Page 33 of Maybe Some Other Time

“Everything about it was a mess for my parents,” Gretchen explained as she forked Spanish rice into a flour tortilla.

“They pushed me so hard to go to college, and I even got a couple of scholarships. It’s where I met Amy, although we didn’t start dating until we reconnected on Facebook a few years later.

” Gretchen stared into the past, her eyes glazing over and showing Thelma the subtler side of her soul.

“When I dropped out, my mother was verbally upset, and my father just wouldn’t talk to me, except to tell me that I was ruining my body and my potential by going into the trades.

And my mother was worried about all the sexism, but I had to ask her what she thought was going to happen if I became a lawyer?

A software developer? Anything that pays well and has prestige is sexist as hell.

That’s how it’s always been. Might as well get harassed or ignored doing something I love.

Besides, I’m tougher than most of the pansies on my uncle’s team. ”

“Are we still talking about carpentry? Or basketball?”

Gretchen offered a shrimp to her date before continuing.

“Then there were the girls… I wasn’t expecting it from them, but they showed me a homophobic side of themselves.

Like, they couldn’t have been shocked that their very unfeminine daughter, who had posters of Pamela Anderson and Kathleen Hanna in her bedroom, turned out queer, but they were in denial.

Except they loved to think themselves the perfect liberal scholars who, in theory, supported things like gay rights and marriage, but in practice?

God forbid their only child turns out queer. ”

Thelma understood most of that, but probably not in the way Gretchen intended.

“My parents would have disowned me. Sent me away. Maybe get me a lobotomy.” She blew air through her lips as she suddenly lost her appetite to eat more steak and rice-filled tortillas, as delicious as they were. “They never knew about Sandy.”

“Were you guys serious?”

Thelma cleared her throat. “I suppose you could say she was my girlfriend.” She lowered her voice—and her eyes. “I had an ongoing affair with her while married. He had no idea.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I never really thought about it. We were so secretive… every Wednesday, if we could.” Instead of dwelling on the sour feeling in her stomach, Thelma focused on how excited she always was to have Sandy over for lunch, tea, and a roll in the sack.

“Right in my marital bed. I guess it didn’t feel ‘real’ to me, although there was a reason I kept bringing her into my home, right?

It must have been real. I just… didn’t think there was a world where she and I could be together.

She was ‘out,’ as you would say, but I didn’t have that temperament.

I’m not a go-getter who has the stomach for breaking down barriers, no matter how the audience jeers. ”

“What are you, then?”

Thelma had to think about that. “I actually liked being a housewife. I was very proud of my house. Taking care of my kids, entertaining the neighbors, and being entertained by them…” She closed her eyes.

“I knew everyone on the shopping street. They knew me. We took care of each other, even if we didn’t share the same politics—see, Bill and I were Democrats, but most of the street was Republicans.

If someone was sick, you took them a casserole and offered to watch their kids for a few hours.

If there was trouble afoot, you told them.

Some people weren’t as welcoming as others, but you mitigated that by being extra nice to newcomers until everyone felt comfortable.

We even had a Hispanic family that lived at the end of the street.

So many cold shoulders for them, but my neighbor Jane and I kept inviting over Marcella during the day and arranging playdates for our toddlers until everyone had to begrudgingly accept that they were our neighbors, dangit. ”

“Right, right.” Once again, Gretchen had that countenance that implied she had followed Thelma’s story… to a point. But instead of asking further questions, she just went with it. “Classic suburban tale.”

“I know the things I say sound like they’re from… a different time.”

“You dress like a different time.”

Thelma delicately wiped her fingers on a cloth napkin. “Wait until you hear my Katharine Hepburn impression.”

“I don’t know enough about her to say if it’s good or not.”

“Whaaat? Really? But she’s perfect!”

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen any of her movies. I think.”

Thelma folded her arms on the table after pushing aside her (definitely Fiesta) plate. “Do you have that application on your TV? My family has one currently, though I’m not very good at using it. The one with all the movies. You just push the buttons and make movies appear.”

“You mean Netflix?”

“Yes! That’s what it’s called!”

“Sure. Why?”

“There must be a Katharine Hepburn movie on there. You have to watch it. The woman is a homo…” She course-corrected. “A ‘queer’ awakening.”

“Let me guess. You and Sandy watched a lot of her movies.”

“In the theater, no less. Some very good dates were had watching her and Spencer Tracy try not to act like they had the greatest chemistry both on and off the screen. Although I always preferred her screwballs with Cary Grant. Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story are classics. I don’t care what people say.

The story with the tiger is good! I still don’t know why it bombed.

I made my mom take me to see it at least… ”

“At least fifty times? Yeah, we had one of those theaters that showed old movies when I was a kid. I kinda had a crush on Doris Day.”

“ Calamity Jane and The Man Who Knew Too Much? ”

“More like Pillow Talk. I mostly know her early ‘60s stuff.”

Great. All Thelma knew about the ‘60s was JFK, MLK, and Neil Armstrong. If Doris Day didn’t become president, go to the moon, or be assassinated, I know nothing about it.

“My friend Sandy really loved Audrey Hepburn,” Thelma said to change the subject.

“You mean your girlfriend Sandy?”

Thelma had to think about that. “Believe it or not, I never thought of her that way.”

“Really?”

“It just wasn’t an option.”

Gretchen paused eating long enough to contemplate that as well.

“I get what you mean. I’m in my thirties, but still getting used to the idea that I can just…

have a girlfriend. Get married to another woman.

All of that happened in our lifetimes, but I’m sure you remember a time before that being a possibility. ”

Thelma bit her tongue on that one. You have no idea. “If I had another daughter, I would name her Katharine. But maybe I’d name her Audrey now, for Sandy.”

“Those are both good names. Very Hepburn. Hey, were they related?”

She’s kidding! “No.”

“After this…” Gretchen’s valiant ability to maintain eye contact despite how terribly difficult it was did not go unnoticed. “Let’s go watch a movie. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. ”

Did Gretchen notice how difficult it was for Thelma to keep smiling despite her inability to understand half of what her date said?

“You mean like that book?” There had been buzz about the author’s upcoming book when Thelma left home, but she had never read any of his works before.

He must have become quite famous if he had movies made after his stuff.

“I guess it was a book first, huh? Truman Capote? That can’t be right…”

“Yes! Him!”

“Right. Harper Lee’s childhood best friend. Yes. I remember that from English class.”

“I’m fine with watching anything,” Thelma said once the fervor died at their table. “If it’s at your place.”

She had said the magic words. Apparently, it really was that easy to make Gretchen reenact the three phases of a woman’s confidence and embarrassment melding into one. All in five beautiful seconds.

Yet those seconds weren’t as beautiful as the genuine gaze meeting her halfway across the table. For five more precious seconds, Thelma forgot everything: her predicament, her family, her entire past.

Everything but her fluttering heart.

Although twilight had only begun outside when they made the slow journey through traffic, Gretchen’s home was darker than the day.

Suppose it helps that she likes to use those heavy blackout curtains.

She didn’t open them when they walked inside.

Thelma met the sleeping, blinking eyes of Barry, still perched in his favorite chair.

Gretchen only acknowledged him to ask if he wanted his dinner.

Gretchen provided sparkling water and trail mix as they settled onto the couch to watch the movie that piqued Thelma’s interest, if only because she put two and two together to realize that Gretchen suggested this movie.

After all, Audrey Hepburn starred in it.

Even Thelma was captivated by the black dress and pearls Audrey sported in the opening scene, where she literally supped on a breakfast donut in front of the iconic New York jeweler’s.

“I never put that together,” Gretchen said when Thelma pointed it out. “Well, did you know she was an escort?”

No, Thelma didn’t know that. She didn’t know anything except what she saw before her, her imagination brewing with images of Sandy sitting in the theater to watch this in 1961.

Did she think about me? Had she taken another woman out on a date to see it?

Did she still think about me when they got drinks afterward and probably went back to her place?

Had Sandy still lived in a cozy Malibu apartment? Could Thelma go see it today?