Last Night at the Telegraph Club(59)
“Lily.”
She turned around. “What?”
“I’m going to enter the Miss Chinatown contest.” The wind plucked at the edge of Shirley’s scarf and tugged it loose from her hair, and she reached up to tuck it back in place. She seemed very calm, as if she hadn’t announced an extraordinary thing.
Lily came back to the bench and sat down. “Why? This morning you said you wanted to get away from Chinatown. This is . . . the opposite.”
Shirley dropped her eyes to her lap, where she had balanced the takeout box. “I didn’t mean it—what I said this morning. Not really.”
“Only partly.”
Shirley closed the box and set it on the bench beside herself. “I just hate the Chinatown gossip, that’s all. And I decided that if they’re going to gossip, why not give them something to talk about?”
Lily studied her friend; Shirley crossed her arms defensively and wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“What gossip?” Lily asked.
“What does it matter?” Shirley said defiantly.
At that moment the wind knocked the empty fortune cookie bag onto the ground and blew it across the pavement toward the fence. Shirley jumped up and ran after it just as the takeout box skittered toward the edge of the bench. Lily grabbed it before it tumbled onto the ground. Shirley returned a moment later with the crumpled paper sack, then opened her cloth bag so they could stuff the garbage inside.
The act of chasing down their trash had dissipated some of Shirley’s tension; now she seemed looser limbed, or at least, resigned. “Anyway,” she said, “George Choy came by the Eastern Pearl the other day to ask my father to sponsor the beauty pageant, and he said I should enter—Mr. Choy did—and I thought, why not? I’m just as pretty as last year’s winner, and they never get enough girls to enter, and it would be good for business. If I enter, the Eastern Pearl will get plenty of advertising at the New Year festival.”
A few years ago, the contest had been moved from the Fourth of July to Chinese New Year, and it had gotten bigger every year. The winner was expected to lead the New Year parade.
“I think I have a good chance of winning,” Shirley said. “Don’t you?” During her speech, Shirley’s posture straightened; she ran a hand over the green-and-pink scarf covering her hair; and at last she cocked her head and gave Lily an almost coquettish smile.
“Well, yes,” Lily said. If anyone had a good chance of winning the Miss Chinatown pageant, it was Shirley. And yet there was an unexplained sadness beneath Shirley’s bravado, and Lily wasn’t sure how to ask about it. Instead she said, “What do you have to do to enter?”
“I have to submit an application, and there’s a small fee, but I can pay for it out of my savings. And then I have to get sponsors—I’ll ask my parents, of course, and maybe some of our neighbors. Mr. Wong’s imports store would be good, because I could wear their jewelry, right? And I was wondering if maybe you could help me.”
“Me? How?”
“The Miss Chinatown contestants have to sell raffle tickets. I think most of the girls who enter have people helping to sell them—sort of like a support committee.” Shirley gave Lily a small, modest smile. “I was hoping you’d head my support committee.”
Lily was puzzled. “Why don’t you ask Flora or Mary? They’re better at that sort of thing.”
“Because you’ve been my best friend for as long as I remember.” A flush crept up her cheeks. “Not Flora, and not Mary. I want to do this with you.”
A warm tenderness bloomed inside Lily; it felt the way a bruise ached when pressed. Shirley scooted over and linked her arm through Lily’s and laid her head on Lily’s shoulder, and Lily smelled the faint scent of Shirley’s Breck shampoo.
“This is probably our last year together,” Shirley said wistfully. “You could be anywhere next year. What if you get into college in Pennsylvania?”
“Pennsylvania!” Lily’s uncle Arthur, her father’s younger brother, had gone to medical school there, but Lily had never wanted to go so far away. “I’m not going there.”
“Why not? If you got a scholarship—and you could—you would go. I’ve known you’d go somewhere ever since we were kids. You’ve always been the only one who was definitely going somewhere. Even if you just go to Cal, you won’t be here anymore.”
Shirley sounded so terrifyingly certain, and her certainty made Lily feel guilty, as if she had been planning her escape from Chinatown since childhood. As if she had always planned to leave Shirley behind. “You might not be here either,” Lily said, hoping that the words would sound true. For good measure, she added, “Aren’t you going to college?”
Shirley sat up, withdrawing her arm from Lily’s. “I’m not the college type—or did you forget?”
Lily was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Shirley waved her hand to stop her. “I’ll probably go to City College, but it’s not going to make a difference. I’ll have to work at the Eastern Pearl anyway, at least until I get married. That’s what Rosie did. This is my last year of freedom, and I’m going to make it one to remember.” She turned to Lily, a determined look on her face. “I know we’ve had some disagreements this year, but this is our last year. Let’s do this together.”