Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

  Inside, booths were packed along the right wall, and a long marble-topped counter with stools ran across the back. Behind the counter, soda jerks in white aprons and striped caps concocted ice cream floats and chop suey sundaes topped with fruit and sesame cookies. Lily spotted an empty booth toward the back, and she rushed to claim it, sliding into one of the bench seats as Kath took the one across from her.

  Lily had been going to Fong Fong’s for as long as she could remember, but she still opened a menu. There were hamburgers and french fries; banana splits and ice cream parfaits; Napoleons and other pastries that could be ogled in the glass case up front.

  “What should I get?” Kath asked.

  “Ginger ice cream,” Lily said promptly.

  Kath was looking around the soda fountain as if fascinated, her gaze lingering on the mural of the gingerbread man on the wall behind the pastry counter. “This place is something.”

  Lily looked around too, taking in the shining stainless steel cases and the polished marble countertops, the Chinese waiters and soda jerks in their spotless white aprons and striped caps. She felt proud of the place; it made Chinatown seem modern and American. “Do you like it?” she asked. She’d never been to Fong Fong’s with a Caucasian.

  Before Kath could answer, the waiter arrived to take their order, speaking English with a thick Cantonese accent. For a brief, humiliating moment, Kath didn’t understand him. Lily had to interpret, and it made her wonder if she should have brought Kath here. Her pride twisted abruptly into embarrassment.

  After the waiter left, she hurriedly changed the subject and asked, “Are you going to the Spook-A-Rama?”

  Kath shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really like dances.”

  “I don’t either, but I have to go because of Shirley. I joined her dance committee.”

  “Why?” Kath asked, as if it was a bizarre decision.

  Lily sighed and glanced behind her; she didn’t see anyone she knew in the room. “Because it was the only way I could get out of going with Will Chan as his date.”

  “Sounds pretty dire,” Kath said dryly.

  Lily pretended to scowl at her. “So will you come to the dance?”

  A funny look crossed Kath’s face; Lily couldn’t tell if it was surprise or reluctance.

  “I have to set up the refreshments but I don’t think I’ll have to work the whole night,” Lily said, in case Kath had thought they wouldn’t be able to spend any time together.

  Kath blinked, and then she smiled slightly. “I wouldn’t know what to wear.”

  It took Lily a second to realize that Kath was joking, and then they were both laughing, and somehow Lily couldn’t stop—she had to clutch her stomach to contain herself as the waiter delivered their matching stainless steel dishes of ginger ice cream.

  Kath picked up her spoon and took a bite, and her eyes widened in surprise as she tasted it. “This is good!”

  “I know.” Lily knew she sounded smug, but she didn’t care. She spooned up a bite too. The cold, sweet ice cream was studded with small bits of candied ginger.

  “I’ll go to the dance if you’ll come with me to a G.A.A. meeting,” Kath said.

  “What do they do at a meeting? Calisthenics or something?” Lily said doubtfully.

  “No, we don’t do calisthenics. It’s usually tennis or bowling. It’s fun! Miss Weiland is the G.A.A. teacher. It’s a great group.”

  “I’m not so good at tennis or bowling. Well, I’ve never gone bowling—”

  “What?” Kath looked shocked. “You have to come.”

  Lily spooned up another bite and let it dissolve slowly on her tongue before responding. “I wish there was a girls’ science club or something. I suppose I could join the regular science club, but it’s all boys. I wouldn’t want to be the only girl.”

  “What do they do in science club?”

  “I imagine they do all sorts of things. Chemistry experiments, or taking apart engines, or . . . you know what I’d really like to do?” Lily leaned forward excitedly. “I want to build a model rocket. I saw an ad for a model rocket kit in Popular Science once—it didn’t look that difficult—but the trick is, you need someplace to set it off.”

  Kath’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s powered by a carbon dioxide canister, so it’ll launch into the air.” She grew thoughtful. “I suppose it’s a lot like a firecracker, so maybe I could just set it off in the street.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Kath said.

  From her tone, Lily knew Kath was teasing her, and she felt a little flush of pleasure. “Oh, it’s just a little thing,” Lily said, pretending nonchalance. “Nothing like a real rocket. I hope I can see a real one someday.”

  “Where would you see one?”

  “I’d have to get a government job. I’ve planned it all out already. First I’ll go to Cal and major in math. My aunt Judy did her master’s degree in math there, so she knows all the professors. I might need to go to graduate school, but I’m not sure. If I don’t need to, I’m going to get a job as a computer at the same place Aunt Judy works. They design rockets there, although she can’t tell me much about it because it’s top secret. I’ve read all about rockets already. They already know how to build rockets that could go into space—well, they have theories about how it would work, but they need to develop better fuels to reach the right speed to leave the Earth. I think they’re going to develop these fuels really soon, though.”

  “How soon?” Kath asked, scraping the bottom of her ice cream bowl.

  “Probably within a couple of decades. I’m sure we’ll be sending rockets up into space then. And we can put automatic instruments on board to send back measurements, and maybe even take photographs! It’ll take longer to send people into space, though. We have to design ships that can withstand potential meteor strikes and maybe even create artificial gravity, because otherwise people will just be floating around the ship.”

  “Floating? Why?”

  “Because there’s no gravity in space. I suppose it must be a little bit like swimming, except with no water. How strange that would be.”

  “Is it safe for humans?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps! Isn’t it exciting?” Lily beamed.

  Kath returned her smile, then shook her head slightly. “All right. I’ll go to the dance, but you have to come bowling.”

  “Deal,” Lily said, and extended her hand across the table as if they were making a business agreement. Kath reached out to shake it, but when they touched, it didn’t feel like a business agreement at all. Lily suddenly remembered a scene early in Strange Season when Maxine took Patrice’s hand to study her manicure and said, What lovely fingers you have.

  She snatched her hand out of Kath’s, and then tried to cover up her self-consciousness by taking her last bite of ginger ice cream. She wanted to ask Kath another question—she wanted to ask her the question—but she couldn’t. All around her, the laughter and chatter and tinkling sounds of spoons against sundae glasses reminded her of where she was. This bright, clean restaurant in Chinatown that smelled of sugar and cream was not the place to ask, but Lily felt as if her thoughts must be written in plain English on her face. Are you like the girls in the book too? Because I think I am.

  13

  Preparations for the Spook-A-Rama began hours before the dance was officially scheduled to begin. One of the girls on the dance committee had borrowed her parents’ car to run errands, and Lily persuaded her to drive them to the nearest grocery store to pick up pineapple juice and 7-Up, pretzels and heavy bags of ice.

  Back at Galileo, Lily raided the home economics supply closet for punch bowls, then carried them through the underground tunnel that connected the main building with the gym, passing the girls’ locker room on the way. The door was propped open, and inside she saw Shirley’s baby-blue party dress on
a hanger hooked over the edge of a locker door, like the shell of a girl floating in midair. Lily was already wearing her dance outfit, a black rayon skirt with a short-sleeved pink cotton sweater. The skirt already had water marks on it from the dripping ice she’d lugged into the gym. She hoped it would dry before Kath arrived.

  Inside the gym, Shirley was supervising the decorations. The committee girls had already hung the space with lime-green streamers, cut-out ghosts, and skeletons made of white butcher paper. They’d pasted on clusters of sequins for eyes, which gave the ghosts and skeletons a glazed-over look. Shirley had probably been aiming for whimsical, but Lily found them a little disturbing. Now the girls were pinning letters that spelled out spook-a-rama onto the wall beneath the football pennants. They were cut out of aluminum foil into the wavy forms of a horror movie title. A small stage with a band was set up in front of the silvery letters, and Lily recognized a couple of the band members from school.

  The refreshment table was on the far side of the gym, and as Lily headed over with the punch bowls, she began to worry that Kath wouldn’t come to the dance after all, and if she didn’t, did that mean something? The question made her uncomfortable, and she tried to forget about it as she mixed the punch, but she felt her uncertainty like an unreachable itch between her shoulder blades.

  * * *

  —

  At eight o’clock on the dot, Shirley opened the doors. From her post at the refreshment table, Lily had a good view of the whole gym. Their friends arrived first: Will and Hanson in sport coats; Flora and Mary in pink and green party dresses. Then some boys from the football team and their dates, and then a big crowd of students all at once around eight fifteen. At first everyone mingled: the Chinese and the Italians, the Negroes and the Caucasians. The girls stood in circles as they admired one another’s dresses and compared their carnation corsages. The boys moved between the refreshment table and the girls, offering them cups of punch and awkwardly hovering nearby while they got up the nerve to ask them to dance.

  Lily saw Shirley flitting from one place to another, her tea-length dress floating around her in a cloud of baby blue. Shirley had saved up her money to buy that dress, and then Mary helped tailor it to fit, taking in the bust to better show off her figure. She had acquired a glittering cubic zirconia necklace and matching earrings and found some white satin gloves in the back of a Chinatown boutique. She looked like the princess of the ball, and she was reveling in it. Every so often she glanced at Lily, and once she even came over to ask if everything was all right. But she didn’t suggest that Lily join her and their friends, and Lily was relieved to have an excuse to hide behind the table.

  It was Shirley who made the first brave foray onto the dance floor, dragging Will with her, and soon afterward other couples followed, holding each other at regulation distance as they moved like jerky robots across the gym. The mixing and mingling was over now; the couples were all matched pairs—Chinese with Chinese, Negroes with Negroes. As Lily eyed Shirley and Will, a fragment of a memory floated into her consciousness. Hadn’t his brother, Calvin, caused something of a scandal a few years ago? She couldn’t remember exactly what it was, but it had to do with a girl he’d brought to a dance. Shirley would remember, because she remembered everything, but Lily didn’t think that now was the right time to ask.

  She glanced up at the giant clock on the gym wall beneath the scoreboard. It was already half past eight, and as the minutes continued to tick by, there was no sign of Kath. She kept the punch bowl filled and rearranged the cookies and poured out more pretzels, but there came a time when there was nothing else for her to do, and she didn’t want to stand up anymore. She drifted over to the bleachers with her own cup of punch, feeling like a wallflower and trying not to stare too anxiously at the main doors.

  When the band struck up “ABC Boogie,” almost everyone surged onto the dance floor. The boys swung the girls out, their skirts twirling as they swirled back into their arms. There was laughter and shouting, and someone was singing the lyrics above the sound of the band, and the girls were taking off their heels to dance. Lily watched it all from her perch on the bleachers. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that she was quite alone; all of the other wallflowers had found partners or chosen to join the dance with friends. Lily crossed her arms around her stomach and pasted on an expression that attempted to declare, I’m perfectly fine over here.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Lily never used to question whether she should go to a dance, or whether she would enjoy it, or even what she would do if nobody wanted to dance with her. They’d all freely traded dance partners, because nobody was allowed to go on dates. At least, that’s the way it used to be among her Chinatown friends. Now everyone knew that Hanson and Flora were steadies, although they wouldn’t admit it because their parents still didn’t allow it. And the kids who weren’t Chinese seemed to all have girlfriends or boyfriends this year. A few of them were already engaged to be married. When had everything changed? She felt as if it had been very sudden.

  As the band began another popular song, some of the dancers switched partners, and Lily took care not to meet anyone’s eyes; she didn’t want anyone to ask her. Instead she glanced over at the refreshment table—it didn’t look like the punch needed replenishing—and around the periphery toward the main doors, where she caught sight of a girl hovering near the wall, hands clasped in front of her. Lily stood up abruptly. The girl was obscured by the dancing couples, and Lily had to climb down the bleachers to get a better look. Yes—the girl was wearing an ordinary brown skirt and a white blouse beneath her jacket—it was Kath.

  Lily ran across the gym, narrowly avoiding the twirling couples, only to trip over a pair of discarded patent black heels. Kath grabbed her arm, and Lily clutched Kath’s hand, and they spun through half a circle, as if they were dancing, before Lily broke away, breathless. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, and headed for the exit.

  14

  The doors to the gym slammed shut behind them, muffling the sound of the band. Lily and Kath stood on the wide landing outside; below them, concrete steps descended to the exterior door. The gym was in a building across the street from the high school, which meant there were few places for them to go: two flights down to the locker rooms, or outside into the night. Lily chose the night.

  “Where are you going?” Kath called, hurrying after her.

  “Anywhere,” Lily said, and shoved open the heavy doors.

  Bay Street was filled with fog. Aquatic Park was only two blocks away, and the scent of the ocean was thick in the air. Lily rubbed her hands over her bare arms and realized she had left her jacket inside, but she couldn’t go back in—not yet.

  “Let’s walk to Aquatic Park,” Lily said.

  “Are you sure? You don’t have your coat.”

  “It’s not that cold. Or at least not that windy.” She cast a glance at Kath as they began heading toward the corner. “I just need some air. I didn’t realize it was so stuffy in there.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “No. I just really didn’t want to be there anymore.”

  They turned right at the corner, heading down Van Ness toward the waterfront. The fog seemed to swallow up all sounds, including the dull beat of their footsteps, rendering the city abnormally silent.

  “I’m sorry I got here so late,” Kath said. “I couldn’t get away earlier.”

  “I’m just glad you came.”

  They smiled at each other tentatively, and then Lily felt a little self-conscious and had to look away. On their right, the football field behind the gym was a block-long swathe of darkness. None of the field lights were on; only the lights from the long gym windows glowed through the mist. At the end of the block, Lily looked east down North Point Street toward Fisherman’s Wharf. Ghirardelli Square’s giant lighted sign was like a mirage floating in the distance, the normally brilliant letters smudged by fog. In Fish
erman’s Wharf, all the restaurants and clubs would be brimming with light and music at this time on a Saturday night, but here in the shadows of Fort Mason, the city felt hushed and lonesome.

  They continued on Van Ness in the foggy darkness. They passed a couple on the sidewalk, the woman’s arm linked through the man’s. She was wearing his trench coat; it seemed to swallow her shoulders, the belt flapping behind her as they walked. There was an unexpected burst of laughter, followed by the receding sounds of a conversation they couldn’t make out. The fog was so thick they couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead.

  Lights began to come into focus. They were near the Maritime Museum, its long white submarine shape a dim curve in the night. Concrete bleachers were stacked up on either side of the museum, creating a viewing stand for the dark bay ahead. Down below, Lily couldn’t see the ocean at all, but she could hear it, the waves sounding a rhythmic shhh-shhh, as if the ocean itself were hushing them. The fog had closed like curtains behind them. They were quite alone, it seemed, here on the edge of the water.

  A foghorn moaned in the distance. Lily was cold now. She felt the damp chill of the mist against her bare forearms and face, and she shivered noticeably as the wind kicked up, whipping back her hair.

  Kath took off her jacket. “Here,” she said, offering it to Lily.

  “But then you’ll be cold. It’s my own fault I didn’t bring my coat.”

  “I have long sleeves. You take it.”

  Lily relented. Kath’s jacket was wonderfully warm, the fabric a soft corduroy, and she buttoned it all the way up and tucked her hands in the satin-lined pockets. “Thank you,” Lily said. They stood together quietly, and Lily looked out at the blackness, imagining she could just discern the faint motion of the water. She felt enveloped in a private little cocoon with Kath. She knew they were standing right out in the open, not far from the brightly lit Maritime Museum—its shadow slanted down the bleachers toward the water—but the fog made it seem as though she and Kath were hidden from view.