Last Night at the Telegraph Club(16)

“You’re welcome.” Kathleen paused, then asked, “Do you mind—will you call me Kath? My friends call me Kath, not Kathleen.”

She seemed a little abashed; a shyness flickered across her face, which turned the palest shade of pink. Her cheeks, Lily noticed, were now the same color as her lips: that delicate shade of blush, like a peony.

“Of course,” Lily said. “I’ll see you at school, Kath.”

When they parted, Kath walked east toward the Gothic towers of Saints Peter and Paul Church, and Lily headed south toward Chinatown. The word friends echoed in Lily’s memory like the chime of water dripping into the bathroom sink.





8





What did you do?” Shirley demanded in a whisper. She had cornered Lily at her locker in the ten minutes between the end of school and the start of student council. “Will is acting so uptight about the dance. Did he ask you to go with him?”

Ever since that afternoon by the trophy case, Will had avoided being alone with Lily, and when they were with their other friends, he carefully did not meet her eyes. She had been happy to accept this delicate distancing because it absolved her of having to give him an answer. She was disappointed that Shirley had noticed.

“I didn’t do anything,” Lily said a bit sharply. “But, yes, he asked me.”

“What did you say? You didn’t say no, did you?” Shirley sounded aghast.

Lily sighed. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.”

Shirley’s eyebrows rose. “Yes! You should have said yes.”

“But I don’t—why can’t we all go together in a group, like always? He said there was going to be a group dinner at Cameron House before the dance. Are you going?”

“No, I have to be at school early to set up. You should go with him.”

Beyond Shirley down the hall, Lily saw Kath hovering by the main doors. They had taken to walking home together, but during school hours they also made sure to act like they barely knew each other. They hadn’t discussed this strategy, but had fallen into it so naturally that only now, with Shirley pressing her about Will, did Lily notice how strange it was.

“Don’t you like him?” Shirley asked, bewildered. “You two make the perfect couple. I know you can be shy about these things. Do you want me to talk to him?”

Lily couldn’t tell if Shirley was being kind or condescending. It was probably a little of both. “No, don’t talk to him,” Lily said. She saw Kath take a seat on a bench near the main office, waiting for her.

“Well, you’d better talk to him, then,” Shirley said. “It’s not right to make him wait for an answer like that.” She glanced at her watch and said, “I have to go now. Talk to him, Lily.” She hurried off down the hallway toward the student council room.

Lily finished packing her book bag and went to meet Kath, who stood up as she approached.

“What’s going on?” Kath asked as they exited the building together. “You don’t look happy.”

“It’s nothing.” Lily didn’t want to talk about Will; she didn’t even want to think about him. It made her antsy, as if she didn’t quite fit in her skin. “Do you have to babysit today?” she asked Kath.

“Not right away. My brother and sister are at our nonna’s today. I’m supposed to go get them in a couple of hours, though.”

“Let’s do something,” Lily said impulsively. The sky was bright blue above and the scent of the ocean nearby made her restless. She had to distract herself from that conversation with Shirley.

“What do you want to do?” Kath asked, sounding amused. “Don’t you have to go pick up Frankie today?”

Lily had nearly forgotten her own plans. She groaned and looked at her watch. “Yes, but not for a little while—not if we hurry. Let’s get ice cream.”

“Where?”

They discussed the possibilities as they walked up Francisco and down the steps at Leavenworth, and finally decided on Ciros in Washington Square Park, where Kath promised her fancy Italian flavors. When they arrived at the park, it was full of young mothers pushing babies in strollers, old men in fedoras dozing on benches, and children chasing each other with their ice cream cones dripping onto the grass.

Inside Ciros, the stainless-steel-and-glass ice cream counter took up half the small space, and two Italian men in white aprons and caps were doing a brisk business with those young mothers and children. Behind the glass were gallons of chocolate and vanilla, strawberry and mint, and long rectangular tubs of gelato in flavors that Lily hadn’t tried before: bacio and hazelnut, stracciatella and fior di latte. Along the right was a rainbow of pastel sorbetti in lemon yellow and mandarin orange and pale lime green.

After consultation with Kath, Lily settled on a cup of lemon and strawberry sorbetti, and Kath ordered a hazelnut gelato cone, which they took back out to the park. They found an empty patch of grass beneath a tree, and Lily ate her sorbetti with a tiny wooden spoon while Kath licked her gelato with a slurping sound that made them both giggle.

“I’ve never had sorbetti before,” Lily said, carefully pronouncing the unfamiliar word. “There’s an ice cream shop in Chinatown, Fong Fong’s. They have ginger ice cream. That’s my favorite.”