Prom Night in Purgatory(31)

“Take off your glasses,” Irene demanded. “Let me do your eyes. You know they say a girl can never wear too much blue eye shadow!”

“No! Aunt Irene!” Maggie objected, pulling away.

“I’m teasing! Wrong decade, Maggie!” Irene chortled at her own joke and proceeded with a surprisingly light hand to line and shadow Maggie’s eyes. Stepping back, she clucked over her handiwork. Then she reached for a tube of deep red lipstick and demanded that Maggie pucker up.

“Now. You take your lipstick and put it in your little purse....see? Right here.” Irene produced the little sparkly silver purse she had discovered in the attic. She unhooked the clasp with a snap and dropped the little gold-plated lipstick tube in the bag.

“It’s the perfect size. Look, you could even fit your glasses inside.” Irene demonstrated the convenience of the little clutch. Then, clicking it shut, she handed it to Maggie.

‘You are now ready for the dance. Now let’s see you twirl!” Maggie stood, and stepping into the matching shoes, she twirled for Irene. She immediately found herself giggling with delight. Girls never outgrew playing dress-up.

Irene clapped and giggled right along with her. “The hair is different than mine would have been. It wasn’t really in fashion to wear it long. But you and I definitely could have passed for sisters.” Irene began to hum and, extending her arms to Maggie, began spinning her around the bedroom in a dizzy dance to her off-key tune.

Around and around they went until Irene got quite breathless and collapsed onto her bed, her dress poofing out around her, revealing her skinny legs and old-lady knees. Maggie curled up beside her and stared at the high ceiling as she waited for Irene to catch her breath.

“We girls danced together all the time when I was young,” Irene sighed. “You do it nowadays, and people call you mean names, but we would jive and jitterbug and swing together all the time. The fancy dresses kind of get in the way, though.” Irene giggled again, and at that moment she sounded very much like a seventeen-year-old girl.

“You should have worn this dress, Auntie,” Maggie murmured. “The peach is beautiful, but maybe the red would have forced you out of your shell.”

“Aw, Maggie. I was never in a shell. It was more like a self-imposed cell. I don’t think anything could have altered the path I was on. Not even a bright red dress. I think back on those days. What if I hadn’t married Roger? What if I’d gone to New York and studied fashion like I secretly dreamed. What if I’d gone to Paris for the summer after I graduated like my daddy promised me I could? I look back and think what an absolute ninny I was.”

“Why didn’t you do those things?”

“I didn’t understand that the choices we make stay with us forever, Maggie. My daddy always spoiled me. He gave me everything I wanted. But most of all, he adored me. I took it for granted. I just thought everyone would treat me that way. I didn’t know how precious his love was. Then Roger came along, and he was rude to me, made me cry, treated me quite badly. We called it playing hard to get. I was intrigued by him. I made it my goal to make him want me -- to be his girl. It was a game to me. It wasn’t until after we were married that I realized that Roger would never adore me. He might have loved me; I actually think he did in a way. But he would never think I hung the moon like my daddy did. He would never treat me like I was a treasure, because to him, I wasn’t. I had no value to Roger beyond the pretty face and the Honeycutt name. And now, here I am, seventy-one years old, and the choice I made at seventeen is the choice I still have to live with today. So many times I could have left. But I had lost all confidence in my ability to make good choices. I didn’t have any education or world experience, so I stayed. And I gave my life away.”

For a long time, neither of them spoke but lay, watching the ceiling fan whirring its peaceful tune. Time was a greedy banker who never paid interest.

“Johnny feels like his life was taken away....” Maggie whispered, slipping her hand into Irene’s. “I know it’s not the same...but he has his whole life in front of him and doesn’t want it. You have your whole life behind you and wish you could have it back.”

Maggie waited, wondering if she’d said something wrong, but Irene didn’t reply. Propping herself up on her elbow, she peered down at Irene. She was asleep. A delicate snore escaped her open mouth, and Maggie shook her head fondly and pulled a coverlet over the two of them. There was no way she was getting up for dance practice in an hour. Or school for that matter. Lying down again, she drifted off to sleep, her head filled with images of Johnny and Irene, young and carefree in 1958.

***

Maggie awoke to the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a cheerful disc jockey counting down in another room. She felt like she had been asleep for a only a short while, but from the amount of sunshine streaming in the windows, it had been a lot longer than that. Irene no longer lay beside her, but the peach formal was laid across the bed. The bed was neatly made beneath her. Huh? How had Irene managed that?

“Note to self,” Maggie said out loud, struggling to a sitting position. “Prom dresses are not for sleeping.” The red dress was cutting into her sides and making her legs itch like she had rolled in grass. The thin bejeweled strap of the silver clutch was wrapped around her wrist; she even had the red shoes on her feet. Looking down at them, she felt a little like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She clicked her red heels together a couple of times and said the required line about there not being any place like home. Climbing off the bed, Maggie attempted to straighten and smooth the wrinkled dress.