Last Night at the Telegraph Club(45)

“I’ll see you on Monday,” Kath said a little awkwardly.

“See you Monday,” Lily replied. She thought she should say something more, but she felt inexplicably shy—as though she hadn’t just spent more than two hours with her friend in a nightclub full of gay women. Even the thought of those words made her nervous, and she was sharply aware that there were people all around them, and she was only a block away from Chinatown.

Kath turned to leave, and at the last moment Lily reached out to touch her arm. “Thank you for taking me,” Lily said.

“You’re welcome,” Kath said.

The traffic was a moving river of red and white and yellow lights reflected in miniature in Kath’s eyes. She smiled. Lily looked away selfconsciously. Someone honked repeatedly, and a black car careened up Columbus, and the pedestrians nearby shouted at the driver to watch out.

“Good night,” Lily said, stepping back.

“Good night,” Kath said.

Lily forced herself to turn away and walk home.



* * *



—

She kept to the shadows of Grant Avenue as much as she could, walking quickly through the pools of light that spilled out the doors of the Sai-Yon all-night restaurant and the Far East Café. Her fingers were steady when she quietly unlocked the front door of her building; she was utterly silent as she slipped off her shoes and carried them up the stairs. The flat was hushed and dark and so quiet she could hear the faint sound of her brothers breathing as she passed the cracked-open door to their bedroom. The door to her parents’ room was closed, and she tiptoed past quickly.

She rolled the pocket doors to her room shut behind her. She left the light off. She unzipped her skirt and thought, This is what I wore the night I met Tommy Andrews. She unbuttoned her blouse and felt the lingering traces of dampness in the armpits where she’d sweated. Normally she would air it out on the laundry line or put it in the wash, but she couldn’t do that in the middle of the night. She unrolled her too-thick stockings and peeled off her girdle and unclasped her bra; the toes and creases and seams were all a little damp, too. It was incriminating: the residue of her body on these bits of fabric. She knew she should find it revolting, but she didn’t; somehow she felt triumphant. It was proof that she had been to the Telegraph Club and breathed its warm, perfumed air.

She folded her clothes in the dark and gently laid them in the bottom dresser drawer. She felt for her nightgown and put it on, the pink polyester sliding cool as water over her warm skin. Her bed creaked slightly as she lay down and drew the covers up to her chin. She closed her eyes, but she wasn’t at all sleepy.

She remembered the way Tommy had leaned the microphone stand over in one hand, the spotlight making her signet ring sparkle. She remembered the curl of Tommy’s lip as she smiled at the woman in the green dress while she sang “Secret Love.” And she remembered the hint of cologne she had smelled on her; there had been an edge to it that felt distinctly, confusingly masculine. It sent a giddy thrill straight through her—as if Tommy had run a fingertip right up her spine. She lay in her bed for quite some time trying to catch that scent again, as if she might call it into existence out of the sheer force of memory.





22





Saturday afternoon, Lily nodded off over the kitchen sink, her hands gone slack in the warm soapy water.

“You’ve been staying up too late reading again,” her mother said.

Lily started, her hands jerking up and splashing water over the counter and the front of her blouse. One droplet flew into her eye, and she raised her hand up instinctively, causing dirty liquid to trickle down her wrist and into her sleeve. Her mother silently held out a dish towel.

After blotting her face and blouse, she returned to the dishes, fishing the rag out from beneath the stack of rice bowls. Behind her, Eddie was seated at the kitchen table doing his homework. Her mother was putting away the lunch leftovers, and down the hall she heard her father talking to Frankie. No one seemed to be able to tell what she had done or where she had gone Friday night, even though she felt as if it must be written on her forehead. It gave her the disorienting feeling that perhaps she had imagined the whole thing.

(The graffiti on the bathroom door—Nancy + Carol. Who were they?)

Sunday morning at church, she worried that someone would surely know she had stepped outside the bounds of her life as a good Chinese daughter. What if someone from the neighborhood had seen her Friday night?

(The Telegraph Club’s black front door, swinging open to reveal that long narrow bar, the glowing lights overhead like distant moons.)

But she got through the church service and the potluck lunch without a single person mentioning they had glimpsed a girl who looked like her crossing over to North Beach in the middle of the night.

Monday morning, Shirley was the same as ever, maintaining the cool politeness she’d instituted since the dance. Shirley’s obliviousness stung the most. There had been a time when Shirley noticed every new thing about her: a hair ribbon, a rip on her sleeve, shadows under her eyes if she hadn’t slept well. Shirley barely looked at her now.

Only Kath knew. When Lily saw her at school, she felt a quick excitement go through her, and Kath’s pale face colored. (Tommy’s eyes half-closed as she crooned into the microphone she held to her mouth.) Of course, Kath said nothing about it. They sat in the same row in Senior Goals and listened in silence as Miss Weiland announced that there would be a standard air-raid drill later that week. Lily eyed Shirley, who had taken a seat across the room near Will, and it seemed as if Shirley could feel her attention, because she raised her head and met Lily’s gaze.