Page 50 of Maybe Some Other Time

“Wouldn’t miss your cooking for the world. Even if it means putting up with Robert.”

Thelma didn’t mention the cancer, since it wasn’t her business to share, but she did mention meeting Becky and thinking her quite lovely.

Gretchen talked about her conference and how dreadfully boring it was, even if her travel expenses were on the company’s dime.

Thelma reminisced about her and Bill coming to visit Vegas as a highlight of their marriage, but that it had already “changed so much” that she barely recognized it.

When she let slip that she saw Dean Martin live, she had to amend that it was an impersonator.

And the more Gretchen joked about Elvis, the more Thelma reminded herself to research what happened to Elvis when she got home. I know he died. That’s it.

Gretchen didn’t ask invasive questions; Thelma didn’t offer any sad stories as she drank wine and her date had a beer. By the time their plates were taken away, it felt like they had been talking all night instead of only an hour.

“Are you two thinking about any dessert?” the black-clad waiter asked after taking away their dinner dishes. “The tarte tartin is a popular one to share on dates.”

“You can tell we’re on a date?” tipsy Thelma blurted.

“When you’ve been doing this as long as I have,” he said, “you can tell.”

“Well, then…” Gretchen glanced at her date. “Guess we’re doing the tarte tartin .”

With a sly smile, the waiter stepped away. “Coming right up.”

“My gosh!” Thelma slammed both hands on her face before flinging them down again, laughing harder than before. “I’ve never been caught on a date before!”

“Me neither. And I used to go out every weekend with my ex.”

“Me too! Well, almost every weekend. Nobody knew, and that was how I liked it.”

Gretchen folded her hands on the table, locking eyes with Thelma as a cool breeze knocked some curls into her face. “Do you like people knowing that you’re out with me?”

Their knuckles lightly touched on top of the table. “Yes,” Thelma bashfully said as the breeze chilled her legs. “Do you like being out with me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After the tarte tartin, Gretchen covered the bill, and Thelma didn’t fight it.

They then walked back through the Paris, now bursting with people.

Before heading to the Ferris wheel, they popped into a piano bar for a quick drink, but quickly discovered a twenty-fifth anniversary party between a man and a woman and all the friends they had brought with them.

More people were invited to join, and as Gretchen and Thelma ordered some cocktails at the bar, they watched as the man in a GROOM sash spun the woman in a brIDE sash on the small dancefloor.

She wore a tiara with her blouse and pants, and he looked like the happiest man in Vegas.

“That’s the real shit right there,” Gretchen said, as they leaned against the bar. “Not winning thousands of dollars or hooking up with the prettiest lady in Vegas. Just being with one person for a long time. Absolute true love.”

Thelma gazed at her from the side. “You believe in that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“That’s so sweet.”

The piano player went on break. A playlist of prerecorded music blared over the speakers for guests to dance to, instead—the happy couple’s choice. They were country music fans, and Thelma yelped to hear Patsy Cline’s Walkin’ After Midnight thump so loudly through the intimate club.

“You like this song?” Gretchen asked as she grabbed their drinks.

“Don’t you?”

“I’ve never thought about it!”

In truth, Thelma didn’t really care—but she enjoyed anything that now reminded her of the late ‘50s, of driving her Impala down Hemlock Street while the radio played the latest hits from around America. Walkin’ After Midnight had gotten considerable play on the country station, which Bill frequently switched to when he tired of everything else.

Patsy Cline has quite a voice. As Thelma and Gretchen picked a tall table to have their drinks at, Thelma watched couples shuffling together on the dancefloor.

It was difficult to talk over everything.

But two songs later, when Thelma was halfway through her watered-down, expensive drink, she heard a male singer crooning some familiar lyrics.

“What?” Gretchen asked.

Something had struck Thelma right in the beating heart. It’s not the Platters, but… Was that a country musician? Singing “Twilight Time?”

“This song…” She spun her tiny straw in her drink. “The version by the Platters just… really sticks with me.”

“I don’t recognize this song at all. But I’m pretty sure this is Willie Nelson.”

Thelma could barely breathe. There she was, in the Impala, maneuvering through a thick fog as she did her best to get to the market before it closed.

Robbie is sick… Debbie was waiting for her.

Bill assumed she would be back within twenty minutes, and for a change, he’d have dinner on the table for all of them.

Thelma closed her eyes. She saw her husband standing behind the kids at the dining table, checking his watch and sweating when Thelma wasn’t home half an hour later. I was already gone… Already taken in by the FBI. Already sweating for her life and begging for a chance for it to all be a dream.

“Hey.” Gretchen cut through her sudden thoughts. “You wanna dance?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She took Thelma’s hand and, leaving their melted ice behind, led her to the edge of the dancefloor with the other celebrants.

“Did you know that Willie wrote for Patsy Cline?” Thelma prattled as she attempted to enjoy her first dance with Gretchen. Why am I so nervous? Because of the song? Because they were two women dancing in public? “He wrote Walkin’ After Midnight. He wrote for a lot of artists.”

“That so?” Gretchen had her hand wrapped around Thelma’s midsection and held her other as they slowly made their way to the center of the dancefloor. Beside them, the other happy couple laughed as one tripped over the other’s foot. “Who knew?”

Gretchen wasn’t interested in trivia. She wanted to hold Thelma close enough to kiss her cheek and then twirl her fast enough that her skirt spun.

Yet Thelma was forever entrenched in the memory that came with the familiar lyrics, no longer sung by the Platters, but just as raw and visceral as they had been when she attempted to drive out into the night several months ago.

Who else has sung this damn song since then!

“I’ve actually never done something like this before,” Gretchen whispered in Thelma’s ear, distracting her. “Danced with a girl in front of other people. Is anyone looking at us?”

Thelma glanced around, but people only had eyes for each other or the couple celebrating their anniversary.

“I don’t think so.” When she realized that as well, she loosened up a little, taking the song as a sign from God.

Maybe it wasn’t a warning. Maybe it was a sign that Thelma was on the path she was meant to traverse.

“You know, I’ve had more fun on this trip so far than either time I came with my husband. ”

“I should be ecstatic that I’m outperforming your late husband, but do we have to talk about him right now?”

Thelma stepped back into a twirl. “I see what you mean. I should live in the moment, shouldn’t I?”

“That’s what the rest of us are doing.”

When she put it that way, Thelma had no choice but to fling herself into Gretchen’s arms and enjoy the slow country beat of a more modern rendition of “Twilight Time.” Between the soft bass, steady background guitar, and Willie Nelson’s hauntingly present voice, Thelma closed her eyes and didn’t think one iota about who she was, where she found herself, or what she had been through that past year.

There was only her and the one who was stealing her heart.

Is this what it’s like to fall in love again? So soon? No. She shouldn’t contemplate it. She should touch Gretchen’s shoulders, brush her knuckles against those cheeks, and gaze into sweet brown eyes that reminded Thelma of dancing with a woman for the first time.

She no longer heard the music. Only the laughter of other tourists, the striking chords of the pianist at his instrument, and her present moment thundering in her ears.

Carried by blood; carried by her heart.

There was one thing that Gretchen said she had always wanted to do in Vegas before they went on the Ferris wheel.

“Oh, my Lord!” Gone was the sense that God was trying to tell her anything, because Thelma stared down at a crowded stage of half-naked women in sequins and bright, neon feathers. “I can see their nipples!”

“I think that’s the point!” Gretchen yelled over the cheering audience.

Thelma knew that Vegas was now a viper pit of hedonism, but she was not expecting to see women revealing their full bosoms on stage for all to see.

Including her, a woman who wasn’t afraid to admit she liked a nice pair in front of her face.

Perhaps a bit more intimately would be nice.

And such a nice range of types and sizes!

Thelma didn’t once feel the burning need to glance down at her own chest and compare notes.

She did steal a glimpse at Gretchen’s chest, though. Not that she could see much beneath a shirt and jacket…

During the finale of the adult show, the women in garish tail feathers and supremely high heels stepped down into the aisles and walked among the audience.

When they stopped—posing in time to the pause in music—the audience fell reverently silent until Rosemary Clooney’s iconic voice echoed in the small auditorium.

I’m sorry, Dean, but… She would always give it to the original singer of “Mambo Italiano.” Especially since it fit the mood quite nicely!