“Maybe you should stay in the car, Bonnie. We don’t want any witnesses.” Johnny stepped out of the car, shutting the door firmly behind him. Maggie decided to stay put. He was back about ten minutes later, a brown bag of food in one hand and two glass bottles of coke in the other.
A car pulled up beside them in front of the diner. For a brief moment, Irene Honeycutt’s pale face was illuminated in the light pouring out of The Malt’s windows. Irene looked right at Maggie, and Maggie stared back, transfixed. Then Roger opened his door and stepped out, obscuring Maggie’s view, and Johnny backed out of the space and headed out of the lot. Maggie quickly rolled the window down, calling for Johnny to stop.
“Irene! Irene Honeycutt!” Maggie called. Irene stopped, confused, and looked around in surprise.
“Hold on, please!” Maggie implored Johnny.
“Maggie--”
Maggie jumped out of the car and hurried back to where Irene stood, Roger at her arm, watching her run across the lot toward them.
“Irene. Please tell Lizzie I’m just fine. Tell her not to worry; tell her I’m with Johnny,” Maggie blurted out when she was within ten feet.
“Wh-what?” Irene stammered.
“Just tell her, please? She’ll understand.”
Irene looked at Roger and then back at Maggie. Roger smirked at Maggie and turned to go inside.
“Oh, and Irene?”
“Yes?” Irene looked extremely dubious, and she kept eyeing Maggie’s dress suspiciously.
“You need to get a new boyfriend. That one’s bad news.” Maggie’s voice was loud enough for several other couples entering the restaurant to hear. She tossed her head toward Roger, who had stopped in his tracks and was staring at her open-mouthed. Irene looked like she’d been slapped. Maggie didn’t know if it would make a difference, but she had to try. “If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
She couldn’t say more. The insistent tugging from the pit of her stomach had started as soon as she had opened her mouth to warn Irene. Frantically, she turned and ran back to Johnny’s car. He had stepped out of the still running Bel Air and stood framed in his open car door, hands in his pockets, waiting for her. She could tell by the expression on his face that he’d heard the entire exchange. She hustled to the passenger side and got in as he slid back in beside her.
“Will you hold my hand for a minute...please?” Maggie gasped. The pull had grown stronger. She was paying for her interference. NO! She couldn’t leave now!
Johnny looked at her, his eyes serious and his head cocked to one side. Without a word, he stretched his hand out and she grasped it, clinging to it with both hands. It was big and calloused and warm. She focused on the ridges and grooves, the length of his fingers and the width of his palm. She rubbed slow circles into his skin with her thumbs, the back and forth motion soothing her and quieting the intense quickening within her.
Johnny let her be for a few minutes, but then pulled on his hand, silently asking her to let go. She did so immediately, but felt the loss acutely, as if he were a lifeline in a raging storm. He tossed the food onto the seat behind them and with one steady motion leaned over and pulled her up tight against his side. Oh, the advantages of a bench seat.
“I need my hand for a minute, but you hold onto me if you need to.” His voice was gentle and without reproach, and Maggie thought, not for the first time, how unthreatened he seemed by her wild behavior. She had blown into his life less than an hour ago...and brought havoc in her wake. He hadn’t even batted an eye.
“Where are we going?” Maggie asked, burrowing into his side. She really didn’t care. For the moment she felt safe and exactly where she belonged.
“My favorite place to think and talk, or just be left alone, is the reservoir. There are some big trees, and a cool breeze comes up off the water. It’s not too hot yet, but it will be in another month, and the place will be hoppin’. It should be quiet tonight, though.”
In Maggie’s time, the reservoir had been closed to the public. Some tiny fish with a funny name had been discovered in the reservoir and a wildlife organization had come in and claimed the guppy-like fish was at risk of extinction. The government had stepped in and made it a preserve. So now the only creatures to enjoy the reservoir were the four-legged kind or the itty bitty three—finned variety. Kind of sad, Maggie thought. The reservoir was manmade, but that hadn’t mattered, apparently. As a result, she had never even seen the reservoir.
“I heard a story about you, this car, and the reservoir. It was a pretty cool story.”
Johnny looked down at her in wonder. “You heard that story?”
“I did,” Maggie smiled. “Your reputation preceeds you.”
“Boy, I hope not,” Johnny grinned. “And here I know nothing about you...well, other than you steal cars, you’re beautiful, and you don’t like Roger Carlton. Of course, I find all three of those attributes almost impossible to resist.”
It was Maggie’s turn to laugh, and laugh she did. “Is that why you called me Bonnie back there? Like Bonnie and Clyde?”
“Yes, ma’am. Bonnie was a beautiful woman, too. And she was also a famous thief. I’m not volunteering to be Clyde, though. Those two ended up getting shot to death in their vehicle, didn’t they? I like my car too much to take that kind of a chance.”
“I don’t think there would have been a Bonnie without Clyde.” Maggie flirted a little.
“Oh you don’t, do ya? Well you might be right about that. Behind every bad man is a woman who can’t resist him.”
Maggie didn’t respond. There was a story in that comment, though his voice suggested he was kidding.