Slow Dance in Purgatory

  “Shad!” Maggie cried, flabbergasted. “Ew! No! Mr. Blaney is, like, thirty-five, and he’s married and…bald!”

  “Fine, Mags. You don’t want to tell me, fine – but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to watch a movie with you tomorrow. You’re gonna have to work to get me back.”

  Maggie tried not to smile at that. Shad persisted in telling himself there was some grand romance brewing between them. She resisted the urge to grin and nodded seriously at her injured friend.

  “You’re right. Friends like you don’t come along very often. I deserve to be punished. Maybe you and I can watch a movie next week, after I’ve apologized and groveled a lot more.” Maggie turned her mouth down into a sad little frown. Sighing loudly, she stood up from the swing and with her head bowed in deep remorse, walked slowly to the front door.

  Shad muttered to himself, “You know it girl. I am one in a million. You can’t treat me that way. You better grovel.”

  Maggie bit back the laughter rising in her throat and rattled her keys, taking her time opening the door. Shad remained stewing on the front porch swing.

  “Goodnight, Shad. I really am so, so sorry. You better get home now. Gus is going to be worried about you.” She took a step inside the screen door and counted slowly to five.

  “Wait, Mags….wait!” Shad called out behind her. “I’m willing to give you one more chance. I can tell you really want to watch that movie together, and I can tell you feel really bad, so I’ll be here tomorrow at five – okay?”

  Maggie turned and smiled widely at her predictable little friend. “Okay, Shad. Thank you so much. You bring the movie, I’ll make the popcorn.”

  The screen swung shut between them, and Shad extended his arm, pointing at her seriously. “It’s a date, then.”

  He began to walk backward, not breaking eye contact, his arm still outstretched, pointing at Maggie as he took several steps in retreat. His feet were a little too long for the porch steps, however, ruining his exit, and he stumbled, going down hard on the front walk.

  Shad’s voice was sheepish as he called out from the dark, “My bad….no worries! The Shadster’s still in one piece. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.” He was on his feet in a flash, moving backward again.

  “Goodnight, Shad. I’m going in now so that you’ll turn around and actually watch where you’re going.” Maggie turned away, laughing, relieved that their friendship was on the mend.

  ***

  It took some doing, but Maggie was able to convince her aunt to take a quick drive in the Cadillac Sunday evening to prove her claims of a miraculous recovery. Irene ended up cruising for a half hour and was thrilled to pronounce the car healed. By that time, Shad had arrived and remained thankfully silent on the subject of the car.

  He had selected a violent show about inner city gangs that he pretended to think was awesome, but Maggie was pretty sure he hated it as much as she did. They ended up ignoring the show and tossing popcorn in the air and catching it in their mouths. A competition ensued, and Maggie ended up crushing Shad by about twenty successful catches. Shad shrugged nonchalantly, claiming a real man always lets his lady win.

  “Shad,” Maggie groaned with exasperation. “You’ve got to stop saying stuff like that. I am not your lady. I am not your girl; this is not a relationship. This is a friendship. I am your friend. You are my friend.” Maggie spoke slowly and gripped his thin shoulders. He was still shorter than she, and she had to bend her knees a little to force the eye contact.

  Shad pulled away and slouched dejectedly on the couch. Maggie hovered, hoping he would laugh it off and all would be well between them. When he didn’t, she flopped down beside him and worried the hole in her jeans so she wouldn’t worry a hole in her brain.

  “Why, Maggie?” Shad said meekly, lifting his liquid brown eyes to hers. “What is it about me that makes me so hard to love and so easy to leave?”

  So that’s what this was all about. Maggie felt heartsick and miserable. This conversation was about more than just Maggie not wanting to be Shad’s girlfriend. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he had gotten needy and aggressive just about the time his mom decided to come back around, reminding Shad just where he had always ranked in her priorities. Maggie was no stranger to this kind of drama. She had seen it over and over in the foster system.

  “Shad! You know how much I like you! I think you’re a great kid. You’re funny and smart and extremely cute, too. And I like hanging out with you. Nothing is wrong with you except that you’re fourteen, and I’m almost eighteen. I look like your big sister or something.”

  “I’ll be fifteen in six months! Then I can get my learner’s permit! I’ll be able to take you on dates and stuff. The age difference won’t matter when I’m twenty and you’re twenty four! Or 26 and 30.”

  “Well, when I’m twenty-five and your twenty-one, we’ll see how we feel, okay?”

  “But I already know how I feel, Mags. I love you. I won’t ever want anyone else,” Shad retorted stubbornly.

  “But I don’t feel that way about you, Shad,” Maggie spoke gently. “Come on! You have to admit, it would be kind of creepy if I did, don’t you think?”

  Shad stood up angrily, pushing her hand away when she reached out to him. “You know what’s creepy, Mags? YOU havin’ a thing for a damn ghost, that’s what’s creepy!” Maggie jerked like she’d been struck.

  “That’s right! I heard you say his name yesterday when I was at the school. It didn’t make any sense until I got home last night, and my grandpa said there’s been talk at the school about some strange stuff happening. He wasn’t worried; he said it was probably just Johnny. That’s when I remembered.”

  Maggie sputtered, unable to form a coherent response.

  “Was he the one who saved you from falling down the dumbwaiter shaft? Is he the one I heard you talkin’ to that night in the hallway? Is he the one who helped you with the car?”

  Maggie stood numbly, unwilling to confirm anything.

  “Of course it wasn’t! ‘Cause Ghosts aren’t real!!!” Shad jumped up and down like a reincarnation of an outraged Rumpelstiltskin. “This is crazy shit! And the craziest part of all is that you would choose some imaginary guy over me.” Shad was crying now, fat crocodile tears rolling down his smooth brown cheeks. Maggie had never seen tears that big. It hurt to watch them fall, and she covered her eyes with her hands. She realized suddenly that she was crying, too.

  “You got issues, Mags. But I still love you.”

  Shad grabbed his DVD and bolted for the door, tripping over the bowl of popcorn on his way out and sending it skidding across the floor, spewing white puffs in every direction. Shad just gritted his teeth and stumbled out of the house, his composure completely shattered and his pride in tatters. Maggie let him go. There was absolutely nothing she could say. Shad had it all figured out, and he was right. She did have a thing for a ghost.

  12

  “DON’T BE CRUEL”

  Elvis Presley - 1958

  Maggie needed to see Johnny again. All night she’d tossed and turned, snippets and sound bites of the confrontation with Shad playing on a continual loop until she finally gave up on sleep and stumbled into the shower. She dozed, leaning against the cool tiles, until the hot water ran out, and she was forced to wash her hair in ice water.

  The heat and white noise of her blow dryer had her dozing again, and she woke up to a screaming pain in her arm where the blow dryer had pressed against it and burned her while she slept. She ran her arm under cold water and tried not to cry. It wasn’t so much the pain of the burn as it was the utter futility of the situation she found herself in.

  She should stay away from the school, from Johnny – Shad was right. She had issues. She had lost too much in her life, starting with her parents, and with them her home, her friends, and her entire life. Through the years she had lost one home after another, and the cycle of loss continued – lost home, lost friends, lost life. She should protect herself from this inevitable l
oss, for she would lose him too, she had no doubt. How could she not? Maggie hung her weary head and held her aching arm. She knew better, but she wouldn’t stay away. She couldn’t.

  Irene wasn’t yet awake when she pedaled her bike quietly down the drive and onto the street. Honeyville never got much snow, if any at all, but winter was breathing down on them, regardless. Maggie pulled her sleeves down over her hands and cinched her hood around her face. Her backpack was an awkward weight that made her teeter a little as she fought the wind for balance, but it actually protected her back against the wind nipping at her face and shoulders. She tried to ignore the blistering sting that radiated from the burn on her arm.

  It was 7:00 a.m. when she unlocked the door to the school, and the heat enveloped her immediately. Before she had even taken three steps, Johnny was there, sliding her back pack from her shoulders and loosening the ties that held her hood in place. Her hair tumbled out around her shoulders as he pulled the hood from her head. He breathed in appreciatively.

  “You smell like Christmas,” he observed, rubbing her cold hands briskly between his much larger, much warmer ones.

  Maggie’s anxiety fled like a guilty felon as warmth spread up her hands and into her tortured heart. A sense of rightness and of belonging replaced her worry, and she beamed up into Johnny’s handsome face, her eyes hungrily drinking him in. Johnny stared down at her, his smile mirroring her own.

  “I smell like Christmas? What does Christmas smell like?”

  “Christmas smells spicy and delicious and…cold,” Johnny replied and gently moved his hands to her wind-reddened cheeks. The heat and the comfort of his touch almost did her in, and Maggie groaned thankfully.

  “That feels so wonderful. I thought I was going to be a block of ice by the time I got here.”

  Johnny rubbed his hands down her arms briskly, attempting to spread the warmth. Maggie gasped in pain.

  Johnny’s hands ceased rubbing immediately.

  “Ouch! Dang! It’s my stupid burn…” Maggie pulled away from Johnny and gingerly peeled off her jacket, sliding her injured arm from her sleeve. The burn was blistered, oozing, and scarlet red. She’d really gone and done it this time. She had smoothed antiseptic cream all over it, but she hadn’t been able to find a bandage big enough to cover it. It looked terrible.

  “Maggie!” It was Johnny’s turn to gasp. “What have you done, baby?” Johnny held her arm out for his perusal, and shook his head at the ugly wound stamped on her inner arm just below her elbow.

  Maggie ducked her head and blushed at the tender endearment. Nobody had ever called her baby….except Shad, who flung it at her like a leash. When Johnny said it, it sounded like a totally different word.

  Johnny moved his hand over the burn and without warning, pressed his right palm down into the weeping sore. Maggie cried out sharply and yanked her arm back, but Johnny held it firm, and with his eyes closed as if he were praying, shushed her softly. The heat from the wound built steadily until Maggie was blinking back the tears and biting her lower lip to keep from crying out.

  And then, incredibly, the pain began to slowly recede. It started at the outer edges into an ever shrinking diameter and eventually disappeared altogether. It had taken two minutes at the most. Johnny removed his hand gently, and Maggie stared down at the glossy pink skin; it was slightly raised and puckered around the edges. It looked like it had had two months to heal instead of two minutes. There was a scar, but the burn was completely healed.

  “Did I hurt you too much?” Johnny brushed his fingers over the half moon scar.

  “You…you healed it!” Maggie whispered, stunned.

  “No. Your body did all the work. I just accelerated the natural healing process – at least, that’s what I think I did.” Johnny shrugged, looking down at his handiwork with a pleased half-smile.

  “How, exactly?” Maggie couldn’t have been more impressed if she had seen him walk on water.

  “Light and energy. Healing takes both. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I thought it might. I just focused on what I wanted to have happen, imagined the skin healing rapidly, and transferred the energy through my hand into your burn.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Sure.” Maggie’s head was spinning. She decided that what had just happened wasn’t any more remarkable than Johnny himself. She couldn’t think about it. It fell under the ‘accept, don’t question’ category. She shoved the miracle into a mental drawer with all the others he had performed and locked it tight.

  “I’m not sure it will work on those dark circles, though.” Johnny traced the purple bruises under her eyes that she had tried to cover. Her blue eyes were world weary and worry worn. “You look tired, Maggie. Is everything okay?”

  Maggie didn’t want to tell him about Shad’s accusations or about the confrontation they had had.

  “I’m more than okay.” And she was. Since the moment she’d walked into the school that morning and seen Johnny Kinross, all had been right with her world.

  Johnny studied her for several heartbeats, and then sighed, giving up on getting the rest of the story.

  “Are you dancing today?” he asked hopefully.

  “I wish. I don’t have much time, though. People are going to start arriving pretty soon. I wish I had the entire day to just spend with you.” Maggie leaned her forehead into his solid chest and breathed in his citrus and sunshine smell.

  He kissed her bowed head and murmured into her hair, “Hmmm. That sounds good. But where would we go? Would we hide out under the bleachers, or maybe sink down in the back seats of the auditorium where the floor is sticky and the lights are dim? Or maybe we could occupy a couple of stalls in the girl’s bathroom and lift up our feet when the hall monitors check for sluffers. Oh wait - I don’t have to lift my feet.” Johnny’s voice was light and playful but there was an undercurrent of hopelessness that he was unable to hide.

  “As long as I’m with you, bathroom stalls and sticky floors are as good as 5-Star Restaurants and sandy beaches,” Maggie said sincerely, blushing a little at her romantic confession. She knew her words were syrupy sweet, but she meant them all the same, and she didn’t dare wait to tell him, for beneath the bliss of new love lay the threat that it all could end in an instant.

  His silence fed her insecurities, and she forced back her need for reassurance. She would take what he would give and not look beyond that.

  “I’ll be nearby,” was all he said, and with a soft kiss on her forehead he slipped away.

  ***

  Maggie slid into her spot just after the bell sounded, and Mr. Marshall frowned mightily at her from his lectern. “What kind of high school teacher had a lectern anyhow?” Maggie thought crossly, wishing that she was anywhere but Chemistry class. She had thought this class would be experiments and hands-on projects. Instead, the majority of the time they spent reading aloud from their chemistry books and taking quizzes on what they read. Maggie hated reading aloud. The words swam around on the page, teasing her with their squiggly lines and deceptive curves and corners. The d’s looked like b’s, the W’s looked like M’s – and half the time the letters danced right off the pages and into the margins. She wished she could dance right out of this class and into the hallway.

  Maggie knew she had Dyslexia – she’d been told so by a conscientious teacher in second grade who had tried to help her learn to read better. It was at that point that her dad revealed that he too had Dyslexia, and they had started reading together at nights. After a while, she had actually come to enjoy reading the simple stories they had conquered together.

  Then her parents died, and Maggie’s progress came to a screeching halt. She was never really anywhere long enough for people to realize she had a learning disability. She was always quiet and well-mannered. She always worked really hard and never complained. Everyone was so relieved that they didn’t have a problem child on their hands that they never realized the child had a problem.

  Mr. Marshall seemed to hone in on her disability the very f
irst day and was constantly asking her to read this or that. He seemed to take great pleasure in correcting her when she mispronounced a word or when she hesitated for a few seconds, trying to visually herd the letters into order. However, today they were measuring several different solutions into beakers of varied sizes, and Maggie welcomed the break from the norm. She removed her glasses and pulled on the required protective goggles - she was far-sighted so she should be okay - and hurried to assemble her equipment. Her partner hadn’t shown up for class so she was doing double duty.

  “You all have a hand-out in front of you. You will be conducting the experiment as outlined on pages 5 and 6,“ Mr. Marshall instructed without preamble. “You will then need to compare your results with the findings discussed on the first four pages and take the quiz on pages 7 and 8. Please proceed,” he intoned. Stepping away from his lectern, he sank into his chair and spread the newspaper across his desk dismissively.

  Maggie snatched up the hand out and flipped to pages 5 and 6. The words swam dizzily on the paper. Breathing deeply, Maggie removed her goggles and slid her glasses back on her nose. She could do this. She would just have to do it slowly like she did all her other assignments. Slowly might mean she didn’t complete the experiment in the time allotted, but without a partner she didn’t have much choice.

  “I’ll read, you measure,” Johnny’s voice murmured softly near her ear, and Maggie jumped, his sudden proximity creating an instant hum of awareness under her skin. She jerked her glasses off her nose so she could see him. He laid his hand lightly on the small of her back, and the hum became a full fledged song.

  “Slide the handout closer to me, and put your goggles back on.”