Prom Night in Purgatory (Slow Dance in P)

~14~

A Time to Keep Silent





Maggie didn’t know what awakened her. Maybe it was the weight of Johnny’s arm or the heat that his body produced. Most likely it was the pressing need of a very full bladder, but Maggie resisted movement for as along as she could, filled with an inexpressible joy that morning had come and Johnny lay beside her. Hope filled her chest like a yellow balloon, and Maggie felt a sudden urge to leap from the blankets and have a “Sound of Music” moment, complete with spread arms and joyful singing. But her body insisted that she find a bathroom or a grove of trees first. She eased out from Johnny’s arm, trying not to disturb him. He slept deeply, not even stirring when she picked her way across the distance from the blankets to his car. With luck he would have a comb in his jockey box or some tic tacs or something. Did they make tic tacs in the ‘50s? Did they have jockey boxes? Maggie giggled softly and looked back at Johnny, hoping she hadn’t awakened him. One arm was flung over his face, and the other lay against the blankets where she had slipped from his embrace.

Maggie eased the car door open and slid inside, looking for anything to make her morning self more attractive. The rear view mirror showed that her makeup hadn’t really survived the campout. Her mascara was flaky, and her lipstick had been kissed off. Well and truly kissed off. Maggie flushed and grinned at her reflection. After a few moments, she still hadn’t found a comb or a breath mint. She reached under the seat and felt around, hoping for a miracle.

“Ah hah!” She said triumphantly, pulling out the little silver purse that she’d taken with her to the prom. It had fallen to the floor and been kicked beyond her sight. She knew Aunt Irene had tucked a lipstick inside when they’d been playing dress-up. She popped it open and pulled out not only the lipstick but her black framed glasses.

“I forgot these were in here!” Out of habit, Maggie unfolded them and set them on her nose. She pulled the cap off the gold tube of lipstick and lifted her eyes up to the mirror to guide her application.

Something was wrong. Maggie reached out to touch the mirror, confused by the empty glass. She couldn’t see her reflection. She tried to adjust the mirror, positioning herself directly in front of it, but her hands disappeared in front of her face as she stared at them through the lenses of the glasses she had not needed since slipping through time.

“No!” Maggie reached for the handle of the door, crying out for Johnny. What had been an insistent tugging previously was now a black hole -- a sucking, churning whirlpool. Maggie tried to remove the glasses from her eyes, but she had no power over her limbs. There was no sound and no air and then the world around her faded, and she was no longer in Johnny’s car. Maggie clawed frantically for something to cling to but felt herself being pulled under. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe! And then darkness engulfed her, and she fought no more.





Maggie wasn’t lying next to him when he awoke. The sun had risen quite high in the sky, and Johnny sat up suddenly, astonished by the length of time he had slept. Maggie’s red shoes lay next to his near the bottom of the blanket, so she couldn’t have gone far. He rubbed his hands back and forth through his rumpled hair and ran his hands across his bristly jaw. He must look a sight. It was a good thing he was a handsome son of a bitch. He laughed at himself and realized that he felt almost euphoric. He was in love with a girl named Maggie. He’d never been in love before. He didn’t even know her last name. He stood, stretching and looked around. Where was she?

“Maggie?” he called, combing the beach with his gaze. He swung around, calling her name. The driver’s side door of the car was slightly ajar. He walked to it and opened the car door all the way, almost expecting her to be sleeping on the front seat, having gotten uncomfortable or cold in the night. She wasn’t there. He slid in and felt around, hoping he had left a comb in the jockey box...or maybe a breath mint. Her little silver purse lay on the seat. He popped it open, but it was completely empty. What girl brings an empty purse to a dance? Don’t they cram as many things as they can into their bags and purses? Apparently not Maggie. He stared into it, at a loss. He caught a glint of something gold and shiny out of the corner of his eye. He leaned down and picked up a cap off of the floor of the Bel Air. It looked like the cap from a tube of lipstick.

His rear view mirror was at the wrong angle, and he righted it, thinking Maggie must have checked her reflection for it to be so skewed. She must have walked down to the water. Maybe she had gone to find a bathroom. He didn’t know why she’d left her shoes. Of course, her red heels couldn’t be much more comfortable than walking barefoot, especially where the sand got deep. He stepped out of the car and slipped his own shoes on. He loped down to the water and proceeded to wet his hair, wash his face, and rinse his mouth with cold water. He would just wait until she came back, and then he would head over to the Ranger station to get help starting his car.

An hour later there was still no sign of her. Johnny had walked up and down the beach, calling her name. He had walked the quarter of a mile down to the Ranger station, where there also happened to be some nicer bathrooms, but no one had seen any sign of her. The beach had started filling up with cars and families, with their kids and their pets and their big brightly colored umbrellas.

Three hours after he’d awakened to find Maggie missing, Johnny had to admit to himself that she was long gone. He was angry, but more than that, he was afraid. Why wouldn’t she take her shoes? The girl was a mystery, no doubt about it. She had said that she didn’t know how long she would be around, and some of her comments of the night before now niggled at him. Maybe she was a little messed up in the head. It had all been so romantic and real, and she had been so intense and clear eyed that he had almost believed her when she had started saying things that he didn’t understand and couldn’t even fathom. But he couldn’t stand the thought that she might be gone for good. What if he never saw her again? The answering ache that gripped his chest was almost as frightening as her disappearance.

He headed home, checking to make sure his momma had made it in the night before and that Billy was okay. Billy had made himself a big sandwich and was reading the business section of the Texas Times when Johnny walked in the front door. Johnny was good at math, and he could fix almost anything, but he had never sat down and read the newspaper like his little brother or poured over books at the library like they held the secrets of the universe. Billy was smart, and if Johnny looked out for him and made sure Momma stayed out of trouble, Billy could grow up to be somebody important one day. He could go to college, see the world, make something of himself. That’s what Johnny wanted more than anything.

“Are you just getting home?” Billy’s eyes were wide behind his thick glasses. “Peggy’s old man is going to kill you!” Peggy’s father was a deputy for the Honeyville Police Department, and he really didn’t like Johnny very much. He also didn’t like the fact that his daughter attracted boys like flies.

“Carter took Peggy home, so if anybody is going to die, it’ll be him,” Johnny smiled at his little brother as he took a swig straight out of the big glass bottle of orange juice on the top shelf of the fridge. He pulled out a couple of eggs and proceeded to scramble them up, his mind on the reason he hadn’t taken Peggy home.

“Is Momma here?” he asked Billy after a while.

Billy glanced up, nodding his head. “Yep. I stayed up until she got in last night, though.” Billy looked down at his paper as if trying to decide to tattle on his mother. “She was with the mayor again. It was his car she got out of, unless she and Mrs. Carlton have suddenly become friendly.”

Johnny swore under his breath and shook his head in disgust. He didn’t need this shit, not today of all days. Lord, save him from beautiful women and their shenanigans. He had one girl who couldn’t stay put and another who just couldn’t seem to stay away. Too bad it wasn’t the other way around.

“Is she asleep?”

“No. I think she’s hiding. She knows I saw her. I think she’s hoping I don’t tell you.”

“Yeah, I just bet she does.” Johnny and his momma had argued a time or two about her choice in men.

“So.....why are you just getting in?” Billy had abandoned the business section altogether and seemed anxious to change the subject. That was Billy, always the peace-maker. Johnny let the issue of Momma’s men drop for now. He’d deal with it later.

“I went to the rez, turned on my music, ended up sleeping out there. It was nice.” It had been more than nice. It had been the best damn night of his life. He felt the ache punch him low in the belly again, and reconsidered whether he could actually eat the omelet he was frying up. Where had that girl gone? He couldn’t just assume she was all right.

Billy kept the conversation moving. “I went down to the corner store this morning, picked up my paper, and got Momma some coffee. We were all out. Mr. McNinch said somebody took the Honeycutts’ housekeeper’s car last night. He said the cops were everywhere. They found it, though. He said Mary Smith, the housekeeper, had come in just before me and was relieved to have it back.”

Johnny froze, his spatula hanging in mid-air as he tuned into his little brother’s account. A car theft in Honeyville was big news, and it didn’t surprise him that everyone knew about it already. Mr. McNinch, owner of the little corner grocery, was as bad as an old woman when it came to gossip. If you wanted to know anything, all you had to do was engage him in a little conversation, and you knew who was doing what in a minute flat. But it was the mention of the Honeycutts that had reminded him of something. Maggie had mentioned Lizzie Honeycutt several times the night before. He finished his eggs without tasting them and was out of the house, showered and shaved, within a half hour. He was going to find Maggie.

Johnny didn’t know how he was going to get an audience with Lizzie Honeycutt. The girl could only be ten or eleven at the most. He plotted and brooded, and finally just swung his car into the drive and figured he’d wing it. It turned out he’d stewed and worried for nothing. Lizzie Honeycutt sat on the front porch swing eating an ice cream bar like she didn’t have a care in the world. There wasn’t another soul in sight. Johnny hoped Mrs. Smith wasn’t looking out the window, ready to chase him away with a broom. If she came out on the porch, he’d just ask her if Mr. Honeycutt wanted him to take his vehicle to Gene’s for a tune-up. He’d picked up Jackson Honeycutt’s Buick before, so it shouldn’t make her too suspicious.

The girl was slumped down, lazily pushing the swing with the pink painted toes of one bare foot, her other leg folded beneath her. Her eyes widened, and she ceased licking and swinging as she watched him get out of his car and stride up to the porch.

“It’s gonna drip if you don’t get to it.” Johnny smiled down at the little girl who bore an obvious resemblance to both Irene.....and Maggie. The wide, sky-blue eyes were something they all shared. Seems Maggie hadn’t been fibbing when she had said they were family. Still, he would bet his life that Irene Honeycutt had never met Maggie before the confrontation in the parking lot of The Malt the night before. She had looked at Maggie like she was a total stranger. And a crazy one at that.

“Can I sit?” Johnny asked politely. Lizzie Honeycutt scootched to her right, pulling her leg out from underneath her, leaving a space plenty wide for Johnny to sit comfortably beside her.

“I bought another. The Good Humor man let me have two for the price of one since I’m such a loyal customer. I actually think he was trying to get rid of me ‘cause I couldn’t make up my mind. Would you like it?” Lizzie Honeycutt raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“No, thanks,” Johnny replied, although the ice cream looked pretty good. He didn’t want Lizzie running back into the house and alerting the housekeeper that they had company.

“Thank goodness!” Lizzie sighed gratefully. “I was just tryin’ to be polite, anyway. I didn’t want to share.” Her smile flashed, and her eyes twinkled, and Johnny saw Maggie all over again. They were firecrackers, both of them.

“So....” Lizzie said, after taking a long lick up the side of the shrinking chocolate wedge. “Are you in love with Maggie?”

Johnny choked a little, and she reached over and patted his back, dripping a little ice cream on his shirt as she did.

“Oops, sorry,” Lizzie grimaced and started licking in earnest, ready to be done with the mess.

“I was wondering if you’d seen Maggie this morning.”

Maggie stopped licking once more and eyed Johnny with indecision.

“I’m a little worried about her, you see.” Johnny didn’t think it was appropriate to tell the little girl that he and Maggie had slept on a blanket under the stars, and his voice faded off awkwardly, trying to think of a way to word his question without giving too much away.

“Is she gone, then?” Lizzie asked, her mouth turned down in a slight frown.

“I don’t know,” Johnny answered carefully. “We had a picnic out at the reservoir after the dance. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, she was gone. But her shoes were still there.”

“Oh.” Lizzie nodded, as if her question had been satisfied. She finished off her ice cream and proceeded to lick her fingers clean.

“So do you know where she is?” Johnny was really trying not to get impatient, but so far he had gotten exactly nowhere. He wondered if Lizzie Honeycutt was good at chess.

“She probably went back,” Lizzie dutifully protected her queen.

“Back where?” Johnny leaned toward the little girl and stared hard until she turned her head and caught him looking. She blushed a little, and her hands dropped to her lap.

“It’s hard to explain,” Lizzie mumbled. She licked at a spot she had apparently missed. She offered nothing more.

Johnny tried again. “I need to know if she’s okay, Lizzie. If you know something, I would appreciate you telling me. Obviously you know something, or you wouldn’t have known why I was here.”

“I thought maybe she sent you....so I wouldn’t worry about her,” Lizzie answered softly. “I knew she couldn’t come home because the police brought the car back. Nana is very suspicious of her now, too.”

“Wait...Irene didn’t tell you Maggie was with me?” Johnny’s head began to spin. “Then how did you know?”

“Irene didn’t come home last night. She slept over at the Russell’s with Cathy and Shirley. I didn’t know, not until you got here. I was hoping, though. After all, you’re the reason Maggie went to the dance in the first place.”

Johnny felt the hairs stand up on his arms and neck, and his face must have conveyed his astonishment, because Lizzie began speaking again without any prodding.

“She said she was in love with you.” Lizzie searched his expression, worry stamped across her small face.

Maggie had told Johnny she had come to the dance for him. But he had assumed she was coming on strong, letting him know she wanted him. But when he’d challenged her, her eyes had filled with tears, contradicting her forward display. He hadn’t known what to make of it then. He didn’t know what to make of it now.

“Do you know where I can find her, Lizzie? No more games, little girl.”

Lizzie Honeycutt folded her arms defensively, and Johnny thought maybe he’d been too blunt. She was obviously uncomfortable and had moved as far from him as she could. She answered his question with a finality that said she had said all she was going to say.

“No. She just kinda showed up, and I helped her. She couldn’t tell me some things. She tried, but it made her really dizzy and tired. She’s been here before. If she comes back, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her. I promise.”

Johnny thought of the way Maggie had clung to him after she had warned Irene to stay away from Roger Carlton, when she had asked him so sweetly if she could hold his hand. She had been shaking like a leaf, and she had held his hand like he was the only thing between her and hell’s fiery furnace.

Johnny got up off the swing and was about to walk down the front steps when Lizzie stopped him.

“Do you have her shoes with you?” she questioned hopefully.

Johnny nodded briefly.

“Can I have them, please? They’re Irene’s. She’s not gonna be too happy when she finds out her dress is gone. If I put back the shoes, maybe she won’t be so mad.”

Johnny laughed right out loud and shook his head in wonder. Maggie had had the gumption to walk right up to Irene Honeycutt and tell her to get a new guy while wearing her dress. He might just be a little in love after all, damn it.

“I’ve got ‘em.” He smiled at the little girl and turned again to walk to his car. At that moment, Irene Honeycutt decided to come home. She slid into the drive and flew past Johnny’s car, with barely an inch to spare between the two vehicles, making him flinch and cry out. She jerked to an uneven stop, and she and the two Russell sisters tumbled out of the pink Cadillac as if they couldn’t believe their eyes. Shirley, the youngest of the three, was the first to recover, and she smiled brightly and waggled her fingers at him.

“Hiya, Johnny,” she cooed. Cathy looked at her sharply and took a couple steps, shifting herself to a position in front of her younger sister.

“Yeah, hi Johnny!” Cathy offered, even more brightly. Shirley elbowed her sister out of the way and hurried to Johnny’s side.

“Did you have fun last night?” Shirley chirped, looping her arm through his. Johnny sidestepped the pretty brunette, gently extricating his arm.

Cathy tapped him on the shoulder. “We saw you dancing with that new girl. We were all just sooo surprised because she was wearing a dress just like the dress Irene was going to wear.”

“Oh, Irene, wouldn’t that have been awful if you’d both come in the same dress!” Shirley moaned, looking at her friend.

Irene tossed her head, as if the memory of the girl just made her angry. “She was so rude to me, Johnny Kinross!” Irene stomped her foot and crossed her arms, looking at Johnny like she blamed him for Maggie’s behavior. “Roger was so mad. He said he’s going to find her and put her in her place! Why the nerve! My dress looked nothing like hers. Hers was just a cheap imitation. I just hope she gets what’s coming to her!”

“Roger Carlton is a first-class jerk, Irene, and you would do well to heed the warning you were given. And if your precious Roger touches so much as a hair on that girl’s head, he’ll answer to me.” Johnny turned and strode to his car, the three girls huddled together in stunned silence. When he reached the Bel Air, he leaned inside and pulled out the red shoes Maggie had left behind.

“I think these belong to you, Irene.” He walked to where the girl stood, her mouth gaping, her arms hanging loosely at her sides. “In my mind, they’re pretty big shoes to fill. I don’t know if they’ll fit anymore.” Johnny turned on his heel, walked back to his car, and drove away.