Prom Night in Purgatory(59)

She looked down at the page he had opened to, looking into the laughing visages of Irene and her friends. She had seen that picture before. There was the picture of Johnny and Peggy. A strange lump formed in her throat as her eyes lingered on Johnny’s smiling face. Just last night, just hours before, she has kissed that mouth and danced in those arms, and here he was again with the great stone face.

And then her eyes fell on a picture that she hadn’t seen before. It was a shot of the dance floor. Couples danced in close proximity, and the effect was slightly blurred as if the cameraman had caught everyone in differing degrees of motion, everyone but the couple in the center of the shot. Maggie gasped as she recognized what she was seeing.

It was a picture of Johnny and her. They stood motionless, their hands clasped between them. Johnny was staring down at her, and her chin was lifted toward him, her eyes locked on his. Maggie couldn’t pull her eyes away from the picture, and for several hushed seconds the sounds around the room magnified tenfold: the ticking of the clock on the mantle, the chirping of birds outside, the far off sound of a passing car. And her own heart, pounding in her chest.

“I remember you, Maggie,” Johnny whispered, close to her ear, his breath tickling the hair that hung near her cheek. She raised her eyes to his and the blank, harsh expression was no longer there.

“I still don’t remember anything after the night of the rumble, but I remember you. I remember this!” He pointed at the picture of the two of them, captured forever in the image on the page. “I don’t know what to think, or how to feel...but I remember you.”

“You remember me?” Maggie held her breath, not daring to hope.

Johnny clenched his jaw, and he nodded once and then again, confirming her question. “I remember the prom and the way I felt when you walked in. How we danced and how you stole that damn Edsel. It was so funny, and I was trying not to laugh because you were scared to death.” Johnny laughed harshly, and then the laughter broke off, almost in a sob.

Maggie dropped the book and reached for his hands, mirroring the way they stood in the picture. His breath was harsh like he struggled to control his emotions, but he let her take his hands. He wouldn’t look at her though, dropping his chin into his chest as if the weight of his memories made his head too heavy to hold upright. She stared at his bowed head and struggled to keep from touching his golden hair.

“I didn’t remember anything yesterday. This morning it was all there. The memories, the dance, the feelings...everything....all of it in my head, and I don’t know what to make of it. That picture wasn’t here before.”

Maggie held onto his hands, gripping them and wishing she could explain everything and not knowing how, and not really understanding it herself.

“Maybe...maybe you didn’t remember because it hadn’t happened yet,” she pondered out loud.

“What the hell does that mean, Maggie?” His voice wasn’t angry, but pleading, almost begging her to explain.

“Do you remember what I tried to tell you?” Maggie rushed ahead, trying to make him understand. “You asked me if we had ever met before. You hadn’t met me, but I already knew you.” She forced his chin up, looking into his eyes, pleading with him to listen. His eyes roved over her face, searching.

“You said time could change its mind. Is that what this is?” Johnny looked away and grabbed the book again, flipping the pages as if his life depended on it. He found the page and slammed his hand down on it. “This is the report I filed with the police! You just disappeared! I thought of you every day, Maggie. I looked for you. Why did you leave like that?”

Maggie stared down at the missing persons report with her name on it. Her first name but no last name. This hadn’t been in the scrapbook before either. Why did Roger have a copy of this? History had been altered and here was the proof. Quickly her horror was replaced with the realization that Johnny had tried to find her. He had tried to find her! She felt suddenly euphoric and short of breath, and her head spun trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. It had been only hours since she’d fallen asleep in Johnny’s arms, and yet here she stood, decades later, staring down at a police record with her name on it.

Maggie collapsed into a chair as the room around her tipped dizzily. She felt, rather than saw, Johnny letting the book slide to the floor as he knelt beside her. This time, he was the one who forced her to look at him, bracing her face with his hands.

“You didn’t disappear, did you? You came back here. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Maggie nodded, her eyes filling with tears, unable to speak.

Johnny looked like he might cry right along with her, and his jaw tightened again, holding back the emotion she could see mirrored in his blue eyes. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, and it makes no sense at all,” he whispered.

Maggie reached up and locked her hands around his wrists where he still held her face in his hands. He was right. None of it made sense, but it didn’t make it any less true.

“Did I remember you in....Purgatory?” he asked, his eyes still on hers, his voice still laced with feeling.

“No,” Maggie whispered. “You said I was familiar, that you felt like you knew me. But I thought it was because I looked like Irene.”

“How can that be? Purgatory came after I met you. You said I knew who I was, and I knew my family, my story, right? So why didn’t I remember you? I wouldn’t have forgotten you, Maggie. After that night, you were all I thought about. I was obsessed with you.” Johnny shook his head, incredulous.