Page 25 of Maybe Some Other Time

Okay, so maybe Gretchen could show a little more skin…

“Wow.” She came closer, no scent of perfume nor a hint of makeup on her skin.

She peered over Thelma’s shoulder, courting an eerie calm that insinuated a closeness between them…

but Thelma knew better. She already felt things for Gretchen that would have gotten her in trouble during any other time period. “You really look like her.”

Thelma realized Gretchen referred to the pictures of herself in Sandy’s book.

Like a fool, Thelma had left the pages open to family photos that showcased her “vintage” style.

That day, Thelma even wore a collared sundress and a baubly necklace that Megan had given her.

It looks like pearls. She missed her pearls.

She hadn’t been wearing them the day she went missing.

“Well, she is my grandmother,” she sardonically said.

“Seriously, though. You even have her name. How crazy is that?”

Not as crazy as you might think. Thelma slowly flipped the book shut and decided to rejoin the future now that Gretchen was here.

“Genetics is an interesting thing, isn’t it?

” She had been learning more about the strides of genetic testing and DNA through a scientific TV show that Robbie and Megan liked to watch.

“Anyway… sorry.” Gretchen glanced toward the front desk, where a middle-aged woman with purple hair processed returned books. “Should I be on the lookout? I know Rob works here during the week. Don’t want to cause a scene with you guys.”

Thelma rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about him. He’s… cranky. But I’m an adult, and he knows how to heel when it comes down to it.”

Gretchen’s eyes in turn widened as she shoved her hands on her hips and leaned back. “Wow. Okay. The boy heels for someone, huh?”

He heels for his mother. Thelma knew how ridiculous it all was now.

There was her Robbie, old enough to be a grandfather multiple times over, and he had to answer to her, a twenty-eight-year-old blonde who had gone missing in 1958.

Nobody would ever take them seriously, especially since she was supposedly his niece.

They must think I am his young lover and we’re trying to cover it up.

Once, that thought made Thelma retch. Now she was numb.

“What are you doing here?” Thelma politely asked, desperate to change the subject.

Gretchen shrugged before relaxing those tensed shoulders. “Checking out some reading. I still prefer physical books. I finally came up on the list to check out The Woman in the Window. Have you read it? Everyone’s raving about it this year.”

“Can’t say I have.” Honestly, Thelma struggled to catch up with all the books that had “woman” in the title. I will never have time to catch up on the books I would have wanted to read over the decades. She’d have to catch the movie versions.

“Oh. Okay.”

Thelma had to get it together. Here was this gorgeous woman who would have given her a romantic conniption any other day of her life, and she was as insufferable as Scarlet O’Hara when she had been wronged.

As Megan would say… don’t blow it. Thelma didn’t need the phrase explained to her.

The image was preposterously clear in her head. As clear as a nuclear bomb going off.

“You know what’s nice to know?”

Gretchen halted from turning around and saying goodbye. “What?”

Thelma leaned back in her seat, one arm draped over the plastic chair, and a foot slipping out of its shoe. “That since 1945, no other nuclear weapon has been used for its intended purpose on this planet.”

“Uh…” The book Gretchen carried switched hands. “Yeah.”

“It used to be the most frightening thing in the world. Just in 1962, there was such tension between the United States and Cuba. ” Thelma still struggled to wrap her head around the idea of Cuba being any kind of significant threat to the rest of America.

“People still talk about it. They discuss how little they slept at night. Can you imagine what it would have been like to live through that?”

“No. That was forever ago.”

“Robbie lived through it. So it must not have been that long ago.”

Gretchen sucked in her cheeks and placed her book on Thelma’s table. “Guess so.”

The last thing I need is him seeing me with this book.

Or talking to Gretchen. Heck, everything about that still weighed heavily on her mind.

She had tried discussing it with Megan, but not only had she been scarce since her college term wrapped up, but it felt…

inappropriate. There were some things a young lady did not need to know about her grandmother.

At the end of the day, we’re not best friends.

Not that Thelma could speak about this to Pauline or Jo, either…

Not yet.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” Thelma blurted at the infuriatingly attractive woman who had all her lean carpenter muscles hanging out.

Great skin, nice body, and I can’t stop thinking about sex.

Thelma would break her No. 2 pencil in half at her current level of frustration.

You’d think after two kids that would all slow down, but no.

Thelma swore that her last pregnancy broke her.

She had a completely “normal” sex drive, and then her hormones went nuts.

Like they knew how little time she had left!

“I noticed that there’s a little garden area out there. I’d love to see it.”

“Uh, sure…”

Well, one point to Thelma Van der Graaf, who hadn’t scared this nice tomboy away! I was probably pretty close. She gathered her things into her bag and stood up. Better to take it all with her than leave it with Robbie, who would only ask questions.

They went out the door farthest from the counter and instantly stepped into the hot sun.

Thelma pulled a pair of sunglasses she purchased from the department store out of her purse and used them as a shield not only against the bright light of the sun, but from feelings that had been percolating inside of her for most of the week.

Gretchen was unperturbed. She was bare-faced against the sun, but considering how good her skin was, Thelma figured she must have taken good care of it despite her occupation.

I’m still figuring out how it works today…

The cosmetics of her time were long gone. Even her lipstick was about to run out.

“You want to know why Robbie’s losing his marbles?” Thelma blurted once they were near the community garden, one of the only accessible green spaces in the area. “He found out about me.”

Gretchen was reverently quiet as they meandered through the publicly accessible path in the garden.

Large, wired fences separated outsiders from the greens within.

Social trust is down these days. Back in Thelma’s time, nobody except someone completely losing it would have harmed a community garden, but nothing made sense anymore.

“Found out about you?” Gretchen finally pried. “You mean that you exist?”

“No, no… well, yes. I mean… it’s complicated.

” Thelma adjusted her bag strap. Sweat glided down her back, her cotton dress suddenly oppressive against her lithe frame.

“He discovered an uncomfortable truth about me. Something I kept hidden from the family for years. It just wasn’t done, you know?

There weren’t any other alternatives for me.

If I wanted to be provided for, I mean… I had to marry a man and bear children.

Don’t get me wrong, Gretch, I love my children, it’s just… ”

She shut her mouth before she said anything else so silly.

No. No, I should just get it out. Say it out loud. Make it true.

“He found my favorite book. I kept it hidden in my chest, but he found it.”

“All that over a book?”

“You don’t understand. It was…” She cleared her throat, searching for the confidence that was quickly descending to her bile-ridden stomach.

“ Lesbians in Outer Space.” A schlocky, pulpy novel written by a dear friend of mine.

I mean, of the family. Because it’s from the ‘50s. During my grandmother’s time!

Actually!” She stopped, pivoting her whole body toward Gretchen, who jumped.

“It was Thelma’s! She was a big ol’ lover of women, but nobody except Sandy Westmore and a few girls at their college could ever know!

And here I am! Same name, same face, and I also love women.

More than my husband! The poor bastard…”

Gretchen crossed her arms. That was all Thelma saw, for she could hardly bear to witness any other reaction.

She was too wrapped up in her own head, remembering how Bill flirted with her before he went to work that last morning she was there.

Taking care of him. Giving him stability, like he gave me stability… Their children. Robbie, Debbie…

Poor Debbie. No memories of her mother except what fragments existed in a five-year-old’s head.

“And between me and God, He knows that’s why I’m here!”

As Thelma wrangled her breath back into her lungs, the sweat growing tenfold and her bag strap refusing to stay on her shoulder, Gretchen asked, “What do you mean, ‘here?’”

2018. At least Thelma had some wherewithal left to know better than to say that.

“Van Nuys.”

“Right.” Gretchen looked just as confused as before. “Because this is where God dumps all the queers He knows can’t afford West Hollywood.”

Spit flew from Thelma’s lips as she simultaneously laughed and sobbed. Luckily, her bodily fluids completely missed Gretchen and instead landed on the pavement beside them.

“Lord…” She was a mess. “I want to go home, but I can’t. There’s no way back.”

She saw Robbie on the couch with a fever; Bill wandering the kitchen to make toasted cheese; Debbie watching the television as she played with a doll.

They were all still waiting for her back on Hemlock Street.

All Thelma had to do was turn the car around, remove her gloves, and return to her proper life.