Last Night at the Telegraph Club(56)
Lily took a piece and popped it into her mouth, crunching on the slightly sweet fragment. As they passed Twentieth Avenue, she said, “My mother wants to move out here.”
Shirley had tied a green-and-pink-patterned scarf over her hair, and it was dimly reflected in the window. “Do you think you will?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think my father wants to move so far from the hospital.”
Shirley didn’t respond. She seemed pensive, her earlier excitement extinguished, and Lily wondered what she was thinking. They hadn’t talked—really talked—in so long; she was a little afraid that she no longer knew how to talk to Shirley. Avenue after avenue went by; they were at Thirtieth, and Thirty-Fifth, and soon they would have to get out and walk the rest of the way.
“I don’t think my parents will ever move out of Chinatown,” Shirley said at last. “They can’t.” There was a tension in her voice, as if she were holding something back.
“Sure they could. Maybe they don’t want to.”
“What are they going to do? Open a restaurant out here?” Shirley was dismissive.
“They could still keep the Pearl open, and just live out here.”
“No. It’s too expensive. They can’t afford it.” Shirley looked at Lily. “Your parents could though. Why don’t they?”
Lily was taken aback. Shirley’s tone was almost accusatory. “I don’t know.”
“They could get out of Chinatown. I don’t know why they don’t.” Shirley turned to look out the window, but from the expression on her face, Lily knew her friend wasn’t enjoying the view at all.
* * *
—
Point Lobos Avenue descended in a dramatic curve from Forty-Eighth Avenue all the way to Cliff House, perched on the edge of the land, before it swept south toward the long stretch of Ocean Beach. Fog still shrouded the Pacific, but it was a Saturday, and cars already lined Point Lobos as Lily and Shirley trooped down the sidewalk into the wind, toward Sutro’s. The building rose up like a cinema just before Cliff House, with the word SUTRO’S standing in giant letters over the angled front overhang. Beneath it two windows flanked a row of glass doors, and over one of the windows a placard declared: IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN SUTRO’S . . . YOU HAVEN’T SEEN SAN FRANCISCO.
“It’s too foggy to see the Seal Rocks,” Lily said. They walked past the Sutro’s entrance to peer over the waist-high wall at the ocean, which crashed rhythmically against the jagged rocks along the shore.
“The fog will clear out,” Shirley said, but she sounded doubtful.
Down below, the glass-covered pavilions of the old Sutro Baths were visible through the mist like a faded photograph. A gust of wind nearly ripped off Shirley’s scarf, and she set down her lunch bag to tighten the scarf beneath her neck.
Ahead of them Cliff House was lit up through the fog, and Lily saw a family of four climb out of their Buick and head into the restaurant, the mother clutching her scarf over her hair just as Shirley was. As the doors closed behind them, the wind snuck up beneath Lily’s skirt, whirling it around her legs and causing her to shiver.
“Oh, let’s go inside. This is awful,” Lily said, as the wind whipped her hair into her eyes.
“I kind of like it out here,” Shirley said, but she relented at the look on Lily’s face.
Inside Sutro’s, they climbed the central stairway to the gallery overlooking the ice-skating rink. Signs posted all around the perimeter advertised the many attractions awaiting them: DOLLS OF THE WORLD and VICTORIAN ART and SEE ITO NOW! In the gallery, children were banging at the Goalee game, causing it to ring and ring and ring, and others ran back and forth, freed from their parents temporarily as they sought out the other coin-fed games. Several tables were covered by gaily striped awnings as if they were outside, but the daylight coming through the glass atrium roof was weak and gray. Down in the ice rink, the lights were on as if it were nighttime.
“Let’s get some hot chocolate,” Lily said. “I’m so cold still.” She bought two paper cups of hot chocolate from a cart, and then she and Shirley found a bench overlooking the ice-skaters and sat down.
Carnival music played throughout the vaulted building, and Lily watched the skaters below attempting to move in time to the music. Only a few were actually good: a girl in a fluttering skirt that swirled out as she spun; a boy who leaped up and then landed, arms flung out for balance. Lily was surprised that more people didn’t crash into each other. She had never skated herself and imagined she would be terrible at it.
“Don’t you ever wish you could be like them?” Shirley asked, turning her cup of hot chocolate around in her hands.
“Like who? The skaters?”
Shirley nodded. “They just go out there and—look! That one fell over. Oh, he’s getting up. He’s terrible. I think he just wants to hold on to his girlfriend.”
They watched for a while longer in silence. The hot chocolate was powdery and not quite mixed together. Lily tried to swirl hers around in her cup, but it didn’t make much of a difference.
“I mean, don’t you ever wish you weren’t Chinese.” Shirley spoke in a low voice, as if she were afraid to say it. “You wouldn’t have to live in Chinatown, and you could do anything you wanted. You could go ice-skating anytime.”