Page 14 of Maybe Some Other Time

Then she cleared her throat, wiping one tear from her eye as she was forced to think about her daughter. The same one she still had yet to visit because she lived over an hour away.

There were some mirrors out in the main changing area.

Thelma unlatched her small room and stepped out, feeling how the skirt fell around her steps and how comfortable the collared shirt was tucked into the waistline.

She took a minute to twirl in front of the mirrors, her heels sticking into the carpet as her curls bounced and her ruby-red lips smiled at her reflection in all three mirrors.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Maybe she could even enjoy this a little bit…

“Uh, wow. That’s… wow.”

Thelma nearly fell over as she pirouetted and tripped right out of her heel. Yet she caught her balance just in time, albeit not without slightly rolling her ankle and forcing her hair right in her face.

When she moved a large blond curl out of the way, she saw Gretchen standing in a changing room doorway, two jackets slung over her arm.

“Hi,” Thelma whispered, her heart in her throat again. “Gretchen, right? Gretchen Stewart.”

The woman slowly approached, her makeup-less face something to behold as her very short pants and tank top said things about her physique that Thelma was ready to chastise about her own granddaughter.

Oh, I think I get it now. On a woman like Gretchen, who had lean arms and a prominent chest beneath her pale orange top, this outfit was particularly fetching.

“That’s me,” Gretchen said as she stood near the mirrors. “Your new neighbor. Thelma?”

“That’s right.” Thelma pushed her hair back behind her shoulders and fixed up her handkerchief.

“What do you think? Meg took me out shopping today. It’s been so long since I bought clothes.

” She didn’t mention that by so long they technically meant sixty years.

Even if in Thelma’s mind it was more like three months since she bought a new housedress that a shopgirl helped her pick out in Bullock’s.

Was Gretchen’s gaze lingering on Thelma’s ankles?

She must be queer. I would recognize someone like Sandy anywhere.

Except Sandy wasn’t anywhere near Gretchen’s way of dressing herself.

Sandy would never let thighs and feet hang out like that.

Very, very nice thighs. Quite strong looking.

As if Gretchen ran track and knew her way around a shot put.

Oh, Thel, you always had a thing for athletic girls…

Sandy knew how to pitch a softball and had been a ravenous fan of the All-American Girls during college.

She took me to a few games in the Midwest…

“That’s a look.”

Thelma wasn’t sure what to make of that. “It’s silly, isn’t it? I don’t look like any of the other women out there.”

“Uh, that’s a nice thing, sometimes.”

Thelma continued to awkwardly stand before the mirrors, taking in how the pullover bra smoothed her breasts beneath the modern blouse. Does she notice? No, of course, Gretchen didn’t. She wasn’t aware that Thelma was used to bras that were a bit… pointy.

“Kinda looks like the ‘50s. You know. Grease? ”

Thelma didn’t know what the leftovers from chicken-fried steak had to do with her outfit, but she had a feeling that she wasn’t following the logic, anyway. “The fifties, you say?”

“Yeah, the skirt. The blouse.” Gretchen pointed to Thelma’s face. “You’ve got that curl around your cheek and that makeup. Super retro.” When that same face fell, Gretchen said, “I like it. It’s unique. Suits you.”

“Oh… oh! ” Laughing, Thelma continued to smooth out her skirt and take in her shape in the reflection.

“Guess I have a type of style I’m married to.

You should see one of the looks in my closet.

” She referred to the outfit she had been wearing when she drove into the fog.

“It’s literally a dress and coat ensemble from the ‘50s.”

“Rad.”

I take it that’s a good thing. “What are you doing here?” She dared to flirt a little. What else do I do in the future? “Admiring women in the changing room?”

Gretchen stumbled over her sandaled feet as she rearranged her shoulder against the wall. “I don’t know if I’d say admiring as much as I’m looking for a new coat while they’re on sale. I need one for winter. I like to go up in the mountains. Now’s the time to buy these things.”

“Oh? What do you do in the mountains?”

Gretchen shrugged. Was she suddenly too “cool” to talk to Thelma. “You know. Cabin stuff. My aunt and uncle have a place up around Shasta.”

“Sounds beautiful. I haven’t been there in forever.” She wondered how much different it looked now.

“Well, I… I wouldn’t want to keep you from your shopping with your cousin.”

“My cousin? Oh! Right! Meg. She’s my cousin! Debbie’s my mom!”

As Thelma laughed so loudly that an older woman carrying bras looked at her funny, Gretchen merely tilted her head as if she didn’t know what to make of the new addition to her neighbor’s house. “You sticking around town, right?”

“Huh?”

Gretchen tried another approach. “You in town for a while? Van Nuys area?”

“I don’t plan on going anywhere else, no. It’s… well, it’s complicated. I’ve moved here for now.”

“Hey, I don’t mean to pry. Just wondering if I’ll keep seeing you around when I’m not at work.”

“What do you do?”

Gretchen rearranged the coats on her arm. They bunched up against her chest as she shifted between her feet. “I work at my uncle’s construction company. Do odd jobs on sites when he needs them, but mostly work in the office with my aunt. They took me in when my parents…”

Thelma remembered Robbie and Megan talking about this at the dinner table one night.

Her parents died a few months apart. Quite tragic.

Something about her mother dying of cancer and her father being in an accident not too long after the funeral.

Megan implied—much to Robbie’s chagrin—that alcohol had been involved.

“Anyway.” Gretchen took a step past Thelma. “You look great in that.” Her gaze continued to linger as she walked farther away, almost knocking into the older woman with the bras. “Really great.”

“Thank you,” Thelma mouthed.

“Tell Meg hi for me, huh? I used to babysit her for scrap.”

Thelma shrugged. She had no idea what that meant!

“And tell her girlfriend hi, too! Haven’t seen that girl around in a while.”

Gretchen was turned around and leaving before Thelma could realize what the neighbor said. Her what?

Flustered, Thelma hustled back into her changing room and got into her original clothes by the time Megan came to check on her.

She forgot what Gretchen had said while discussing with Megan what clothes she should get from the current batch, all while expressing that she was quite tired of the synthetic fabrics and the noise of the department store.

If you can call it that… It wasn’t until they bypassed the meager food court, with its sandwiches and greasy pizza, that Thelma thought to ask what had recently been on her mind.

“I saw the neighbor in the changing area.” They were back in Megan’s car, where the air conditioner cooled the sweat on Thelma’s brow. “She said hello. Including your girlfriend.”

Megan’s hands were frozen at ten and two, the car humming around them.

“I’m supposing that a young woman like that does not mean your friend who happens to be a girl, Meg.” She decided to approach this quite delicately, since one never knew how a lady would take such an accusation. “So… do you have a romantic suitor who happens to be female?”

Megan’s mouth dropped open, her chest suddenly rising up and down at breakneck speed beneath her T-shirt. Her cheeks had never been so pale around her grandmother.

“Gretch,” she hissed. “I will fucking kill you.”

I’ll take that as a yes. The only way Thelma could parse this moment was if she offered a friendly laugh.

“I’m not judging. I knew quite a few lesbians back in my day.

I mean, my college was almost nothing but them!

I was the only one who wasn’t!” That was half a lie.

Thelma knew that she couldn’t be a lesbian if she also didn’t mind her husband.

At least she was nothing like Sandy and a bunch of their friends, who decried marrying men and demanded a world where they could marry women instead. Wouldn’t that be nice?

“Wow,” was all Megan said.

“Perhaps you should introduce me to your girlfriend,” Thelma gently said. “I’d love to know her.”

Finally, Megan’s body relaxed as she inhaled a deep breath. “Okay, so you really are the coolest 1950s housewife ever, huh?”

As they backed out of the parking space, Thelma looked out the window, shaking her head. You have no idea, honey. The seatbelt snapped against her shoulder as Megan gunned it out of the parking lot and toward Raymer Street.

What a world I’ve come into. At least the women were as free and fabulous as Sandy always dreamed. I hope you got to see some of it, San.

Thelma gazed up toward the sun, imagining that her old love was an angel in the sky. She didn’t even cry at the thought. She’d rather laugh.