Thelma reached behind her back and tugged on her zipper. “To feel like my own woman in this very confusing world.”
Gretchen said nothing. She merely watched as Thelma lowered the bust of her dress before letting it all pool at her feet.
Gone were her days of garter belts and heavy-duty bras. The physique Gretchen beheld was a bra fitted on her by a kindly helper in a department store and a demure slip that allowed her to keep some semblance of modesty beneath her dress.Too bad I don’t have a bunch of feathers.Thelma reached behind herself again and unsnapped her bra. Gretchen’s mouth fell slightly, but she did not protest the unveiling of Thelma Van der Graaf’s breasts.
“And…” Thelma bridged the gap between them, hardly aware that more than her nipples were peaked. “I want you.”
She was high on the fever this woman, this new life, gave her.This sinful city has me in its clutches.Bibles burned at the pulpit of her youth as she tossed her clothes onto the floor and announced her nudity to the only woman who would know what to do with it now that they were alone in a hotel room.
Thelma had earned this. After everything, from the fears consuming her adrenaline-riddled body one foggy night, to the realities of a brand-new world, she wanted to face a new year in a new universe with her spirit bare and free.
I’ve earned this.
She had checked off the what-ifs from her list. She had followed thewhatto theifand ended up here, with Gretchen, a woman who brought her down onto the bed with the hunger of someone who had never wanted for another’s companionship—yet she was eager to know Thelma’s, as if their angels had conspired to shield them from the world with feathery wings.
I’ll fly away before I let her out of my sight.
Thelma abandoned who she was and who she once had been. There was only the person who had dreamed of the kind of serendipity that swelled with waves and blew on cool breezes. This body—the one that had been through a Depression, rations, and given birth to two babies in three years—was hers to wield and to experience the world through as she gave everything to Gretchen, who soon had her pressing into the mattress with the full weight of her body. Sweat from their shared movements was nothing less than the hot, whimsical days at the beach with friends and her favorite cousin; cries of carnal desperation echoed down the midnight hallways of an all-girls’ dorm; fervent flirtations danced between bites of cucumber sandwiches and sips of freshly brewed iced tea.
They were all Thelma’s memories. As tactile and lush as the memory she created now.
Kisses crashed all over her body, and the sheets moved with her limbs. She explored a new part of herself while getting to know every delectable inch of Gretchen’s emerging, womanly form. A whole new life, a new avenue of potential opened before her that went beyond white-picket fences and children playing in the yard.None of that is here right now.How could it be? Shewas in Vegas. She was in this ephemeral plane of non-existence that was akin to a heavenly purgatory.
Maybe she had died all those months ago. Maybe her steadfastness carried her this far, and soon, she would ascend.
She saw the performers’ neon feathers swaying before her blurry eyes with every thrust of their entwined bodies. If there were such things as angels, did they have to be all white? Could their wings be baby pink or a light, dewy green? What would happen if Thelma stole one and used it to fly high, high above the thickening fog that consumed her one fateful night?
She was consumed now. By something else.
By freedom. By love. By her sense of self.
She had followed the what-ifs and pulled on their thin threads. Thelma unraveled the universe that had been waiting for her. She followed the signs. She heard the voice of her guardian angel whispering to her from sixty years into the future, guiding her to where Thelma Van der Graaf belonged.
“My, my…”Sandy stood in the bedroom doorway, surveying the scene of naked Thelma and the new lover who devoured her like a damned dame possessed.“What have the angels delivered to me today?”
When Thelma clasped a hand that was not her own, billowing with burgeoning pleasure, she finally let the past go.
Chapter twenty-one
From the Grave
“You’re telling me that after sixty years…” Thelma shut the door on the trunk and approached the driver’s side door of Robbie’s SUV, which she had borrowed for the shopping trip. “Theystilldon’t have a Thanksgiving song? You’re telling me that Frank Sinatra never got anyone on that?”
Pauline got in on the passenger side. Together, they were the admirable sight of two women in their finest who were about to cook some of the recipes of a vintage American past. “Irving Berlin never getting around to it is what getsme.Did you know that guy lived until the late ‘80s? Was over a hundred!”
“You’re kidding. Judy always sang his songs the best.”
Thelma was about to turn on the ignition when she saw a teenage girl in a baggy sweater and leggings pointing in her direction.What is that about?Sure, Thelma had done herself up that day in her curls and “vintage” makeup, but most people didn’t actuallystareat her. If anything, she receivedcompliments for her “classic” style.Then again, kids can be cruel.
“If you told me that the little girl starring in those movies with Mickey Rooney was gonna be such a huge star, I would’ve laughed at you.” Pauline put her phone away as Thelma pulled out of the grocery store parking lot. “That’s how time goes, though. You never really know who became famous and who faded into obscurity. Nobody knows who Frank Fay is anymore! Oh, but they know Barbara Stanwyck!”
“To be fair, Barbara waslovely.I had the biggest crush on her in high school.”
“And I missed the ‘40s! What about it?”
Thelma almost missed the green light from laughing so hard. Yet the man in the car behind herhelpfullyblasted his horn at her to make her go. “Oh, cut it out!” she snapped into the rearview mirror as the smooth ride of her son’s SUV hurtled her home. “I swear, people have no patience these days. If I could change anything about the future, it’s this penchant for rudeness!”
“You’re telling me. I’m used to saucy swearing and having two left feet, but some of these men today have absolutely no respect for a lady. My father would shoot ‘em. Hell, my mother would shoot ‘em to hear the way they’ve talked to me!”
