And, in her dreams, she was still the good wife who was loved by her family and trusted by her community. There was a time when that was all that mattered to Thelma Van der Graaf.
What mattered to her now?
Chapter ten
Checking Out
“Damn.” Robbie cursed some more under his breath as the Impala slowly drove out of the auto garage. “There she is. Just like I remember.”
The mechanic swung the car around the lot before pulling it up in front of Robbie and Thelma, two people who still weren’t getting along after the fallout a few days before. Yet he was required to help her pick up the Impala from the garage, where he helped pay for it to be brought up to modern standards, which included brand-new seatbelts. The mechanics, who purported to specialize in “classic” cars, salivated over the “like new” Impala with its original interior and fixtures, imploring to know how they kept it so perfect after so many decades.“It wasn’t used that much,”Thelma claimed, to which the mechanic replied,“Obviously! We’ve seen the odometer!”
That same mechanic now got out of the driver’s seat and dangled the keys in front of Robbie. “Good as new! Even better!” He shook Robbie’s hand, as giddy as a boy with his first working dump truck in the sandbox. “You’re one lucky family! You allgot any idea how much that thing is worth? I took the liberty of looking it up.”
Thelma didn’t want to know. Robbie awkwardly took the keys and thanked the man.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Thelma had to ride in the passenger seat since her license was not yet updated.It’s on the docket.She was nervous to take the new driving classes, but admitted the freedom would be perfect for getting herself to the FBI field office and anywhere else she needed to go. It was also the first step toward possibly getting a job somewhere.Los Angeles is as friendly to a person without a car as ever…
Still, it gave her a sour taste to see her son behind the wheel. Outside of its trip from the FBI field office, the Impala had not been driven since that fateful night.
She wondered if the car had any idea what it had done.Of course not. It’s a car.It wasn’t sentient. It didn’t give a flying shit.
They did not head straight home. The pickup was right before one of Robbie’s shifts at the library branch, and Thelma wanted to go back now that she had been in 2018 long enough to figure out what was what.My first time there, I was so overwhelmed.Between the homeless people, the screaming children in a supposedly quiet place, and the digitization of everything, she felt like she had fallen behind what alibrarywas capable of.
Now, though? She had some history class reading in her bag and was more confident in using computers. Especially those with singular functions, like looking up books in a “system.” The internet still scared the crud out of her, and Thelma still didn’t have a phone, but she was less shy about asking strangers for help and more confident that the machines wouldn’t start smoking if she typed something into a search bar.
But wasn’t it awkward how she couldn’t talk to her own son? The man who didn’t even bother to fiddle with the radio knob as they drove insilenceback to Van Nuys?
“Wooo!” Thelma nearly jumped out of her skin as the car next to them at a red light revved its engine and honked. She looked over to see a young man hanging out of the driver's window, the hat on his head backward, and his arm covered in garish tattoos. “That’s a sweet ride! Lookin’ good, sexy!”
Thelma gasped, keeping her window up. Robbie grunted and ignored the other driver.
“How about you come over here and ride with me?” The man stuck out his tongue between his fingers. Even Thelma knew whatthatmeant.
“Hey!” Robbie barked at Thelma’s window, the glass bouncing his voice right at her. She hurried to roll the window down so that at least he wouldn’t be right in her face. “That’s a lady you’re talking to! Show some respect!”
“Yeah, pops, lady mydick!Which is what a young hot thing like that should be riding on instead of your old, leathery balls!”
Before Robbie could say something equally crass, Thelma flung her head out the window, seatbelt straining against her chest as her fingers curled on the hot metal of the chassis.
“I am not athing,young man!” she screeched. “And kindly keep your little boy baby ‘balls’ in your pants!” She brushed her buxom bangs out of her face as the hot, dry wind blew her way. “And I’ll have you know that this man is myson!”
Confusion swept right over the other man’s face. “Uh… okay!”
“So, I’d appreciate it if you weren’t an even worse example on him than every other man apparently has been!” Thelma had to spit more of her own hair out of her face.I just curled it last night, too!“He cusses enough as it is! Go wash your mouth out with soap!”
The light turned green, and Robbie stepped on the gas. Thelma’s head remained hanging out the window as she stared down the ruffian with his tattooed arm hanging out ofhiswindow.
“Honestly!” Thelma flung herself back in her seat, adjusting the seatbelt strap so it didn’t choke her. “Who talks like that to a woman in public?”
She earnestly rolled the window back up with a huff. Robbie continued to drive, only with a grin on his face.
“You just confused the crap out of that kid.”
“I’m justso tiredof all the cussing! The tattoos I can adjust to.” Thelma wrestled with her purse to get out her compact and fix up her hair. “All of the skin hanging out? Fine.” She would be a hypocrite, anyway. She rather liked showing off a little more leg and her shoulders in the heat. The dress she wore that day revealed more of both than she would have ever dared back in the ‘50s. “But the verbal disrespect? So many people cannot even say a full grammatical sentence. What ishappeningwith education in the 21stcentury?”
“Eh, not much.” Robbie smacked his lips together. “Which is the problem.”
