Last Night at the Telegraph Club(73)

It was awkward after that, but Kath wouldn’t let her walk home alone. Kath helped her find their coats, which were near the bottom, and when Lily dislodged hers at last, an envelope fluttered down to the floor. She bent over to pick it up; it was addressed to someone named Theresa Scafani. She shoved it back into the pile. Kath had pulled Lana away from a group of dancers to say good night. Lily wished she hadn’t done that, but now here she was, beaming at them with her face flushed from dancing.

“Thank you for coming,” Lana said, and reached out and took Lily’s hand in hers.

“Thank you for inviting me—us,” Lily said.

“You’ll be safe heading home?”

“Yes, we’ll go together,” Kath said.

“Good. Be careful, girls.”

As Lana went back to the dancing, Lily saw Tommy emerge from the kitchen, a cigarette in her mouth and a cocktail glass in one hand. Tommy’s eyes met Lily’s, and a little smile passed over Tommy’s face—that same flirtatious smile from the bedroom—and Lily turned away and headed for the door.

She went so quickly that Kath had to rush after her. “What’s gotten into you?” she asked as Lily plunged out onto the street.

“I’m just tired.” Lily crossed her arms against the foggy chill and began to walk away from Lana and Tommy’s building.

Kath tugged at her elbow. “That’s the wrong way.”

Lily stopped and looked up. She was walking directly toward Coit Tower, which was still illuminated in the dark. She glanced around in confusion and realized she had no idea where she was.

“It’s this way.” Kath gestured in the opposite direction.

They went back past Lana and Tommy’s building. The living room window was curtained, but through the cracks Lily saw light and movement, and the faint sound of music leaked out into the night. At the end of the block, Lily saw the street sign—Castle Street—right before they turned steeply downhill. They hadn’t gone much farther before Kath reached for her arm and said, “Wait—wait.”

Lily felt Kath’s hand slide down her arm and lodge around her wrist, then around her fingers, pulling her to a halt.

“What happened?” Kath asked. “I know something happened.”

The streetlight was behind Kath, so Lily couldn’t see her face clearly, but she could hear the concern in her voice and, beneath that, the hurt that Lily wouldn’t tell her what it was. Lily wasn’t sure she understood it herself, this combination of burning embarrassment and outright fear. Those strange women at the party seemed to see her much more clearly than she saw herself, and it was disorienting—as if her body were not her own, but capable of acting without the conscious direction of her mind, which was screaming at her to let go of Kath’s hand, to go home as fast as she could, to crawl into her bed and pull the covers over her head and forget about this entire night, forget about Tommy Andrews and the Telegraph Club and all those women who looked at her and saw that she and Kath were . . . what?

“Did Tommy do something?” Kath asked, her voice hardening.

“She thinks I’m a child,” Lily said, the words bursting from her mouth before she could stop them. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m so stupid.”

“No,” Kath said, stepping closer to her, still holding Lily’s hand. “You’re not stupid. Do you . . . do you have feelings for her?” Kath whispered.

“For Tommy?” Lily wanted to laugh, but she had started to cry and her laughter came out of her in a choked sob. “No, I have feelings for you.” Her words came out too loud—they seemed to reverberate in the empty street, and she forced her voice into a whisper as she said, “Everybody can tell. Even Tommy! I’m so stupid. So stupid.”

Kath exhaled in a startled burst.

“I have to go home,” Lily insisted, trying to pull away, but Kath wouldn’t let her go.

“Wait,” Kath said. “Please.” She glanced around nervously. The steep street was deserted, but the lights and noises of the city seemed to rise up in warning: a car engine rumbled and streetlights flickered and down the block, a lamp burned in a bay window.

Kath pulled Lily toward the edge of the sidewalk and into the shadow of a building. There was a narrow opening there, an alleyway, and Kath tugged her inside, past the reach of light from the main street. The buildings on either side shot up several stories toward the night sky, their windows all black. All sound seemed to be swallowed up here, leaving the two of them in a velvety, dark quiet.

“I wasn’t sure you felt that way,” Kath said, and came closer to Lily. “I mean, I hoped.”

Lily’s heart raced at that word and what it implied. “Really?” Her embarrassment at her own obliviousness was abruptly replaced by astonishment. It made her reel—the speed of this, the way her feelings rushed in, pushing one emotion out and shoving in another. “I thought—I thought you were just being nice to me, I mean, you can’t possibly—I’m so stupid! Don’t you want someone like—like Rhonda?”

“Rhonda?” Kath sounded dumbfounded. “No, why would you think that?”

“I don’t know. Because at least she knows things. I don’t—I don’t understand the way this works.”

Kath let out another breath, a hint of laughter. “I don’t either. I just know—”