struck twelve, Maggie might not just turn back into Cinderella; she may disappear altogether. With glass slippers and coaches that became pumpkins dancing through her head, Maggie succumbed to a slumber that would rival the Sleeping Beauty.





“Lizzie, how did your mother die?” Maggie looked at the girl beside her. “I don’t think Irene ever told me.” Maggie had awakened in the night to discover that she had not turned back into Cinderella after all. Lizzie had been true to her word, and her hand was tucked into Maggie’s, her other arm wrapped around her elbow. Lizzie had awakened almost immediately, and now they lay in the dark, talking quietly.

“She got sick. She had cancer.”

“I’m sorry, Lizzie.” Maggie wanted to tell her that she understood how it felt to be a motherless child. But telling Lizzie would be wrong. After all, she would be telling her about her own daughter’s death, a death that had occurred after Lizzie herself had succumbed to what had most likely killed Lizzie and Irene’s mother.

“Why, Maggie?”

“Do you ever think about what life would have been like if she hadn’t died, if she was still here?”

Lizzie lay quietly, not answering for several minutes. Only the tightening of her hand relayed that she hadn’t drifted back to sleep. Maggie wondered if the topic was too much for the little girl, and cursed herself for letting her mind wander into the complexities of altering history, and then musing out loud. But when Lizzie finally spoke, her voice was troubled but not full of grief.

“Maybe if Momma were here, she would tell Irene to stay away from Roger. Daddy doesn’t ever say anything. He thinks Roger’s swell.”

Maggie stiffened with the unexpected turn of the conversation. “And you don’t think he’s.....swell?” Maggie had never said the word “swell” in her life.

“No,” Lizzie whispered. Maybe it was the dark room or the silence of the sleeping house, or even the distance she had traveled, but Maggie felt the hair rise on her neck and arms. When Lizzie didn’t offer further explanation, Maggie asked the obvious, almost afraid to know the answer.

“Why, Lizzie?”

“You know how he called me Dizzy Lizzie?” Lizzie’s voice was so hushed that Maggie shifted in the bed until her forehead rested against Lizzie’s.

“Roger?”

“Yes. He and his friends call me Dizzy Lizzie.”

“I just assumed it was because it rhymed -- just a silly nickname.”

“Roger started calling me Dizzy Lizzie about six months ago when I fainted at a party for Irene’s birthday.”

Lizzie pressed her face into Maggie’s shoulder, and her whisper was no longer audible.

“Lizzie? I can’t hear you....”

“...It had been following Roger around all night...”

“Who had been following Roger around?” Maggie was only getting bits and pieces of the story at this point. Lizzie was pressed against her so tightly that Maggie feared she would fall off the bed if she moved an inch.

“It wasn’t like other ghosts. It saw everything, watched everyone, but mostly it watched Roger. It stayed very close to him. I was afraid. I didn’t want to say anything to Reney or Daddy because I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“There was a ghost hanging around Roger?” Now Maggie’s voice had dropped to the barest whisper.

“It wasn’t a ghost. It was more like a...shadow....with eyes.”

“What happened, Lizzie?” Maggie didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She didn’t worry about slipping back to the future any longer, but she worried about what their words would invite into Lizzie’s bedroom. A room occupied by not one but two girls who shared a gift for seeing what others could not....and what others would rather not.

“I was so afraid, I forgot to breathe. I fainted right into my dinner. Nana came and helped me clean up, but I was still dizzy and felt sick, so I stayed up in my room for the rest of the night.”

Maggie breathed out, slightly relieved that the story had ended rather anticlimactically. She had just started to relax when Lizzie spoke again.

“I think that shadow thing is inside Roger.”





Morning came and with it the sunlight that cast the terrors of the night into a more manageable light. Lizzie hadn’t wanted to talk anymore about the “shadow” inside Roger. She had clammed up and pretended to fall asleep when Maggie tried to coax her to explain what she meant. Maggie had lain in the dark for a long time after that, afraid that she was stuck in a whirlwind of events that she could only be harmed by, and uncertain as to where to proceed if given the chance for one more day in Johnny’s world.

Lizzie had introduced her to Nana, claiming she was a cousin from McClintock, about two hours south, who had come to visit for the day while her mother spent time with a sick friend. Nana, who had the very unoriginal name of Mary Smith, said a polite hello but seemed very uninterested in Maggie or who she was, which was fortunate because she let the girls be. She was like an efficient shadow, cleaning and polishing, providing lunch and putting away laundry, never saying much, her neat self fitting into the neat corner the family had placed her in. She was unobtrusive to the point of being almost robotic, and Maggie wondered that Lizzie spent so much time in the company of someone who seemed so void of personality. It hadn’t put a damper on Lizzie’s personality, however. The girl was brimming with intelligence and life, and Maggie genuinely enjoyed being in her company. She had peppered Maggie with questions, and Maggie had tried her best to answer them, stopping altogether when she felt that strange tugging sensation inside that indicated she was nearing a line that should not or could not be broached.

The fatigue that had so consumed her the night before had left her, and Maggie wondered if it wasn’t some form of cosmic jet lag that had left her system reeling rather then a signal she would soon be going home. With her returned energy, Maggie considered the idea of attending the prom after all. Johnny would be there as would so many others she had heard him talk about. She had even seen pictures. She could do it, couldn’t she? Johnny would be there with Peggy, who was being pursued hotly by Carter, leaving Johnny somewhat free for a “chance encounter.” She would have to go alone, but the more she thought about it, the more the idea appealed to her.

She bathed in the pink tiled bathroom with the perfectly square tub, brushing her teeth at the pink pedestal sink with handles to turn the water off and on rather than knobs. This bathroom had been redone sometime in the last fifty years. The pink was long gone in 2011.

She let her hair air dry, and then she and Lizzie rolled it into giant scratchy rollers with pink pins that stuck out every which way, making her look like a porcupine with pink quills. Lizzie thought they should go downtown and get her hair cut in the latest style, but Maggie declined. She was willing to go only so far to play the part of a ‘50s teenager. It was while they were rolling her hair in curlers that Lizzie made a horrifying discovery.

“You have holes in your ears!” Lizzie cried, her voice equal parts awe and horror.

“So?” Maggie raised her eyebrows, laughing at the shock on the little girl’s face.

“Nobody has their ears pierced! Irene told me only girls who aren’t very nice pierce their ears.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say. She stared at Lizzie for a moment, wondering if that were true of everyone in the fifties or just the Honeycutts.

“No one wears earrings?”

“Girls wear earrings. See?” Lizzie grabbed a ornate jewelry box sitting atop the vanity table and riffled through it, pulling out two glittering bobs with screw like attachments on the back. She stared at the little loops in Maggie’s ears, as if they were spiders hanging from her lobes.

“How do you get them off?” she whispered, poking at one of the loops.

Maggie popped the earrings out of one ear and then the other, showing Lizzie it wasn’t that big of a deal.

“How do you put those on?” Maggie nodded toward the bobbles in Lizzie’s palm. Lizzie eyed the holes in Maggie’s now bare ears, her face wrinkled in revulsion.

“Good grief, Lizzie!” Maggie chuckled. “Where I come from, everyone has their ears pierced, and sometimes their lips and eyebrows too!

Lizzie backed away, horrified. Maggie could see that Lizzie was a little afraid of her now. Time to change the subject.

“Let me try these. Can’t be too hard, can it?” Maggie stood and took the earrings from Lizzie’s palm, giving Lizzie a comforting pat on her back before she moved away.

“Turn the back until it screws in tight,” Lizzie supplied helpfully, her eyes never leaving Maggie’s earlobes. Maggie sighed and shook her head. Ghosts and time travel didn’t seem to bother the girl, but pierced ears had almost sent her over the edge. The earrings weren’t very comfortable, and Maggie could see why women had eventually given in and put holes in their ears.

It seemed that Irene had more than enough make-up to spare, and Lizzie had spent a fair amount of time watching her big sister apply it. She showed Maggie how to wet the little brush and rub it across the black rectangular pan of mascara to coat it before combing it through her lashes. She then talked her through applying the foundation and powder “just the way Irene does, using the middle fingers only.”

When they pulled out the curlers, though, Lizzie was horrified by the long drooping waves and curls. Maggie thought it looked kind of pretty, though, kind of like a movie star from the 1930s or ‘40s. She parted it on the left side and let the right side play peekaboo with her lined and mascaraed blue eyes. She thought she looked kind of sexy. Lizzie just sighed and let her shoulders droop dejectedly. Maggie was pretty sure Lizzie thought she had blown it before she even set foot at the prom. Hopefully Johnny would think differently.

The wrinkles in the red dress had all but disappeared, and Maggie slipped it on over the half slip, the nylons and the garter belt (gasp!), and the strapless bra Lizzie had pilfered from Irene’s drawer. The slip kept the net skirt from irritating her legs, and Maggie wondered why slips had ever gone out of style. She’d never worn a slip or hose. The garter belt dug into her skin, and the nylons were torturous, but they weren’t so different from dance tights, so she endured them. The bullet shape of the bra still embarrassed her, but she had to give it props. The girls never looked better...or more deadly.

Lizzie tried to douse Maggie in Irene’s perfume, but Maggie declined. If she got close enough to Johnny tonight for him to smell her perfume, she didn’t want him to think of Irene. Instead, she dabbed the spot behind her ears, the inner crease at her elbows, and the barely visible valley between her breasts with a little rose water that Lizzie had been given for Christmas and never used.

When she was ready, she twirled for Lizzie and picked up the little silver purse that had still been wrapped around her wrist when she had awakened to find herself in a time long since past.

“You’re so pretty....even with that old-fashioned hairstyle,” Lizzie sighed, her smile slightly dreamy. “I wish I could come.” Lizzie sat up suddenly. “Maggie? How are you going to get there?”

Maggie had thought of that already. She would walk, of course. It was only three blocks down and three blocks over. She would be fine and told Lizzie as much.

“You can’t walk!” Lizzie said, horror-stricken. “You can take Nana’s car. She’ll never know.”

“I can’t take her car!” Maggie gasped, equally horrified. “What if she discovers it’s gone and calls the police, and I get thrown in the slammer and have to try to explain who I am and where I came from.”

“Let me take care of Nana!” Lizzie resisted the notion that Mary Smith would ever discover her car had been absconded by a teenager from the future, posing as her young charge’s cousin.

“I will walk, Lizzie.”

“Maggie!” Lizzie got all watery-eyed and serious immediately. “You can’t walk in the dark, at night, completely alone.”

Maggie tried to brush Lizzie’s worries aside. “See these red shoes? I’ll just click my heels three times and wish myself home.” She thought Lizzie would laugh. But Lizzie just shook her head soberly.

“If you disappear, no one will ever know what happened to you. No one here will even know to look for you! And I will worry about you.....forever.”

Maggie had no response, and Lizzie knew she’d won.

“I will get the keys and distract Nana. She always watches Perry Mason on Saturdays. I think she’s in love with him. After that it’s Lawrence Welk. When Daddy’s gone, she doesn’t budge from the couch all night long. I’ll go down and tell her your mother is coming to pick you up, and then I’ll sit with her and whine about wanting to watch Dick Clark, and I’ll make sure the television is plenty loud. Go out to the garage, start the car, and before you go, give a loud toot on the horn. I’ll run and call up the stairs that your mother is here and then talk for a moment like I’m saying goodbye. Then I will walk to the front door and open it. When I shut it, wait a few seconds, and drive away. She’ll be fast asleep when you get back, but there is a key under the rocking chair on the porch just in case I fall asleep too, all right?”

“How old are you, Lizzie?” Maggie had to laugh at the devious mind of her young maternal grandmother. She had a sneaking suspicion she had inherited it. She gave the girl a fierce hug and suddenly felt close to tears.

“Lizzie, I don’t know when or if all of this will end. If I don’t come back tonight, then you’ll know why, okay?”

“But I need to know what happens. I want to know if Johnny falls in love with you!”

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to ask Johnny,” Maggie winked, and Lizzie huffed, folding her arms.

“I will, you know!” Lizzie grinned impishly. Then she turned and ran out of the room. In seconds she was back with the key to Nana’s car. She threw herself at Maggie, hugging her around her waist, and then without a word ran down the stairs again. Maggie took a deep breath and descended the stairs just enough to hear what was going on below. Sure enough, Lizzie commenced whining, and Mary Smith commenced sighing. Then the volume on the television was turned up, and Maggie sneaked the rest of the way down the stairs and out of the house.

She raced to the garage and found Nana’s car parked in its stall. Very little had changed in the unattached building in fifty years. It even smelled the same. Maggie felt a sudden tugging, as if the smell of home had telegraphed a message to some far-off time and place and received an immediate response. Breathing through her mouth, she heaved the garage door upward, wincing as it refused to ascend quietly. She jumped behind the wheel and shoved the key into the ignition. Without turning on the lights, she backed out of the garage and halfway down the drive. Then she laid on the horn, causing her heart to bounce erratically, as if trying to escape its bony confines. She laid a hand across her chest, soothing it as she searched for the headlights. There they were; the beams hit the windows on the front of the house, and twenty seconds later the door swung open and then shut again almost immediately. Maggie counted slowly to ten and then backed out of the drive.

She didn’t see the door open and Mary Smith rush out into the front yard seconds after she had pulled away.