Slow Dance in Purgatory (22 page)

             
Gus knew she had to perform that night at the basketball game, and he made sure she would finish by 4:30.  There was no music to distract her or make her smile.  For what ever reason, Johnny was still keeping his distance.  Something quaked inside Maggie at the thought that he might stay away permanently.  Her little circle of friends was small enough. 

             
Shad was hollow-eyed and quiet, and he had kept to himself, his mother’s arrest obviously weighing on his mind.  Maggie hadn’t wanted to press, but she was worried about her friend.  Gus didn’t look much better.  Maggie wished Malia Jasper would go away and stay gone.  But who really knew if Shad and Jasper felt that way?  Surely, a man like Gus Jasper loved his daughter, in spite of everything.  Shad obviously loved his mother, too.  The taunts wouldn’t hurt so badly if he didn’t.  Family stuff was complicated at best -- the good, bad, and ugly all tangled up in the ties that bind.  And poor Shad seemed as torn and tangled as a fourteen-year-old boy could possibly be.

             
Maggie rode her bike hard for home and rushed through the front door at 5:00.  Not stopping to even say hello to Aunt Irene, she raced for her closet, searching for a wardrobe miracle.  She found nothing but dust bunnies and worn out options.  Where was her fairy godmother when she needed her?  Feeling a lump the size of Mars rising in her throat, Maggie fell onto her narrow bed and tried to breathe deeply, forcing the tears away. 

             
“Crying won’t make a dress appear, Mags,” she told herself, rubbing fiercely at her smarting eyes.  But the sorrow she felt was deeper than a dress, and she felt the fissure in her chest widen, as the dam threatened to break. The flood of grief and fear she had been holding in all week began to spill out.  Maggie bit down on her pillow and forced the sorrow back.  She would not cry over a stupid dance or stupid Dara, for that matter.  She would wear what she had, and it would be okay…

             
“Margaret?”  Irene’s gentle voice drifted under the door, and Maggie sat up and smoothed her tumbled hair, oddly grateful for the interruption.

             
“Just a minute, Auntie!”  Maggie yelled and hoped her wobbly voice didn’t give her away.  If Irene knew the reason Maggie cried it would hurt her, and Maggie wouldn’t hurt Aunt Irene for anything.  She never wanted Irene to regret taking her in. 

             
Aunt Irene slipped the door open and peered in, her kind face wearing a concerned frown.  “Are you okay, sweetie?”

             
“Oh sure, fine!”  Maggie answered brightly, nodding her head and smiling.  “Just a little tired.  It’s been a long day, and I’ve got the game tonight, and the dance team is hosting the big dance afterward, and I’m taking tickets, so it’s going to be a lot longer still..”  Maggie realized she was babbling and stopped, smiling and nodding her head some more. “So….. yeah,” she finished lamely.

             
“Gus called and said he thought you seemed a little upset.  Is everything okay at school?  Gus said there are posters all over advertising the dance.  Are you sad because no one asked you?”  Aunt Irene sat beside Maggie on the bed and reached for her hand. 

             
“It’s probably because you’re new, dear.  And you’re so beautiful.  Sometimes the beautiful girls don’t get asked because it’s assumed they already have a date, and sometimes the boys are intimidated by them.”  Now Aunt Irene was babbling.

             
“Somehow, I don’t think my beauty is the problem, Aunt Irene,” Maggie replied wryly.  “Most of the kids at school haven’t noticed me at all, and if they have, it’s not for my stunning good looks.”  The incident in the hallway several weeks ago flashed into her brain.  Yep, those boys definitely weren’t intimidated by her beauty – her backpack maybe, but not her looks.  The memory made her all the more depressed and brought Johnny’s absence raging to the forefront of her mind once more.  Shoving thoughts of him to the back of her brain, she smiled wanly at her aunt.

             
“Harrumph,” Aunt Irene sniffed her disagreement.  “I don’t know about that, Margaret.  Now, what can I do to help you?  I’ve got dinner made, and you can eat first or wait until after you bathe.  And what are you going to wear dear?  I could press your dress if you need ?”  Aunt Irene paused and raised her white eyebrows expectantly. 

             
The thought of Aunt Irene, who had been raised with servants and housekeepers, making Maggie’s dinner and pressing her non-existent dress made Maggie want to weep for entirely different reasons.  She leaned over and kissed her aunt’s baby smooth cheek.  Irene smelled like rose petals.  Maggie felt the lump in her throat swell once again. 

             
“Well, I really don’t know what I’m wearing, Auntie.  The dance is semi-formal, and I don’t seem to have anything that fits the bill.  I wasn’t going to go at all, but my dance captain said I have to take tickets…”  Maggie stopped abruptly, knowing that if she continued, she would lose her grip on her already crumbling control. 

             
Aunt Irene pursed her lips prettily and tapped them with her left pointer finger.  “I might have something that would work, Margaret.  You go get cleaned up, and I will see what I can come up with.” 

             
Maggie cringed inwardly.  She could just hear Dara now.  “Where did you get that dress, Baggie?  It looks like something my grandmother would wear – sooo hot!!”  Still, what Aunt Irene offered couldn’t be any worse than having nothing at all.  

             
Maggie dragged herself to the bathroom dejectedly and put herself through the ritual of many a teenage girl.  She was almost done blowing her long hair dry, when her aunt rapped smartly on the door. 

             
“Maggie!  Come see what I’ve found.  Hurry!  You’re running out of time.”

             
Maggie’s bed was covered in dress bags.  Hope bloomed in her chest, and Maggie loosened the belt on her old pink robe as Irene began pulling down zippers right and left. 

             
“Now this one was one I wore…“ Irene prattled about this dress and that as Maggie stepped into one dress after another.  Several were very pretty, and most fit her very well.  A few were too old for her, a few just too old, but when she slid a sleeveless sky blue A-line over her head and felt the skirt swish around her legs, Maggie’s heart soared.  The mirror reflected back a dress that was simple enough in design and color that it still worked.  It looked vintage not dated, and that suited Maggie just fine.  It made the color of her eyes stand out, and her dark hair was a rich contrast to the pale blue.  It fit perfectly.  Her breasts filled out the fitted top, her waist looked tiny, and her arms and legs looked slim and toned.

             
“Oh, Maggie!”  Irene clapped her hands like a young girl.  “That dress was made for you.  Granted!  It was made over 50 years ago, but even still!  I wore that to the homecoming dance when I was seventeen.  I think I still have the matching pumps!”  Irene flew from the room to closets unknown, and Maggie reverently smoothed the gauzy, full skirt. The thought of attending the dance now filled her with excitement instead of dread.

             
Maggie carefully peeled the dress over her head and reverently zipped it back into its protective sheath.  Irene did indeed have the matching pumps, still in perfect condition, and wonder of wonders, even their feet were the same size.  Maggie had some little diamond hoops that used to be her mothers, and she tucked them carefully into her duffle bag with her dance things.  Twenty minutes later, she was on her way back to the school in Irene’s Cadillac.  It seemed she had a fairy godmother after all.

***

             
When everyone left class for the day, Dara Manning checked her makeup in front of the dance room mirrors and tried a sexy move, watching to see whether she looked as hot as she thought she did.  Oh, yeah.  She so rocked that move.  She would like to see Baggie O’Bannon try that one.  Thinking about Maggie just made Dara mad, and she stomped over to the sound system to retrieve her music and shut everything down. 

             
As captain of the team, her coach left her in charge every once in a while.  She should leave her in charge more often.  In fact, Dara thought, she should have had some say in who made the team and who got cut from the team in the first place.  She would never have let Maggie set foot on the dance room floor.  The rest of the team seemed to think she was something special.  Coach raved about her when she tried out.  Big damn deal.  Their coach was a fat has-been with four kids and stretch marks.  Who cares if she danced in college or had a master’s degree in dance?

             
“If I had my way, we would have a new coach, and Maggie O’Bannon would never have made the team.  Freaking four eyes needs to be taken down a peg,” Dara muttered to herself, flipping her perfectly streaked hair.

             
The lights in the room flickered erratically, and Dara spun to the door to see who else was in the room.  The door remained closed, and no one was there.  It was probably Derek, playing a joke on her.  Derek was Dara’s boyfriend, and he loved pulling mean pranks.  Dara hadn’t ever been on the receiving end, however, and she didn’t much care for it.  Derek wasn’t as good looking as she was.  His acne scars detracted from his otherwise handsome face, but he was Captain of the football team and very popular.  He would do until something better came along.

             
The lights flickered again, and this time Dara was facing the door.  Nobody was there. 

             
“This school is jacked up,” Dara complained, grabbing her jacket and her purse.  “Somebody needs to upgrade the electrical, obviously.” 

             
The lights went out completely.  The dance room had no windows, so with the lights out it was totally black.  Dara cursed as she made her way toward where she knew the door was.  Feeling along the wall, she reached the door and wrenched on the handle.  It felt like someone was holding it from the other side.  Dara pounded angrily on the door.

             
“Derek!  This isn’t funny!  I have to get home and get ready for the game.  Stop playing around!”

             
Dara pulled and pushed on the door as hard as she could, wiggling the handle and shouting threats at anyone who might be able to hear.  The door handle didn’t budge.  It was stiff and unyielding, and Dara felt a jolt of panic that she might be locked in for real.  A light flickered behind her, and Dara whirled, her fear kicking up a notch, as the sound system that she had just turned off lit back up.  She reached for the light switch alongside the door.  She clicked it up and down.  Nothing.  The power must be out.  But then how was the sound system doing all that wild blinking?

             
Dara inched her way back toward the sound system.  Derek was going to pay if he had anything to do with this.  The radio blared suddenly, the volume so loud that the room shook around her.  Dara squealed and stumbled back, tripping over her feet and falling to the floor.

             
The dial spun, bits and pieces of different songs blurring into one another.  Dara held her hands over her ears and crawled toward the door.  She wanted out of this room, now.  She and Derek were so over!  She would just bet he was standing outside the room with a remote control, laughing with his idiot friends. 

             
“Maggie…. Maggie…Maggie….”  The name repeated over and over again, like an old-fashioned record stuck in a scratch.  Dara froze.  The crackle of dead air rose louder, and then the radio tuned in and out, rapidly alternating between several songs and singing out a distorted message.
             

             
“Cold hearted snake….jealous….girl…..tellin’ lies….. don’t be cruel…. Maggie….. leave….. Maggie…. alone ….. leave…. Maggie….alone.

             
Dara whimpered and covered her ears.  The music faded and then stopped abruptly.

             
The door swung open suddenly, and Derek entered, flipping on the light.

             
Dara was curled up like a snail in the middle of the floor, her butt in the air and her arms over her head. 

             
“Dara?  What are you doing, babe?  Dancing in the dark, huh?  Hot.”  Derek smirked appreciatively.  ‘Derek like.”

             
Dara shrieked and flew at Derek like a wet cat.  “That wasn’t funny, Derek!  You scared me!!”  Dara swung wildly as Derek stumbled back, trying to defend himself against his hysterical girlfriend.

             
“What the hell, Dara?  I didn’t do anything!  What are you talking about?  Stop it!  Ouch!” 

             
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.  You held the door closed and turned off the lights and made the radio come on and …and why do you care about Maggie O’Bannon?  Are you cheating on me?”  The outrage in Dara’s voice made her sound like a howling hyena, and she went after Derek again, arms flailing and feet kicking.  Derek cringed, grabbing at her arms and eventually wrestling her to the ground.  He sat on her bucking torso and forced her hands above her head.