Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

  Shirley’s team broke into cheers, and Lily saw Calvin run up beside her, patting her on the back. If his hand lingered a bit longer than necessary, nobody noticed except Shirley—and Lily, who saw her friend lean into his hand, tilting her head up to smile at him.

  * * *

  —

  “You like him, don’t you?” Lily asked Shirley as they walked home from Stockton Street.

  Shirley, who always played it cool, couldn’t prevent a slight flush from coloring her face. “Everyone was very nice.”

  Lily laughed. “Yes. Everyone. But Calvin was especially nice to you.”

  Shirley shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said loftily. “I noticed that Will was especially nice to you.”

  “What? Will was just . . . Will.”

  Shirley gave Lily an incredulous look.

  Lily frowned. “He was just being nice. As usual. Why do you always see things that aren’t there?”

  “Why don’t you ever see what is there? You can be so oblivious sometimes. If you don’t pay more attention, you’ll never have a boyfriend.”

  Lily almost retorted, I don’t want a boyfriend, but she stopped herself just in time. Instead she said, “My parents won’t let me have one until I go to college, anyway. So it doesn’t matter.”

  They saw their friend Mary Kwok coming up the street then and dropped the topic, but later that night as Lily climbed into bed, she realized Shirley had succeeded in distracting her from her original subject: Shirley’s interest in Calvin. It was strange that Shirley didn’t want to talk about it, but the whole day had been somewhat unusual. Spending it with two dozen strangers, for one thing. Lily and Shirley had had the same group of friends for as long as Lily could remember. Although there were always new immigrants from China showing up at school, they were relegated to Americanization classes and didn’t interact much with the American-born Chinese kids. And this was the first time Lily had spent so much time with college students. She couldn’t quite believe that she’d be one of them in less than a year. Their lives seemed so different from hers, both freer and more weighted with responsibilities. Lily also noticed that Shirley had inserted herself deliberately into the college students’ conversations in addition to their volleyball game. She had been charming, too, in a way that she normally wasn’t. She’d kept a lid on her bossier tendencies and instead played the part of modest, cheerful guest.

  All of that had gone out the window as soon as they left Calvin and Will on Stockton Street, of course. You can be so oblivious sometimes, she had said. It had irritated Lily that afternoon, and now the feeling flared into frustration at the way Shirley saw her—or didn’t see her.

  The sheets felt hot and scratchy tonight, and she threw them off, kicking her legs free. She had opened the little window in her room, but the air was still and didn’t circulate. She heard the sounds of the city floating through the window: car engines chugging up and down hills, the distant sound of someone laughing. She punched her pillow and flipped it over to the cool side, and wondered if what Shirley had said about Will was true.

  She called up Will’s face in her mind’s eye, but she didn’t feel anything special for him. She tried to imagine what it would be like to kiss him, but the idea felt distinctly embarrassing and oddly repugnant. He was just Will. Ordinary, same old Will from Commodore Stockton, perfectly nice, who used to want to be a basketball player but now wanted to be a lawyer. She began to imagine Will throwing the basketball through the hoop in the Cameron House yard.

  One, two, three, four.

  Finally, she was sleepy.

  7

  On Monday at school, Shirley seemed more distracted than usual, as if she were constantly being dragged back to prosaic reality from some much more interesting place in her imagination.

  On Tuesday, when Lily finally commented on it, Shirley said, “Don’t be silly. I’m just busy. The fall dance is coming up soon and my dance committee has so much work to do. I wish you’d joined it. We could really use you.”

  “I have a lot of math homework this semester,” Lily replied.

  “Typical,” Shirley said, but she sounded more amused than upset.

  On Wednesday, Lily stayed late after school to use the library. She wanted to look up the V-2 rocket, which Arthur C. Clarke mentioned in The Exploration of Space. As she was leaving, she ran into Will by the athletic trophy cases.

  “I’m surprised you’re still here,” Lily said to him. Most of the after-school rush was over by now and the hallway was largely empty.

  “I had science club, but I’m glad I saw you,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  He looked nervous then, and he shifted the strap of his book bag on his shoulder. “Well, you know the fall dance that Shirley’s working on . . .”

  When he trailed off and looked past her shoulder rather than directly at her, she grew puzzled. “Yes, why? Did she send you to convince me to join her committee?”

  “No, I . . .” He stepped into the shadow of the trophy case and reached for her elbow, drawing her with him. “Lily,” he said hesitantly.

  She knew, in that instant, that he was going to ask her to the dance, and even before he spoke the words, a horrified heat crept up her neck.

  “Lily,” he said again, “I was wondering if you would like to come with me to the dance. As my date.” And then, to make matters worse, he looked her in the eye, and she saw a startlingly poignant hope in them.

  “Oh,” she said, and then words failed her. She had to look away. Over his shoulder she saw the baseball trophies lined up all in a row, each miniature bronze boy holding a bat raised and ready to strike a ball that would never come. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement through the doorway to a classroom: the suggestion of boys’ lanky limbs folding into chairs. It was Mr. Wright’s room, she realized; he was the teacher who led the science club.

  “Lily?” Will said again.

  She had to answer him. A voice inside her mind that sounded an awful lot like Shirley asked, what harm will it do to go with him? But she couldn’t bring herself to say yes. The word was stuck in her throat like a tiny fish bone. It scratched.

  “I’m not allowed to—” she began, but he interrupted.

  “There’ll be a group of us. Flora and Hanson, and some others, I’m not sure who yet. We’re going to do a special pre-dance dinner at Cameron House.”

  “A group?” She clung to this. If it was a group, then it wouldn’t be a real date.

  “Yes, but it’ll be all couples. So, I’m hoping you’ll go as my date.”

  Her stomach churned. He was too close to her, looking eagerly down at her face, and she had to work so hard to keep her expression neutral. She took a step back. “Please excuse me for—for a minute. I have to—I need to go to the girls’ room. I’m sorry.”

  She turned and walked away from him, trying not to run.

  “Are you all right?” he called.

  “I’m sorry,” she called back, and sped up. Her book bag bounced painfully against her hip. The girls’ restroom was down the hall and around the corner, and it had never seemed so far away before. When she finally arrived, she rushed inside, plunging into a stall and leaning her forehead against the closed door. The wood was cool against her flushed skin. Her pulse throbbed in her temple, and she rubbed at it to ease the pressure.

  The door to the bathroom opened, and someone entered the stall next to hers. She froze. She saw the edge of the girl’s brown-and-white saddle shoes beneath the wall. She realized that meant the girl could probably see her feet too, and given where she was standing, she obviously wasn’t using the toilet. Lily hung her book bag on the hook behind the door and sat tensely on the edge of the toilet seat, deciding to wait until the other girl was finished. It seemed to take forever, but finally the other toilet flushed. Th
e door of the other stall banged open, and the girl went to wash her hands.

  At that moment, Lily’s book bag slipped off the hook. She saw it all in a split second that seemed to last much longer. The hook wasn’t properly secured to the door. The bag’s strap had only been partially looped around the hook, and the weight of the books had dragged it to the tip. And then it slid right off. As the bag smashed against the black-and-white tiles, her math notebook tumbled out, followed by The Exploration of Space. Three pieces of paper fluttered free, and she glimpsed the photo of Tommy Andrews just before it floated out of sight beyond the stall door.

  Lily heard footsteps crossing the bathroom floor, and then they stopped. There was a rustle of paper. A moment later the girl said, “Lily? Is that you in there?”

  Lily froze. How had the girl known who she was? The voice sounded familiar, but she didn’t quite recognize it.

  “Lily? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sorry,” Lily said, heart racing. She bent down to pick up her bag, and even more items spilled from it: a pencil case; a math textbook; her Senior Goals notebook; a Kotex pad that slid across the floor.

  She opened the stall door. Kathleen Miller stood in the middle of the bathroom with the Tommy Andrews ad in one hand and Lily’s math notebook in the other. Lily’s name was written across the front in her neat cursive script.

  “My—my bag fell,” Lily said. Hurriedly she began to gather her things, picking up the two magazine clippings first, which had come to rest between her stall and Kathleen’s feet.

  Kathleen helped her, chasing after a stray pencil that went under the sink, rounding up the notebooks while Lily collected the pad. Lily stuffed everything into her book bag, then straightened up and held out her hand for the newspaper clipping, which Kathleen had retained. The words male impersonator seemed to scream out in bold black type.

  “I was just . . . using it for a bookmark,” Lily said, and blushed.

  Kathleen seemed reluctant to give it back to her. There was an odd expression on her face, but after a silent, awkward moment in which Lily began to fear that Kathleen knew what that ad meant, Kathleen wordlessly handed it over. Lily found The Exploration of Space again and quickly slid the newspaper back inside.

  There was a knock on the girls’ bathroom door. Will’s voice called, “Lily? Are you in there? Is everything all right?”

  Lily looked at the closed door in shock.

  “Are you sick?” Kathleen asked, concerned. “You don’t look so good.”

  Lily tried to latch her book bag closed. “He asked me—he asked me to the dance,” she said in a low voice, hoping he couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t get her book bag closed. “He wants an answer, but I—I can’t.” The bag lolled open, its contents exposed.

  The concern on Kathleen’s face cleared. She gave a quick nod and said, “I’ll tell him you’re not feeling well. You don’t have to give him an answer right now.”

  It wasn’t a question. The calm certainty of Kathleen’s statement filled Lily with sudden relief. “I don’t,” she agreed.

  Kathleen immediately left the girls’ restroom to talk to Will. Lily was too stunned to intervene. When Kathleen returned a moment later, she had a briskness to her, a determination.

  “What happened?” Lily asked.

  “I told him you were having, you know, girl problems.” Kathleen gave her a small smile. “He didn’t want to hear anything more.”

  Lily knew she should be embarrassed by what Kathleen had told Will, but instead she wanted to laugh. “Oh my goodness. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Kathleen gave Lily that determined look again. “You know, I’ve seen Tommy Andrews before.”

  The words were spoken softly, but to Lily they sounded like firecrackers. “What?”

  “Tommy Andrews. I’ve seen her before.” Now Kathleen’s face went a little pink. “At the Telegraph Club.” Her jaw tightened, and she dropped her eyes to the floor as she said, “My friend Jean and I went over the summer.”

  The bathroom was so quiet Lily heard the drip of the faucet on the left-hand sink, a tiny plink against the porcelain. Kathleen raised her eyes to meet hers, and in that gaze Lily saw that Kathleen knew what she had given her: an opening.

  The water dripped again. A question hovered in the back of her throat, tangled up with the paralyzing sensation of being on the cusp of connection. She couldn’t put it into words.

  Finally Kathleen said, with a faint look of disappointment, “I have to go home. I’m supposed to babysit.” She started to head toward the door.

  “Wait,” Lily said. The moment was about to slip from her grasp, and she couldn’t let that happen. She finally latched her book bag closed. She slung the bag over her shoulder, and it came to rest against her hip like a nudge. “I’ll walk with you. I mean, can I walk out with you?”

  Kathleen turned back with a surprised smile. “Sure.”

  * * *

  —

  Kathleen lived in North Beach near Washington Square. She was half Italian and Catholic on her mother’s side; she had three siblings—one older, two younger; and most days after school she had to babysit her younger sister and brother, although her sister was twelve and could’ve managed on her own. She spoke about her siblings with a mixture of exasperation and love that Lily found quite endearing. As they walked down Columbus together, talking about their families and math class, Lily wondered why she hadn’t gotten to know Kathleen before. They had been in the same classes together for years, but it was as if they had been figurines in an automated diorama, moving on mechanical tracks that approached each other but never intersected until now. Today they had broken free from those prescribed grooves, and Lily was acutely aware of the unprecedented nature of their new friendliness.

  At the corner of Columbus and Filbert, where Washington Square Park occupied a flat green expanse of North Beach, Kathleen said, “I have to turn here.”

  They stopped at the intersection, and Lily wondered if this was the moment she would ask the unspoken question still caught in her throat—but no, Kathleen was moving on, and Lily said hastily, “Thanks, Kathleen. Thanks for helping me out with Will.”

  “You’re welcome.” Kathleen paused, then asked, “Do you mind—will you call me Kath? My friends call me Kath, not Kathleen.”

  She seemed a little abashed; a shyness flickered across her face, which turned the palest shade of pink. Her cheeks, Lily noticed, were now the same color as her lips: that delicate shade of blush, like a peony.

  “Of course,” Lily said. “I’ll see you at school, Kath.”

  When they parted, Kath walked east toward the Gothic towers of Saints Peter and Paul Church, and Lily headed south toward Chinatown. The word friends echoed in Lily’s memory like the chime of water dripping into the bathroom sink.

  8

  What did you do?” Shirley demanded in a whisper. She had cornered Lily at her locker in the ten minutes between the end of school and the start of student council. “Will is acting so uptight about the dance. Did he ask you to go with him?”

  Ever since that afternoon by the trophy case, Will had avoided being alone with Lily, and when they were with their other friends, he carefully did not meet her eyes. She had been happy to accept this delicate distancing because it absolved her of having to give him an answer. She was disappointed that Shirley had noticed.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Lily said a bit sharply. “But, yes, he asked me.”

  “What did you say? You didn’t say no, did you?” Shirley sounded aghast.

  Lily sighed. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.”

  Shirley’s eyebrows rose. “Yes! You should have said yes.”

  “But I don’t—why can’t we all go together in a group, like always? He said there was going to be a group dinner at Cameron House before the dance. Are you going?”


  “No, I have to be at school early to set up. You should go with him.”

  Beyond Shirley down the hall, Lily saw Kath hovering by the main doors. They had taken to walking home together, but during school hours they also made sure to act like they barely knew each other. They hadn’t discussed this strategy, but had fallen into it so naturally that only now, with Shirley pressing her about Will, did Lily notice how strange it was.

  “Don’t you like him?” Shirley asked, bewildered. “You two make the perfect couple. I know you can be shy about these things. Do you want me to talk to him?”

  Lily couldn’t tell if Shirley was being kind or condescending. It was probably a little of both. “No, don’t talk to him,” Lily said. She saw Kath take a seat on a bench near the main office, waiting for her.

  “Well, you’d better talk to him, then,” Shirley said. “It’s not right to make him wait for an answer like that.” She glanced at her watch and said, “I have to go now. Talk to him, Lily.” She hurried off down the hallway toward the student council room.

  Lily finished packing her book bag and went to meet Kath, who stood up as she approached.

  “What’s going on?” Kath asked as they exited the building together. “You don’t look happy.”

  “It’s nothing.” Lily didn’t want to talk about Will; she didn’t even want to think about him. It made her antsy, as if she didn’t quite fit in her skin. “Do you have to babysit today?” she asked Kath.

  “Not right away. My brother and sister are at our nonna’s today. I’m supposed to go get them in a couple of hours, though.”