Last Night at the Telegraph Club(63)

Shirley opened her notebook. “All right. What should I say in my speech to the judges? It’s supposed to be about why I’m the right candidate to be Miss Chinatown.”

“Well, why do you want to be Miss Chinatown?” Mary asked.

“Because you’re ambitious?” Lily suggested.

“She can’t say that,” Flora objected. “She has to be modest.”

“Because you’re beautiful,” Mary said.

“She can’t say that either,” Lily said. “What did they say last year? Miss Chinatown has to be good, serene, and industrious. Well, you are industrious.” She popped a strand of cuttlefish in her mouth; it was chewy and salty and fishy, with a slight spicy bite.

Shirley batted her eyelashes. “I’m serene as well!”

“Then you’ll just have to lie about the good part,” Lily said.

“I’m perfectly good!” Shirley said.

“Depends on what you mean by good,” Mary joked.

Lily laughed while Shirley pretended to be hurt. Flora held a hand over her mouth as she giggled.

“I heard that Donna Ng is dancing at the Forbidden City now,” Mary said, eyes wide to show she was scandalized by the rumor. Donna Ng had been last year’s runner-up.

“I heard Miss Chinatown Los Angeles is auditioning for movies,” Flora said.

Shirley struck a pose in her chair, head tilted back as if she were gazing into the distance. “Do you think I should audition for a movie?” she asked.

“Yes!” Mary said.

“There aren’t very many movies with Chinese girls in them,” Lily said. “Not here anyway.”

“You could go to Hong Kong,” Flora suggested.

“Well, first I’ll try Hollywood,” Shirley said confidently. “I bet they would cast me.”

The light from the standing lamp was perfectly positioned to shine directly onto Shirley’s face, almost like a spotlight. And Lily found it quite easy to imagine her on the silver screen. Shirley relished attention, but she also knew how to turn that desire to be looked at into something coquettish and somehow flattering to the person who was looking.

Then Shirley broke the pose and crossed one leg over the other, bobbing one slippered foot up and down in the air. “Come on, girls, what should I say?” she asked, leaning over to grab several strings of cuttlefish. She chewed on them like an old Chinese woman who didn’t mind the fishy stink that would cling to her afterward.

“I know,” Lily said, and everyone turned to look at her. “You want to be Miss Chinatown because this is your home. You grew up here, you love this place, and you want to help represent it to the rest of America.”

Shirley was scribbling down what Lily said. “Yes, exactly. That’s perfect.” She smiled at Lily and added, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

It was the first time anyone had acknowledged, even obliquely, that for a little while, Lily had been gone. Flora and Mary looked at her a bit guiltily. Lily took some more cuttlefish.



* * *



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On Christmas Eve, Frankie played a shepherd in the Christmas Nativity tableau at church. He had acquired a fake brown beard and tied it around his head with kitchen twine. Due to his role, Lily and her family had to arrive at church early. While she waited outside the sanctuary with Eddie and her father—her mother had gone off with Frankie—she wondered whether Kath was attending a mass at Saints Peter and Paul. She wondered if Kath was thinking about her. What if they were thinking of each other at the same time? The idea made her pulse quicken.

It wasn’t long before friends began to arrive, and she had to pretend she was glad to see them. First, her father’s colleagues from the Chinese Hospital and their families, and then a group of students from China who were studying at Cal and wanted to be introduced to her father. She had to shake their hands and speak to them in her terrible Mandarin. At last, everyone dispersed among the pews: Lily with her father and Eddie; Shirley with her family across the aisle; the Chinese students at the back. Her mother slid in next to Lily a moment before the choir began to sing, and Lily raised her eyes to the altar to watch.

She fidgeted as young Joseph and Mary took their places. Her coat was laid over her knees and it was too much like a blanket. She tried to fold it up, but she elbowed her mother in the process. “Sorry,” she whispered, and her mother frowned as she took the coat and folded it for her as if she were a little girl.

Lily glanced across the church at Shirley, who was watching the tableau with a blank expression on her face, as if her mind was elsewhere too. Lily realized that Shirley had changed her hair. She had done it subtly, but somehow she had combed it back and pinned it in a way that made her look older, more sophisticated. There was something in Shirley’s posture—shoulders back, head lifted—that reminded Lily of Lana Jackson.

Instantly Lily remembered the smell of the Telegraph Club, the sound of the piano and glasses knocking against the table. Her thoughts turned to Kath and the last time she’d seen her; the feel of their hands twined together; their promise to meet on the night before New Year’s Eve.

No one in this church knew she had been to the Telegraph Club or that she would go again. No one. The thought was disorienting, as if she had lived a second life in a separate dimension, and she had to curl her fingers over the hard wooden edge of the pew in order to remind herself of where she was.