Last Night at the Telegraph Club(98)

Yes. But she couldn’t say it. To her horror, her eyes grew hot and her face, which was already flushed from the wine, burned even hotter, and she leaned forward to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray. (Kath leaning forward in the darkness of the Telegraph Club, the ash from her cigarette crumbling onto the table.)

“Oh, honey,” Claire said. She reached out and put a hand on Lily’s back, as if to steady her. “It’ll be all right.”

Lana picked up the wine bottle and poured the last few drops into Lily’s glass.





43





Lily woke up to the sound of church bells. They were unusually loud, and she attempted to muffle the noise with her pillow, but the pillow was the wrong shape. She truly woke up then, and remembered that she was on Lana’s sofa. Her head was resting on the Turkish pillow, a blanket was draped over her, and a crack of light shone through the curtains.

It was Sunday morning. That’s why the bells were ringing.

When the sound died away, the apartment seemed abnormally silent in comparison. She couldn’t remember how late they’d been up. At some point, Claire had decided to go home, and Lana called a taxi for her. It took so long to arrive that Lily began to nod off on the sofa, but at last Claire left, and Lana brought out another blanket for Lily before going to bed.

Now Lily remembered, with a pang, that Aunt Judy and Uncle Francis must have arrived the night before, while she was eating Lana and Claire’s sandwiches and drinking wine and smoking. She had smoked a cigarette! She sat up too quickly, and was struck with a burst of dizziness followed by a gurgling noise in her stomach. She was starving.

She became aware of another, more pressing need, and she pushed off the blankets and got up to go to the bathroom. Afterward, when she flushed, the sound seemed as loud as an explosion, and for a second she froze, fearing that she’d woken Lana—but she heard nothing from the direction of the bedroom.

At the sink, she splashed water onto her face and used a towel she found on the bar nearby to dry off. Her face was a little pale, and the outline of a button from the maroon pillow was pressed into her left cheek, but when she ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it into a ponytail, she looked all right. She didn’t look like someone who’d been up half the night after running away from home. She could barely believe that she’d done that. In the bathroom light, in this strange apartment, it all seemed unreal.

She noticed a small white hutch behind her, reflected in the mirror. It had lower cabinet doors and two small open shelves on top. Various bottles and containers were crammed onto those shelves, and though she knew she shouldn’t poke around, she couldn’t resist. There was a box of lipsticks and a basket of eye shadows, several lotions and a glass jar of cotton puffs. There was a selection of perfumes on a silver-plated tray: Tabu, Shalimar, Knize Ten. Shalimar smelled like Lana. She opened the Knize Ten and its fragrance, undiluted and sharp, went through her like an electric shock—that was Tommy. She put it back too hastily, making a banging noise against the silver tray.

Feeling guilty, she turned off the bathroom light and opened the door, afraid that Lana would be standing outside, but the hallway was empty. She tiptoed back to the living room, trying to ignore her empty stomach.

To occupy herself until Lana got up, Lily folded the blankets, opened the curtains, and sorted the mail into two different piles: one for Lana Jackson, and one for Theresa Scafani. She cleared away the dirty wineglasses and plates, stacked them as quietly as possible on the counter by the kitchen sink, and looked yearningly at the fruit bowl, which held two bruised apples and a browning pear. She glanced at her watch countless times as the minute hand ticked slowly toward and past ten o’clock, and finally she heard the bedroom door opening. It was a little sticky and made a brief peeling noise.

She leaped up from the sofa. She had prepared an entire speech about how grateful she was to Lana for allowing her to stay the night, but the sight of Lana in the doorway, tying on a rayon bathrobe printed with roses, made the speech die in her mouth. She realized, while waiting for Lana to wake up, that she had left her home in Chinatown with nothing: not a coat, not a single penny, and not even keys to her family’s flat. She was entirely at Lana’s mercy, and Lana looked exhausted and somewhat surprised to see her still there, and now did not seem like a good time to ask for anything more than she had already been given.

“Hello,” Lana said blearily. “What time is it?”

“Just after ten.”

Lana yawned again. “My goodness, my head is pounding. How are you? Do you need some aspirin?”

“No, I’m all right.”

Lana smiled weakly. “Lucky you. Come on, I’ll make us some coffee.”



* * *



—

A little after eleven, Lana left to meet her friend Parker for lunch. She gave Lily a spare key in case she wanted to go out. “When I get back,” Lana said as she put on her hat, “we can talk about what you want to do.”

Alone in the apartment, Lily cleaned up the remains of their breakfast. Lana had only eaten toast, but she had given Lily some eggs to scramble for herself, and she ate them hungrily and gratefully, feeling even more like a tramp that had been taken in out of pity. Now she carefully washed the dishes, feeling as if she should leave no trace of herself there. When she finished, she went out into the living room and sat down tensely on the edge of the sofa. The light coming through the front window was flat and dull, making the eclectic assortment of furniture look like the odds and ends they probably were. The sofa was visibly worn and threadbare in spots. The octagonal table was chipped on several of its corners, and the Chinese chairs’ lacquer finish was lusterless and obviously cheap. Her mother would never have bought those chairs.