Prom Date

by Diane Hoh

  He must not have, because the cruel hands didn’t release their grip to scoop up the discarded shoe. Instead, they gave Margaret’s body one forceful, cruel shove that sent her flying up and over the edge of the bin. Her hands were ripped away from the metal and she fell into the dark, smelly interior.

  She landed in a sea of plastic bags. They made a squooshing sound when she smacked into them on her stomach and sank slightly into their folds. Unhurt, but dazed, she lay there for a second or two, surrounded by darkness and fetid smells and the closeness of a day’s heat stored within a metal enclosure.

  Before she could clear her head enough to pull herself upright, there was an ominous creaking sound above her.

  Margaret lifted her head to see the navy blue, starlit sky disappearing.

  “No!” she screamed desperately. “No, don’t do that!”

  The lid slammed down upon her, erasing the last little bit of air and light.

  Chapter 14

  MARGARET HAD NEVER BEEN in such complete, utter darkness. Dark as an underground cave … a coffin … a grave. The only light at all came from a small hole in one corner at the rear base of the Dumpster.

  The Dumpster was only half full, allowing Margaret some headroom. With the lid closed, the smell was terrible. Most of the garbage was enclosed in sacks, but not all. Her foot slid against what she was sure had to be a banana peel, rotted from the heat, and her left hand encountered a mass of something so soft and mushy, she didn’t want to think about what it might be.

  A rustling sound off to her left froze her where she lay sprawled across piles of slick, lumpy plastic. Something dark and furry scooted across the top of the heap, brushing against Margaret’s arm as it passed. She flew upright. The dark, furry thing squeezed out of the hole in the base and disappeared.

  Margaret shuddered violently. A squirrel, she told herself desperately, or maybe a cat. Not a rat, it wasn’t a rat.

  It … was … not … a … rat, she insisted silently. And it’s gone, it’s gone!

  She’d heard a lock snapping on the lid after it fell. But locked or not, there was no way she could lift that heavy lid by herself.

  And I am, she thought, panic rising within her, by myself. Very much by myself in this dark, putrid, airless place. Trapped.

  Panicking, she crawled, slipping and sliding, along the top of the heap until she was close enough to one side of the Dumpster to bang on it with her fists. She banged and pounded and shouted at the top of her lungs and when that didn’t work and no one came to get her out and her hands were bruised and bleeding, she thrust out her legs and began kicking with all of her might.

  Nothing. No one shouted in answer to her shouts, and no one came to save her.

  What good would the shoe she had left behind do if there was no one out there to see it?

  Margaret sank back on her heels, breathing hard, her throat sore from shouting. “I want out of here!” she cried hoarsely. Tears of anger and fear squeezed their way down her cheeks. “Someone let me out of here, please!”

  Someone would come along. Someone would. The restaurant was right there, right behind her. People would be leaving. She would hear them talking or laughing and she would scream and shout and bang on the walls of the Dumpster and someone would hear her and come let her out. Out, out, out, she wanted out!

  How had this happened? The cat had died, she had wrapped it in newspaper, brought it to the Dumpster …

  And someone had thrown her in here.

  Why?

  A joke? Was this supposed to be funny?

  No. Margaret knew, as surely as she knew that if someone didn’t release her soon she was really going to totally lose it, that this had not been meant as a joke. Couldn’t have been.

  Such an awful thing to do to someone, this … this horrible thing that had been done to her, shutting her up in such a smelly, hot place, dark, dark, so dark … noises, there were noises again but not outside, where they could do her some good, inside, here, with her, noises where there shouldn’t be any. Another rat? Please, not another rat!

  Eyes wide with terror, Margaret turned her head toward where the sound was coming from. The little hole at the base in the rear of the Dumpster.

  There was a flash of light from outside the hole. Margaret, crouched on the plastic bags, her breath coming in small, anxious gasps, kept her eyes fastened on that one spot.. The light came closer, closer. Something was being pushed in through the hole. Something orange, red, yellow, lighting the end of a long, white cylinder.

  The cylinder was a rolled-up newspaper. Someone outside the Dumpster was inserting a rolled-up newspaper into the hole.

  And the orange, red, and yellow was there because the newspaper was ablaze.

  Margaret’s heart jumped into her throat. Fire! Someone was setting fire to this place where she was imprisoned? If the fire caught, the Dumpster would fill with foul smoke in seconds. She would suffocate. She would die a horrible, choking death.

  Skidding and sliding, ducking down to avoid cracking the top of her head on the lid, Margaret moved as swiftly as she could across the top of the heap until she reached the corner, intending to stamp out the fire with her remaining shoe.

  Too late. The edge of a bundle of newspapers someone had been too thoughtless to recycle, had already caught. Yellow flame gobbled it up hungrily. Margaret was still wearing the skirt she’d worn to the funeral. Heat from the fire seared her legs, protected only by her hose, which were no protection at all.

  Still crouching low, she backed away. As she did so, she reached out to snatch up the first sack of plastic her hands touched. It was full, and very heavy. She had to turn and use both arms to lift it and heave it down upon the blazing newspaper bundle.

  “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.

  “I’m here,” Margaret croaked. Her eyes were watering, and her chest hurt. “I’m 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.

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

  Maybe that’s why I’m in here, was her last, stunning thought as she slid into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 15

  CRUDE. A DUMPSTER? VERY crude. Amateurish. Should have come up with something smoother.

  Actually, I meant to plan something clever. As hard as it is to think these days, with Stephanie screaming in my head all the time, I knew I could come up wi
th something. But I hadn’t yet.

  And then I had such a bad day. Suddenly, there wasn’t any more time left. So I had to substitute acts that weren’t clever at all. I had no choice.

  First, I learned that Michael has no intention of going to the prom. With anyone. Out of respect for Stephanie, her family announced. Respect, my foot! Out of guilt is more like it. He never told Steph about us, the way he should have, and he doesn’t know that I enlightened her just before she died. So why would he beat himself up about it? As far as he knows, she was completely 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 I’d 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 I’d say something to Stephanie. Tell her the truth about her faithless, lying boyfriend.)

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

  I felt like I’d 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 that I’ve 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 I’ll ask Mitch and he’ll say yes because 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. Ouch, 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, though. 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 Margaret’s 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 I’ll look.

  But I’m being silly. I won’t have to go hunting again. I’ll have Mitch.

  Chapter 16

  WHITE … SO MUCH WHITE … white everywhere. On the ceiling, on the walls, on the pale faces of the people looking down upon her. White, white, white. Drowsy with medication, Margaret felt a smile slide across her face. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” she murmured.

  Someone laughed. The laughter was heavy with relief.

  But as Margaret fully awakened, her own smile faded quickly. Her head ached fiercely. Her left knee throbbed. Her eyes felt swollen to twice their normal size, and her entire body was stiff.

  One of the very whitest faces belonged to her mother. “Mom, you need blusher in a really bad way,” Margaret said in that same drowsy tone.

  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. “I’m 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 friends. 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.”