Slow Dance in Purgatory(56)

“He’s very alone.” Maggie lifted her head and met Gus’s steady gaze. She would talk to him. He would believe her. “He’s been there for a long, long time. We’ve become friends….” She couldn’t continue. The pain was a writhing, churning hole in her chest, and it consumed her ability to speak.

Gus seemed at a loss for words as well. He simply sat, staring off, pondering what she had revealed. The stillness in the room was stifling. Maggie buried her face in her arms.

Irene suddenly shook herself briskly and, leaning forward, she grasped Maggie’s face in her hands, forcing her to look at her. Irene’s blue eyes were wide with worry and something close to fear.

“Maggie? Tell us what to do for you…and for….Johnny.” Irene choked on his name, like she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can help.”

Maggie placed her hands over her aunt’s and with considerable effort spoke the final, inescapable truth.

“That’s just it. You can’t help. I can’t help. No one can.”

“Surely….there’s something?” Irene let her hands fall from Maggie’s cheeks, and she shook her head helplessly.

“I love you, Aunt Irene. But…. please, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I will be okay. I don’t want you to worry….I’m just so tired.”

Maggie wouldn’t talk about it anymore. Surprisingly, talking about Johnny was strangely cathartic, but it also illuminated the impossibility of the situation and made her despair all the more complete. A big part of her didn’t want to explain -- even to the people she loved. Trying to put her feelings into words cheapened them, reducing her relationship with Johnny to some kind of tawdry carnival side show. She gently pulled away from her aunt and sank down in her bed. Her eyes fluttered closed, effectively shutting out further conversation.

Irene stared down at her niece for a moment and then rose from the bed. She smoothed Maggie’s blankets up over her thin shoulders. Her loving tenderness had Maggie fighting emotion all over again, and the tears threatened to leak out from under her closed lids.

“Let’s leave her alone now,” Irene sighed, herding Gus and Shad from the room. Maggie didn’t watch them leave, but she heard the door click behind them and the stairs groan with their departure. They hadn’t banished her to some far corner of the world or to some mental institution. Aunt Irene had said she wouldn’t let her go; she said she loved her. Maggie still had a home. The relief was almost as sharp as her agony.

***

Nobody saw Shad take the key sitting on Maggie’s little desk in her room. He had seen it when he’d been relegated to the corner chair during Maggie’s interrogation. He had known immediately what it belonged to, and almost as immediately he had begun to form a plan. He rationalized his theft by telling himself that if Maggie had a key then by all rights, so should he. Plus, he would return it. Maybe.

He made an excuse to Grandpa Gus about needing some time alone or some such garbage. Grandpa nodded and waved him off. Shad climbed on his bike and began peddling hard for the scene of the crime. He knew Grandpa Gus and Miss Honeycutt were just going to wring their hands and mutter and worry, but he was actually going to do something about this whole crazy mess Maggie had gotten herself into. His heart pounded in his chest as different gory and violent scenarios played out in his head. He must be crazy for what he was about to do. Could ghosts kill people? It looked like he was about to find out.

When he threw his bike down by the side entrance door, he didn’t give himself a chance to think or chicken out. He slipped the key into the lock and entered the school like a man with a mission. He adopted his George Jefferson swagger, just to give himself a little confidence. He strutted angrily up and down the halls for a few minutes before it occurred to him that he might not be able to see the ghost. Maggie seemed to be able to – and Grandpa Gus, too. Maybe Maggie had super powers she wasn’t even aware of. Seeing ghosts was a power he would gladly do without. Plus, it didn’t matter if he could see Maggie’s foggy lover-boy. He had a message to deliver, and he would deliver it loud and clear.

“Johnny Kinross!” he shouted as loudly as he could. His voice broke embarrassingly on the K, and he tried again, not quite as loud.

“Johnny Kinross!” He waited, hoping the ghost had been alerted.

“Johnny Kinross! I know you’re around here somewhere. I want you to listen up, you steamy excuse for a man. I want you to keep your ghost-y white Casper ass away from Maggie. She don’t need attention from the likes of you! Do you hear me Johnny Kinross?” Shad was really working up a good mad. It felt good to yell and scream a little - totally therapeutic.

“She deserves better! What were you thinking, misty man? This girl is a wreck, and you are the cause! If you had a face, I’d pound it in! If you had a freakin’ body, I’d kill you all over again.” Ooh, that was good. Shad liked the way that sounded. He kept walking and ranting.

“That girl has had a shitty life. Nobody lookin’ out for her, people passing her from one place to the next. Now she finally gets a life and somebody who actually wants her, and look who comes along? Mr. Invisible!!!” Shad roared like the preacher in his old church. Maybe that’s what he should be when he grew up.

“That’s right! Then you come along. You, who are less than nothing. Now she thinks she’s in love with you, and what does that get her? You guessed it – NOTHING!” Shad’s voice broke again, but this time it wasn’t hormones, it was outrage, outrage and grief for Maggie’s sake.