Page 11 of Maybe Some Other Time

Robbie’s voice was slightly louder now.

“What was that?” Thelma asked him.

“I said you can’t cook. ”

The back of the car was silent. Even Miriam could hardly keep her eyes on the road as she watched the scene unfold in the back.

“My…” Thelma swallowed hollow air. “My word, Robbie… I didn’t think my cooking was that bad.”

“No, no! I mean…” He smacked his hand against his forehead, his thinning gray hair flat against his scalp.

“I mean you physically cannot cook in my kitchen. Not yet. You’ve gotta be shown how things work now.

It’s too dangerous to go in blind, thinking you can cook like you always did.

You could get hurt. Burn the whole place down. ”

Miriam’s eyes were back on the road.

“I see. Suppose you have a point.” Thelma glanced out the tinted windows, watching palm trees and bright lights pass by. The buildings are so big now… “I’m sure you and Megan are happy to help. I want to be useful. And I know how to cook. Let me help my family.”

“Your family…” Robbie scoffed.

Thelma let it go, although she bubbled with words she would love to say to her rough and candid son.

Even Megan looked ashamed of the way her father behaved, but Thelma had a feeling this wasn’t abnormal for the man she brought into this world.

How did he become so cantankerous? Did I somehow do that?

Then again, Thelma didn’t know what she expected from one of her children.

How would I feel if my mother disappeared when I was a child, only for her to appear when I was seventy?

Let alone just as young as she remembered?

This went deeper than shock, though. Something had been fundamentally broken inside of Robbie—Thelma innately knew that, like she glommed onto any of her other motherly instincts.

Megan filled most of the silence on the drive to Thelma’s new home.

The girl liked to hear herself talk—or maybe she had learned to keep talking whenever her father was silently pouting about something.

But Thelma hitched herself to her granddaughter’s voice as if Megan’s tone was the tether to the future.

She knew everything, right? She was young, with the times, and more knowledgeable about what someone of Thelma’s age should say and do in 2018.

As grateful as Thelma was to have her son around to take her in—despite his dour disposition—the more she got to know Megan, the more she realized that the twenty-year-old would soon be her closest confidant and best minder in the house.

“You’re gonna love Disneyland,” Megan blurted as they passed a colorfully ostentatious billboard advertising the familiar cartoon characters.

“Oh, my God, there’s so much Disney for you to catch up on!

Dad, do you remember when I was obsessed with Frozen for two weeks?

The only reason I didn’t make it my whole personality is because I was twelve. ”

“I always preferred Knott’s Berry Farm,” Thelma confessed.

“Oh, it’s still around.”

Thelma sighed. “How about that? The hardest part is keeping up with what’s still here and what’s gone. There are no rules for how things change in sixty years.”

Over her shoulder, she saw her son glaring at her as if he didn’t know what to make of that.

“I want you to know,” Thelma began, addressing her family, although the words were mostly for Robbie, “I am going to make myself useful. Eventually, I might like a job, but right now I am determined to learn how to use a modern kitchen and all of the amenities you enjoy today. I still know a thing or two about cleaning and laundry. Please, don’t be shy about taking me shopping or whatever you think I need to know to help take care of the house.

I have bothered both of you in such busy lives. ”

Megan’s jaw slightly dropped. “You don’t have to do all that,” she said, lightly at first. Then, louder, “Besides! Dad doesn’t do shit! Ever since he retired, he just watches TV all day.”

“I do not! ” he barked back at his daughter.

Thelma was taken aback once again at how her son and granddaughter talked to one another.

Never ever in my house! But this wasn’t “her” house she was heading to.

She now treaded on ground fertilized by father-daughter spats and the kind of inter-generational drama she used to only see at her aunt and uncle’s house.

They always screamed at each other. My cousins yelled all day.

Thelma had looked into her cousins, but none of them were alive.

This was it. This was her living family. And this was how they talked to each other.

“I’ll have you both know that I keep plenty busy,” Robbie continued to defend his honor. “When I’m not making updates to the house now that I finally have the time, I’m volunteering. Why would you leave that out, Meg? You make me sound like a good-for-nothing loser.”

Megan crossed her arms and shook her head. “Ask him how many questions he gets right on Jeopardy! ”

“A lot! It’s a good show!” For the first time in a long while, Robbie turned his whole attention to his mother. “You’ll like it! It’s like Twenty-One. But without the scandals.”

“Is that the one a station rigged?”

“There were many,” Thelma said. “It even got taken up to the Senate.”

“See? Guess you can learn some history from her,” Robbie said. “Because she never listens to me about the old days.”

“Because you suck at talking about them, Dad.”

Thelma reveled in the silence that ensued once more.

Megan was glued to a glowing screen in her hand, and Thelma closed her eyes so she wouldn’t get any more motion sick from the passing scenery.

She didn’t recognize these roads, highways, and freeways.

She didn’t recognize many of the town and city names on the signs.

And the ones she did recognize, like Encino and Pasadena, made her tear up from emotions she could hardly regulate.

“We’re here,” Miriam announced after the car pulled down a residential street. “I’ll help with your bags, Thelma.”

She was grateful to stretch her legs and take a look at a Los Angeles neighborhood in 2018.

Except it was late in the afternoon, and many of the houses on this quiet street were either unoccupied or covered by fences and tall shrubbery.

The house she gazed upon, however, was modest and…

dare she say it… modern? It’s quite elegant.

She had never seen such a black house before, but the cream-colored trim, the white garage door, and all of the greenery in the yard offset any negative first impressions.

Until she heard a crowing in the distance.

“Hey! Rob! Yeah! Robert!”

Everyone, including Miriam, turned their heads toward the fenceline where a woman’s head peered over wood stained dark brown and tipped in white.

At first, Thelma thought she was looking at a trendy teenager—then she realized that, much like Sandy had favored a pixie cut back in the ‘50s, this woman was a grown adult with a fashionable hair choice. Her plaid shirt was… well, it was fetching, wasn’t it?

“Ugh, what?” Robbie crowed back.

“Caught your poor cat going through my garbage again! What have I told you about keeping him inside? We’ve got coyotes around here! And Russell down the street has a lifted truck that will kill me if I step in front of it!”

“Fiddles?” Megan hurried to the fenceline. “You saw Fiddles? He’s been missing!”

The woman’s gruff face softened as she saw the neighbor’s kid. Arms clad in dark green and yellow plaid slung over the fence. “Hey, Meg. Yeah, Fiddles was around, sniffing in my trash. Guessing he hadn’t eaten in a couple of days if you say he got out.”

“Yeah! Believe it or not, I’m trying to keep him in. But someone thinks it’s cruel to coop kitties up inside, despite the dangers lurking about!”

“I actually don’t care!” Robbie shouted. “He must have gotten out without me noticing!”

The woman with short dark hair looked in Thelma and Miriam’s direction. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company coming over.”

Just like that, everyone remembered Thelma was there.

“This is…” Robbie stumbled. “My, uh…”

“This is my cousin Thelma!” Megan interrupted. “We just picked her up from LAX. That’s our Uber driver there.”

Miriam bristled, but said nothing.

“I see. Where are you visiting from?”

Was she directly asking Thelma? The woman who had remained quiet until now…

and suddenly couldn’t find her voice? Especially when she stepped closer, cheeks pinkening and eyes bashfully downcast as she said, “I’m actually moving in with them.

They must not have told you.” She extended her hand, much to Megan and Robbie’s chagrin.

“Thelma Van der Graaf. Pleasure to meet you.”

The woman in flannel looked her up and down, particularly taking in Thelma’s blond curls and red lipstick.

“Huh. Interesting. Didn’t know that grumble-puss had a niece.

” A smooth hand appeared before Thelma. “Gretchen Stewart. I’ve been living next to your uncle ever since he moved in when I was eight. ”

“God, has it been that long?” Robbie moaned.

“Only way you could afford that house is if you bought it twenty-five years ago!”

“Yeah, well, only way you can afford that house is by inheriting it from your parents!”

“Hey, now,” Megan interrupted. “Let’s not hate on people whose only shot at homeownership is dead parents, Dad. ”

Thelma took hold of Gretchen’s hand. So, she’s older than me? She would have never been able to tell! Such perfect skin! She doesn’t look a day over twenty! “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Stewart.”

“Oh, God, no. Anything but that.” Yet Gretchen was still smiling as she released Thelma’s fingers and returned to clutching the top of the fence post. “You can call me Gretch.”

“I call her a pain in the ass,” Robbie muttered as he took the suitcase from Miriam and headed toward his door. “Kids are supposed to move away from home when they grow up!”

“Hey!” was all Megan had to say about that.

“Thelma Van der Graaf, huh?” Gretchen slowly disappeared behind the fence, her eyebrows arching toward her hairline. “That name sounds familiar.”

“I promise I’m new in town,” Thelma said.

Dark hair headed toward the house next door. “See you around! Watch out for that cat they have!”

Miriam was keen to move everyone inside before a bigger commotion drew attention to Thelma’s presence.

I get it… The FBI wanted her acclimated to modern life before she really put herself out there and started meeting people.

Yet Thelma had met her first person who had no idea who she was—or what she was.

And something about that was a high she had not ridden since…

Well, since someone named Sandy Westmore knocked on her dorm door at college and asked if she wanted to attend an impromptu party down the hall. Yes. I very much wanted to.

Poor Thelma. She had a type, and the modern era only amplified it.