Page 12 of Maybe Some Other Time

Chapter six

Polyester Dreams

T helma was given the guest room, which she guessed had been a storage and hobby room before her arrival.

All of the furniture is so new. There was the smell of fresh paint, too, and no matter how much she left the window open overnight, she couldn’t get rid of the fumes.

The mattress was almost unbearably comfortable—she wasn’t used to sleeping without springs, and even the bed in the FBI hotel had springs.

What truly threw her off, however, was the comforter placed on top.

“This is…” That first night, as Robbie awkwardly stood in the doorway and Megan excitedly hovered close by, Thelma lifted the aged edges of a quilt that had been in the family since she was a little girl. “My mother made this…”

“I found it in the attic,” Megan said. “Dad says he grabbed it from your hope chest when he moved out.”

Thelma could hardly swallow what was in her mouth.

“I was just looking at this a few weeks ago.” She meant a couple of days before she “disappeared” from her original time.

I was swapping out the linens for the spring.

This is a winter quilt. With the cool air circulating in the room, though, something told her that she would still be plenty comfortable wrapped in her own mother’s stitching.

“Your great-grandmother made this when I was a girl. Right in the middle of the Depression,” she said to Megan.

“She made it from a stash of fabric she inherited from her aunt’s property.

It was the only thing she could claim. Fabric was worth so much in those days. ”

Robbie grunted before heading down the hallway.

“That’s so cool.” Megan remained in the room with Thelma. “All of this is so cool. ”

Thelma laughed uneasily. “I suppose that’s a good thing, right?”

“The best.”

Robbie made himself scarce as Megan showed her around the house, demonstrating to Thelma the thermostat and explaining how there were backup window units in case something happened with the HVAC as they went into summer.

Thelma nodded along as if she understood any of it.

Dial makes it warmer or cooler. Got it. She’d leave the details to the people who knew how it worked.

The bathroom was mostly self-explanatory, although Thelma was beguiled by the chrome-coated fixtures and didn’t recognize any of the brands both above and below the sink.

She was equally confused by Megan’s room, which was a mixture of simple autumn aesthetics and garish pictures on the wall.

Plastic beads hung before the window instead of proper curtains, and warm, neon-colored lights lined a desk with a large computer taking up more space than Thelma had yet to see.

When Megan saw her staring at the computer, she started it up and showed her grandmother how it worked.

“You can’t move this one,” she explained. “That one they let you use at the office was a laptop. It’s meant to move around, but it’s not as powerful.”

“Do you know a lot about these things?” Thelma asked. “How they work?”

“Uh, well, not how they work on like… the inside. That’s proper shit.” She bit back her words. “Sorry. Dad says you don’t like cussing.”

Robbie talked about me to her? No, Thelma had to set that aside for now. “Honey, you can cuss all you want if you’re showing me how to get through this world. I can have quite the dirty mouth as well.”

“Sweet.”

No, I’m quite sour when I need to be. Sandy always said so.

She was the one who taught Thelma most of the naughty words she knew.

I could already swear like a sailor when necessary.

She had learned that from her uncles and Bill’s war buddies.

But the good stuff? For love and passion? Straight from Sandy’s talented mouth.

They went downstairs, where Thelma felt more like a stranger in a strange land.

The television was huge and mounted on the wall above the fireplace.

Is that even safe? The couches and chairs, however, were fluffy and comfortable, although Thelma was not impressed by the material the throw blankets were made out of.

Synthetic. She knew how to recognize it now after trying on many of the clothes Miriam brought her.

Not as pleasant as real cotton and linen.

Thelma would fix that as soon as she could get her hands on some proper materials. How much were sewing machines in 2018?

The kitchen was where she felt the most lost.

“Don’t worry.” Megan stood between her and the massive, stainless steel refrigerator that made ice. “We can take it one gadget at a time. Did you guys have toasters in the ‘50s? Here’s the toaster.”

Wasn’t this a strange space to inhabit? Trapped between figuring things out on her own and having her (grown!) granddaughter teach her everything?

There’s a joke in here somewhere. About the old, Luddite grandmother who refused to understand electricity and indoor plumbing after a life of coal-burning stoves and outhouses.

She was about to make such a quip when someone rapped on the kitchen screen door.

“Fiddles!” Megan swung the door open and grabbed a gray tabby cat that had a low, growling meow that insinuated he did not want to be home. “You found him!”

Thelma’s heart was caught in her throat when she saw Gretchen standing in the dark on the other side of the door. “He was thinking about my trash,” she said, gaze lingering on Thelma, who stood in the back of the kitchen. “Caught him before he could run for it.”

Megan squeezed the cat, who put up a mild fight before settling into her grip while licking his lips and slamming his ears back against his head. Thelma made eye contact with him and gave a small wave. Apparently, Gretchen thought Thelma was waving at her, for she waved back—awkwardly.

“Hi,” she said. “Settling in?”

Is she talking to me? Thelma rubbed down the front of her shirt before approaching. “Just fine, thanks. They’ve got… well, the technology in this house is a bit beyond what I’m used to, so they’re showing me how to use things.”

“Oh? Where are you from? I’ve got a cousin who lives in rural Nebraska and can’t get any decent Wi-Fi. She says it’s like living in the ‘90s again.”

I’ll take your word on it. “Not from around here, that’s for sure.”

Megan shut the cat in the downstairs office before returning to the kitchen. “Think more like the ‘50s for Thelma.”

“Eh? Is that why she’s got the whole retro look going?”

Thelma’s head shot between them, wondering what Megan would say while wanting to entertain more of Gretchen’s questions. Her eyes are quite striking in the dark. Just enough light from the back porch torch to illuminate a docile sea of hazel.

“She’s got her own style going on, that’s for sure,” Megan said. “Thanks for bringing Fiddles back, Gretch. I’ll do my best to make sure he stays inside.”

“Oh, yeah, make sure you do. I’d hate to hear he disappeared because of a coyote.”

Gretchen disappeared, and Megan closed the door. She said a few things about the cat before going back to giving her grandmother the tour. By then, Thelma’s thoughts were not allowed to remain on Gretchen, whose beautiful hazel eyes haunted the back of her mind.

When she went to bed that night, surrounded by a silent house and the occasional rush of a car passing by on the street, Thelma closed her eyes and pretended she was back in the ‘50s, where everything made sense—and her son was eight and still loved her behind his boyishly grim demeanor.

“Boys are like that, though,” she heard Bill’s voice from that final morning in her familiar kitchen. “I used to lie about being sick all the time to get out of math and reading.”

Thelma was on her side, opening her eyes and staring at the sheer curtains as they waved in a passing night breeze.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered from beneath her mother’s quilt.

She pulled it closer, recalling how her mother’s dexterous hands sewed anything they could touch while a young and eager Thelma attempted to copy her mother’s movements. “I wish I had just let you stay home.”

The harder it was to sleep, the more inclined Thelma was to get up, grabbing the cloth bathrobe she stole from the FBI’s hotel rooms before popping into the hallway, where the vents made a low humming noise and she detected the riotous sounds of snoring coming from a few yards away.

She slowly pushed open Robbie’s bedroom door, gazing at the back of his silver head as he slept the night away.

The whole room smelled of aftershave—just like Bill’s.

Even in his adulthood, and despite whatever brands had come and gone over the decades, Robbie had gravitated toward his father’s scent for his own.

Thelma rubbed something away from her eye.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, this time at the back of Robbie’s head. “For everything. I hope you can forgive me.”

She closed the door with a soft click and returned to her room, where she stood in front of the window and gazed up at the full moon hanging heavy in the clear night sky. At least here, in the future, the moon was exactly the same.

Right now, it was her most constant friend.

Thelma’s hunger for her usual independence was at odds with her family and the government treating her like a small child who needed a parent’s gentle guidance.

It didn’t matter how quickly she got used to the glass top stove or acclimated to the newer flavors of cooking oils—neither Robbie nor Megan allowed her to cook a basic breakfast of bacon and eggs.

She could make all the toast she wanted.

She could help herself to the produce and crackers in the cupboard, but throwing together a casserole? Out of the question.

Vacuuming? Was she kidding?

Using the credit card at the supermarket, when everyone took her for her first (sensory-overloaded) trip? Absolutely not.

Riding in the front seat of Robbie’s stylish “sports utility vehicle?” They’d rather I die.