“Someone will be here, son. Tell Gene hello. He always takes good care of us.”
Johnny nodded and waited for the man, who was obviously Irene’s father and Maggie’s great grandfather, to turn and head into the house. Turning the key and shifting into reverse, Johnny eased the bulky car backward and swung out into the street. Maggie breathed in deeply and smelled Old Spice and the hint of a cigar, just like her great-grandfather must have smelled. Funny… she couldn’t feel anything, but she could still smell. Could she smell in all her dreams? Maggie slid over next to Johnny, as close as she could without dissolving into him. She breathed deeply. She smelled citrus and soap and the warmth of sunshine; his scent made her dizzy. Maggie stuck out her tongue experimentally and ran it along the line of his jaw to see if he tasted as good as he smelled. Hmmm, nothing. Darn. She might as well be tasting the air. She whispered into his ear.
“This is a wonderful dream, Johnny. I hope I never wake up.” Maggie smiled happily to herself as she drank in his handsome profile, the length of his black lashes, and the straightness of his nose. Johnny worried his lower lip with his teeth and then sang a little, his voice husky and a little off key as he extended his left hand out into the afternoon sunshine and let it stream through his fingers as he drove. “I’m just a fool, a fool in love with….” It was that song. They had danced to that song.
“Ah, Maggie,” he sighed. “Where did you go, baby?”
He was talking to her. He had said her name! Maggie struggled to answer, to tell him she was here, right beside him. But she couldn’t speak. Her throat was on fire. She wrapped her hands around her neck, as if they could block the pain. Her throat was raw and each breath she took torture. Maggie moaned, and Johnny shimmered next to her. Maggie gasped as something sharp was inserted into her wrist. She held her hands out in front of her, gazing down at them in disbelief. A needle slid smoothly into a pulsing vein below the base of her left palm. Someone said her name, and something icy traveled up her arm from the origin of the inserted needle. She was jerked from Johnny’s side, and she grabbed for him futilely as she was sucked through a narrowing black tunnel. Johnny became a rapidly fading point of light at the farthest end. He never even turned his head to see her fly through space.
***
The burn in Maggie’s throat receded with the cool relief injected into her veins. She heard voices around her, speaking faintly and efficiently. They pulled at her, but she pushed back, eager to fall back into the dream that had given her a glimpse into Johnny’s life before Purgatory. He was so real. She refused to heed the voices around her, and they began to fade until they were nothing more than the buzzing of distant traffic. Maggie drifted in a warm, black cocoon and was aware of nothing more.
When consciousness returned, Maggie was in a room she recognized as the room Irene had once decorated as a nursery and then converted into something less painful when the babies never came. She had left it the cheerful yellow that had seemed appropriate for young children but had placed a large bookcase on one wall and had set several plants on the window sills. She had pushed matching chairs against another wall and placed a lamp between them. A fat rug, well made but worn, stretched across the floor from corner to corner. Maggie had often seen Irene in the room reading or working on her needlepoint. She said when Roger was alive it became her private little oasis and he had left her alone there.
Now it was almost unrecognizable. If not for the position of the windows and the size and shape of the room, Maggie might not have known where she was. The warm brown of the wood floors was unchanged beneath the fluffy pink rug that had replaced the heavy oriental in Irene’s reading room. Pink flouncy curtains topped the tall windows. A small white desk sat beneath one, and below the other was a white console proudly displaying a record player with dozens of small round records littering the floor around it. A ruffled pink bed was pushed against the far wall. An assortment of pillows, stuffed animals, and dolls decorated its surface. A little girl, maybe nine or ten, judging from her size, sat on the end of the bed and talked sweetly to a fat bear that she clutched in her hands. Her hair was a soft light brown that just grazed her shoulders, and it was neatly barretted above her small ears. She wore a dress the color of ripe peaches, and her neat white bobby socks and black flats stuck out beneath the skirt that hid her crossed legs.
“Come on, Jamie. You know I need to practice on someone, and if I can’t practice on you, who can I practice on? I know you’ll feel silly – I’ll feel silly too, but if I’m ever gonna marry James Dean I will need to know how to kiss, won’t I?” With this convincing argument, the young girl stuck out her lips and laid a very firm kiss on the bear’s furry snout. Her eyes were pinched closed, and her lips were pushed out comically. She opened them slowly, and a furrow grew between her blue eyes.
“You’re not very good at that, Jamie. You and I will have to practice.”
Maggie giggled a little at the serious admonishment. The little girl’s eyes snapped up and locked on Maggie in horror. Maggie’s giggle died in her head. She hadn’t giggled out loud had she? Could the little girl see her? That was impossible. She wasn’t really here...this was just a dream.
The little girl’s eyes grew wide and fearful. She scooted back on her bed and squeezed her bear close against her skinny chest. She closed her eyes again, but this time, fear was stamped all over her face and her lips weren’t pursed for kissing. Instead, they moved in a rushed whisper.