“Why didn’t you do those things?”
“I didn’t understand that the choices we make stay with us forever, Maggie. My daddy always spoiled me. He gave me everything I wanted. But most of all, he adored me. I took it for granted. I just thought everyone would treat me that way. I didn’t know how precious his love was. Then Roger came along, and he was rude to me, made me cry, treated me quite badly. We called it playing hard to get. I was intrigued by him. I made it my goal to make him want me -- to be his girl. It was a game to me. It wasn’t until after we were married that I realized that Roger would never adore me. He might have loved me; I actually think he did in a way. But he would never think I hung the moon like my daddy did. He would never treat me like I was a treasure, because to him, I wasn’t. I had no value to Roger beyond the pretty face and the Honeycutt name. And now, here I am, seventy-one years old, and the choice I made at seventeen is the choice I still have to live with today. So many times I could have left. But I had lost all confidence in my ability to make good choices. I didn’t have any education or world experience, so I stayed. And I gave my life away.”
For a long time, neither of them spoke but lay, watching the ceiling fan whirring its peaceful tune. Time was a greedy banker who never paid interest.
“Johnny feels like his life was taken away....” Maggie whispered, slipping her hand into Irene’s. “I know it’s not the same...but he has his whole life in front of him and doesn’t want it. You have your whole life behind you and wish you could have it back.”
Maggie waited, wondering if she’d said something wrong, but Irene didn’t reply. Propping herself up on her elbow, she peered down at Irene. She was asleep. A delicate snore escaped her open mouth, and Maggie shook her head fondly and pulled a coverlet over the two of them. There was no way she was getting up for dance practice in an hour. Or school for that matter. Lying down again, she drifted off to sleep, her head filled with images of Johnny and Irene, young and carefree in 1958.
***
Maggie awoke to the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a cheerful disc jockey counting down in another room. She felt like she had been asleep for a only a short while, but from the amount of sunshine streaming in the windows, it had been a lot longer than that. Irene no longer lay beside her, but the peach formal was laid across the bed. The bed was neatly made beneath her. Huh? How had Irene managed that?
“Note to self,” Maggie said out loud, struggling to a sitting position. “Prom dresses are not for sleeping.” The red dress was cutting into her sides and making her legs itch like she had rolled in grass. The thin bejeweled strap of the silver clutch was wrapped around her wrist; she even had the red shoes on her feet. Looking down at them, she felt a little like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She clicked her red heels together a couple of times and said the required line about there not being any place like home. Climbing off the bed, Maggie attempted to straighten and smooth the wrinkled dress.
“Where are my pajamas? This dress has gotta go.” Maggie searched the floor for the pj's she had dropped the night before, but they were nowhere in sight. Irene must have picked them up. Catching her reflection in the mirror, Maggie yelped in surprise. The ruby lipstick Irene had applied was smeared around her mouth, and her eyes looked like she’d gotten a bit carried away with the whole smokey-eyed look. The smokey part extended about an inch below each eye.
Her hair was a lion’s mane, and Maggie reached for Irene’s brush with the inlaid mother-of -pearl handle. It gleamed as though Irene had randomly decided to polish the silver upon awakening. Next to the brush lay the matching mirror and comb, and a perfume bottle with a bulbous diffuser was placed nearby. Lipsticks were scattered here and there, and a photo of a young Roger was placed in a position of prominence on the far left side. Maggie picked it up and studied it for a moment; strange, she hadn’t noticed it last night. A little note was wedged into the ornate frame of the oval vanity mirror and Maggie leaned in for a closer look. It wasn’t a note after all, but a ticket stub from a movie theater called the Marquee. The ticket stub didn’t look much different than a carnival ticket - it just had the name of the theater and the price of the ticket printed in the corner - $0.60.
She’d seen the remains of the old theater downtown. The long vertical sign still remained, jutting out from the side of the abandoned brick building. The Marquee windows had been broken and the movie posters removed long ago. There had been a fund raiser hosted by the Honeyville Historical Society to refurbish the old theater not long before the fire that had destroyed Honeyville High. The project had been put on hold, however. Irene said the money raised would now go toward building a new school. She said it had been one of her favorite places growing up, and she was disappointed that she might never see it restored.