Page 4 of Maybe Some Other Time
Keeping her eyes on the road, Thelma fussed with the radio dial, attempting to get back to the familiar #1 hit that had haunted the stations for a while.
Trumpets flourished over the stereo. Thelma winced, splitting her attention between the radio and the possibility of other cars suddenly appearing before her. For a moment, she forgot where she was driving.
“ ?Permanece sintonizado para más de tus artistas preferidos como Banda MS, Calibre 50 y Gerardo Ortiz… ?aquí, en La Mera Mera nueve-ochenta, tu estación completa! ”
“I don’t speak Spanish…” Thelma gave up, looking out both her window and the passenger side. All she saw was gray. Gray, blackened dense fog that sent a terrible chill down her spine, despite her coat and handkerchief.
As a very upbeat instrumental track played through her radio, Thelma attempted to keep it together, hoping that she wasn’t too anxious to make it to the market parking lot. Heck, she’d be happy to make it there alive at this rate!
Something appeared before her. She slammed the brakes, shrieking.
It was a man in khaki pants, a black windbreaker, and holding some kind of device up to his head as he approached Thelma in her Impala.
Lights shone on her from every direction.
More men in the same outfits, carrying the same devices, surrounded her.
Giant black vans. Police cars. Some unmarked.
Bright red and blue flashing lights.
Thelma’s gloved hands flung off her wheel, covering her face as she held back a primal scream of fear. The men—and women?—in their frightening outfits chattered to each other, some staring at her Impala and writing things down in notepads as others put up caution tape up and down the street.
Gradually, the fog faded. The lights remained.
And so did the people, with one man coming up to her driver's side window and rapping his knuckles on the glass.
The only reason Thelma rolled down her window was because she recognized the big yellow letters emblazoned on his windbreaker: FBI.
“Turn off the ignition, please!”
Thelma gaped at the man with a clean-shaven face and a large flashlight in his hand. He shook it in her direction, the bright light occasionally shining directly in her face and blinding her in ways the fog had not.
“Ma’am!” He pointed to her wheel. “Ignition! Off! Please! Comprende Ingles? ”
Even Thelma knew his Spanish accent was atrocious, but what else could she do? She had to turn off the ignition and hope that any of this made sense!
As the Mexican music suddenly cut off from the so-called KFWB station, Thelma kept her hands on the steering wheel and stared up into the imposing features of a man she could not quite place.
He looked like an FBI agent. Or, at least, she thought he did. But there was something off about him. The glasses. In a single moment, she glanced between his plain eyeglasses and the material of his jacket. And the gun at his hip! She had never seen anything like it!
Her adrenaline was peaking. Whatever was going on, Thelma knew her life was changed.
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
Another man—a younger agent—came up beside the first and leaned against the roof of the Impala. Thelma still didn’t quite feel safe, but she relaxed a little, a lump still in her throat.
“Th… Thelma.” She swallowed. “Thelma Van der Graaf.”
“You got any identification on you, Ms. Van der Graaf?”
She fished for her purse, which remained in the center of the passenger seat. “It’s missus,” she muttered. When she turned around, wallet in hand, she realized the younger man had disappeared.
“THELMA VAN DER GRAAF!” Her name echoed across every person in the distance. “CAN I GET A MISSING PERSON’S ON THELMA VAN DER GRAAF? 1958 CHEVY IMPALA!”
“This is all I have,” she softly said as she handed over her paper driver’s license. “Is something wrong, sir? I was just on my way to the market, and…”
“Stay there.” He snatched her license away and took two steps to the left, standing by her front bumper. More agents approached to confer with him. Thelma closed her wallet, securing her punch cards and stamps before they fell out. Her keys remained in the ignition.
As her eyes focused on the renewed darkness around her, she realized how different her neighborhood looked.
It began with the streetlights. There were more of them, and the light they exuded was bright and fluorescent instead of warm and yellowish.
When did that happen? Bill would have told her if the city planned to change out the streetlights, let alone to something so garish.
And what was this nonsense in Mary Johnson’s yard?
Had she painted her house recently? Thelma swore the old woman who often picked on the children walking to school was only bothered with fixing up things when the city pushed her.
But her white craftsman was painted… sage green?
With tan trim? And what happened to her rose bushes?
What kind of strange car was that parked in the driveway? Was it gold?
The agent returned to her window.
“Thelma Van der Graaf?” he repeated back to her.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m Agent Wilcox. We’d appreciate it if you stepped out of the car and came with us.”
“Am I in trouble, sir?”
“We’ll explain when we get to the office. Right now, we need to secure your safety.” He motioned his flashlight to the interior of her car. “Get whatever valuables you need and come with us. Someone will transport your car for you. Just leave the keys in the ignition.”
“My husband…”
Her voice trailed off because she realized how foolish it was to argue. She was surrounded by some of America’s finest, most mysterious law enforcement agents. What else could she do but comply?
“All right. Just a moment, please.”
Something wasn’t right. Whether it was the dense fog, the startling music on the radio, or the way her environment now looked, all Thelma could think of was her childhood.
Nine years old. The country was coming out of the Depression.
Even child Thelma knew that from how her family’s diets changed and how they had a little more money for things like the movies.
For her birthday, her parents took her to see The Wizard of Oz, where she first fell in love with Judy Garland and enjoyed the wondrous magic of special effects and colorization on the big screen.
Things she took so much for granted when she went out on date nights with Bill.
She thought of Dorothy as her limbs slowly moved through the car, her nimble, gloved fingers ensuring her house keys, money, and club membership cards were secure in her purse.
She thought of how scared that little girl must have been to be caught up in that tornado that dropped her off in a strange and unfamiliar place.
The lights swirled around her as two female agents, both with quite unbecoming hairstyles and pants, approached to lead her to a black van.
One put a hand on her back to direct her away from her car.
Another asked her inane questions about her identity.
“Date of birth? Next of kin? What day is it, Mrs. Van der Graaf?” All while the lights swirled and the agents spoke, though, Thelma imagined she was Dorothy, seeing Oz for the first time.
“I’m not in Kansas anymore…”
Both agents stopped, one of them remembering to open the van’s back door. “Excuse me?” asked the other.
Thelma looked up into the night sky. She couldn’t see any stars, despite the lack of fog. Yet she knew this was still Southern California. The air smelled a little different, but it was home.
“My son…” She held a gloved hand to her heart. “Robbie! He’s… he’s sick… milk…”
“She’s got a son named Robbie,” one agent said to the other as Thelma was hoisted into the back of the van and sat on a bench. “Find him. He might still be alive.”
The doors closed. She was left in shadowy darkness.
He might still be alive…
Nobody told her who they were. Where they were going. Why she was apprehended in the middle of her neighborhood on an otherwise innocuous evening.
Tears fell from her eyes. Was it the stress? Anxiety? Had something happened at her house the moment she left? Her children. Robbie. Debbie. They were all she thought of as the words “he might still be alive” echoed in her head.
Why would her boy be dead? He wasn’t that sick!
“Robbie…” she whispered. “Dead?”
The surreal nature of the van moving with her in it, nobody telling her what was going on, finally hit her.
“Please!” she called out to the driver and the man sitting next to him. “I need to stop at the market! I need milk for my son!”
They ignored her. Maybe they couldn’t hear her.
More tears. Thelma didn’t bother to brush them away. It was hitting her.
Something had happened. Something had changed.
She wasn’t in Kansas anymore… and her little boy might be dead.
“Robbie…”
Yet despite her anxieties, she fell back on the possibility that this might all make sense. She might even see Robbie soon.
She hoped she recognized him. She hoped he recognized her.