Page 3 of Maybe Some Other Time

Chapter two

The Fog

T here was no going straight to the market after picking up Robbie and Debbie from their respective schools. From the moment Thelma approached Grover Cleveland Elementary, her daughter’s hand in hers, she saw the look of distress on her son’s face.

“I really don’t feel good…”

With a surge of children rushing by them, their cries louder than the wind blowing through Thelma’s hair, she held her hand to his forehead again.

This time, there was definitely a fever.

“Oh, Robbie.” That was her quiet apology to her son, who could barely stay upright on the fifteen-minute walk home. Yet with Debbie’s hand in one grasp and Robbie’s in the other, Thelma trudged forward, dragging both children behind her.

She left Debbie in front of the television so she could help Robbie into his pajamas and lay him on the couch.

Thelma called the doctor’s office, but it was too late in the day to get Robbie seen.

So she scheduled an appointment for the morning, assuming his fever held, but the receptionist mentioned that there was a flu going around the schools.

Debbie will probably get it, then. Thelma tucked her son beneath a blanket and asked him what he wanted to watch on TV.

After changing dinner plans to canned soup and green beans, she went upstairs to grab Robbie’s teddy bear that he still secretly slept with.

He didn’t like to admit it at his age, but Thelma knew—and her boy didn’t complain when she tucked it beneath his arm.

I will probably get it. With any luck, Thelma wasn’t already infected and had passed it on to Sandy.

Sandy…

How quickly the mood of the day changed.

Thelma almost forgot that her friend had left something in the bedroom when she departed.

Fine thing if Bill found that! Yet Thelma was quick to snatch up the little love note Sandy scrawled while Thelma freshened up in the bathroom after their passionate tryst. She let herself furtively read it before tucking it into her dress pocket.

It was barely big enough to contain her driving gloves, let alone a note from her friend, but there was a reason Thelma had bought three of the same style of dress after realizing this kind came with tiny pockets.

With any luck, she would remember to empty them before doing laundry…

Well, there wasn’t any time to consider that with a sick child in her house. Bill would be home from work around six, and it was the one time he wanted coffee. Not in the morning. It has to be with dinner. Even canned soup and green beans required coffee.

Robbie was asleep on the couch when Bill arrived home ten minutes early, his eyes going straight to the scene in his living room.

Debbie had hopped up on the couch by her brother’s feet and played with a doll in her lap while a prime-time game show began on the television.

While removing his hat and putting down his bag, Bill wordlessly looked at his wife back in the kitchen.

“Robbie’s sick,” she mouthed at him.

Bill snuck up behind the couch and checked on his son before coming into the kitchen. “How bad?”

Soup was moved off the stove. “We’ll find out tomorrow when I take him to the doctor. I’m keeping him home from school.”

“Kid got what he wanted, huh?”

“Don’t be too hard on him. He’s been sleeping it off most of the evening. Poor thing has congestion, too. I heard him sneezing.”

“A cold?”

“Could be a flu. The doctor’s receptionist said it’s going around.”

Bill said nothing as he went upstairs to get ready for dinner.

Thelma finished prepping their supper. Usually, she would call the children into the kitchen or dining room to eat together, but this felt like a TV tray and primetime show night—assuming she could get Robbie to sit up long enough to eat.

At least Debbie will be excited. Thelma’s youngest loved it when the family sat in the living room for supper, even if she had to be extra careful about making a mess.

When she attempted to wake up Robbie and get him ready to eat, he hung his head back, slightly drooling.

“Oh, look at you.” Thelma wiped the dribble away with the handkerchief she carried. “My poor, pitiful Robbie. Can I get you something, pickle?”

He didn’t respond to one of her nicknames for him the way he usually did. Instead, he grunted, rubbing his eye and sniffing so hard it sounded like his brains were about to blend in the back of his head.

“Milk,” he said.

“What was that?”

He remained woefully collapsed in the corner of the couch, but was louder when he next spoke. “Can I please have some milk?”

“Of course. Just a second.” Thelma retreated to the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator—and instantly recalled that there hadn’t been a delivery in two days.

And she hadn’t gone to the market!

“Oh, dear,” she whispered. Her son’s one request while feeling sick, and Thelma couldn’t fulfill something as simple as milk.

She glanced at the clock above the hutch and calculated how quickly she could drive to the market before it closed.

It’s Wednesday. Designated shopping night.

What were the odds? If she left right now, she could pick up some milk and be back before everyone else finished eating.

Bill came back downstairs while Thelma donned her coat and grabbed her driving gloves from the credenza. “What’s going on?” he asked, before looking at his son. “Is he worse?”

“I have to get to the market before it closes. We still don’t have any milk.” She pursed her lips. “Or parsley. The soup just isn’t the same without it.”

“We can have canned soup without parsley, Thel.”

She crossed the room to the staircase, where he still stood. “I need milk to help him feel better. Please. If I go now, I can get there with plenty of time before they close tonight.”

“Well…” Bill glanced at his watch. “All right. I’ll watch the kids.”

“Oh, good.” She snatched her purse on the way to the door. “I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes. If you could serve the soup, I’d be very grateful.”

“Tell you what.” He followed her to the front door, where she stood with it open, the evening breeze tickling the back of her neck. “I’ll make us all some toasted cheese to go with it.”

“But it’s chicken soup, not tomato.”

“So? Maybe we bend some rules around here, huh?”

“You’ve been working all day…”

“Hey, what’s the hold up? Go now, be back quickly. I’ll keep us all busy.”

Her visage softened as she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re a lifesaver, dear. Be right back.”

She wrapped a handkerchief around her hair as she walked out into the evening.

Bill closed the door behind her. As his shadow moved behind the living room curtains, Thelma reminded herself that her children would be fine, even if her husband wasn’t used to being in charge of a sick kid—let alone at dinner time.

The Impala was cold when she slid in. Despite being a driver for over fifteen years, going back to when her grandfather taught her how to drive on his farm despite her mother’s protests that Thelma was too young, she was still getting used to the brand-new car they bought only a few months prior.

The Impala was popular, though. So much so that not only was theirs not the first on Hemlock Street, but it was far from the last. Thelma drove by another one exactly like it two houses down.

“Twilight Time” by the Platters played through the radio as she made a mental list in her mind of what to grab at the market while she was there.

I should get two bottles of milk. Just in case there still wasn’t a delivery the next day.

Even if she didn’t cook with any of it, Robbie would certainly want some.

Oh, I hope he’s okay. The last thing she wanted was him throwing up in the middle of the night, but if that was what happened, well…

“Goodness gracious.” She talked to herself as she pulled down the road that joined Hemlock Street with the nearest commercial district with a market. “They didn’t say anything about fog in the weather forecast.”

She peered over her steering wheel while the song faded on the radio.

Is this smoke? It didn’t smell like smoke, but why was the fog so thick?

It was the wrong time of day for some Californian fog.

Heck, it was the wrong time of year for it to be this bad!

There was no moisture in the forecast, either.

How was Thelma supposed to safely get to the market if everyone was driving in this muck?

“Mmm... yeah, that was The Platters—sweet as summer peaches and just as gone.” DJ B. Mitchel Reed startled her when he came in over the broadcast. “That’s ‘Twilight Time,’ baby, bringing us down soft and slow as the lights blink on Wilshire Boulevard.”

Thelma certainly hoped she wasn’t on Wilshire Boulevard. But with how thick the soup was, she supposed it was possible. There’s an intersection around here somewhere… Ah! There was the stop sign! At least she saw that.

“But don’t hang up your saddle shoes just yet—we’re flipping the mood from moonlight to madness. Coming at you now on Channel 98, it’s The Champs, and they only need one word to say it…”

Thelma accelerated as soon as Mr. Reed snapped his fingers.

“Tequila, baby! This is KFWB 980 AM with all the hits!”

As the instrumental riff began, Thelma swung the Impala into the road and continued to contend with the fog.

Static blended into the music.

Her hands were hot in her gloves as she remained steadfast against the steering wheel.

The fog grew denser—something sank into the pit of Thelma’s stomach.

“What the…”

B. Mitchel Reed was gone. The Champs were gone. No more tequila… just another man speaking directly into a mic from a very different station.

“ ?Y esto que escuchaste es lo nuevo que llega hoy, aquí en tu estación, K-F-W-B, La Mera Mera nueve-ochenta AM, donde suena lo mejor de la música regional Mexicana y tus éxitos favoritos del momento! ”