Prom Date (11 page)

"Meg?" a voice called from outside. Mitch's voice. No one else called her Meg. But it sounded far away. Where was he? Over by the store?

Instead of smothering the fire, as Margaret had hoped it would, the plastic bag became engulfed in flame. Hot, hungry fingers reached up and caught a strand of Margaret's hair, hanging loose around her face. She slapped out the flame and began hastily backing away again. In her haste, she forgot about the heavy metal lid, and the top of her head slammed into it with a sharp, cracking sound, sending her to her knees. The pain was unbearable. Her left knee landed on something metal, sharp-edged as a razor. Margaret felt the skin

there split open, felt the blood spilling forth. She put one hand to the top of her head, felt it warm and sticky there, too,

"Meg? You here?" It was Mitch. Across the alley at the store, probably wondering why he hadn't found her waiting there for him, as she'd promised.

The smoke and heat were stifling. In just minutes, all four metal sides would be too hot for her to touch, let alone pound on to summon help.

'Tm here," Margaret croaked. Her eyes were watering, and her chest hurt. "Fm in here, Mitch."

She knew even as she said it that he wasn't close enough to hear her kittenish-weak voice. He had to still be at the store. On the other side of the parking lot. Would he see the smoke, run to the Dumpster, bringing him close enough so that she wouldn't need to shout?

"Meg?" Pounding on the alley door at Quartet. "Meg? It's Mitch! You fall asleep in there?"

Wrong door, Margaret thought, trying to dredge up enough strength to crawl away from the flames. You're pounding on the wrong door, Mitch. A spasm of coughing seized her. She couldn't get any air.

Dam, Margaret thought as, still coughing and choking, her body sank into the sea of cool plastic and her tear-filled eyes closed. Dam. I was going to go to the prom.

Maybe that's why Fm in here, was her last, stunning thought as she slid into unconsciousness.

pletely ignorant of what was going on, and don't they say that ignorance is bliss? So why can't he tell himself that she died blissfully unaware of his treachery? And take me to the prom, the way he promised he would all along.

I was a fool He never intended to take me. I could have asked someone else, and none of this would be happening. But Michael kept saying he was going to tell Stephanie the truth and break his prom date with her. Then he kept putting it off, saying he knew it would upset her and he had to pick exactly the right time and place. Which he promised he would do.

He lied.

So I finally picked the time and place myself, and told her what was going on. Only then it didn't matter because she died and we'll never know if it upset her or not, will we?

I wasted all that time on him for nothing.

Finding that out was bad enough. But then I figured, I'd just ask someone else. Someone almost as good as Michael Danz. Mitch.

That was when the real blow came. That was when I learned something that set my brain on fire.

Mitch plans to take Margaret to the prom!

I can't believe it. Margaret?

I know this because the minute Stephanie's mother announced that Michael was taking off

for Utah to spend the summer there and ''recover from our darling daughter's tragic death,'' I walked right over to Mitch and asked him to take me to the prom. Right there at the funeral Because there s no time to waste, is there? He looked at me as if Fd asked him to cut off an arm for me. And had picked the wrong time and place to ask.

''You don't have a date?" he asked. He was just stalling, I know that now.

"If I had a date, I wouldn't be asking, would I?" But I smiled when I said it

I didn't like the way he was looking at me. What difference did it make that we were at a funeral? It wasn't as if Stephanie knew I was arranging my social life on her time.

Then he said he'd asked Margaret.

The words hit me like hammers because I hadn't expected them, hadn't expected them at all. He was supposed to be broke, that's what Michael had told me. On one of our nights together, Michael said, "It'll be weird not having Mitch at the prom, but he's out of funds and won't be going." He must have been lying, probably, because he was afraid I would ask Mitch, (even though he himself was going with Stephanie). But Michael is a very selfish person, I know that now. He didn't want to share me with Mitch.

(Or maybe he was just afraid that if I showed up at the prom Fd say something to Stephanie. Tell her the truth about her faithless, lying boyfriend.)

Anyway, he lied about Mitch being broke, because here was Mitch, dt the funeral, telling me he was going to the prom with Margaret Dunne!

I felt like Fd been hit between the eyes with a bowling ball

I mumbled something and got away from him.

So of course I had no time left. And now it wasn't just because she was so smart and clever and might come up with answers to questions she had no business asking. Now, she was really in my way.

I guess I can be forgiven for using such crude methods to get rid of her, under the circumstances. I was rushed. There isn't a lot of time left. I haven't done everything thatFve done only to end up sitting at home on prom night.

It's not as if I started this whole thing. Stephanie did, by falling. She's the one who showed me how easy it is to get rid of people who are in my way. She has only herself to blame.

Margaret must be ashes by now. Smelly ashes, at that. Ashes . . . dashes . . . smashes . . . crashes.

Tomorrow Fll ask Mitch and he'll say yes becaiLse Margaret can't go with him now. Margaret can't go to the prom at all She can't go anywhere except, oh this is funny, except to the dump. Ot4ch, laughing makes my headache worse.

I didn't leave a Quartet pin this time. I didn't forget. It just didn't seem appropriate.

I do feel sorry for Adrienne, thoi4gh. She'll feel bad. And she's nice.

But her daughter shouldn't have got in my way.

Mitch had better not be like Michael and say no ''out of respect" because Margarefs dead. If he does, I don't know what I'll do.

Oh, that's a lie. I know exactly what I'll do. Find someone else. There's still a little bit of time left.

And I know exactly where Fll look.

But I'm being silly. I won't have logo hunting again. I'll have Mitch.

Adrienne laughed, but there were tears in her eyes.

Margaret looked up at the rest of the faces. Mitch, looking worried. Jeannine, biting her lower lip. Caroline, her eyes red . . . from crying? Margaret had a vague memory of someone telling her that Caroline had been crying. Scott. Scott had said that. But Margaret couldn't remember why. And there was Lacey, one finger twirling her bright blond hair.

They all looked so worried.

Margaret remembered then. She knew why she was in what had to be a hospital, and she knew why everyone was standing around her looking anxious. The Dumpster. It all flooded back into her mind, a horror movie with her as the star. But the medication she'd been given coated the screen with a soft, protective gauze and kept the terror at bay.

There were two other people in the room. One was a tall, skinny man Margaret had never seen before. Dressed in a light blue shirt and jeans, he had a beard and glasses and was standing beside the bed, his hand on Margaret's right wrist, a stethoscope around his neck. The other person, standing just inside the door, was Mitch's brother Eddie, in uniform.

"There's a cop in this room," Margaret

said. "Why is he here?" She giggled. "Am I going to be arrested for trespassing in that Dumpster?"

"You're a lucky girl," the tall, skinny man said. He used the stethoscope to listen to Margaret's chest. "As I understand it, if this young man," pointing to Mitch, "hadn't come along, you might not be with us now."

Adrienne moved closer to the bed to take Margaret's left hand. "Margaret, what happened?"she asked softly.

Margaret smiled up at her. "You know that old joke about the housewife in curlers and robe who runs out to the curb and calls to the trash collectors, 'Am I too late for the garbage?' and the guys on the truck yell, *No, jump right in!?' " Margaret's eyes closed. "Well, what happened was, I wasn't too late for the garbage. Mom, so I jumped right in." Then she slipped away into her lovely, gauzy little world.

When she awoke again, sun was streaming into the room and she knew that the worst night of her life was over. Her mother and Mitch were still in the room. The others had gone, including Officer Eddie McGill. Adrienne was sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair beside the bed. Mitch was standing at the wide, uncurtained window, looking out.

A scream of terror slid up into Margaret's mouth as she remembered the night before. To stifle it and keep from scaring her mother to death, she quickly told herself she was safe now, here in this hospital room, that the night was over and she shouldn't try right now to figure things out because she was feeling too weak. She would rest here, in this safe place and let people take care of her until she felt rested. Then she would go over what had happened and try to decide, if that were possible, what it all meant.

"Could I get some breakfast around here?" she asked, sliding up on her pillow. "Fm starving!"

Her mother laughed, and Mitch was smiling when he turned away from the window and hurried over to the bed.

"So where'd the long arm of the law go?" Margaret smiled at Mitch. He looked so worried. "Out catching criminals who toss people into the trash before their time, I hope."

"Eddie's downstairs having coffee," he answered. "So are your Mends. You okay?"

"I guess. But I need food and sustenance. So, what about that breakfast?"

Adrienne, smiling with relief, left to see about food for her daughter.

Mitch sat down on the foot of Margaret's bed. "You sure look better than the last time I saw you. How's the head? And the knee?" He pointed to a bulge under the white blanket that denoted the thick bandage over Margaret's stitches. More than a few stitches, judging by the way her knee felt. She'd have to ask that bearded doctor if she'd be able to dance by prom night.

The prom. Her last thought in the Dumpster returned with dizzying force. But that had been a crazy, nonsensical thought brought on by terror. That's all that was. Had to be. Someone wouldn't try to roast her in a Dumpster just because she was going to a prom.

Crazy idea. But then . . .

'Thanks for rescuing me," she told Mitch.

He got up, moved to her side, bent, and kissed her. "Thanks for hanging in there," he said seriously. Then he smiled again. "And thanks for not leaving me without a date for the prom."

Margaret winced. He was just kidding. He was.

"Dr. Judge said if you weren't so feisty . . * his word... you probably wouldn't have made it. Too much smoke. And you were losing a lot of blood from that cut on your knee."

Smiling, Margaret said, "Dr. Judge? Isn't that redundant? So, which is he, a doctor or a judge?"

Mitch laughed, too, but then said sternly, "Don't change the subject. Are you ready to talk about what happened to you last night? Or do you want to wait for Eddie? I warn you, he's going to have a ton of questions for you."

"Did you see anyone in the alley last night?" Margaret asked, settling back on the pillows. Her head had stopped aching, but her knee felt as if it were on fire, like the Dumpster. "Anyone at all?"

He sat back down on the bed. "No. Not a soul. I had to run to the restaurant to get help opening that Dumpster. Someone had jammed a metal file into the lock. Couldn't get it out."

Margaret's mother came back into the room, carrying a tray. "It's hospital food," Adrienne apologized, "but I know you. When you're really starving, you'll eat anything."

When Margaret had taken a few bites and swallowed, easing the hollow feeling in her stomach, she asked Mitch, "Did you know I was in there? In the Dumpster? Or were you just trying to put out the fire?"

"I knew." Remembering made his voice shake slightly. "I saw your shoe. It was on the ground outside the Dumpster. The black one?

You complained about those shoes at the funeral, said they were too loose, remember? I was looking for you, couldn't find you, and then I smelled and saw the smoke. Ran over to the Dumpster, and there was your shoe, lying right there in front of that flaming mess. So I knew. Listen," his voice shook again, '1 almost lost it right then and there. But I didn't. I knew I had to get you out of there. Doc says we did it just in time. A few more minutes ..." His face went very pale again.

Adrienne shuddered.

But Margaret felt a twinge of pride. It had worked. Kicking off the shoe had worked, just as she'd hoped it would. If she hadn't done that, if the shoe hadn't been there, would Mitch have known to hunt for her inside the Dumpster? Probably not.

"It was the only thing I could think of to do," she said.

His eyes widened. "You kicked off that shoe on purpose? I thought it fell off."

Margaret nodded. "Um-hum. Last desperate measure, I guess."

"You're one smart cookie," he said admiringly. He glanced over at Adrienne. "This is some clever girl you've raised."

"Yes, I know."

Margaret laughed hoarsely. "Not that

clever, or I wouldn't have ended up inside that thing, would I?"

"Listen," Mitch said, "before you tell us any more, let me go get Eddie. I can tell that talking hurts your throat, so you shouldn't have to tell the story twice. Be right back."

Jeannine, Lacey, and Caroline all trailed along behind Eddie and Mitch when they returned. They sat on the floor, and Margaret told her story.

She tried to spare her mother the most gruesome details, but now that the medication had worn off, she remembered every moment in such clear detail that when she was finished. Officer McGill had very few questions to ask. She had told him about the saucer of milk and the cat, and his first question when she stopped talking, rubbing her throat, was, "You throw that carton out?"

"Um-hum. It was empty. I put it in the trash. So it's probably burned to a crisp by now." Why had he asked?