Page 3 of Maybe Some Other Time
Sandy knocked at exactly noon. By then, Thelma had giddily set out the cut sandwiches and fresh strawberries on the backyard table. She was about to grab some iced tea she had made that morning when she heard the knock, and she abandoned everything to rush to the door and greet her best friend with a hug and two kisses on the cheek.
Sandy Westmore was the most fashionable woman Thelma knew. Her pixie cut wasn’t the only thing to draw the eye, either—although she expertly copied Audrey Hepburn’s hair and overall mannerisms with the flair of a woman who hadn’t quite left college behind her.That’s where we met, you know.They were classmates in multiple English lectures before Thelma met Bill and dropped out to become his bride and future housewife. While Thelma didn’t regret her choice, shedidregret not getting to spend more time with Sandy as proper chums who got into good trouble—like visiting some of the underground clubs Sandy often dragged Thelma to before she got married and had children.
“You’ll never believe what I saw on the way here.” Long legs clad in capri pants sashayed through the living room as Thelma turned off the television the moment it switched over to a soap. “Big old accident between a Plymouth and a Chevy. Looked like someone spun out and took another with them. At the intersection of Santa Lucia and Cedar Street.”
Thelma gasped as she led Sandy to the backyard, picking up the pitcher of iced tea along the way.
“Oh, everyone’s fine. At least, they were up walking around. How are the kids?”
Thelma envied the way Sandy could meander between topics as if she made her living being the perfect conversationalist. Instead, Sandy was a successful writer who had at least two pseudonyms. Under one name, she wrote daring serials in the national papers, and the other?
I dare not speak their names.If only because they made Thelma blush and giggle to think about. She also may have had a well-loved copy ofLesbians From Outer Space: The Returnburied in her hope chest, where Bill would never look.
Thelma prattled about Robbie’s latest campaign to stay home from school and admitted that the only reason she didn’t give in was because she knew Sandy was coming by for lunch. “Besides, he didn’t have a fever,” Thelma insisted as she sat with her friend on the back porch. She poured Sandy a glass of iced tea and insisted she take the first sandwich. “But enough about my boring daily life. Tell me, how was Texas?”
As part of her contract work, Sandy sometimes took on columns and articles for regional and national magazines. Her latest piece was a biographical look at one of Texas’s wealthiest women, an oil heiress who refused to marry and give up any freedom to a man who hadn’t “even worked for it” in her family. As Thelma suspected, Sandy had managed to tease out of the old spinster that she simply did not care for the company of men. But even in the privacy of her empty backyard, neither Thelma nor Sandy could bring themselves to say the wordlesbianout loud. Not even in a whisper.
They never said that word to each other. The only time Thelma heard it on her friend’s lips was when they were in college, and Sandy had to spell out what kind of underground club they were visiting—and why it had no men.
Sandy is a lesbian.Thelma could say the words in her head as she watched her oldest friend talk about the Texas weather, the refinement of how her subject lived, and the kind of barbecuethat left her fingers drenched in sauce. Thelma could listen to Sandy talk all day.I could watch her talk all day.Thelma knew she looked like a lovesick puppy as she leaned an elbow on her outdoor table and bounced a foot in the air. Here Sandy was, going on nonstop about marigold gardens and crystal collections, and all Thelma could do was stare at the slender curve of her throat and the ruby-red lipstick that highlighted Thelma’s favorite part of Sandy’s body.
Thelma’s life was boring in comparison. It always had been, although Sandy claimed that Thelma was the “most beautiful flower in a garden of unforgettable roses.”I did what I was supposed to do.The moment an agreeable man with a good job paid attention to her, Thelma jumped on a future. It was what her mother trained her to do, and what else was Thelma destined for? She didn’t have Sandy’s mind or penchant for creative endeavors. Sure, Thelma dreamed of finishing her degree, but figured that was something to revisit when both of her kids were teenagers. Sandy was the first to say,“Don’t you want to be a good example for your daughter? We have no idea what the ‘60s, the ‘70s will look like.”
Indeed, Thelma had no idea what the future held. She didn’t care. She was more interested in the here and now.
And thehererepresented Sandy. Thenowwas the rising desire in Thelma’s veins.
They were always docile and friendly when outside. Everyone in the neighborhood recognized Sandy and knew she was not only Thelma’s best friend, but her maid of honor at her wedding and one of the godmothers of her children. They knew she wasn’t married, but since she didn’t live in the neighborhood, they didn’t make it their business. So they would smile, wave, and comment on her stylish hair and capris, but didn’t butt into her life. And if they said anything about Thelma being such good friends with her… well, what did it matter? She was married toBill. A man who knew Sandy visited, but knew nothing about what else went on in his house.
Exactly how Thelma wanted it. Her little secret. Something just for her.
As soon as lunch and catching up were over, they went inside. Sandy helped with the meager dishes, finishing her iced tea and asking to use the bathroom. Thelma locked up the house and hurried upstairs. Sandy would know where to find her.
Her brain split in two. One half was her grocery shopping list, assuming she had enough time after this to hit the store before having to pick up the kids from school.I won’t.She only felt slightly guilty.I’ll just have to take them with me.Debbie would be cranky and in need of a nap, but she’d live. It was Robbie she was worried about…
The other half of her mind was dedicated to Sandy. The woman Thelma waited for wearing nothing but her slip and the makeup she had touched up earlier that morning.
“My, my.” Sandy leaned in the bedroom doorway, fidgeting with a pack of cigarettes as she took in the sight before her. Thelma had purposely based her pose on one of those tawdry calendar models she had seen in the mechanic’s office the last time she took in the car for servicing. While she turned her nose at such a grotesque display in front of a (Married! Female!) customer, she admitted she liked the look of the pinup with a generous bust and derriere. Thelma was too shy to admit to people out loud that she liked a curvy woman, but in her mind? Her heart?I let it fly.“What have the angels delivered to me today?”
Thelma fluffed the curls in her hair. “The same thing they deliver almost every week.”
The thing about being naked in bed with her best friend? It didn’t feel like cheating on Bill. How could it, when for one hour, Thelma forgot he even existed?
I’d give anything to live a life like this.Instead of a man kissing her goodbye before heading off to work, it was Sandy. Instead of a man solidifying her place in society, it was Sandy.Even if it’s not Sandy…Wasn’t female companionship so much better? So much more…more?
It certainly felt great. In ways that Thelma had always missed since her college days, when girls were more adventurous and inclined to do the things that came naturally to them.
Most of those girls were married now. Thelma was married. They carried on. Some forgot. Some never forgot.I will never forget.Not Sandy. Not the girl from her math lab who giggle-snorted. Not the young lady in her dorm who smelled like lilac and cigar smoke. And not the worldly art professor who invited Thelma into her home for the sole purpose of drawing her naked.
But Sandy.Sandy…
She was the one Thelma would never forget. Certainly not the way she felt pressed on top of her or…
Dare she think it?
Within her.
Chapter two
