Slow Dance in Purgatory (14 page)

             
“Good job, Belle.”  Maggie laughed at herself.  Irene was rubbing off on her.  Running around to the side entrance, Maggie slid her key home and opened the door to the school.  She started calling for Johnny as soon as the door clicked shut behind her.

***

             
“You want me to fix your car?”  Johnny’s expression was incredulous.

             
“It’s something you’re good at, right?  I mean, you worked for a mechanic.  You know all those old cars.  This one’s a beaut!  She’s a pink Cadillac convertible and she’s in perfect condition.”

             
“Perfect condition… except she needs a new transmission?”  Johnny laughed at her attempt at salesmanship, his dimples flashing and his eyes bright with mirth.  Maggie forgot what she was saying for a moment and stared at him, awestruck.

             
“Um…yeah… well.  Can you at least have a look?”  She discovered her ability to speak was still intact.

             
“How am I going to do that?”

             
“I can pull it into the shop room.  We’ll just clear stuff out a little, and I can drive it right through the door.  I just need you to unlock it for me.  You can unlock doors, right – with your Jedi mind tricks?”

             
“My…what?”

             
“Nothing.  Sorry, it’s just something from an old movie.”

             
“I think I can handle the door.  I’ll meet you down there.”  If Maggie didn’t know better she would think he was a little excited about her proposition.

             
Maggie loped back around the school to the car and waited, wondering how it would feel to open a door and not see what was beyond it – to open a door and not be able to walk through it.  Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard Johnny on the other side of the sliding metal door. 

             
“It’s unlocked, Maggie.  I can open the door, and you can drive it through.   I can’t hear if you’re there or not, and I won’t be able to see you or the car until you cross the threshold –– so just wait until I’m outta the way.  Running myself over is one thing I haven’t tried.  It probably wouldn’t kill me the rest of the way, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t want to die today.”  His tone light, but there was truth in his banter, and the truth hurt her.

             
The door swung up and revealed Johnny on the other side.  The sun had made a late afternoon appearance, peering through the grey clouds and darting through the misty afternoon fog that lingered after the storm.  Sunlight shone directly into the open shop room, yet Johnny was not limned in gold, nor did he squint at the light or even make a shadow on the concrete floor.  The light just shot right through him like he wasn’t there at all.  It was the strangest thing Maggie had ever seen, and she stared, mesmerized, until he moved to the left, into the shadows, clearing the way for her to pull the car forward.

             
Maggie eased the car into the garage and came to a stop.  She stepped out as Johnny let out a long, low whistle.  He walked around the car, his eyes and hands roving over the long, pink Cadillac.  A confused look flickered across his face.  Johnny ran one finger along the high, thin, tail fin and looked at Maggie, a question in his eyes. 

             
“I know this car.  It’s not as shiny, and it’s a little worn around the edges, but I definitely know this car.”

             
“It has belonged to my Aunt Irene since she was seventeen years old.  She said it was brand new, right off the show-room floor.  I think you knew her…once.”

             
“Irene…Honeycutt?”

             
Maggie nodded.

             
“Irene Honeycutt is your aunt?”  Johnny’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

             
“My great aunt,” Maggie responded hesitantly, gauging the effect her words had on her new friend.  “My grandmother was her little sister.”

             
“Your grandmother…”  Johnny repeated, stunned.  He shook his head in wonder and turned his back to her, pulling the garage door down, but Maggie heard his low curse despite his attempts to cover it.

             
Maggie fiddled with the latch holding the trunk down.  She popped it and lifted her bike out, wondering how in the world they were supposed to have a conversation if everything she said had the potential to upset him, if everything was a painful reminder of lost time.

             
“Irene Honeycutt,” Johnny sighed deeply.  “I’ll be damned.  I guess that’s why you reminded me of her the first time I saw you.  You have her coloring – same dark hair and blue eyes.” Johnny reached out and tweaked her braid, shaking off the gloom that had temporarily gripped him.

             
“So tell me.  How did you get your little hands on Irene’s car?”

             
“Well – I live with her.  She and I are all the family each of us has left.  She left for the weekend, and I thought maybe I could do something for her.  You know, to thank her for taking me in and all.  Gene, I mean Harvey, said it was probably the transmission, and that sounds expensive.  I just hoped you could fix it….for free.”  Maggie wrinkled her nose at him doubtfully.  “I guess it’s a long shot, but if we can do it, it would be huge.”

             
“Little Harvey?  Gene’s boy?”  Johnny was once again caught off guard. 

             
“Yes…he’s Gene’s son.  He’s not so little anymore though.  He’s kind of old… and fat,” Maggie said matter-of-factly.

             
Johnny burst out in an incredulous chortle.  “Little Harv.  You know, he got that name toddling around the shop.  He couldn’t have been more than two.  He had these little toy cars that he pushed everywhere.  It was the sound he made for the engines revving – HARV, HARV!”  Johnny laughed again.  “We started calling him Little Harv, and then it became Harvey.  I guess it stuck, huh?”

             
Maggie grinned, relieved that the memory seemed to please Johnny.  “I guess so.”    

             
Johnny leaned into the car, smoothing his hand over the padded dash and the huge steering wheel.  He ran a thumb over the little brass plate on the dashboard that was engraved with Irene’s name.  “This thing was top of the line.  It had the dual four-barrel carburetors – 270 horses.  She could move, baby - 115 miles per hour at top speed.  I remember wishing I could take it for a spin.  It had the flashy Sabre-spoke wheels, chrome around the license plate, shark fins in back, bullets in front.  Beautiful.”  Johnny slid behind the wheel and, gripping it with both hands, marveled that it was “two toned with a horn rim.”  Maggie tried not to laugh.   Johnny just sat, admiring the car he had coveted so long ago. 

             
“Would you like to take a look under the hood?”  Maggie said suggestively, trying to urge him toward the problem areas.

             
Johnny laughed again and proceeded to do as she instructed.

             
Propping up the hood, he whistled once more.  “Harvey’s been taking good care of the old girl.  Look at that!  It’s got the 331 bent eight and the dual four-barrel set up right there.  It’s even got the original Cadillac valve covers.”  Maggie nodded politely, completely clueless.

             
“Fire it up, Maggie.  The engine’s still pretty warm, but I want to make sure it’s nice and hot before I go in and check your transmission fluid.”

             
Maggie did as he asked and climbed out again, watching him as he stared at the whirring engine in obvious pleasure.  He was absolutely transfixed.  After several minutes staring down at his own personal paradise, he spoke again.
             
  

             
“The tranny is a four speed Hydra-Matic.  I gotta get underneath to check it out, but let’s hope I can fix this one, because replacing it will cost time and money, and I’ve got time but no money, and from what I’m guessing, you don’t have either.  When do we have to have this little project completed?”

             
“Irene will be back on Sunday evening.  That gives us two days, max.  Plus, we can’t exactly have her car parked in the middle of shop class on Monday morning.  That would be a little hard to explain.”

             
“The longer the car is here, the easier it will be for me to fix, “Johnny replied, leaning in deep under the hood and sliding a long dipstick out like he was unsheathing a sword.

             
“Why is that?” 

             
“Anything that is in the school for any period of time absorbs its energy.  The school and I are connected somehow, and I can manipulate that energy – hence the door locks and your glasses.” 

             
‘I wondered how you did that! They really were cracked, weren’t they?”  Maggie marveled, pulling her glasses from the visor and perusing them once more.  There wasn’t even the slightest scratch remaining. 

             
Johnny was silent for a few seconds. “The fluid is foaming a bit – somebody’s filled it up too high.  That’s an easy fix.  Shut it off, Maggie.  Let’s take a look underneath.”
             

             
Maggie shut off the engine and waited while Johnny jacked the car up and slid underneath.  She slid under the car beside him, staring up into the metal underbelly.  The concrete was cold against her back, and the smell of gas and grease tickled her nose.  She had no idea what she was looking at, but Johnny seemed to.  He had gotten into the tool cabinet and was using a wrench to unscrew something.  

             
“Johnny, did you just say the word ‘hence’ a few minutes ago?”

             
Johnny snorted and glanced over at her lying beside him beneath the car. 

             
“Good word, huh?  You start using words like ‘hence’ when you’ve read most of the books in the library.”

             
“Really?  That many?  I’m not much of a reader.”  Maggie frowned.  “The words always get jumbled up on the page, and I guess I’ve never been able to sit still long enough to unscramble them.  There’s always a song in my head, and I get distracted and then, next thing I know, I’m working on a new move or dancing around the room.”

             
“I didn’t used to read.  In fact, in high school I really avoided it.  I spent all my free time working on cars.”  He smirked a little at that.  “But you learn to like it when you have absolutely nothing else to occupy your time, and time is endless.”

             
“So you read, sleep, play music and haunt the school,” Maggie tried to tease him a little.  “What else?”

             
“I don’t really sleep.  Not in the way you do.”

             
Maggie just raised her eyebrows at that, waiting for him to continue.

             
“When I first changed, I just wandered the school in an angry fog.  In fact, I did some damage before it occurred to me that nobody could help me, and if I scared everybody away I was going to be completely alone.  I was so emotionally wrecked for the first little while that it never dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten or slept in what had to be a very long time – as well as all the other very human things that are just part of daily life.  I wasn’t hungry, though, and I wasn’t tired.  Actually, I take that back.  I was tired; I just wasn’t sleepy or sleep deprived, if that makes sense.” 

             
“I can’t really imagine it,” Maggie offered truthfully.

             
“I thought I was gonna go crazy, and I kind of did for a while…I got to the point, though, that I could shut my mind off – I would just clear my head completely, focus on the energy that buzzed around me all the time, and I would check out.”

             
“It sounds like meditation.” 

             
“I guess it kind of is.  I call it floating.  The more I practiced, the better I got, and I kept escaping for longer and longer periods of time.  It was such a relief to just be unaware for a while.  One time, I resurfaced and the seasons had changed from spring to summer while I was gone.  The kids were in school, wearing heavy jackets and carrying the rain and sleet in on their coats and boots, when I started.  When I stopped floating they were gone, and the school was empty for a while.  Summer had come, and I’d lost months.”

             
“So what makes you come back?  Couldn’t you just… fade away?”  Maggie had to ask, but she dreaded the answer.

             
“I don’t always choose to come back; I just do.  And the instinct to live, even a half-life like this, is very strong.  It’s not easy to turn your back on this world.  I don’t know how to let go, even if I could.  The school keeps pulling me back, too.  The school lives on, I live on, I guess.”