by Malinda Lo
“What was it like when you went to the Telegraph Club?” Lily asked.
Kath didn’t seem surprised. Maybe, Lily thought, she had been waiting for the question since she first told Lily about it.
“It was . . . I don’t know how to describe it. I’d never seen anything like it. The performers there are sort of famous, you know. Like Finocchio’s, but with women.”
“Finocchio’s. The one with the female impersonators?”
“Yes.”
“The tourists go there. They come to dinner in Chinatown and then they go to Finocchio’s. Do they go to the Telegraph Club too?”
“Some of them.” Kath hugged herself against the chilly kiss of the fog. “Maybe half the audience was tourists the night we were there.”
“What was the other half?”
“Women.”
The ocean shushed against the sand below. The foghorn blew again. Lily asked, “Did you see . . . Tommy Andrews?”
“Yes. There was a show. Tommy Andrews was one of the performers. She sang—some of the songs had the lyrics changed.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t remember the lyrics. You’d know the songs. But the whole point of it was, you know, she’s dressed like a man. She sings to the women in the audience. She’s very . . . handsome.” Kath gave a nervous, self-conscious huff that was not quite a laugh. “She came around to our table afterward—well, she comes around to all the tables near the stage, and the stage is so small that she comes to everyone’s—anyway, Jean couldn’t get enough.”
Lily had imagined Tommy’s performance countless times, but hearing Kath describe it aloud made her quiver with excitement. She sings to the women in the audience. She took a deep breath of foggy air. “Oh, I wish I could see it,” she said, looking at Kath, and Kath was looking back at her with a strange expression on her face—a mix of fear and excitement. “What?” Lily asked. “What is it?”
“Well, we could go. To the Telegraph Club.”
Lily was surprised. “I couldn’t—”
“You could. We could. Why not? It’s on Broadway. Plenty of people go.”
Lily said nothing, but her mind was spinning. Again she imagined herself at the club, sitting at a small round table on the edge of the stage, Tommy Andrews singing to her.
“How old are you?” Kath asked abruptly.
“Seventeen. Why?”
“You need to be eighteen.”
Her dream was instantly quashed—and replaced with a kind of unwelcome relief. “Then I can’t go. I don’t turn eighteen until April.”
“I wasn’t eighteen when I went either. Jean got me a fake ID. I could get you one.”
“That’s illegal,” Lily said. She thought immediately of false immigration papers. What would the police do to someone like her if they found her carrying a fake ID? She curled her fingers into fists inside the pockets of Kath’s coat. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You really only need a fake ID to buy drinks. They never even asked for mine when I went.”
Lily wondered if Kath’s nonchalance was for show. “Then why get one at all?”
“It’s just—just in case. Why don’t I get one for you and then you can decide if you want to use it?”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll ask Jean. She knew where to get them before.” The wind ruffled Kath’s cropped hair and made Lily shiver again, despite Kath’s jacket. “If Jean doesn’t know or can’t get it, then we’ll wait until you turn eighteen and we can go then.”
The thought of waiting that long suddenly seemed unbearable. “Oh, all right. Ask Jean,” Lily said before she could change her mind. “When will you ask her?”
“I’ll see her soon. She comes back once a month to visit her family. I’ll talk to her next time she’s back—probably next weekend.”
“Next weekend! That’s so soon.” A thrill went through Lily. She saw Kath break into a smile, and then a shiver as the wind swept around them again. “Oh, you’re cold,” Lily said. “We should go back.”
And just like that, their conversation was over, and the pocket of fog that had cloaked them before was moving them back up Van Ness and toward the gym, its lighted windows winking through the mist.
15
The Spook-A-Rama was still going full steam when they returned, shivering, to the warm, dry vestibule of the gym. Lily took off Kath’s jacket and handed it back to her, and Kath had just put it back on when the gym doors opened and Shirley emerged, clearly searching for someone.
“Lily!” Shirley called. “There you are. Where have you been? The punch bowls need to be refilled.”
Shirley came down the stairs, caught sight of Kath standing nearby, and paused a couple of steps before the bottom. “Kathleen?” she said in surprise.
“Hello, Shirley,” Kath said, looking uncomfortable.
Lily was relieved that she had given Kath her jacket back before Shirley saw them. “I was just going to the bathroom and I—I ran into Kath—Kathleen.”
Shirley stayed on the stairs, as if she didn’t want to come any closer. “You were gone a long time.”
“Well, I’m back now.” From the gym, the sound of the band swelled; they were playing another lively dance number. “It sounds like everything is going really well in there,” Lily said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Yes, it is,” Shirley said. “But you should have told me before you left the refreshment table.”
Lily swallowed a burst of irritation. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling well.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Well, are you feeling better?” Shirley asked impatiently. “Are you coming back?”
“Of course,” Lily said. There was no way to avoid it, and there was also no way to bring Kath with her; Shirley would never allow that. Lily glanced at Kath, wondering how she would communicate this to her, but Kath seemed to understand. She had buttoned up her jacket and slipped her hands into the pockets where Lily had warmed hers only minutes before.
“I’m heading home,” Kath said.
Shirley said nothing.
Lily wanted to say a dozen different things, but the only thing she could say was “Have a good night.” And then she turned away from Kath and walked toward Shirley, who started to go back up the stairs. Lily heard the exterior doors open and close as Kath left, and felt a breath of cold air on her legs.
Shirley paused outside the gym doors and turned back so that she was a couple of steps above Lily. “Before we go back in, I should warn you about Kathleen Miller,” Shirley said.
“Warn me?” Lily said, startled.
Shirley crossed her arms, looking down her nose at Lily. “You shouldn’t get involved with her.”
“What do you mean?”
Shirley came down one step so that they were only a foot apart and said in a low voice, “Don’t you remember what happened with Kathleen’s friend, Jean Warnock?”
Lily shook her head uneasily. “What about her?”
Shirley cast a glance behind her at the doors, which remained closed, and then looked back at Lily. “Jean’s queer. You don’t remember? Somebody caught her in the band room last year with—” Here Shirley grimaced in distaste. “With another girl.”
Lily’s skin prickled. “I never heard that,” she said neutrally.
“Honestly, sometimes I think you pay no attention to anything except your math homework and your space books.” Shirley gave her a funny look—half motherly, half exasperated.
The criticism flew past Lily; all she could think about was the fact that Shirley knew about Jean. And then she remembered what she had half-forgotten about Calvin, who had been in Jean’s class. The scandal. His junior year, he had started going steady with a girl (Lily couldn’t remember her name), which was unusual enough for a Chinatown kid,
but it could have been tolerated if it had been kept under the table. The scandal had been that she wasn’t Chinese—she was Negro—and they’d been discovered together in Calvin’s car after a dance.
Shirley was still talking. “So you should stay away from Kathleen Miller. You don’t want those rumors near you.”
Lily took a step up so she was on Shirley’s level. “Did Calvin tell you about Jean?” Lily asked.
Shirley’s eyebrows drew together. “What? It doesn’t matter who told me about it. It only matters that you understand how important this is. You can’t be associated with people like that.”
Lily didn’t respond. She felt strangely disconnected from the moment, and yet she had never been so aware of the way Shirley’s forehead wrinkled when she was upset. Two little Vs had formed between her eyebrows, as if to point comically down her nose.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll make up with Will,” Shirley continued. “I talked to him earlier and he’s willing to dance with you. It would be a good idea—just in case anyone else saw you with Kathleen.”
“I don’t want to dance with him, and I wish you wouldn’t talk to him about me,” Lily said coolly. “And there’s nothing wrong with Kath.”
“‘Kath’?” Shirley said with the edge of a sneer in her voice. “Do you even hear yourself? Do you want people to think you’re friends with her?”
“Why not?” Lily asked.
Shirley looked genuinely shocked. “I just told you why. I’m trying to do you a favor.”
Lily knew she was about to make a mistake, but she felt a recklessness taking hold of her. “I don’t want any favors,” she said curtly.
Shirley looked stunned. “Well,” she said, but she didn’t continue.
Lily couldn’t take the words back. She wouldn’t. The gym doors banged open, and a group of Caucasian students surged out—several couples arm in arm, the girls giggling. Lily and Shirley didn’t know them well, and they stepped aside to let them pass. The band started playing “I’ll Be True,” and Lily was sure that everyone would be heading to the dance floor, but she and Shirley didn’t move. She wondered if the two of them would stand there facing each other forever, each unwilling to yield, but at last Shirley gave a tiny shake of her head as if she were disappointed in Lily and went up to the gym doors.
“Are you coming?” Shirley asked.
Lily knew that if she didn’t, there would be consequences. Shirley had said as much, hadn’t she? Jean’s queerness was contagious, like a cold, and it could be transmitted through Kath to Lily by nothing more than rumor.
“No,” Lily said.
As soon as she spoke the word, a panic went through her—she shouldn’t have said that—but Shirley was already opening the door and going back in. The door slammed shut behind her.
Lily took a shaky breath. There was nothing for her to do but go home, so she went to get her jacket from the girls’ locker room, and left. Outside the gym she almost expected Kath to be waiting for her, but the street was empty. Only the fog moved across the pavement, silent and disembodied as a ghost.
16
On Monday morning, Lily and Eddie walked to the intersection of Washington and Grant as usual, but Shirley wasn’t there to meet them. Instead Flora stood on the corner, flushed with self-importance.
All weekend, Lily had wondered how exactly Shirley would punish her for leaving the dance early. She hadn’t seen Shirley at church on Sunday, and Shirley hadn’t phoned to discuss the dance the way she normally would have. Lily had known that Shirley would do something, but she hadn’t expected this.
“Shirley went to school already,” Flora announced. “She asked me to tell you not to wait for her.”
Humiliation burned through Lily, but she tried to hide it behind cool resignation. “We should get going, then, or we’ll be late,” she said. She was distinctly aware that Shirley had sent Flora to do her dirty work, to show by her very absence that Lily wasn’t in her circle anymore.
She saw Eddie give her a curious look, but she didn’t meet her brother’s eyes as they proceeded up Grant Avenue. It was early enough in the morning that workers were still carrying crates of produce from the sidewalks into the markets. Lily sidestepped boxes of Napa cabbage and ginger, and narrowly missed two men carrying half a pig into a butcher shop. The skin was a waxy pink, the pig’s hoof jutting out at an obscene angle as if it was about to kick her. She hurried past, her stomach clenching as if the hoof had met its mark.
As they joined their other friends on the way out of Chinatown, the surreptitious glances cast in her direction told her they all already knew. If Lily had any doubt that Shirley was giving her the cold shoulder, it was squashed when she noticed that Will wasn’t waiting with Hanson. Will had gone ahead with Shirley, just the two of them.
Lily kept her head down and shoved her sweaty hands into her jacket’s pockets and followed Flora and Hanson and the rest of them, pretending she didn’t care. She let herself fall behind until she was trailing them all. She didn’t see anything but the dirty gray sidewalk a few feet ahead of her and Flora’s legs as she walked, and then she lost sight of Flora entirely and only gazed down at the ground.
At Francisco Street, Eddie turned right toward the junior high, and Lily turned left. As she trudged along the street, she allowed the gap between her and her friends to stretch until they were half a block apart, until she could only hear snatches of their conversation tossed back on the wind. Once or twice Flora glanced over her shoulder at Lily, slowing down as if she would wait for her, but she never slowed down enough, and Lily never made the effort to catch up.
When she and Shirley had been little, they had been very close. They’d liked all the same things: Smarties, which they pretended were medicine prescribed by Lily’s father; Bambi and Black Beauty; and later, Archie Andrews on the radio. Lily had always been the Betty to Shirley’s Veronica. They rarely fought, and when they did, Lily often felt like the petty one who clung to bruised feelings for too long. Shirley never held a grudge (at least, not openly) and was the generous and big-hearted one whom everyone sided with. Now Lily realized that Shirley never apologized for anything; she simply assumed that Lily would forgive her—and she did.
When Lily arrived at Galileo, there were only a few minutes left before the bell. At her locker, she saw Shirley and their friends gathered in a closed circle across the hall. Some of them eyed her as she passed; some of them whispered behind cupped hands. Had Shirley told them why she and Lily had fallen out? Had she started a rumor about Lily and Kath? The thought made her nervous, but it also made her angry.
Lily finished at her locker. Carrying her books in her arms, she turned her back on Shirley’s group and headed to Miss Weiland’s classroom. There was Kath coming down the hallway, carefully not looking at Lily as usual. And Lily suddenly knew what she could do.
“Kath!” she called. “Wait for me!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw everyone in Shirley’s group turn their heads to watch. She saw Kath stop and look at her in surprise. Kath’s gaze flickered behind her, then back at Lily.
“What’s going on?” Kath asked.
“I thought we’d go to class together.” Lily felt her heart beat a little too fast in her chest as she waited for Kath’s response, and for a terrible moment she wondered whether she had made a mistake. Maybe Kath didn’t want to be seen with her either.
But then Kath cocked her head in Shirley’s direction and asked quietly, “You’re not going with them?”
“No.”
For a moment, Kath’s expression opened. Something like hope, or happiness, passed across her face, and Lily caught her breath.
“All right,” Kath said. “Let’s go.”
They went together, and Lily didn’t look back.
17
The bowling balls were lined up on the rack like a series of planets: marbl
eized blue and violet, sparkling red and deep green streaked with white. Lily chose the red one for luck, because she suspected she’d be terrible at bowling, and slid her fingers into the deep finger wells.
“That one’s too big for you,” Kath said. “Try this one.” She pointed to the smaller green one. “And don’t use your fingers to lift it—it’s too heavy. Carry it with both hands.”
Lily was surprised by the ball’s weight. “How am I supposed to throw this?”
Laughter drifted from the mixed couples group a few lanes down. Lily glanced over to see one of the men placing his hands on his girlfriend’s hips, coaxing her into position while she tossed a flirtatious smile at him.
“You don’t throw it,” Kath said. “Come over here.”
Lily carried her green bowling ball over to where Kath was standing, several feet away from the start of their lane. She could still see the flirting couple out of the corner of her eye; the way the woman leaned into the man’s hands.
“Square your hips,” Kath told her.
Lily turned toward her. “Sorry, what way?”
“The other way,” Kath said, looking amused.
And before Lily turned on her own, Kath reached out and touched her hip, gently nudging her to face the lane. She touched her for only a second, but Lily felt Kath’s hand through the fabric of her skirt like a spark on her skin.
“Now, put the fingers of your right hand in the holes,” Kath said. “You’re right-handed, aren’t you?”
Lily blinked and tried to shift her attention to the ball. “Yes. It’s so heavy.”
