Prom Night in Purgatory(49)

“Ah hah!” She said triumphantly, pulling out the little silver purse that she’d taken with her to the prom. It had fallen to the floor and been kicked beyond her sight. She knew Aunt Irene had tucked a lipstick inside when they’d been playing dress-up. She popped it open and pulled out not only the lipstick but her black framed glasses.

“I forgot these were in here!” Out of habit, Maggie unfolded them and set them on her nose. She pulled the cap off the gold tube of lipstick and lifted her eyes up to the mirror to guide her application.

Something was wrong. Maggie reached out to touch the mirror, confused by the empty glass. She couldn’t see her reflection. She tried to adjust the mirror, positioning herself directly in front of it, but her hands disappeared in front of her face as she stared at them through the lenses of the glasses she had not needed since slipping through time.

“No!” Maggie reached for the handle of the door, crying out for Johnny. What had been an insistent tugging previously was now a black hole -- a sucking, churning whirlpool. Maggie tried to remove the glasses from her eyes, but she had no power over her limbs. There was no sound and no air and then the world around her faded, and she was no longer in Johnny’s car. Maggie clawed frantically for something to cling to but felt herself being pulled under. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe! And then darkness engulfed her, and she fought no more.

***

Maggie wasn’t lying next to him when he awoke. The sun had risen quite high in the sky, and Johnny sat up suddenly, astonished by the length of time he had slept. Maggie’s red shoes lay next to his near the bottom of the blanket, so she couldn’t have gone far. He rubbed his hands back and forth through his rumpled hair and ran his hands across his bristly jaw. He must look a sight. It was a good thing he was a handsome son of a bitch. He laughed at himself and realized that he felt almost euphoric. He was in love with a girl named Maggie. He’d never been in love before. He didn’t even know her last name. He stood, stretching and looked around. Where was she?

“Maggie?” he called, combing the beach with his gaze. He swung around, calling her name. The driver’s side door of the car was slightly ajar. He walked to it and opened the car door all the way, almost expecting her to be sleeping on the front seat, having gotten uncomfortable or cold in the night. She wasn’t there. He slid in and felt around, hoping he had left a comb in the jockey box...or maybe a breath mint. Her little silver purse lay on the seat. He popped it open, but it was completely empty. What girl brings an empty purse to a dance? Don’t they cram as many things as they can into their bags and purses? Apparently not Maggie. He stared into it, at a loss. He caught a glint of something gold and shiny out of the corner of his eye. He leaned down and picked up a cap off of the floor of the Bel Air. It looked like the cap from a tube of lipstick.

His rear view mirror was at the wrong angle, and he righted it, thinking Maggie must have checked her reflection for it to be so skewed. She must have walked down to the water. Maybe she had gone to find a bathroom. He didn’t know why she’d left her shoes. Of course, her red heels couldn’t be much more comfortable than walking barefoot, especially where the sand got deep. He stepped out of the car and slipped his own shoes on. He loped down to the water and proceeded to wet his hair, wash his face, and rinse his mouth with cold water. He would just wait until she came back, and then he would head over to the Ranger station to get help starting his car.

An hour later there was still no sign of her. Johnny had walked up and down the beach, calling her name. He had walked the quarter of a mile down to the Ranger station, where there also happened to be some nicer bathrooms, but no one had seen any sign of her. The beach had started filling up with cars and families, with their kids and their pets and their big brightly colored umbrellas.

Three hours after he’d awakened to find Maggie missing, Johnny had to admit to himself that she was long gone. He was angry, but more than that, he was afraid. Why wouldn’t she take her shoes? The girl was a mystery, no doubt about it. She had said that she didn’t know how long she would be around, and some of her comments of the night before now niggled at him. Maybe she was a little messed up in the head. It had all been so romantic and real, and she had been so intense and clear eyed that he had almost believed her when she had started saying things that he didn’t understand and couldn’t even fathom. But he couldn’t stand the thought that she might be gone for good. What if he never saw her again? The answering ache that gripped his chest was almost as frightening as her disappearance.

He headed home, checking to make sure his momma had made it in the night before and that Billy was okay. Billy had made himself a big sandwich and was reading the business section of the Texas Times when Johnny walked in the front door. Johnny was good at math, and he could fix almost anything, but he had never sat down and read the newspaper like his little brother or poured over books at the library like they held the secrets of the universe. Billy was smart, and if Johnny looked out for him and made sure Momma stayed out of trouble, Billy could grow up to be somebody important one day. He could go to college, see the world, make something of himself. That’s what Johnny wanted more than anything.

“Are you just getting home?” Billy’s eyes were wide behind his thick glasses. “Peggy’s old man is going to kill you!” Peggy’s father was a deputy for the Honeyville Police Department, and he really didn’t like Johnny very much. He also didn’t like the fact that his daughter attracted boys like flies.