Last Night at the Telegraph Club(71)

“Really?” Lily said warily, but she was interested in spite of her discomfort. “When?”

“A few years back,” Tommy said. “Maybe during the war? I can’t remember, it was before my time. But I’ve heard about her—she did herself up in a suit, like Marlene Dietrich, Gladys Bentley. Not exactly the same as my gig, but I wonder what happened to her. I heard she was good.”

The praise, delivered in such an offhanded tone, curled through Lily as if Tommy had offered her a personal compliment. She couldn’t imagine a Chinese woman putting on a show like Tommy’s, but she was immediately proud of her. She wanted to ask more about her, but Lana came into the living room looking for Tommy.

“There you are—you slipped right past me,” Lana said. “Where’s the tonic?”

Tommy had to get up and go back to the kitchen, and Patsy and Sal sat quietly for a moment, smiling fixedly at Lily and Kath, before Patsy got up and took the chair that Tommy had vacated. Lily raised her glass to her mouth and realized, to her surprise, that she had finished her drink.

“Let me get you another,” Kath said.

“I don’t need another,” Lily said, but Kath didn’t appear to hear her. She stood up abruptly, causing the sofa cushion to heave like a wave, and took both of their glasses—Kath’s was empty too—off to the kitchen. Lily felt the distinct absence of Kath next to her, as if part of her own body was suddenly missing.

“How long have you two been an item?” Patsy asked after Kath left the living room.

Lily was taken aback. “Me and Kath? We’re—we’re not.”

Patsy gave her a hint of a knowing smile. “Oh, my mistake.”

Embarrassed, Lily glanced around for something to distract her and caught sight of the couple by the record player again, still gazing into each other’s eyes, and another couple beyond them sharing a single chair while they sorted through records. The room was full of couples, Lily realized. How na?ve had she been to not notice this until now? No wonder Patsy thought that she and Kath were . . .

She dropped her gaze to her lap, stunned. Perhaps Patsy had seen something in her and Kath—just as Lily had seen the other pairs and known they were not simply friends. The thought made Lily’s heart race.

Someone put “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” on the record player, and Patsy jumped up, declaring, “I love this one. Come on, Sal, dance with me.”

Sal objected for a second, but it was obvious she wanted to say yes, and she allowed Patsy to drag her into the small empty space between the coffee table and the kitchen door, where they began to dance. A moment later Claire and Paula got up from the couch to join them, leaving Lily alone at last.

How long have you two been an item?

Her face was burning. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Paula’s hands on Claire’s waist, Claire’s fingers sliding down Paula’s arms, laughing at each other as they swiveled their hips in time to the music. She saw Patsy in Sal’s arms; she saw Sal spin Patsy away from her and back again, her skirt flaring out. She had never seen two women dance together like that before, as if they were a man and a woman.

And then Kath appeared in the doorway behind the dancing couples, holding two more glasses of sangria, and though Lily didn’t allow herself to meet Kath’s eyes, she was sharply aware of her approach. There was more room on the sofa with Claire and Paula gone, so Kath didn’t need to sit so close to her now. She took a seat about a foot away and handed Lily her sangria. The cushion sagged under her weight, and Lily braced herself so that she didn’t slide toward Kath as she took the wineglass. Patsy’s question rang in her head, like someone pressing a doorbell over and over again.

How long?

Lily felt as if she should say something to Kath, but everything she could say or do now seemed impossibly weighted. Her head was fuzzy; she was a muddy mess of panic and wonder. The sofa felt like a trap. She had to escape.

“I have to find the bathroom,” Lily said abruptly. She set her sangria glass down on the coffee table and lurched to her feet. The room seemed to shift beneath her.

“Are you all right?” Kath asked, reaching out to steady her.

She felt Kath’s fingers brush her arm, and she pulled away skittishly. “I’m fine,” she said, and hurried out of the living room, narrowly missing Paula’s elbow as she swung Claire around.

The kitchen was filled with people she didn’t know, and she couldn’t see Lana or Tommy anywhere. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked one of the women, who pointed to an open doorway at the back of the kitchen.

She stepped through into a dim, empty hallway, where she saw a door with a crack of light beneath it that she assumed was the bathroom. When she knocked, someone called, “Just a minute!”

Lily stepped back to lean against the wall. The sound of the record player and the laughter from the living room was muffled here, and the dimness made her feel invisible at last. The hallway continued on a short distance to her right, where another door was halfway open. A soft golden light spilled from the room, and she saw a pair of black oxfords abandoned on the floor in front of a dresser.

It was only a few more steps to the end of the hall, and she didn’t have to enter the room to look inside. There was a double bed, covered by a nubbly green blanket, and a nightstand with a yellow lamp.Beside the dresser was a half-open closet door; Tommy’s tuxedo hung on a hanger hooked over the edge. Inside the closet, more suits nestled right next to several dresses—Lana’s clothes. On top of the dresser, a handled metal tray contained an assortment of cosmetics, and a couple of black bow ties lay limply beside it.