Prom Night in Purgatory (Slow Dance in Purgatory) Read online

  Johnny still wasn’t saying anything, but his eyes had narrowed and his hands now gripped the rails alongside his bed.

  “So who am I?” He queried slowly. The hair on Maggie’s arms rose and a shudder ran through her. His voice taunted her with memories of sweet words and quiet declarations. She steeled herself and met his eyes, confusion coloring her voice.

  “You are Johnny Kinross.”

  “And how do we know each other……Margaret?” Maggie gasped sharply. Did he mean to be cruel? Or was he hesitant to reveal himself in front of the woman who watched them in fascination?

  “Don’t you remember?” She stared at him, willing herself not to betray her devastation. He held her stare silently for several long breaths, and then shook his head once. No. He didn’t remember.

  “Tell me!” His voice was sharp now, as hers had been minutes before. She stared at him mutely, stunned heat spreading from the pit of her belly to the tips of her fingers. How in the world do you tell someone what he is to you…when he is your whole world? How do you tell him you love him – and that he loved you – when he can’t seem to remember your name? Maggie was going to be sick. She struggled to her feet, the room spinning and the fear inside her clawing to get out.

  “TELL ME!!!” Johnny roared suddenly, his face contorting in anger. Maggie flinched as if he had struck her, and she reached toward him instinctively, unsure of whether to ward him off or pull him close. Jillian Bailey jumped to her feet and grabbed Johnny’s hands. He pulled them from her viciously and looked at Maggie again. He pointed at her.

  “You know me? You tell me everything you know!” He was no longer shouting, but his voice was emphatic and his eyes were bright with feeling. The finger he leveled at her shook, and he dropped his hands back into his lap, shaking his head with obvious despair.

  The door flew open behind them, and all three of them jerked to guilty attention.

  “What are you people doin’ in here? And what’s all the yellin’ about!!” A small black nurse flew into the room, shoes squeaking and arms akimbo. She rushed to Johnny’s bedside and started looking at his monitors and fussing over him like there had been a murder attempt.

  “His heart is racing!! It’s the middle of the night, and ya’ll are havin’ a tea party in here?” She looked at Maggie, stuck out her lips, and furrowed her thin black brow. “And what do you think you’re doin’ in here, Missy? Visitin’ hours are way past…and you belong a few doors down, if memory serves!”

  “Please,” Jillian Bailey jumped into the fray, “Maggie has been asking to see Johnny for days, and everyone has denied her. He saved her life when the school burned down. She wanted to say thank you and make sure he was okay, right Maggie?”

  Maggie nodded emphatically, keeping her eyes averted from Johnny’s face. It was all she could do not to run shrieking from the room.

  “I found her in here, but I didn’t have the heart to turn her away. I’ll take her back to her room myself in just a minute. Please, Tima?” Jillian Bailey was in full appeal mode now.

  Tima harrumphed and shook her head, making the loops at her ears jangle cheerfully. “Five minutes…you hear, Jillian? And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doin’ when you start going all ‘Please Tima’ on me…” She winked at Jillian to take the punch out of her words and marched out of the room, tossing a hand toward the three of them as if to say “go ahead, I’m through with you.” The door swooshed closed behind her.

  “Fatima and I were friends in high school,” Jillian explained inanely, although no explanation had been requested. Johnny was frozen in stony silence, and Maggie was clinging to her composure with shaking fingers. “I tutored her through English, and she tutored me through math. She never let anyone call her Tima, as far as I know….except me.” Jillian smirked a little, and for a minute Maggie saw the resemblance between Johnny and his sister. It was fleeting, but it was there in the way she held her mouth.

  Silence descended on the room again, and Maggie felt Johnny’s eyes on her like a physical weight. She turned to Jillian desperately.

  “How did you know Johnny saved me from the fire?” Her words came out like an accusation, but it was meant more for the boy in the bed than the woman at her side.

  “Gus,” Principal Bailey answered succinctly. “He told me that Johnny had found Shad and was carrying him on his shoulder when Gus went into the school. If not for Johnny, Shad would have most certainly died. No one would have found him in that locker.” She paused and looked at Johnny as if trying to impress what she was saying upon his memory. Then she looked at Maggie. “Gus said you told him that Johnny carried you out as well.” She waited for Maggie to pick up the telling of the story.

  Maggie nodded briefly. The memory of being swept up in Johnny’s arms felt like a mirage, but she clung to it. “He did carry me out! You did!” She looked at Johnny fiercely then, daring him to disagree. “I didn’t want to leave you. I told you to let me stay with you. But you carried me out. I don’t know how, but you did.” Johnny was unfazed by his own heroics. He shook his head once, negating her words.

  Maggie gagged on the emotion in her throat, and her eyes began to sting at the indignity of it all. Why did he keep shaking his head? If you truly loved someone, how could you forget?

  “You don’t remember me? You don’t remember anything at all?” Her voice shook, and her stomach heaved in dread.

  It was his turn to be fierce, and she could see he struggled to rein in his temper. “I remember everything just fine! I remember going to the new school looking for Roger Carlton. There was a bunch of kids all gathered to see a fight – but Roger Carlton didn’t want to fight fair. He set up a little ambush. He messed up my car. I remember Billy running down the hallway waving that damn gun. I remember Billy yelling out. I remember going over the balcony, falling. I remember Billy….” Johnny stopped then and ran his hands up into his hair. The familiarity of the gesture hit Maggie like a physical blow. She gripped her hands tightly in her lap to keep from reaching out to him, to keep from touching him. He wouldn’t welcome her touch.

  “Billy’s dead, isn’t he?” Johnny choked out. “I need to tell my momma. She’s not gonna take this well.”

  Maggie’s lips trembled, and the tears swam in her eyes. Oh, dear God! He was just realizing they were gone?! Oh, Johnny!” She hid her face in her hands, overcome with sympathy. This wasn’t happening.

  “Johnny….” Jillian Bailey stood and touched his shoulder. “Momma already knows. All of that happened a long time ago.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Johnny was yelling again, so loudly the entire hospital would be coming down around them. “None of this makes any sense! I don’t know you! I don’t know HER!” His eyes flew to Maggie, who had reached for him again, needing to comfort him, needing to touch him. “I don’t know where I am or what I am doing here!” Maggie dropped her hand and reached for the bars on Johnny’s bed. Her legs trembled and her heart bled.

  The door banged open again, and this time Fatima wasn’t alone. A bevy of medical people swarmed the room.

  “OUT!” Fatima roared, pointing at the door. “Jillian! Take that girl back to her room.” Johnny had pulled his IV out of his wrist, causing blood to stream down his raised arm, and he was attempting to pull the bandages from his shoulder. Someone pulled Maggie from Johnny’s side, yanking her hands from the bars that were supporting her. Fatima bodily restrained Johnny as someone injected something into him. His shouting and struggling lessened almost immediately. Jillian Bailey wrapped her arms around Maggie’s shoulders and led her from Johnny’s room. Maggie collapsed onto her bed and sobbed. Jillian Bailey sat beside her, crying quietly with her, until the sun nuzzled its way into her hospital room, slipping golden fingers through the slats in her blinds and reminding her that life continued, whether or not Johnny had lost his.

  ***

  Maggie begged to see him again, regardless of his feelings for her. His despair and fear made her almost craze
d with worry. He was alone, his entire world gone, and Maggie knew acutely what that felt like. Alone without a friend in the world. She would be Johnny’s friend, even if friendship was all he wanted. She pleaded with whomever would listen, beseeching them to allow her access to him. Finally, toward the end of the next day, Jillian Bailey came back to her room and shut the door firmly behind her. She looked dead on her feet.

  “Maggie,” Jillian Bailey sat on the foot of her bed. “I know you’re asking to see Johnny. I know you have feelings for him, and you’re worried about him. You can’t see him right now, though. He doesn’t remember you, and he doesn’t want to see you.”

  Maggie nodded, taking the blow in stride. “I won’t ask him for anything or make him uncomfortable. I just want him to know he isn’t alone.”

  Maggie swallowed the tears in her throat and kept her face composed. She was good at that. Many years of being disappointed and rejected had made her an expert. She’d never been hit or slapped or abused, but she’d been shunned, neglected and ignored. One year she’d been placed with a new foster family right before the holidays. They didn’t want their “family” time at Christmas “interrupted”, and they didn’t want extended family who would be visiting to feel “uncomfortable.” So she had spent the holiday in her room, listening as sounds of revelry and laughter floated up the stairs from the gathering below. It had sounded like fun. They had brought her a plate of food on Christmas Eve but had almost forgotten on Christmas day. She had many stories like that one. Lonely was something she was intimately familiar with, and something she didn’t want Johnny to suffer from, even if she wasn’t his preferred company.

  Jillian Bailey nodded, and her eyes searched Maggie’s blank face for several seconds. “I don’t understand how any of this happened. But it did. And I promise you I will do everything in my power to help him and to take care of him as long as he needs me to. He won’t be alone.” Her tone was tender as she reached for Maggie’s hand.

  “I’ll be waiting,” Maggie whispered, and her composure cracked the smallest bit. “Will you tell him? Tell him I will be here whenever he needs me.”

  Jillian nodded and rose from Maggie’s bed. The next day, Maggie was released from the hospital.

  ~3~

  A Time to Be Born

  Bobby and the Bell Tones were pretty good. They looked slick and professional in their matching light blue sport coats and jaunty black bow ties. The guy at the mic could really sing, and they played all the crowd-pleasers, with enough slow numbers that the boys could hold their girls every other song. Johnny arched his back and tried not to pull at the collar of his too-tight bow tie. His white sports coat was too hot, and he longed for denim and boots. Tonight he was slicked up and pressed into the fancy duds his momma had insisted he wear. He had thought he should make a statement and wear his leather jacket to the Prom, but Momma nixed that idea.

  The cheerful pink carnation pinned to his lapel defied the heat of the overcrowded, over-decorated gymnasium. The room had been transformed into a water world for its “Under the Sea” theme, complete with fountains and aquariums. Huge fishing nets hung overhead, filled with seafoam green balloons that were clearly meant to look like bubbles. Giant glittering starfish hung precariously from the nets, and the entrance had even been made to look like the gangplank of a sunken ship. Irene Honeycutt’s daddy had given the prom committee, of which Irene was president, a healthy donation, and they had put it to good use. So often the band was the thing they scrimped on, but not tonight. The kids were dancing their socks off.

  Johnny hadn’t really wanted to go to the Prom, but Carter had a thing for Peggy Wilkey, and he had begged Johnny to ask her so they could double date. Johnny had asked Carter why he didn’t ask her himself. Carter moaned and claimed his momma said Peggy was a tramp and he had to take his cousin because she would never get asked. Johnny liked to dance, so he’d taken pity on Carter; plus, Johnny liked Peggy, and he knew her daddy would hate it if he asked her. Peggy’s daddy was a cop, and he was always pulling Johnny over for the slightest thing. Johnny figured making the old man sweat a little was just payback, and it was nice to stick a thumb in his eye when he got the chance. He watched as Carter swung Peggy around the dance floor, Peggy’s pink dress swinging around the two of them as they moved. Carter’s cousin Nancy didn’t look too happy about it, but at least she’d gotten to come. She caught him looking at her and immediately elbowed the equally glum girls sitting at her sides. Their heads swiveled toward him and they straightened their backs and fluffed their skirts in syncopated rhythm. Then they all stared at him like a pack of piranhas. Johnny rapidly shifted his attention elsewhere.

  Irene Honeycutt tapped her feet and looked longingly out at the dance floor. Roger Carlton was surrounded by a bunch of his friends, chatting away, ignoring his date. Johnny had already asked Irene to dance once, just to get under Roger’s skin. He started forward to ask her again when he saw the girl. She was in fire-engine red, and her dark hair was long and unbound, waving past her shoulders and swooping across one eye, creating a peek-a-boo effect. None of the girls wore their hair long these days. They all wore it in pinned curls and shoulder length styles with curled bangs. This girl’s hair looked like that movie star that Momma liked – the one from the 1940’s…Veronica Lake. She wasn’t very popular anymore. Momma said Veronica Lake had a bad reputation for drinking too much and getting married and divorced too many times. Momma said if it was a man drinking too much booze and spending too much time with the ladies, no one would mind. In fact, he would probably be more popular! She defended Veronica Lake like it was something personal. Johnny shook his head, banishing thoughts of his mother and her own flawed reputation.

  The new girl looked like she had come alone. She walked down the gangplank entrance and paused, as if trying to figure out what to do next. She clutched a little silver handbag in her pale hands. Johnny’s eyes traveled from her hands to her smooth bare shoulders and down her slim form encased in red. The bodice was tight, and his eyes lingered where they shouldn’t. The skirt was a very full tulle -- that’s what Peggy had called it-- as was the style of most of the other girls’ dresses, but no one was wearing red. All the other girls were wearing different pinks and pastels. This girl stood out like a sore thumb…or a rose among carnations. The girl seemed to suddenly register this fact, and she looked down at her dress and back up again, out at the swirling shades of pale. She turned slightly, as if trying to decide whether to leave the way she had come. Johnny couldn’t let that happen. He started to walk toward her, weaving in and out of the dancing couples.

  When he was about halfway across the floor her eyes latched onto him, and he saw the color rise on her cheekbones and her hand flutter to her chest. She watched him like she knew him, like she expected him to be there. He knew he’d never seen her before…he would remember if he had. She looked a little like Irene Honeycutt in her coloring and the wide blue set of her eyes. He wondered briefly if they were related. And then all thoughts of Irene Honeycutt fled. The girl smiled at him, and his heart hitched and his step faltered. He stopped several feet in front of her, and for the life of him he couldn’t prevent the smile that spread across his own face in response. His usual swagger failed him. He felt like he was twelve years old.

  “Hi,” she said sweetly and smiled again. She looked at the dance floor and back at him. “Are you going to ask me to dance?”

  Johnny held out his hand, and she walked forward and slid hers into it. Her hand was smooth and small, and he had the inexplicable urge to grip it tightly so she couldn’t slip away. He led her to the dance floor just as the music kicked up into a rollicking swing. Damn. He wanted to pull her close, not swing her around. He turned to ask her if she wanted to wait this one out. One look at her, and he knew what her response would be. She was practically vibrating with the music, her eyes sparkling, waiting for him to engage. He hoped she could dance.

  Without a word, Johnny took her little purse and shoved it into the i
nner pocket of his tuxedo jacket. She couldn’t dance with that thing in her hand. She didn’t protest but gave him both of her hands and lifted her eyes to his. And they began to move. Oh yeah, she could dance. It was like she knew what he was going to do next, like she understood his timing and had danced with him before. He spun her around, pulling her in and out, and watched her in amazement as she matched him step for high-paced step. The kids around them started to take notice, and the space around them widened, clearing their way for more ambitious steps. Her long hair streamed around her, and her skirts flew around her slim legs as her feet dared him to keep up. He tossed her up, and her legs snaked from side to side and up into a hand stand and quickly down before her skirts revealed more than she would have liked. There was a gasp and a smattering of applause, and Johnny swung her around his hips like a hula hoop. She laughed out loud and whirled back into his arms like it was where she belonged. The music ended with a crash of cymbals, and their audience whooped and hollered. Johnny thought he heard Carter and Jimbo taking credit for some of his moves. He laughed and looped his arms around his partner’s waist, pulling her into him. The music cooperated, and the Bell Tones began a slow doo-wop as Bobby crooned his affection into the microphone. She raised her eyes to his, and his breath hitched once more. Her eyes were so blue and welcoming, and he desperately wanted to kiss her. Man, he was known to move fast, but not this fast! He had met her only minutes before, and here he was, wanting to kiss her in the middle of a crowded dance floor. Her lips were parted in a smile, and her slim arms were embracing him in a dance that felt suddenly too intimate and yet not nearly intimate enough. She raised her chin the slightest degree, and his eyes dropped to her mouth. She breathed his name. “Johnny.”