Page 40 of Maybe Some Other Time
“People used to have a lot more respect for each other,” Thelma asserted once more. “Even if they didn’t like each other, they would still be polite out in public. Why, the one time a young man made a bold and crass pass at me out in public, I thought your father was going to bloody his nose.”
Robbie was quiet for a second as he turned right onto another road. “Who do you think taught me to be polite?”
Thelma glanced at him as she put her compact away again. “I had quite a bit to do with that, I like to think. You would have never spoken to a girl like that.”
“Oh, you might be surprised.” They pulled into the library parking lot. “The last time Dad whipped me was because another man said I had been rude to his daughter at school.”
Thelma contemplated that as they parked near the entrance. “Well?” she said after the engine was cut off. “Were you?”
“In his defense,” Robbie said, referring to Bill, “he knew whipping my bottom would be especially effective at sixteen.”
Sixteen!What kind of hellion had Robbie become in the wake of her disappearance?
There was no chance to discuss this since they had to hurry inside because Robbie was late for his shift. As he said hello to everyone and introduced his “niece” to the other volunteers and employees again, Thelma kept to herself, reveling in the scent of books and grateful that nobody around her had their breasts on display or their bottoms hanging out of cropped shorts.
Nobody should be more exposed than I am.She hypocritically thought that as she broke away from her son and perused the stacks with her bookbag over her shoulder and her purse dangling from her hand. She adjusted both as she looked at the new releases, intrigued by the interestingly colorful text-based covers, cute illustrations, and titles likeMrs. Brown’s Nervous Beagle.(It was #8 in a cozy mystery series that featured a dog rescue.)
She next wandered to the staff recommendations. Sure enough, there was Robert Van der Graaf’s handwriting explaining why “every red-blooded American” should read more Zane Grey. A well-worn copy ofRiders of the Purple Sagewas available for checkout.He always loved Westerns.Thelma recalled a small but important argument she had with Bill over their son being allowed to watchGunsmokedue to the more mature subject matter. But Robbie had been obsessed since he was five, so it was tradition for the three of them to watch it every Saturday night, Bill holding their young son in his lap to explainwhat was happening and why some people were “like that” while Thelma went from nursing Debbie before bed to putting her down for the evening so she could watch the television unmolested.
Little things like that had a habit of catching her off guard in the middle of public places. Which was why one impatient woman had to ask her to move out of the way twice before Thelma heard her.
Her therapist had sympathized with Thelma’s need to compartmentalize the past with the present. Whenever Thelma got wrapped up in those cozy memories of being back in the ‘50s—back in familiar territory where shewasn’ta lost traveler—she had to stop, take a deep breath, and refixate her attention on thepresent.Loud noises. Crass language. An older, cranky son who would rather she stay dead.
And many beautiful women. The same number that had existed in Los Angeles back in the ‘50s, but they were so much more…morenow.
“But you look so young.”That was how she remembered Gretchen’s words from a few nights ago.
Indeed, when Thelma stopped in front of a large mirror, she saw a young woman whom she didn’t quite recognize. The Thelma Van der Graaf—hell, ThelmaErickson—of sixty years ago would have never worn such a frilly dress that hugged her bust and showed off her shoulders, let alone worn a large bookbag full of textbooks and history printouts that she was determined to study that afternoon. Nor would she have sheepishly followed her own son into an institution of knowledge after being cat-called at a red light.
When she looked at her own reflection like that, sure enough, she wasyoung.And why shouldn’t she be? She was twenty-eight! She was younger than Gretchen, and she looked young as heck!
Very young and… very fetching.
Sighing, Thelma focused on finding a place to put her things and study. So happened that the only empty table was in front of the catalog computer near the non-fiction stacks. After the third person stopped by toclack-clack-clack,Thelma looked up from her printouts about Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer and thought aboutit.
Lesbians from Outer Space…
She had wondered where she could get more of Sandy’s books since coming to the future. Would the library even carry them?Probably not.Yet the more she looked at the computer, the more she bit her lip and thought about putting her typing skills to work.
With her things still within sight, Thelma got up and approached the large mechanical keyboard attached to the flat computer screen.
Let’s see…What was the name Sandy used to write her pulp novels under? It was something likeMax Stanley.
When that turned up nothing, Thelma forced herself to type the wordlesbianfollowed byouter space.
Nothing. Just as she supposed.
To heck with it.She confidently typed the nameSandy Westmore.Because hadn’t Sandy finally achieved her goal of becoming a serious author under her own name?
Thelma let out a tiny squeak when she saw something come up on the results page.
“The Missing Angels: Women Who Disappear in LA County”was available right there in the nonfiction section. Thelma hurried to write down the Dewey Decimal number with the small piece of scrap paper and pencil provided before turning a corner and finding herself in the true crime section.
Well, didn’t this make sense? Sandy was more into investigative reporting than anything else. It was only right thatshe became a big author in the true crime sphere.Like Truman Capote.Thelma grinned to think of it.
When she found the title, she gingerly pulled the large hardcover book wrapped in plastic off the shelf and immediately beheld a picture of Sandy Westmore from 1988, about thirty years after Thelma disappeared.
She still had short, pixie-cut hair, only by the late ‘80s it had silvered. Her brows were thin and lined in wrinkles. A black turtleneck made her look like a “serious” investigative reporter, but she still had the same genial smile that Thelma associated with the woman who had befriended her in the dorm hall back in college.
