Page 31 of Maybe Some Other Time
“I’m sure you would have fit right in, either way.”
You have no idea. She waited for Gretchen to open the glass door leading into the cozy vintage shop, distracted by the bright orange one-piece on the mannequin in the window.
That must be the ‘60s. Such a garish color and scandalous cut would not have flown in Thelma’s time.
Kinda wish it would have, though. Sandy would have looked amazing with the matching big orange sunglasses.
“Hello!” came a cheery voice from behind the back counter.
Out popped a middle-aged woman with cat-eye glasses and a polka-dot shirtdress that almost bowled Thelma over to witness.
“Oh, my, look at you!” The woman stopped to adjust her glasses as she peered at Thelma’s whole look.
“You are a vision! That hair! Those shoes!” Another gasp ripped through the room. “That purse! Is that an original?”
“This thing?” Thelma was put on the spot, but for once, someone was gawking at her with confused intent. “Suppose so. It belonged to… my grandmother. She bought it in the ‘50s.”
“What a vision! You have seamlessly blended a casual but feminine late ‘50s style with modern cuts! What’s your secret?”
Gretchen cut in. “She’s just built differently.”
“You’ve come to the right place, sweetie.
” As the woman approached, Thelma realized that it wasn’t polyester or some other plasticky fabric mimicking the kind of housedress she would have worn only a few months ago.
Cotton. Real cotton! “I’m Charity. I own this boutique, and I would love to dress you in something. What’s your poison?”
“My what?”
“She means what do you like?”
“Oh!” Thelma thanked her date with another smile. “I’m quite partial to the mid-50s, myself. But I can also look good in some ‘40s schoolgirl clothes.”
“Darling, I bet! Of course it’s the ‘50s! You walked in and I swore…” Charity turned to Gretchen, who laughed along while clearly not knowing what was going on. “That was January Jones with you!”
They both shook their heads. “I have no idea who that is,” Thelma said.
“Oh! Betty Draper! The quintessential gorgeous but complicated ‘60s housewife from that TV show.”
Thelma looked to Gretchen, who shrugged. Apparently, she had no idea what they were talking about, either. That makes two of us.
“Do you curl your own hair? Oh, look at that lipstick.” Charity wandered behind a circular rack of ‘70s sweaters. “You dress just like my grandma did. And I mean that in the most complimentary way.”
Thelma gradually loosened up as she gazed at a mannequin wearing an impeccably homemade collared dress, straight from the Simplicity pattern and with fabric either sourced from the local store or her mother’s collection from the Depression.
I made a few of my own dresses from my mother’s fabric when Bill and I were first married…
Then, as he made more money and they could afford a house, she was buying her dresses from Bullock’s, Macy’s, and a neighborhood shop called Irene’s Image.
I wonder if Irene ever got her designs picked up by a New York fashion house…
It had been the young woman’s dream. Every time Thelma stopped by, she made sure to compliment the talented seamstress, even if she didn’t buy anything.
Now I realize I was probably flirting with her… Irene was cute…
“She does curl her own hair,” Gretchen said, when it was clear that Thelma was distracted. “I’ve seen her with her curlers in.”
“Oh, are you her friend? Sister?”
The two glanced at each other, blushing again. “We’re neighbors.”
Thelma playfully jabbed her elbow against Gretchen’s arm.
“What?”
“Is this something neighbors do in 2018?”
When Gretchen gave her a quizzical look that seemed to imply she had said something wrong, Thelma pretended she hadn’t meant anything. It was an honest question. Except Gretchen didn’t know the truth. Something Thelma didn’t want to face right now.
“Take a look around the shop!” Charity called from the back. “I’m going to rummage through some things I still have back here!”
“Wow,” Gretchen muttered when the shopkeeper’s voice was replaced with the instrumental jazz music playing on the speakers. “She really digs your style.”
Thelma almost asked what that meant, but she had a feeling she knew—and it was good.
“Look at this stuff…” What had felt so familiar only a few months ago now looked like it had been wrung gently through the wringer.
Thelma gravitated toward the ‘50s section of the store and saw her neighbor’s shoes, Sandy’s favorite costume necklace, and the president of the PTA’s beloved navy-blue shirt-collar dress.
And there was more than fashion! Charity had also collected a small selection of home décor and kitchen dishes that looked like they had come right out of “mid-century.”
Including Thelma’s mother’s Fiestaware dishes, some of which she had inherited.
“Look at this!” She tapped on a glass cabinet showcasing brightly colored ceramics. “My mother had these exact sets! Gosh, I remember growing up and always wanting the yellow one for dinner. It’s such a happy color.”
Gretchen peered inside. “Says here the red one is radioactive. Hope you didn’t eat off that. Also…” She stood up. “These all must have lead in them.”
“What’s wrong with lead?”
“Are you serious? Pretty sure they fought a whole war in Texas over leaded gasoline.”
Thelma didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t care.
She was entranced by the “vintage” ceramicware that took her right back to just before the war, when her mother used to have other women over after church on Sunday.
She told Gretchen about her memories of four finely dressed women, in their dresses, gloves, and scarves, sipping coffee from the same cups and saucers in the case.
Gretchen listened patiently but was clearly out of her element as Thelma prattled about her love for the rich green color that had probably indirectly led to the purse she purchased one year before coming to…
Los Angeles. Thelma was careful not to say 2018.
“Oh, you know your Fiesta!” Charity returned with some clothes flung over her arm.
“I’ve spent years slowly collecting the vintage pieces myself.
These are the extras I pick up from Facebook Marketplace and estate sales.
You never know what the heck you’ll find on the internet.
And so many people have no idea the actual value of what they have!
See this Medium Green here?” She pointed to a salad plate prominently displayed on the top shelf.
“It’s one of the rarest colors. Collectors can’t get enough of it. ”
“It’s beautiful,” Thelma said. “When did that one come out?”
“Oh, it had to be very late ‘50s. Possibly 1960. I’d have to look it up.”
Right after I disappeared. Thelma had been pleasantly surprised to see how the brand had lived on for so many more decades, but couldn’t get Robbie or Megan to understand why the plates and bowls in their kitchen were simply good taste.
From what I understand, he just kept buying the same kind of dishware we had at home, and his ex-wife coordinated the colors.
Thelma still wanted to meet Becky, if only to shake her hand for her good work with the daughter… and the dishes, Thelma supposed.
“Now, I took the liberty of guestimating your size.” Charity showed off the dress on top of her pile. “Some of these haven’t yet made it out to the floor, but some of them I’ve been holding for online sale and…”
“Is that what I think it is?” Thelma yanked a white and green A-line dress off the pile, holding it up so she could take in the original belt and crisp linen touching her fingers. “Givenchy?”
“My word. She really knows her vintage fashion…” Charity said to Gretchen, who was more lost than ever.
“Spring and Summer Collection of 1953,” Thelma recalled, although she instantly realized there were some differences from the dress she most coveted shortly before giving birth to Debbie. “This is a replica, though, isn’t it?”
Charity sighed in relief that she didn’t have to explain it.
“Yes. Vintage from the ‘50s, but a very good homemade ‘replica,’ we shall say, of the design that brought us the A-line housedress that we all know and love.” She gestured to the dress she wore. “Isn’t it beautiful? I just picked that piece from a local estate sale. Seems that there was once a seamstress who made many of her own dresses to sell to local women. She had a wonderful eye for detail.”
Thelma slowly lowered the dress so she could look Charity in the wary eye. “Irene? Of Irene’s Image, by chance?”
“Why, yes! It was her estate sale! She passed away a few months ago.”
“You’re kidding…”
“Did you know her?’
“Actually, yes. I bought a few things from her.”
“Really? She closed up her shop in the ‘70s but kept designing.”
“Private sale,” Thelma said through pursed lips. “Would you mind if I tried this on?”
“Absolutely not! Please do!”
Charity showed Thelma to the changing room, which was nothing more than a closet with a blanket for a curtain.
As she settled in, she heard the proprietress attempting to talk shop with Gretchen, but the more Gretchen spoke, the more it was apparent that she brought Thelma here to amuse her more than anyone else.
“She really likes this vintage stuff,” Gretchen’s muffled voice said as Thelma slowly undressed so she could hear. “Thought it would make her day.”
When Thelma turned and encountered her reflection in a mirror, she noticed she was grinning from ear to ear.
“Well, this all originated with Christian Dior’s New Look in the late ‘40s…”
Thelma nestled into the Givenchy replica as crafted by her dear acquaintance Irene.
I wonder how long she lived… Irene was older than Thelma, but not that much older.
After all, she had started her business alongside her mother right after high school—Irene’s mother, the cantankerous but talented Dolly, was the finest seamstress in town, but it was her daughter who turned the shop into a destination for not just taking in and repairing clothing, but buying them wholesale.
She must have been in her 90s when she passed.
Was there anyone left that Thelma could say hello to?
Maybe it’s for the best. She adjusted her breasts and bra before checking her reflection.
When it was time to reveal the look? She had to hold in her giddiness. After all, that was Gretchen’s jaw dropping to the floor when she saw the quintessential ‘50s woman sauntering back into the shop.
“I knew it was right to wear these shoes today.” Thelma gave a little turn, green purse dangling from her hand as she bounced her blond curls. “Do I look like I’m about to get my tenth punch for my Impala at Digby’s Gas ‘n’ Go?”
“Of course she has an Impala!” Charity exclaimed. “Did you bring it, by chance?”
Gretchen shook her head. “Sorry. Just my very modern Ford F150.”
With the skirt swishing around her legs, Thelma skipped forward, batting her eyelashes at Gretchen, who grew increasingly flustered as “June Cleaver” made her rounds in the vintage shop, much to Charity’s amusement.
I barely know who that is. More than one person had referenced the show Leave it to Beaver to Thelma, including at a group, but she didn’t get it.
The show wasn’t even popular when she left!
But she’d take it as a compliment. All that was missing was a pearl necklace.
“I bow to your beauty,” Gretchen said with confidence, but her stance suggested she was still flustered by how graceful Thelma moved in one of Irene’s hand-stitched A-line dresses. “You’re gorgeous.”
“It’s official. I have a crush.” Charity held up the other clothes she had brought from the back. “Shall we even bother?”
Thelma stopped in front of a full-length mirror. To everyone in the shop, she merely looked like herself. To everyone out there… She glanced out the window at a woman passing by wearing sweatpants and a tank top. I’m something else entirely.
Gretchen came up behind her. Delectable chills ran down Thelma’s spine.
“Damn, girl,” she whispered. “Don’t make me ask you out twice.”
Something about those words stung Thelma right in the guilty heart.
Bill said almost the same thing the third time we met.
She had turned him down once, consumed with thoughts of Sandy, who had just kissed her like the sun would shine forever.
Yet here was a decent man with a future ahead of him.
A man who would take care of her, a woman who would have floundered had she tried to face the world with Sandy.
“You can, if you want.”
Thelma added a teasing tone to her words, but inside, she crumbled. Here she was, reenacting something the earth hadn’t seen in nearly seventy years.
But instead of teasing her back, like Bill had in 1949, Gretchen merely leaned next to the mirror and softly smiled at her. That enticing jaw, the fluffy hair, and easygoing clothes were in such contrast to Thelma’s reflection that she finally remembered to laugh again.