Prom Night in Purgatory(19)

Chief Bailey, with funds from Mayor Carlton and assistance from the the president of Honeyville Bank and Trust, had helped his mother set up an account that would provide reward money for information about his disappearance, but it would also collect interest and be available to Johnny if he ever came home. Dolly Kinross had always believed he would. When it became her responsibility, Jillian Bailey had minded the money religiously. She had happily informed him it was now his. There was over a million dollars in the account.

Now his thoughts slid back to Maggie. She wasn’t the kind of girl he usually went for. She wore big glasses, and she seemed kind of feisty. He’d always liked his ladies blonde, agreeable, and a little on the full-figured side. Maggie’s hair was dark and her frame maybe too slender, although he’d had to readjust his thinking when he’d seen her today. She moved like a dancer; she was graceful and lithe, and if he hadn’t been so distracted and irrationally angry, he might have liked to just watch her move, surreptitiously of course. She was funny, too. His mouth twitched a little, remembering....donut seeds. He had been in no mood to give into her attempts to make him smile, but he smiled now as he thought of her dopey jokes.

He hadn’t meant to grab her, or to kiss her for that matter. He had wanted her to tell him what she knew. But everything she said just made him more confused. He felt so out of control; and she was so infuriating, the way she looked at him like she understood what he was going through. Worst of all, she was in love with him. He could see it all over her face. And then he had seen that picture in the book she’d shown him. The picture of Irene in what appeared to be a peach dress, just like in his dream. Not red. And Maggie had commented on it too. All at once he had been suspicious that the universe was playing tricks on him, like his existence was just a wall of cards and any minute it would come crashing down and he would lose another fifty years.

It was then that he’d grabbed Maggie and held on. He had mocked her and teased her. But it was to cover his fear and to give himself an excuse to hold her tighter. She had felt good in his arms. Her taste was sweet on his lips, and he had forgotten for a moment that none of it was real. She had pushed him away, but not without kissing him back first.

She said she loved him. She said she would help him. But Johnny was fast coming to the realization that he was way beyond help. He was in quicksand up to his neck, and he was sinking fast. He almost welcomed the thought of oblivion and wished the end would come quickly.

***

Since the night of the fire that destroyed Honeyville High School, the town had scrambled to make arrangements for the 600 students that had been misplaced by the fire. Before the fall of 1958 and the erection of the new school, Honeyville High School had been located on Main Street. The original buildings still stood, but they had been renovated and were now used as city buildings, including a library, a senior citizens center, and a courthouse. The old school gymnasium had been used as a recreation center for the past fifty years, getting a face-lift every so often to keep it safe and habitable.

The school board and Mayor Pratt, along with the teachers and administrators of the high school, decided the best course of action would be to move the students back to the “old” high school for the time being, as it was the only facility large enough to accommodate the entire student body.

A new courthouse and county jail had been completed earlier in the year, and the city had planned on demolishing the building that had housed both the court and the city jail, now almost 100 years old. Instead, the space was reverted back to a high school and all the city functions were moved to the new court house, along with a few trailers and portables for the police station and other various displaced city offices. The people of Honeyville would have to do without a library and a rec center during school hours. The original high school cafeteria had been remodeled into a senior center long ago, so the old folks were misplaced during the day as well, relinquishing their space for its original purpose. In just a matter of weeks, a temporary high school was pulled together, and Maggie and her classmates were back at school. There were no lockers, very few computers, lots of thrown together work spaces and mismatched desks, but it was functional, and Maggie was glad to get back to some sort of steady routine.

Gus had moved to the new/old school with the rest of the high school staff, and Maggie still cleaned after hours, collecting trash in strange rooms and unfamiliar hallways, trying to pretend nothing had changed. But things had changed; Maggie felt the shift within herself was almost as noticeable as her altered surroundings. Maybe it was the age of the old school, or Maggie’s heightened sensitivities since the fire, but on more than one occasion she had seen glimpses of people and events long since past. There were no lunch ladies at the temporary Honeyville High cafeteria – the facilities weren’t sufficient, so students just brought lunches from home, but Maggie had seen a lunch lady with a white kerchief covering her hair, wearing a truly ancient pair of sturdy shoes and an apron covered dress, dishing up huge portions of nothing on tray after tray to kids who no longer lined up at her cafeteria window. One morning before dance practice she’d seen a boy in canvas sneakers and outdated shorts standing at the free-throw line, tossing up a ball that made no sound as it bounced off the gymnasium floor. The frequency of the sightings was unnerving, but Maggie attempted to ignore them as best she could. Usually, they blinked out in a matter of seconds, and Maggie was never truly frightened by them.

Dance team practices resumed, but the team now had to meet before school in the old gymnasium, and many of the girls complained about the rough floors and poor lighting. Maggie didn’t care as long as she could dance and, in dancing, lose herself for an hour or two. Region competition came and went, and then state. Then morning dance rehearsals were no longer scheduled as the end of the year drew close, but Maggie continued to come early before school, turning on the music and finding solace in the movement and a measure of joy in the quiet of the old gymnasium.