Prom Night in Purgatory(72)

“I’m talking to you, Billy Boy,” Roger repeated. “I don’t like you putting your greasy paws on my girl.” He strolled up to the bar and slung his heavy arm around Irene’s shoulders, pulling her tight against him. She immediately slid off the school and tried to steer him away from the unfortunate Billy.

“He was just asking me if I was okay. I came here to get something to eat, but I shouldn’t have. I started feeling sick right away,” Irene explained, trying to soothe Roger’s ruffled feathers. She was good at it. When were his feathers not ruffled?

Roger shrugged her off and grabbed Billy by the back of his collar, pulling him from his stool roughly.

“Take it outside, boys!” Val bellowed, and Roger shoved Billy toward the door.

“You heard him, Billy boy. We’re taking this outside.”

“Roger.” Irene laid her hand on his shoulder, trying desperately to be cajoling and sweet, trying to distract him from his clear intention to pummel the younger, smaller boy.

Roger slapped at her hand, and Billy Kinross grabbed Roger’s shirt, pushing him out of the diner in a way that surprised both Irene and Roger. It seemed the kid had learned a thing or two from his older brother.

Roger stumbled out of the door, Billy Kinross hot on his heels. The group of kids preparing to enter the popular hangout all stopped and stared.

Roger recovered instantly. His swing caught the younger boy full in the mouth, and he followed that with a hard slug to his midsection.

Billy went down with a grunt. Roger grabbed him, pulling him to his feet. Roger had about 20 pounds and several inches on Billy, as well as a streak of mean that wasn’t natural, and he laid into the boy with a fervor that had the circle of kids shifting nervously. Billy had fallen to the ground again and was mostly just trying to protect himself as Roger fell on top of him, raining blows wherever he could connect.

Then startled cries and shouts rose up as a figure pushed his way through the crowd, shoving the nervous bystanders this way and that in an effort to reach his brother. Johnny Kinross grabbed the back of Roger Carlton’s shirt with both hands and swung him up and off of his brother, tossing him to the side. He knelt by his brother without sparing the raging bully a second glance. A few of Johnny’s friends stepped in and held the outraged Roger by the arms, waiting until Johnny was assured Billy hadn’t been seriously hurt. Billy’s mouth and nose were bleeding, but he waved off Johnny’s concern and rose shakily to his feet. Johnny pulled off his shirt to stem the bloody flow, and checked his brother surreptitiously for more serious injury. When he was satisfied that his brother wasn’t seriously hurt, he turned, his stance wide, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. His face wore the fury of a man who has been pushed as far as he will go.

“Let him go.”

“Johnny?”

“Let him go,” Johnny demanded again, raising his voice. His friends obeyed immediately, freeing Roger and stepping away from him.

Johnny strode forward and without pause or hesitation, plowed his fist into Roger’s jaw. Roger dropped like a sack of potatoes, his head rolling to the side as his legs and arms flopped comically in a dead faint. The crowd grew quiet as Johnny leaned over the inert form. Johnny patted Roger’s cheeks roughly until Roger responded, groaning and tossing his head from side to side. He would live.

Johnny straightened and leveled his gaze at Roger’s cowering friends.

“Tonight, at the new school. We’re gonna finish this. Just Roger and me and whoever else has a problem with the Kinross boys. You make sure he’s there or I’ll find him and I’ll find all of you, and it won’t be pretty. You got that?”

***





2011


There were marks on her neck the next morning. Maggie tried to convince herself it had all been a dream, but the bruises proved otherwise. And as afraid as she was of slipping back into a time and space that Roger occupied, she was more afraid of upsetting the new possibilities that loomed on the horizon. Johnny was hers again, Saturday was the prom, and the future stretched out before her like a golden sunrise. Maggie knew she had to get out of Irene’s house. The episodes were getting worse. She only hoped that she couldn’t die in another time, that her mortality would yank her back to where she belonged. But hope was a very weak lifeline, and she knew how foolish she was being.

Still, she didn’t tell Irene what had happened. She didn’t tell Johnny either. She told herself she would. She told herself she would come clean after the dance, and then she and Irene and Johnny would make a plan. Maybe she could stay with Johnny and Jillian Bailey. Graduation was three weeks away, and then she would be free to live or do whatever she pleased. She resumed wearing her glasses to bed and slept with her iPod programmed to play only current songs. With the music of her own time pounding in her ears, she managed to sleep and live without incident the following night and then the next.





~22~

A Time to Lose





Maggie picked Johnny up at eight o'clock in the pink Cadillac. She had resisted all his efforts to be the “man” and pick her up in his Bel Air. She remembered how, in Purgatory, he had wanted to drive the Cadillac, how he said he had coveted the car when spoiled Irene Honeycutt had received it on her seventeenth birthday. Now he would have his turn behind the wheel. Plus this way they could avoid Irene and any awkwardness. Irene had helped Maggie get ready, even getting a little teary when Maggie had donned the red dress. Maggie hadn't been able to explain that the reason Irene had never found the dress in 1958 was because Maggie had worn it back to 2011, skipping all the years in between. After all, there were never two red dresses. It made Maggie’s head spin just thinking about it, and she and Irene didn’t dwell on the tangled ball of yarn that time had become.