Page 94 of Maybe Some Other Time

“The stuffing’s great!”

Robbie took a bite and sat in solemn silence, head bent over his plate. Thelma pretended not to notice.

I last cooked this in 1957. You couldn’t get enough of it. You ate seconds. For your birthday, you wanted me to make the Thanksgiving stuffing. It went terribly with the Sloppy Joes we also made, and the other kids made fun of you for wanting stuffing for your birthday dinner, but you ate all of it. You made yourself sick all night.

Thelma took another bite. All of that had been recent enough for her that she still remembered how the homemade stuffing should taste and feel on her tongue.

“Dang, this is great, Thel.”

She was nearly caught off guard by Gretchen’s compliment. “Thank you.” She let her smile bloom on her face as she batted her eyelashes. “The secret ingredient is beef broth.”

Something buzzed on the table. Megan sheepishly pulled her phone away from her plate and shoved it in her lap. Thelma chose to overlook this first transgression, much like she had once ignored child-Robbie keeping toy soldiers on the table when she told him not to.He used to argue that if his sister could bring dolls to the table, he could have his little army men.Hard to argue with that.

She stole a look at Robbie as he took another quick bite of stuffing. He wouldn’t willingly let her know, but he loved every sample of her home cooking. His silence was acknowledged, and Thelma returned to her own dinner.

Megan’s phone buzzed again.

“Really?” she whispered to her granddaughter, who was red in both cheeks as she attempted to surreptitiously check her texts. “I thought it would be hard for you not to cuss during dinner.”

“Sorry, it’s just—”

“No phones at the table.”

Gretchen slightly chuckled.

“What?”

Her girlfriend shrugged. “You kinda sound like her mom.”

“Well, I do have experience in these things.”

“Oh, my God.”

Thelma had to double-back to Megan. “There’s the taking the Lord’s name in vain… what is it, Meg?”

She held up her text window to the table. “It’s Emma. She says I should check the latest video for True Crime With Jazz.”

“Can’t you wait until after supper?”

“Maybe…” Eyes still glued to her phone screen, Megan shoved back her chair and got up. “Maybe not!”

She rushed into the living room, changing the TV channel from holiday music to the YouTube app. Thelma looked around the table, wondering if this was just how things were in 2018, but everyone else was confused as well.

“Hey!” Robbie snapped at his daughter. “She’s got one request! If I had to say grace, you’ve gotta stay off your screens!”

“True Crime With Jazz?” Pauline repeated. “I’ve heard of that one before.”

“If it’s anything like those other YouTube posters,” Thelma said, stabbing a forkful of potatoes and gravy, “it’s a bunch of tawdry gossip that doesn’t go anywhere.” She didn’t hold a lot of love for the chaotic, frenetic energy that internet videos brought. Indeed, Thelma didn’t think much of modern television at all. Nobody on the news held a candle to Edward R. Morrow or Walter Cronkite!

“Come on!”

Thelma jumped at Robbie’s insistence that his daughter get back to the table. Yet Megan was glued to the video screencap in front of her.

In the middle was the hostess of the channel, a young woman who went by Jazz (and, for some reason, wore an old baseball cap that said “I Want to Believe,” whatever that meant.) But on either side of her was….

Me!

Thelma got up from her seat, tossing her napkin into her chair as she joined Megan in the living room. One by one, the others got up as well. Thelma was too distracted by her old missing persons photo on the left side of Jazz while the right sported a cutout of her from Megan’s Instagram selfie in Vegas.