Slow Dance in Purgatory (10 page)

             
“That’s the sorta part.”

             
Maggie held her breath, feeling his hand pressing into hers.  It was warm and firm, and his fingers dwarfed hers by two inches.  It was flesh and bone just as she remembered, and there was a slight vibration that hummed against her skin as he pressed his palm to hers.
             

             
Johnny’s eyes shifted to the corridor behind her.  “There’s someone else in the school.”

             
Maggie swiveled her head around, dropping her hand.

             
“I shouldn’t be here.  I could get in trouble.”  When she turned back around, Johnny again stood in the middle of the rotunda, his hands back in his front pockets.  Maggie shook her head dizzily.  How was that possible?  She had simply turned her head for a second. 

             
“So why are you here?”  Johnny questioned softly.

             
“What?”  Maggie was still trying to figure out how he had moved so quickly.

             
“If you could get in trouble, why are you here?” he repeated patiently.

             
“I wanted to thank you for saving me,” Maggie blurted out.  “I would have been seriously hurt or killed.”

             
“We wouldn’t want that….would we?  There’s already one ghost too many around here.” 

             
Maggie gaped at him.  Was he joking?  “That’s not very funny.”

             
“No….it’s not, is it?”  Johnny looked a little flummoxed, and he ran his hands through his hair, barely disturbing the golden strands.  “My conversation skills are a little rusty, I’m afraid.”

             
Several voices echoed down the long hall, growing closer to the entrance where Maggie and her strange companion stood.  Maggie was caught between needing to run and desperately wanting to stay.  Johnny nodded towards the door.   

             
“Go out the front.  The door locks from the outside.  Nobody will ever know you were here.”

             
Maggie ran for the entrance but turned to make sure he hadn’t disappeared.   He hadn’t moved an inch.

             
“Johnny?”

             
“Yes, Margaret?”

             
“You can call me Maggie, most everyone else does.”

             
“Okay...Maggie.”

             
“Maybe I can help you with the rust issue,” Maggie suggested hopefully.

             
Johnny didn't respond, but he smiled a little.

             
“You won’t hide from me next time, will you?”

             
Johnny shook his head.

             
“So I’ll see you on Monday, then?”

             
“What day is today?

             
“You don’t know?”

             
“I don’t keep track.  It’s easier that way.”

             
Maggie stared at him wordlessly, shaken by his response.  He returned her gaze without further explanation.

             
“Then I will just see you soon,” she acquiesced softly.

             
“I would like that very much, Maggie.”

7

“ALL SHOOK UP”

Elvis Presley - 1957

             
On Sunday, Maggie squirmed through church and fussed and fidgeted through dinner.  She rattled and cracked her way through the after supper dishes, breaking one saucer and a teacup, and fiddled incessantly with everything in sight until finally Aunt Irene ordered her from the house with instructions to “go work off some of that nervous energy!”

             
“Gus?”  Maggie asked the old man as he rocked beside Aunt Irene on the front porch swing.  “Do you think I could go to the school and dance for a while – would that be okay?”

             
Gus thought for a moment and then gave a quick puff on his fragrant pipe.  “I suppose it wouldn’t do no harm.  But take Shadrach with you."

             
Maggie stopped in her tracks.  Taking Shad wouldn't work.  Gnawing her lip, Maggie turned, wondering how she was going to get out of the house without hurting his feelings.

             
"I was going to rehearse my dance routines, and Shad will be bored, won't you Shad?"  Maggie asked hopefully.

             
"I can shoot a little hoop, get my Michael Jordan on."  Shad shot an imaginary ball and then dribbled it through his legs.  His feet got tangled with the imaginary ball, and he went down hard on his butt.  His Michael Jordan definitely needed work.  Maggie groaned.

             
"Fine," Maggie grumped, "but you stay in the gym.  I can't dance with you wanting to show me a move every ten seconds, okay?"  Maybe Johnny would still show up.

             
“Take the car, dear!”  It’s getting dark, and I don’t want you riding that bike home at night,” Irene insisted graciously.

             
And don’t go wanderin’ about alone, Miss Margaret.” Gus had been quite shaken by her near fall the week before.  “Your guardian angel may not be nearby to help you this time.”

             
Irene raised questioning eyebrows at Gus’s comment.  They hadn’t told her about the dumbwaiter fiasco.  Maggie didn’t hang around to see if Gus spilled the beans.  Shouting at Shad to meet her in the car, she ran into the house and up the stairs, pulling on a leotard and a wrap around skirt and pushing her feet into ballet flats.  Pulling a brush through her long hair, she flew back down the stairs and yanked the keys from the rack, slipping out the back door to avoid the couple on the front porch.

             
Aunt Irene’s ancient Cadillac was parked in the unattached garage, and Maggie eased into the front seat next to Shad, slamming the door and starting the engine.  Aunt Irene had had this car since high school.  Its tailfins dated it to the late 50s, and it was so long Maggie only drove it when she knew she wouldn’t have to maneuver it into any tight spaces.  It had been meticulously cared for and could probably be sold for a pretty penny.  Aunt Irene had stubbornly hung onto it through a bad marriage and Roger’s attempts to sell it.  She’d hung on to it through the loss of her wealth and most of her possessions, and finally through the loss of all of her family except Maggie.  The Honeyville Bank and Trust would get Irene’s home when she died.  The only reason she had stayed in it as long as she had was because her close friends owned the bank and had reversed the mortgage, taking ownership of the house and giving her a small stipend to live on and the right to live in the house until she died.  When she did, Maggie would be out of a home once more.  But she would have the car.  Aunt Irene had made sure of that.

             
Maggie parked her inheritance in the back of the school and hoped that her being there wouldn’t get Gus in trouble.  They should be safe.  Nobody spent Sunday evenings at the school.  She would stay in the dance room like she had said she would, and Shad would stay in the gym.  Hopefully, Johnny would know she was there.  Her heart sped up at the thought of him, and she checked her reflection in the big rearview mirror.  Her blue eyes were bright with anticipation, and her cheeks and lips were flushed pink.  Her skin looked good; she could usually count on that, and she looked much better without her glasses.  She was going to have to replace them soon.  Everything was so blurry. Gus had looked for them at the bottom of the dumbwaiter shaft, but he hadn’t been able to find them.  She wished she had contacts, but Irene couldn’t afford them and Maggie would never ask.  Her own money went to dancing and school clothes and the miscellaneous items that really seemed to add up.  Contacts were a vanity she really couldn’t indulge.  It had never really bothered her before, but somehow she didn’t think a girl with big glasses was the type of girl Johnny Kinross would go for, or would have gone for…before.  Maggie sighed.  She was mooning over a guy who was ‘sorta dead.’  Something was seriously wrong with her.  She pushed the thought out of her head.   

             
"Come on, Mags!  I'm the only one here to impress, and I already think you're beautiful." Shad had already gotten out and was waiting in front of the car, impatiently tossing his basketball from one hand to the other.

             
The school felt warm and cozy when she entered, like maybe it was glad to see her.  Shooing Shad to the gym, she waited until his footsteps faded.  Several minutes passed, and she wondered if she should call out to Johnny.  She suddenly felt shy and awkward.  He would know she was there.  Better to let him come to her.  The thought made goose bumps rise on her arms, and she hoped he wouldn't simply appear in front of her.  She walked slowly down the hall to the dance room and unlocked it, propping it wide.  Could ghosts open doors?  Maggie shook her head violently.  The whole thing was bizarre, and trying to make sense of it was impossible.

             
Maggie moved to put some music on and hesitated once more.  How could she start dancing when, at any moment, Johnny could waltz into the room or worse, not show himself at all?  She could rehearse her team's dance numbers, but the routines were flamboyant and sexy, and Maggie knew she didn’t have that kind of confidence at the moment.  She was at a complete loss.  How was she ever going to be able to dance as long as she knew he could be watching?  Maggie walked to the barre and proceeded to move through her standard warm-up, but found that her eyes kept searching the room behind her in the mirror, expecting him to be there, knowing he would startle her when he was. After fifteen minutes of a truly pathetic warm-up, Maggie sighed and sank to the floor.  This wasn't working. 

             
"You aren't dancing." Johnny leaned against the dance room door, arms crossed in front of him, one black boot propped against the other. 

   
             
Maggie shrieked a little and smothered it with both hands.  Darn him! 

             
"You have to stop popping up out of nowhere and scaring me!"  Maggie grabbed the ballet barre over her head and pulled herself to her feet, hands clutching at the barre to keep from shaking.

             
"I wasn't trying to scare you.  I just couldn't think of a way to approach you
without
scaring you," Johnny confessed softly.  "I was almost afraid to try.  I was worried you wouldn't be able to see me again, that it had all been some cruel cosmic joke."   The thought that Johnny might be as unsure of himself as she was made Maggie feel a little better.

             
They regarded each other warily.  Maggie couldn't seem to take her eyes from him.  Maybe it was because she was afraid he would dissolve into thin air.  She was sure it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that his skin was golden and his eyes were a piercing blue, or that his shirt clung to his muscled shoulders and arms like a sculpture in a museum.

             
"Your skin is darker than mine.  How is that possible?"  Maggie blurted out, and then almost groaned out loud at how silly she sounded.  Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who was a little rusty at conversation with the opposite sex.

             
"It was August when I was.... changed.   Now nothing changes.  My hair doesn't grow, my skin color doesn't lighten, I don't age."  Johnny shrugged as if it was no big deal.  "My clothes don't even wear out."  Johnny pulled his t-shirt away from his beautiful chest and let it go again, sliding his hands down to shove them in his jean pockets and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  His eyes met hers, considering.

             
"Are you still afraid?"  He asked bluntly.

             
Maggie brought her hands to her heart.  It was pounding.  "No," she lied. 

             
"Why aren't you dancing?" 

             
"I was afr..."  Maggie cut off abruptly, caught admitting something she had just denied.  She tried again. "I was nervous ... um, I guess I felt…self-conscious." Maggie finished in a jumbled rush and looked down at her feet.

             
"I'll leave."

             
"But... can't you still see me, I mean, can't you watch me without me knowing it?" 

             
"Yes.  But I won't."

             
Maggie considered it for a moment.  The thought of him leaving made her feel bereft, though she didn’t want to examine those feelings too closely.  

             
"Don't leave.  Just.... can we talk some more?  I don't think I want to dance today."

             
"Do you want to walk?"

             
Maggie remembered that she had promised Gus she wouldn't go wandering around.  Of course, he
had
said don't go wandering around alone.  She wouldn't be alone.