by Malinda Lo
“So it’s not just the four of you,” Lily said.
Shirley looked at her entreatingly. “Please come. It won’t be any fun without you.”
Lily sighed, but even as she pretended to be exasperated, she felt an incriminating little buzz of pleasure. “All right, fine, I’ll go with you.”
Shirley squeezed her arm in excitement. “Wonderful! I’ll come by your house Saturday just before noon and we can walk over together. I have to go to student council now. Are you going home?”
“Yes, I—”
“All right, then I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Lily watched Shirley rush off down the hallway. She thought she saw Kathleen Miller crossing the hall over by the athletic trophies, and it occurred to her that the two of them could study for math together. She quickly finished packing her book bag and hurried in Kathleen’s direction, but by the time she got to the trophy case, there was no sign of her.
5
Almost every morning, Lily and Eddie met Shirley and her younger brother on the corner of Grant and Washington to walk to school. Along the way, they’d pick up Hanson and Will in front of Dupont Market, and then Flora and Linda Soo a block north, and by the time they reached Broadway there would be a whole gang of them, proceeding up Columbus Avenue through North Beach in a kind of Chinatown parade. The younger kids would split off at Francisco Street to go east to the junior high, and the older ones would head west up and over Russian Hill to Galileo High School.
Lily liked walking to school with her friends, but she secretly enjoyed walking home alone even more. She could take the quieter side streets with narrower sidewalks, and she could linger over a pretty view if she wanted. Today she climbed the Chestnut Street steps up Russian Hill, and at the top she turned around to catch her breath while looking out toward the Presidio. She’d always thought there was something magical about the city, with its steep stairways and sudden glimpses of the bay between tall, narrow buildings. It felt expansive and full of promise, each half-hidden opening a reminder that the city she had been born in still held mysteries to discover.
She continued up Larkin and down Lombard until she was absorbed by the tourists who were always loitering on the crookedest part, taking snapshots of Coit Tower perched on Telegraph Hill in the distance. The view reminded her of the Telegraph Club ad, and she thought about it all the way down Columbus until she reached the stoplight at Broadway.
The club must be on that block to her left. She couldn’t see it, but if she crossed the intersection and walked a little way down, she might pass it. The thought made her heartbeat quicken, and she almost turned in its direction, but then she caught sight of Thrifty Drug Store down the street, past Vesuvio Café on Columbus. She checked her watch; she had a little time before Frankie got out of Chinese school. When the light turned green, she hurried across the intersection.
The first time Lily had gone to Thrifty had been sometime last year. She had ducked in to buy a box of Kotex, because she hadn’t wanted to get them at the pharmacy in Chinatown, where she’d risk running into people she knew. Thrifty was just outside the neighborhood, so her friends didn’t usually go there. She had soon discovered that Thrifty had another advantage over the Chinatown pharmacy: it had a very good selection of paperback novels. There were several rotating racks of them in a sheltered alcove beyond the sanitary napkin aisle. One was full of thrillers with lurid covers depicting scantily clad women in the embrace of swarthy men. Lily normally bypassed that rack but today she paused, drawn in by The Castle of Blood, on which the blonde’s red gown seemed about to slip off her substantial bosom, nipples straining against the thin fabric.
The book rack alcove was normally deserted, but even so, Lily spun the rack self-consciously, retreating behind it so that she was hidden from view. The women on these book covers seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping their clothes on. The men loomed behind them or clutched them in muscular arms, bending the women’s bodies backward so that their breasts pointed up.
There was something disturbing about the illustrations—and it wasn’t the leering men. It was the women’s pliant bodies, their bare legs and lush breasts, mouths like shiny red candies. One of the books had two women on the cover, a blonde and a brunette. The blonde wore a pink negligee and knelt on the ground, eyes cast down demurely while the shapely brunette lurked behind her. The title was Strange Season, and the tagline read, “She couldn’t escape the unnatural desires of her heart.”
An electric thrill went through Lily. She glanced around the edge of the book rack, sharply conscious that she was still in public, but although she could hear the ringing of the cash register at the front of the store, she didn’t see anyone approaching her corner. She went back to the book, opening it carefully so that she didn’t crease the spine, and began to read. The book was about two women in New York City: a young and inexperienced blonde, Patrice; and an older brunette, Maxine. When Patrice was jilted by her boyfriend in public, Maxine took pity on her and helped her get home. Thus began their somewhat confusing relationship, which veered from Maxine setting up Patrice with new men, to strangely suggestive conversations between the two women.
About halfway through the book, things took a turn. Patrice arrived unexpectedly at Maxine’s Fifth Avenue penthouse, distraught after a bad date, and Maxine began to comfort her.
“Why do I want to kiss you?” Patrice whispered as Maxine stroked her long blond hair.
Maxine’s fingers jerked, but then she resumed the rhythmic petting. “I don’t know, Patty, why do you?”
Patrice twisted around on the couch, rising to her knees. “Max, I’d rather be here with you than on any date!”
Lily turned the page, her heart racing, and she could barely believe what she read next.
Maxine pushed Patrice back against the velvet cushions, lowering her mouth to the girl’s creamy skin. “You’re like me, Patrice. Stop fighting the possibility.” Patrice whimpered as Maxine pressed her lips to her neck.
“Max, what are you doing?” Patrice gasped. “This is shameful.”
“You know what I’m doing,” Maxine whispered. She unbuttoned Patrice’s blouse and slid the fabric over Patrice’s shoulder, stroking her breasts. Patrice let out a sigh of pure pleasure.
“Kiss me now,” Patrice whispered.
Maxine obeyed, and the sensation of Patrice’s mouth against hers was a delight far beyond shame.
Lily heard the creak of wheels rolling in her direction, and she quickly peeked around the book rack, her skin flushed. A clerk was pushing a metal cart stacked with boxes of Kleenex past the shelves of Modess and Kotex. She hurriedly closed the book and stuffed it into the rack behind the novel Framed in Guilt. She sidled over to the next rack—science fiction—and pretended to peruse the books.
Her position enabled her to keep an eye on the clerk, who was restocking the shelves at the end of the aisle. She itched to return to Strange Season, but she didn’t dare read it while the clerk was so nearby—and she could never, ever buy it. The clerk was moving so slowly she felt as if she might jump out of her skin. Usually the science fiction rack was her favorite, but today her eyes skipped over the cover illustrations of planets and rocket ships without registering them. She couldn’t stop imagining Patrice and Maxine on that couch together. She wanted to know—she needed to know—what happened next, but as the minutes ticked past, she realized she wouldn’t find out today. She had to go get Frankie from school. She cast one last look at the rack that held Strange Season, and left.
* * *
—
For the rest of that day—as she met Frankie and walked home with him, as she did her homework, as she ate dinner with her family—all she could think about was that book. She knew that what she had read in Strange Season was not only scandalous, it was perverse. She should feel dirtied by reading it; she should feel guilty for being thrilled by it.
The problem wa
s, she didn’t. She felt as if she had finally cracked the last part of a code she had been puzzling over for so long that she couldn’t remember when she had started deciphering it. She felt exhilarated.
She went to bed imagining Maxine’s hand on the buttons of Patrice’s blouse, unbuttoning it. She slid her own hand beneath the placket of her nightgown; she felt her own warm skin beneath her fingertips. In the quiet darkness of her bedroom she felt the faint but insistent beating of her heart, and she felt its quickening. She imagined the blouse sliding off Patrice’s shoulders, the pale swell of her breasts. Lily’s whole body went hot. She felt the need to cross her legs against the hungry ache at the center of her body. She imagined them kissing the way Marlon Brando had kissed Mary Murphy in The Wild One, which she and Shirley had snuck into last February. (“Don’t be such a square,” Shirley had said when Lily had worried about getting caught.) But now, in Lily’s imagination, Marlon Brando became Max, crushing Patrice bonelessly in her arms. And then their lips pressed together, and Lily tugged up the hem of her nightgown and pressed her fingers between her thighs, and pressed, and pressed.
6
Is this the right place?” Lily asked.
The address that Will had given them was a basement on Stockton Street. The metal bulkhead doors were open, tied to waist-high barriers on either side, and stairs led down from the sidewalk to a closed door.
“There’s a sign,” Shirley said, pointing.
A placard tied to the barriers was printed in both Chinese and English. Lily understood only about half of the Chinese characters, but the English read: chinese american democratic youth league.
The door at the bottom of the stairs suddenly opened, and an unfamiliar young Chinese woman with a pouf of short curled hair bounded up the steps. When she saw Lily and Shirley, she asked in Mandarin Chinese, “你們是來參加聚會的嗎?”*
Lily could speak Cantonese relatively fluently, but her Mandarin was much worse; she only knew a little of it because her father spoke Mandarin. She decided to respond in English. “We’re here to meet Will Chan. Do you know him?”
The girl beamed at them. “Oh, they’re coming,” she said in Mandarin-accented English. “They went to get his brother’s car.” She extended her hand. “Edna Yang. Are you coming to the picnic too?”
Lily shook her hand; Edna’s grip was firm and no-nonsense. “Yes, we are. I’m Lily Hu.”
“Shirley Lum,” Shirley said, shaking Edna’s hand as well.
Behind Edna, a stream of people had begun coming up the stairs—girls in skirts and sweaters, boys in chinos and athletic jackets—carrying foil-covered plates and white pastry boxes tied with red string.
Lily and Shirley stepped aside for them, and now the basement entrance seemed like the door to a clown car. The honking of a horn drew Lily’s attention to the street, where a green Plymouth sedan had pulled up, double-parked, and Will leaned out the front passenger window and waved. “Lily! Shirley!” he called.
A young man emerged from the driver’s side of the car, running around to open the trunk, and Lily recognized him as Will’s brother, Calvin. Will got out while the youth group members packed the trunk with picnic supplies. They argued, laughingly, over whether the boxes should be stacked or not, and whether the bottles of soda would be too shaken up by the trip, and then Shirley volunteered to hold the pot of soy sauce chicken on her lap so that it wouldn’t spill. When the trunk was finally closed, the driver of the car came around to the passenger side, and Will said, “Calvin, you remember Shirley and Lily.” Shirley gave him a sort of curtsy because her hands were full with the chicken pot.
“Sure I do,” Calvin said. He had Will’s face, but leaner and more defined, and he smiled at Shirley as he asked, “You really want to carry that pot?”
Shirley laughed. “I’m happy to.”
Calvin had never made much of an impression on Lily, though she had seen enough of him over the years to recognize him. He’d always had his own friends, a couple of years older than Lily and Shirley’s group. Now he was a student at San Francisco State, and Lily couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him. She noticed Shirley giving him a grateful smile as he helped her into the front seat of the car, then carefully handed her the pot. When he closed the door, he lightly slapped the roof twice, then leaned into the window with an easy smile and said, “You’re all set.”
“We’ll sit in the back,” Will said, opening the rear door for Lily.
“But where are Hanson and Flora?” Lily asked.
“They couldn’t make it,” Shirley called back. “Sorry about that, Will. Get in, Lily.”
There was something about Shirley’s breezy tone that made Lily suspicious, but Shirley had already turned away.
“Lily?” Will said, prompting her.
“Sorry.” She got into the car, sliding across the wide bench seat, and Will climbed in beside her. Lily’s position gave her a good view of Shirley, and now Lily recognized the smile Shirley had turned on Calvin. It was the one she put on when she wanted to impress someone. Lily understood, then, the real reason Shirley had wanted to come on this picnic.
* * *
—
They parked the car along Main Drive in Golden Gate Park, near the glass Conservatory. Calvin was gallant and insisted on taking the chicken pot himself, while Shirley carried the picnic blanket. Lily and Will followed, laden with bags and boxes. They chose a stretch of grass on which to lay out their things, weighting down the blanket’s four corners with the chicken pot, a basket of dishes and utensils, and bottles of soda.
It was a beautiful day, still and warm beneath a clear blue sky, and before long Shirley took off her pink cardigan to reveal a matching pink sweater shell beneath. Lily realized she had never seen this pink twinset before, nor the baby-blue-checked capri pants her friend wore. Shirley always took care with her appearance, but Lily thought Shirley had made a special effort today. She was wearing clip-on earrings of pink flowers with rhinestone centers that glittered in the sunlight, and her hair was carefully pulled back to show them off.
Lily had no opportunity to ask Shirley about her new clothes, however, because Calvin and Will were always going back and forth from the car with more picnic supplies, and Shirley was busily acting as hostess, arranging and rearranging the dishes and napkins and asking Calvin to open a soda for her.
Finally, the bus that the other members of the youth group had taken arrived up on Main Drive. They spilled out, carrying boxes of pastries and a long duffel bag that contained volleyball equipment. Once they had all gathered together, Lily counted about two dozen people in total—a relatively even mix of girls and boys—almost all in college, though a few were in high school. The college students seemed so much older to Lily; they were friendly to her, but they treated her like a little sister. Several of them spoke Mandarin, which was uncommon in Chinatown, where people mostly spoke Cantonese. Lily soon learned that the Mandarin speakers were students from China—exiles now, unable to go home because of the political situation.
Lily was curious about them. Although they dressed like any other American, there was something faintly foreign about the way they carried themselves that seemed, if not un-American, then less American. She wanted to ask if any of them were from Shanghai, but she felt shy around them—she felt un-Chinese—and besides, they had to eat.
They helped themselves to the chicken, warning each other that the soy sauce would soak through the paper plates unless they ate it immediately. There were hard-boiled eggs in the pot too, marinated to a rich brown color. Lily fished out one, cut it in half, and shared it with Shirley. Lily ate her egg in two quick bites, and then she ate a drumstick more slowly, finally depositing the bone in a paper sack that was being used for garbage. The white boxes contained pastries that someone had bought from a Chinatown bakery: sesame seed balls and egg tarts, and a dozen soft white barbecue pork buns that they split apart so
everyone could have some. One of the girls had made a batch of fried dumplings that she called chiao-tzu, stuffed with chopped pork and Napa cabbage, and Lily dipped hers in the drippings from her chicken leg and then licked her fingers to get the last of the sauce.
Afterward, drowsy and full, Lily lay down on the grass and threw an arm over her eyes to block the sun. She began to doze off, feeling as if she were sinking slowly into the warm ground, the voices of the youth group members growing ever more distant. Someone was talking about how China was moving forward into the future, and Lily imagined a Chinese man in a space suit, his face blurry behind his round helmet, standing on a red planet. Behind him, an army of similarly space-suited explorers blinked into existence: hundreds, thousands of Chinese, and the man in the lead now held a Red China flag, its five gold stars on the red cloth blending into the Martian landscape.
* * *
—
She must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up, blinking slowly at the bright blue sky above, she was alone on the picnic blanket. She heard laughter nearby, and the thunk of a volleyball. She rolled onto her side, and green blades of grass poked against her cheek. The volleyball net had been strung between two poles, and the youth group members divided into two teams, while others watched from the sidelines.
She pillowed her head on her arm to make herself more comfortable, but she didn’t get up. Shirley was actually playing in the game, which was somewhat unusual. When they were children, Shirley had been quite good at sports; she was always getting chosen first in gym class and dominated the basketball games they played on the courts behind Cameron House. It had been a long time, though, since Lily had seen Shirley dust off her athletic skills. Now she saw Shirley standing with her knees slightly bent, eyes up as she followed the trajectory of the ball, hands clasped in front of her. The ball came at the player beside her, who bumped it with his forearms, and then Shirley jumped up, arm outstretched to smack the ball down over the net, where it struck the ground between two players.
