“Kinda looks like the ‘50s. You know.Grease?”
Thelma didn’t know what the leftovers from chicken-fried steak had to do with her outfit, but she had a feeling that she wasn’t following the logic, anyway. “The fifties, you say?”
“Yeah, the skirt. The blouse.” Gretchen pointed to Thelma’s face. “You’ve got that curl around your cheek and that makeup. Super retro.” When that same face fell, Gretchen said, “I like it. It’s unique. Suits you.”
“Oh…oh!” Laughing, Thelma continued to smooth out her skirt and take in her shape in the reflection. “Guess I have a type of style I’m married to. You should see one of the looks in my closet.” She referred to the outfit she had been wearing when she drove into the fog. “It’s literally a dress and coat ensemble from the ‘50s.”
“Rad.”
I take it that’s a good thing.“What are you doing here?” She dared to flirt a little.What else do I do in the future?“Admiring women in the changing room?”
Gretchen stumbled over her sandaled feet as she rearranged her shoulder against the wall. “I don’t know if I’d sayadmiringas much as I’m looking for a new coat while they’re on sale. I need one for winter. I like to go up in the mountains. Now’s the time to buy these things.”
“Oh? What do you do in the mountains?”
Gretchen shrugged. Was she suddenly too “cool” to talk to Thelma. “You know. Cabin stuff. My aunt and uncle have a place up around Shasta.”
“Sounds beautiful. I haven’t been there in forever.” She wondered how much different it looked now.
“Well, I… I wouldn’t want to keep you from your shopping with your cousin.”
“My cousin? Oh! Right! Meg. She’s my cousin! Debbie’s my mom!”
As Thelma laughed so loudly that an older woman carrying bras looked at her funny, Gretchen merely tilted her head as if she didn’t know what to make of the new addition to her neighbor’s house. “You sticking around town, right?”
“Huh?”
Gretchen tried another approach. “You in town for a while? Van Nuys area?”
“I don’t plan on going anywhere else, no. It’s… well, it’s complicated. I’ve moved here for now.”
“Hey, I don’t mean to pry. Just wondering if I’ll keep seeing you around when I’m not at work.”
“What do you do?”
Gretchen rearranged the coats on her arm. They bunched up against her chest as she shifted between her feet. “I work at my uncle’s construction company. Do odd jobs on sites when heneeds them, but mostly work in the office with my aunt. They took me in when my parents…”
Thelma remembered Robbie and Megan talking about this at the dinner table one night.Her parents died a few months apart. Quite tragic.Something about her mother dying of cancer and her father being in an accident not too long after the funeral. Megan implied—much to Robbie’s chagrin—that alcohol had been involved.
“Anyway.” Gretchen took a step past Thelma. “You look great in that.” Her gaze continued to linger as she walked farther away, almost knocking into the older woman with the bras. “Really great.”
“Thank you,” Thelma mouthed.
“Tell Meg hi for me, huh? I used to babysit her for scrap.”
Thelma shrugged. She had no idea what that meant!
“And tell her girlfriend hi, too! Haven’t seen that girl around in a while.”
Gretchen was turned around and leaving before Thelma could realize what the neighbor said.Her what?
Flustered, Thelma hustled back into her changing room and got into her original clothes by the time Megan came to check on her. She forgot what Gretchen had said while discussing with Megan what clothes she should get from the current batch, all while expressing that she was quite tired of the synthetic fabrics and the noise of the department store.If you can call it that…It wasn’t until they bypassed the meager food court, with its sandwiches and greasy pizza, that Thelma thought to ask what had recently been on her mind.
“I saw the neighbor in the changing area.” They were back in Megan’s car, where the air conditioner cooled the sweat on Thelma’s brow. “She said hello. Including your girlfriend.”
Megan’s hands were frozen at ten and two, the car humming around them.
“I’m supposing that a young woman like that does not mean your friend who happens to be a girl, Meg.” She decided to approach this quite delicately, since one never knew how a lady would take such an accusation. “So… do you have a romantic suitor who happens to be female?”
