Prom Date (10 page)

Margaret firowned. "You're not on the committee." She'd already been to three meetings.

He grinned. "I am now."

Margaret was smiling as she walked into the store. When she'd gone to the first meeting, with Caroline and the others, Liza had looked surprised to see them there. Later, she had asked Margaret sjmipathetically, "Isn't it hard to decorate when you're not going to the prom?"

Margaret had replied, "I'm never going to be a patient in pediatrics at the hospital, either, Liza, but I still decorate there at Christmas."

There weren't that many customers in the

store, but her mother was glad to see her. She asked about the funeral, and then said briskly, "Well, if you'll handle things down here, FU just go on up to the Sweatbox and work on those dresses." She frowned. "Still haven't found the red one, though. I can't imagine what happened to it."

Those dresses. Margaret had almost forgotten. Was there really a connection between the destruction of those prom dresses and the terrible thing that had happened to Stephanie? How could there be? And what had become of Stephanie's dress?

She pushed the ugly, frightening thoughts out of her mind. Thinking stuff like that would ruin her mood. Maybe Mitch would call later and offer her a ride home after work. It was i\ Friday, which meant they were open until nine. If her mother had a date with Sam Hol-lister, the lawyer she'd been seeing, Sam would pick her up at the store. Margaret wasn't sure why, but for the first time, she was uneasy about going home alone to an m empty house. She didn't like the feeling.

The rest of the day went by quickly. Mar- * garet received two phone calls just before clos-J ing time. One was from Mitch, telling her he | was with Michael at Stephanie's house now that the crowd had gone, and he didn't think

he'd be leaving until ten. Would she wait for him at the store? He'd take her home.

''Sure. rU do some studying, clean up around here a little." Then she asked if her friends were still there. He said no, they'd left a long time ago.

Margaret was a little disappointed that they hadn't come to the store. It had been crowded later this afternoon. A lot of people had stopped in after the funeral, maybe thinking that buying a new blouse or skirt would lift their spirits. She could have used Caroline's help. But maybe it was just as well. She wanted to talk about the prom, and she probably shouldn't do that around her friends.

The second call was from Scott. Adrienne had let him go home early when he'd finished his errands. He sounded angry. "You made Caroline cry."

Confused, Margaret asked him what he was talking about.

"She's been crying. I saw her this afternoon, after the funeral, and her eyes were all swollen. I knew it wasn't because of Stephanie, because why would that make Caroline cry? She didn't even like Stephanie. So I asked her, and she said it was because you're going to the prom and she isn't."

Margaret didn't know what to say.

"I can't believe you're going with McGill," Scott continued angrily. "He's one of them, Margaret. The ones we always made fun of, you and me and Caroline. It's like you're going over to the other side or something."

"That's ridiculous, Scott!" Margaret couldn't believe what she was hearing. What difference did it make to Scott who she dated? It was Caroline he was crazy about, not her. "Mitch is a nice guy. Anyway, it's really none of your business. I'm sorry about Caroline, but she could be going, too, if she really wanted to." She didn't add that Caroline wasn't going because she, too, wanted to be going with someone like Mitch.

The conversation left Margaret very uncomfortable. Was Scott right? Hadn't she meant all those cracks she'd made about the Pops? Had she just been pretending, wanting to be a part of their group all along? Was she a hypocrite, as Scott had implied?

When she opened the back door to sweep around outside before leaving, a mangy old black alley cat was waiting expectantly. "Oh, all right," Margaret said, knowing her mother would have a fit if she knew. "I was going to have a glass of milk and a sandwich before I left. I guess I can share a drop or two of the milk with you. But that's all you're getting."

The milk carton in the small fridge was almost empty. Deciding on soda for herself instead, she poured the white liquid into a saucer and put it outside for the cat. Then she finished straightening up, totaled up the cash drawer, ran the vacuum, fixed a sandwich and took it upstairs to the Sweatbox, where she climbed through the window to sit on the fire escape and eat.

Friday night. The parking lot across the alley, in front of Impeccable Tastes, was full. Her mother and Sam were probably inside, enjoying prime rib or salmon.

Maybe, Margaret thought, biting into her tuna sandwich, since we're not renting a limo for the prom, we can afford to have dinner there. That would be nice. Romantic.

When she had finished eating, she went back downstairs, tossed the empty milk carton, sandwich crusts, and paper plate into the trash and bundled it up, slinging the black plastic bag over her shoulder to take it to the Dumpster. Turning off the lights, she opened the door, stepped outside, slammed the door tightly behind her, and turned to double-check the lock. It was almost ten. She'd wait for Mitch in front of the store.

As she turned around, the toe of her shoe hit something on the ground.

Margaret glanced down, thinking she had bumped into the saucer that she'd forgotten was there. Good thing she'd remembered, or Adrienne would have seen it sitting there first thing in the morning. She would not have been happy.

But it wasn't the saucer Margaret's toe had hit, it was the cat. It was lying very, very still, its whiskered face contorted in agony, frozen that way forever, its eyes bulging, its legs extended stiffly.

Margaret stared down at it, knowing without even checking that the animal was lying very, very still because, it was very, very dead.

The alley was dark and quiet. Only muted sounds of music and conversation came from inside Impeccable Tastes, its double glass doors standing open to the balmy evening breeze, Margaret glanced around, hoping to find someone who could come and help, but there was no one.

She looked down at the cat again. Dead? It was dead? But just a little while ago, it had mewed gratefully when she slid the saucer of milk in front of it.

She dropped the sack of trash and crouched beside the stiff, black carcass. The cat was old, with gray around its whiskers, and very skinny. She couldn't help wishing that the cat had ended its life elsewhere. She couldn't leave it where it was. Adrienne might not be fond of the alley cats, but she was a pet lover in general, and she'd be very upset if this was

the first thing she came across when she opened the store in the morning.

Margaret loathed the idea of putting the cat into the Dumpster, but she didn't see that she had a choice. It's dead, Margaret, she told herself firmly, it doesn't care where you put it. She could wait until Mitch came, ask him to do it. But she was the one who had fed it, and in some strange way, that made her feel responsible for it.

A thought tugged at Margaret's brain, like the cat scratching earlier at the back door. If it had died because it was old, why was its face so horribly distorted, its teeth showing in a grimace of what looked like anguish?

She got up, unlocked the door, went back inside to grab a section of newspaper waiting in the bin to be recycled. When she had locked the door again, she knelt on the rough cement beside the cat. Gingerly, carefully, she rolled it onto the newspaper and quickly thrust it into the black plastic bag. At the last minute, she dumped the saucer in, too. Wouldn't be using that agaiQ. Then she quickly twisted the neck of the bag shut and retied the twist tie. Ugh! Her hands shook. Creepy.

Hoisting the bag again, she hurried to the huge Dumpster. Its giant green metal lid was

already open, resting against the back section of the Dumpster.

Margaret stood in front of the bin, heaved the bag over the edge, her mind on the cat inside. She felt sorry for it. It couldn't have had a very nice life, and an alley was no place to die.

There was a sound behind her. Margaret would have turned, had she had time. But she didn't. Because in the next second, cold hands reached out to grab her legs and lift her up . . .

Margaret cried out. Her hands flew out to clutch at the front of the bin. But the grip around her lower body was stronger than her own. Angry. It felt angry, that grip on her legs, squeezing the flesh painfully as it lifted her lower body higher, higher.

"Stop it!" Margaret cried, feeling her hands on the bin being tugged away. "What are you doing? Stop!"

Her heart was pounding so with terror, she could feel her ribs shaking. At the very last second, her brain kicked into gear and Margaret kicked off one loose black shoe. K she couldn't stop herself from being thrown into the disgusting bin, she would at least leave a sign behind that she was in there. Losing the

shoe was the only thing she could think of to do. She could only hope her captor hadn't heard the shoe fall.

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 sli^tly 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.

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, pleaser

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 Kttle 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 roUed-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 comer, 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 heHiands 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.