Prom Night in Purgatory(46)

“It was the truth,” Maggie declared vehemently, and dared him to deny it.

“Hell, yes, it was,” Johnny agreed, and laughed a little. “Remind me not to get on your bad side, Bonnie.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be here! I had to speak up when I had the chance,” Maggie defended herself lightly.

“So you’re new in town, and you don’t know how long you’ll be here. How did you find yourself at the prom, without a date, in a stolen car?”

“I had an amazing dress.” Maggie stalled.

Johnny just turned his head and looked at her, his face patient, waiting.

Maggie decided to go all in. “I went to the dance to find you.”

Johnny sat up slowly and looked down at her, laying with her hair spread around her, skin porcelain in the darkness.

“You better be careful, little girl,” Johnny’s voice was quiet, but his eyebrows were drawn together over his deep set eyes, eyes that were colorless in the white light of the moon. “You’re all alone out here with someone you really don’t know, saying some pretty serious things. You could give a boy the wrong idea.”

Maggie felt frustration well up inside her and tears gather in her eyes. Gravity betrayed her, and several leaked out the corners and hurried straight down to pool in her ears.

Johnny reached out and wiped one damp trail with the pad of his thumb. “Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Maggie just shook her head a little, and his hand fell away from her face, but he braced it next to her head and continued looking down at her.

“Have you ever been somewhere, doing something when all at once you swear you’ve done it all before? Everything feels like it’s repeating itself all of a sudden?” Maggie asked hesitantly.

“Like Deja vu?” Johnny answered

“That’s what some people call it. My friend Gus told me that his grandma said Deja vu is actually time changing its mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“She described it as time making a shift from the way things were to the way things are, and sometimes we feel that shift, or briefly remember how things were....before.”

“Before what, Maggie?” Johnny’s voice was hushed, but he didn’t sound frustrated or even confused. He was just listening.

“Before someone or something caused time to change.”

They gazed at each other for several heartbeats, until the crickets started up softly and other night sounds wafted around them. Johnny seemed to be mulling over what she had said.

“Have you and I met before?” he asked finally.

“Yes....and no.”

Johnny waited again.

“If time is sequential, then tonight is the first time we’ve ever met. But if time is just one eternal circle, it’s hard to know when ‘before’ ends and ‘after’ begins.”

Johnny stood up abruptly and walked down to the water’s edge. He set his hands on his hips and stared out, facing away from her. He was silhouetted against the silver glass of the lake, youthful and strong, and still doomed by fate. Maggie knew she was talking in riddles, making absolutely no sense.

Maggie slid her feet into her shoes and made her way across the rocky shore and down to the hard packed sand, stepping gingerly in the high red heels to keep from twisting an ankle. She too stopped at the water’s edge, just out of reach of the lapping tide.

“What do you call a smart blonde?” she blurted out awkwardly.

Johnny’s head swiveled around in confusion.

“What do you call a smart blonde?” she repeated.

“I don’t know,” Johnny hedged, his eyebrows high, waiting.

“A golden retriever.”

Johnny threw back his head and laughed. “What?!”

“Well, I thought the time space continuum might be a little heavy for the first date.” Maggie wrinkled her nose at him sheepishly. “I thought I’d tell you a joke to lighten things up.”

“I see.” Johnny grinned down at her. He was quiet for a moment, his wheels turning. Then he offered a joke of his own.

“You heard about the blonde coyote that got caught in a trap, didn’t you?” Johnny was pretty quick on the uptake. Blonde jokes were not a fifties phenomenon.

“No, I didn’t hear about that,” Maggie smiled, waiting.

“Yeah, it gnawed off three of its legs and it was still stuck.”

Maggie’s laughter peeled out over the water and they were off, shooting jokes back and forth, the weighty conversation of minutes before long forgotten. They bantered like that for almost an hour with silly things and questions designed to get to know one another. Maggie recognized the Johnny she had come to know and love, but she also enjoyed the Johnny who was not yet weighed down or aged by the years he’d been imprisoned in Purgatory. She didn’t return to the topic of her appearance at the prom or why she had no place to go. She lived in the moment with him and resolved to will herself home when and if the moment passed. And of course the thought niggled at the back of her brain...what if she could stay?

“All right, the question that everyone asks eventually...favorite color?” Maggie intoned.

“Pink,” Johnny replied seriously, without pause.

“Really?” Maggie had asked him this question before....or after. She shook her head, her mind swimming. In Purgatory he’d told her his favorite color was white. He said white felt safe.