Prom Night in Purgatory (Slow Dance in P)

~20~

A Time to Love





2011



A few nights later when Johnny dropped her off, Maggie asked if he would come inside, just for a minute. She had something she wanted to show him.

“Won’t...Irene...uh, your aunt mind if I’m in your room?”

“It’s just for a second. Don’t worry.”

Johnny looked unconvinced but followed behind her as she climbed the stairs to her room. She walked straight to her closet and pulled the red prom dress from its hanger and held it in front of her.

“Recognize this?” she said shyly.

Johnny reached out and fingered the tulle of the skirt. “Yeah.”

“And here’s your sports coat.” Maggie reached for the white sports coat and handed it to a stunned Johnny. “I didn’t mean to steal it. Hmm, I seem to be saying that a lot lately.”

Johnny shrugged the jacket on and looked at himself in the mirror. “Momma was so mad at me when I told her I’d lost this. She’d rented it for me, and we ended up having to pay for it. She asked me how I could lose a sports coat. I couldn’t really explain.” His eyes met Maggie’s in the mirror. Maggie realized this was the first time she’d ever seen Johnny’s reflection.

“I couldn’t tell her a pretty car thief had disappeared with it.” Johnny shrugged out of the jacket and seemed uncertain what to do with it.

“Johnny? I know girls don’t usually ask guys...but Saturday night is the Prom. My prom. I would really like to go with you. I already have a dress.” She held up the fluffy red confection. “And you now have a sports coat.” She winked. “I’ll be driving a Cadillac this time.”

Johnny’s response was interrupted by Irene calling up the stairs.

“Maggie? Are you home dear?”

Johnny looked at the door, and Maggie opened it wide and called down to her aunt.

“I’m here, Aunt Irene. Johnny’s here with me. We’ll be down in a second.”

The silence that answered her was telling, and Maggie wondered how Irene and Johnny would ever be comfortable in each other’s presence.

Maggie shut the door and turned back to Johnny. He stood with his hands shoved in his back pockets, his head tipped to the side. He looked quite delicious standing in her room, and she had to swallow her heart once, then twice, as it threatened to tumble from her chest. He was here. And she was here. Finally together - no Purgatory, no anger, and at this moment, no regrets. Once he had told her that every moment with her had made the fifty years in Purgatory worth it. Now she had reason to hope that he would feel that way again. The intense gratitude that suddenly consumed her rose up and spilled onto her cheeks.

“Hey? Are you okay?” Johnny asked softly, taking a slow step toward her, his head tilted to one side.

“I’m better than okay,” Maggie whispered, and her chin wobbled the slightest bit. She yanked off her glasses and cleaned them on the bottom of her T-shirt to create a diversion from the sudden weight of her emotions.

“Maggie?” He took her glasses from her hand and set them on her nightstand.

“Hmmm?”

“Look at me, Maggie.”

Maggie felt him close the final steps, but she didn’t dare look up. “Don’t cry, baby. I’ll go to the prom with you,” he teased quietly.

Maggie giggled, but the giggle broke into a sob and she stepped into him, holding onto his shirt and rubbing her face across the familiar planes of his chest, breathing him in and letting him comfort her like he had many times before.

“Shhhh,” Johnny soothed, sliding his hands up and down her back, nuzzling her hair. “Car thieves don’t cry, baby. You gotta toughen up if you’re gonna have a future with good old Clyde here.”

“I like it when you do that.”

“What?”

“Call me baby,” Maggie whispered.

“You liked it when I called you Bonnie too,” he replied with a smile in his voice. “Why?”

“You used to call me baby all the time. It makes me believe you can love me again.”

Johnny wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her to him, kissing her tear-streaked cheeks before he touched his lips to hers.

“I’m already there Maggie. I fell in love when you begged me to help you escape the cops. I fell in love when we danced to Nat King Cole singing ‘Stardust’ on a moonlit beach. Hell, I fell in love when you told me how blondes spell farm.”

“E-I-E-I-O,” Maggie quipped wetly.

Johnny laughed and held her tightly.

“There’s something I want to give you,” Johnny whispered into her hair. “It used to be the thing to do--though I never did, ‘cause I didn’t ever have anyone I cared about in that way.”

Maggie pulled back so she could look into Johnny’s face.

Johnny reached into his front pocket and pulled out a silver pendant hanging from a long chain.

“When I was in high school, guys would give these to their girls. I’ve been thinking about it since Gus told us about his grandma and the Saint Christopher medal she always wore. I want you to wear it. Maybe it will help keep you safe.” Johnny held the pendant in his palm. It was silver and dainty, a weary traveler with a walking stick and a child on his back engraved in fine detail on the surface. Circling the edge were the words ‘Saint Christopher Protect Us.’

“Does this mean I’m finally your girl?” Maggie tried to be glib, but her voice was reverent as she fingered the pretty little pendant.

Johnny laughed and gently fastened the long chain around Maggie’s neck. Smoothing her hair back over her shoulders, he touched his lips to hers again.

“Thank you, Johnny.” Maggie cradled his face in her hands and brushed her lips up and then down, answering his questioning kisses with her own. Then she touched her tongue lightly to his fuller bottom lip. He stilled, and her breath caught. He returned the caress lightly, tasting the salt of her tears and the warmth and silkiness of her mouth. And then the restraint was gone. Her hands slid into his hair as he wrapped hers around his fists, pulling her head back to give him a better angle on her lips. The door met her back as he pushed her against it, using it as leverage to bring her closer. She rained kisses along his jaw until he growled and pulled her mouth back to his. One hand flexed at her waist while the other palm flattened on the door above her. And then the other hand joined it as he tried to push himself from her while still keeping his lips locked on hers. She moved to follow, but his hands slid to her shoulders and gently kept her pressed against the door. He kissed her once more, and then again, as if he couldn’t pull himself from her. With a groan, he broke away, his hands holding her still, his eyes locked on hers, as he tried to master his desire.

“Irene is downstairs. Or upstairs...or...right outside...who knows. I have to go right now or I’ll end up dragging you out the door and having my way with you in the Bel Air, which isn’t what good guys do, and though I’ve never pretended to be one of the good guys, I want to be one with you.”

Maggie didn’t respond. She wished he weren’t such a good guy at the moment. She wished that she wasn’t tempted to run to the Bel Air like the bad girl she had never been. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and she pushed against the hands still keeping her from him.

“Maggie...” he groaned again, and her eyes snapped back to his.

“You better go,” she giggled, biting her lip. “I can’t promise that Bonnie won’t attack Clyde.”

He laughed but grabbed at the doorknob desperately, releasing her as he did. She let him go but followed close behind him as he walked down the stairs. He reached back and grabbed her hand, and the gesture almost had her in tears again. Life had suddenly become so impossibly sweet she couldn’t keep the joy from overflowing.

At the door he didn’t kiss her again, which was probably wise, but he did press his lips to her hand. “In case you missed it before, I’d love to go to the prom with you, although I don’t think I can dance to your music.” He grimaced.

“We’ll think of something.” Maggie smiled. “After all, you had to teach me to dance to your music.”

“‘Night, my Bonnie,” he murmured and let himself out the door.

“Goodnight, Johnny,” she sighed, and watched him leave.

When Maggie shut the front door, Irene was nowhere in sight. Maggie hoped she wouldn’t find her in the attic, madly trying to recapture her lost youth. Instead, Maggie found her in her little yellow sitting room, Lizzie’s old bedroom, holding a book as if she were reading, but staring off as if her mind were full of other things.

“Irene?”

“Is Johnny gone?” Irene looked almost fearful.

“Yes.” Maggie sat down on the little sofa next to her aunt, and reached out to touch her papery soft cheek.

“I love you, Irene. I don’t think I tell you that enough.”

Irene’s book fell to her lap, and her hand reached up to cover Maggie’s.

“I love you too, sweetest girl,” Irene murmured, patting the hand that Johnny had recently kissed. She looked away almost immediately, as if something troubled her but she didn’t want to unburden herself.

The joy that had been flooding Maggie only minutes before receded dramatically as she observed her aunt’s obvious distress.

“I love him too, Irene,” Maggie rarely called her aunt by her name but felt compelled to do so now, to drive home the importance of her words.

“Yes....yes...I know,” Irene stammered. “I know Maggie. It’s not that....”

“What then?”

“I had a dream. I thought it was a dream...” Irene’s voice tapered off, and Maggie felt a cold dread seep through her.

“When I saw you in that dress the other morning, I was almost too stunned to speak....but, I’ve been thinking about it since then.”

“About the dream?” Maggie whispered.

“It wasn’t a dream!” Irene lashed out, dropping Maggie’s hand and covering her face with her own. Maggie trembled at the sudden change in her aunt and was afraid to touch her again -- afraid her touch might be rebuffed.

Irene was breathing heavily behind her hands, the harsh sounds making Maggie’s hair stand up on her neck.

“It was you!” Irene cried in a horrified whisper. “You were the girl at the dance with Johnny, the girl who told me to get rid of Roger.” She moaned into her hands. “I don’t know how it was you. But it was! I saw your face in my dream. You were wearing my dress! How did you get my dress? I remember it now, so clearly -- as if it just happened today and not fifty three years ago.”

Maggie couldn’t breath. Her heart was a pounding, and she wanted to wail like a wrongly imprisoned man who knew he was a dead man walking.

“Roger was so angry!” Irene rushed on. “He ranted and raged about you for weeks, saying you’d insulted and embarrassed him. Like a fool, I thought I needed to prove my loyalty all the more. I gave him my virginity that night, thinking it was the only thing I could do to show him I wasn’t going anywhere. I told Nana I was staying at the Russell’s again, and Cathy and Shirley covered for me....but I was with Roger.”

Maggie grimaced and felt sorrow leaking from her eyes and sliding down her nose. Gus had told her there would be unintended consequences, things she could never predict, lives she would unknowingly alter....or shatter.

“By the time August rolled around, I had come to my senses. Roger had been unbearable, and I was quite afraid of him. When Billy Kinross died and Johnny disappeared, I was horrified, knowing that it was all Roger’s fault. Billy had been so sweet to me, and he was gone -- at Roger’s hand! I believed that, but it was too late. I was pregnant.”

“No, no, no!” Maggie wanted to scream. This wasn’t the way it happened! Irene had married several years after high school. She’d seen the wedding announcement in the old newspapers at the library.

“The baby was stillborn. Did I ever tell you that?” Irene’s voice was almost trance-like as she remembered the child she almost had. “He was perfect. A beautiful, full-term little boy with lots of dark hair. But he was dead,” she whispered. “I had hoped and prayed for a way to be free of Roger. Suddenly, I had it....and it had come at the price of my child’s life. So I stayed. It was penance, my own slow dance in purgatory.”

“Can you forgive me?” Maggie’s agonized whisper filled the room, and Irene shook herself, abandoning the trance-like state she had hovered in. She stared at Maggie, her blue eyes wide and filled with anguish.

“There is nothing to forgive, Maggie,” she said softly, reaching out and touching Maggie’s stricken face.

“You’re afraid of me,” Maggie mourned, her voice barely audible.

“I understand what happened....at least I think I do,” Irene replied quietly. “You slipped back....just like Gus said you would. You tried to help me. I know that...”

“But...”

“Maggie! You tried to help me. Now,” she said tiredly, rising to her feet, her back bent and her head bowed in exhaustion. “We need to get you out of this house.”





Maggie had slept restlessly ever since coming home from the hospital after the fire. Dreams of Johnny and burning hallways made sleep a minefield, and though she had longed desperately for the relief unconsciousness would supply, she found that she no longer felt safe in her bedroom.

Maybe it was because she had been awakened twice in the last few weeks to see Roger Carlton, the aged and overweight Uncle Roger, sitting on the benchseat pouring over his old pictures. Both times, she had reached for her glasses on her night stand, pushed them on her nose, and forced herself to concentrate on the details of the room she knew existed in present day, which did not include a ghostly fat man. Both times Roger had flickered out almost immediately without even raising his head.

That night, the drain from the conversation with Irene had Maggie stumbling to her room and falling into a deathlike slumber. Irene had wanted to leave and check into a hotel. She was afraid that Maggie would slip away if she slept in the house again. Maggie thought of the tongues that would wag in the small town if she and her aunt suddenly checked into the Honeyville Suites right on Honeyville’s Main Street. Plus, Irene didn’t have the funds to waste on a hotel room when there were four perfectly good bedrooms right here.

Maggie was convinced it was the talk of 1958, combined with the furnishings in Irene’s old room and the dress Maggie had donned, that had precipitated the shift. She had practically stepped back in time before she even fell asleep that night, and she told Irene as much.

“We have to get you out of this house,” Irene said again, wringing her hands desperately, but she had gone to bed after a little coaxing and reassuring. Irene looked as if she were ready to collapse. Both of them needed rest before making any rash decisions.

Maggie had been pulled from sleep suddenly. She became completely and fully awake as if ice water had been poured over her, bringing her instantly and alarmingly from the depths of unconsciousness. She sat up and reached for her glasses on her bedside table, but the space was empty. She felt up and down, trying to connect with the surface of the table in the darkness of the room, knowing that she should be feeling the little knob on the drawer and the pointed edges of the table top. She felt a shift, a sense of falling, and then her legs folded and the surface beneath her changed. She was sitting upright in a chair. The chair was hard and the rungs dug into her shoulder blades. Goose flesh rose on her arms as she felt the cool against her bare feet which curled disbelievingly against the flat surface of her bedroom floor. It was still so dark. She looked toward where she knew the window should be and watched as they sky beyond lightened instantly by several shades, as if she were watching a time lapse on the news where the weather of the entire day is captured in seconds.

Roger sat at the window, his head bent over his scrapbook. The light beyond him was dusky, as if dawn had ascended while he read. He was younger, his hair thick and dark, his body still lean and his clothes reminiscent of a different decade. Maggie longed for her glasses. She didn’t dare move or even breath, knowing that she was no longer observing him in her room. She was with him.

She must have exhaled too loudly, though she hadn’t felt the release. Or maybe it was simply the sense of being watched, but Roger’s head jerked up suddenly, and he screamed, a strange, high pitched cry that had Maggie flying up and out of the chair to cower in the corner.

“It’s you!” Roger hugged the wall like a jumper on a ledge, easing around the room toward her. She had to get out of there, but could she run screaming through the house? She didn’t know why she was here or what year it was. If Irene and Roger were living in the house it was after Irene’s father had passed, after Billy had died and Johnny became trapped in Purgatory. She felt for something to shield herself with as Roger crept steadily closer.

“Are you some kind of a witch?” he breathed, his green eyes wide with fear and fascination. He poked at her with his foot. His shoe was pointed, and he shoved it into her as if she were an animal on the side of the road. She curled her legs into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, closing her eyes and willing herself home. She pictured Johnny in this very room, as she had seen him only hours earlier. The kiss that they’d shared, and the heat of his hands.

Roger kicked her. And then again. She cried out but kept her eyes squeezed shut and prayed for deliverance. She pictured the room, the pictures on her walls, the blanket on her bed, the fat yellow rug on her floor.

“I’m talking to you, witch! What are you doing in my house?” She felt his hands on her throat. He was pushing her back into the wall, forcing her head up. Her eyes popped open as he bore down on her, choking her, his eyes crazed yet eerily flat. The green was all one shade, without the striations of color and the golden flecks that made up the human eye. It was as if a child had taken a light green crayon and colored them in. Little spots of white started to flicker at the edges of Maggie’s vision. He was going to kill her.

Then she remembered the pendant around her neck. She released Roger’s hands and felt for the medal. She rubbed at it desperately.

“Johnny!” she gurgled, gripping the necklace Johnny had given her for protection. And then she recognized the sensation, almost like a carnival ride, of being pressed by centrifugal force into the wall behind her. Then she was falling away from Roger’s hands as the air was forced out of her lungs and the pressure built inside her until she was no longer conscious.