Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

  She had been overwhelmed by guilt. She still was. How could she have been so careless? She should have gone to the doctor earlier. She should have known, somehow, that something was wrong. It was probably her fault for not paying closer attention to her body. She’d always been lost in thought, in numbers and patterns and theorems. She’d always been an oddity, not like normal girls who cooed over babies and put all their heart into planning and preparing and waiting for them. She wasn’t one to coo; she never had been. Perhaps that meant there was something wrong with her, and her body had known that and had rejected motherhood.

  In some ways, the guilt was more painful than the miscarriage.

  She lifted her eyes from the snaking seaweed and sought out Lily, down the beach. She started to walk toward her niece. She felt shaky, the way she always did when she remembered that awful time last spring. She wondered when it would pass. Sometimes she caught herself fearing that it never would, and then she told herself that she was being melodramatic. She had experienced horrors during the war that she learned to forget.

  (That woman torn open on the side of the road after the bomb; the shine of her organs.)

  “Lily!” she called, deliberately pushing away those thoughts.

  (Her father nailing planks over the windows, blocking out the daylight.)

  Lily heard her and turned around, waiting for her to catch up. Lily was so fortunate. To live in the same country she had been born in, to have never experienced war on her doorstep.

  “What did you find?” Judy asked.

  Her niece held out her hand and revealed a purple-and-black mussel shell, perfectly empty, with a bone-white interior.

  “All the good shells are crushed today,” Lily said. “There was only this.”

  She raised her arm and threw it back into the ocean, but it landed lightly on the foam-crested wave that was rolling back to shore, and the water ushered the shell right back to them, depositing it at their feet.

  * * *

  —

  They walked back to Playland side by side, staying on the hard-packed sand as long as possible until they had to strike off over the shifting sand dunes. Judy took one last look at the horizon, imagining she could see over the edge and across those thousands of miles of open water, all the way to the harbor in Shanghai.

  When they reached the amusement park, she saw Francis before he saw them. He was standing outside the Fun House, laughing, as Frankie and Eddie tugged long strands of cotton candy from the spindle he held in his hand. Judy knew, somehow, that Eddie was about to turn around and raise a handful of the bright pink candy and wave it vigorously at Lily as he saw her—and he did—and Lily waved back, smiling.

  似曾相識, Judy thought. The sensation of having already met someone, or what the French called déjà vu, the feeling of having already seen something. There was probably a scientific explanation for it, but the older she got, the more she was inclined to give in to the feeling that these moments were glimpses into a world greater than this physical one. It was as if there were cycles that repeated themselves over and over, but most people never saw the repetition; they were too deeply enmeshed in their own path to see.

  In one cycle, she had already experienced this day at Playland, and part of her brain remembered it. Did that mean that she had always been destined to come here, to this city in this land so far from her home? She slid her hand into her pocket to feel the mussel shell, which she had picked up out of some kind of vague superstition. If the ocean had tossed it back to them, that must mean they should take it. All these signs, she thought, pointed to this moment, and then this one, over and over again.

  PART VI

  Secret Love

  January 1955

  39

  The headline on the front page took up the entire width of the newspaper that Lily’s father was reading: teen-age girls ‘recruited’ at sex deviate bar. Lily felt all the blood rush to her head as she saw it. The toast she was chewing turned dry as dust in her mouth, and she had to choke it down with a sip of coffee.

  The story didn’t seem to make much of an impression on her father. He finished the article he had been reading and folded the paper back on itself, hiding the front page, then glanced at the clock over the stove. It was eight twenty-six on Saturday morning, and he was on duty at the Chinese Hospital that day.

  Lily had barely slept last night, lying awake waiting for morning so that she could call Kath. It was almost an appropriate hour now, but the closer she got to dialing Kath’s number, the more nervous she became.

  Lily’s mother was packing up her father’s lunch and saying, “You’re sure you can pick up a roast duck? I don’t have time. We have to clean the flat.”

  “Yes, I told you I will.”

  “And you’ll be back before Judy and Francis arrive?”

  “Of course. They’re not due in until eight o’clock tonight.”

  “Mama, when do the firecrackers start?” Frankie asked.

  “At midnight, but you’ll be in bed.”

  “Why can’t I go see them?”

  “There will be more tomorrow. They’ll be going off all week.”

  Eddie, who had been crunching through his bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes, said, “Lily, what’s wrong?”

  She had stopped eating her breakfast. She picked up her piece of toast again and forced herself to take another bite. “Nothing.”

  Her father looked at her over the edge of the newspaper. “You’re not feeling sick?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” He dropped the paper on the table and stood up. “I’d better go.”

  “Why did you ask if she was sick? Are you sick, Lily?” her mother asked.

  “No.”

  “She was up late last night,” her father said. “I thought she might have caught what Frankie had.”

  “I’m fine,” Lily said.

  Her father picked up his lunch from the counter. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Lily got up and dumped her half-finished piece of toast in the trash before her mother could notice she hadn’t eaten it all.

  “Lily, I need you to stay home today with Frankie,” her mother said. “I have a lot of errands to run.”

  “I don’t need her to stay with me,” Frankie said. “Eddie can stay with me.”

  “Eddie has to do his homework, and you’re still recovering. Lily will be here. Wait—when do you need to meet Shirley?”

  “Not until six. The judging happens at seven but we have to get there an hour early.”

  “That should be fine, but make sure to eat before you go. I won’t have time to make you dinner.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you go and strip the beds, please? I need you to start the laundry this morning.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  But Lily hesitated before leaving the kitchen; the newspaper was sitting on the corner of the table, abandoned. She wanted to grab it, but before she could make her move, her mother sat down at the table and picked up the paper, flipping directly to the society columns in the back. Lily watched her for a moment, wondering if she’d go back to the front page, but she didn’t.

  * * *

  —

  Lily had to wait until her mother left before she could use the telephone. By then it was late morning, and she could barely contain her anxiety. After making sure that Eddie and Frankie were in the living room, she went to the telephone and nervously picked up the heavy black receiver, dialing Kath’s number from memory. There was a click in her ear, and then the call connected. The brr-brr sound repeated over and over as she stood there waiting for someone to pick up, but no one did. After ten rings, she hung up, her heart racing.

  She dialed the number again.

  Once more she counted ten rings; once more there was no answer. This time when she hung up, she sank down onto the bench. She f
elt dizzy with worry. She told herself that the fact that there was no answer didn’t mean anything. Maybe they were just out—her own mother had gone out—perhaps everyone in Kath’s family had gone out, too. She briefly imagined the whole family at the market, or going to the park, or—

  She suddenly remembered the newspaper article, and she jumped up and went back into the kitchen. She found the Chronicle in the trash can, the edges dampened by coffee grounds. She shook it off as well as she could and unfolded it. The front page was wet in the lower right quadrant, but the headline was still crisp and shockingly large.

  teen-age girls ‘recruited’ at sex deviate bar

  Police raided a North Beach bar known as the Telegraph Club Friday night, after receiving tips that the bar has long been a hunting ground for “gay” types that use the establishment to recruit teen-age girls into debauchery. The club, located at 462 Broadway, has been under secret investigation for months. Inspector J. L. Herington of the San Francisco Police reports that at least a dozen teen-age girls have been seduced by older women into a vice academy, in which they were introduced to marijuana and Benzedrine, and encouraged to attend secret parties after hours at the homes of sex deviates.

  On the testimony of several teen-age girls interviewed at the Youth Guidance Center, warrants were issued for the woman owner of the Telegraph Club, Joyce Morgan, and Theresa Scafani, who performs at the club as a male impersonator under the stage name Tommy Andrews. Both women were arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors, and Scafani was charged with lewd conduct.

  Inspector Herington related a sordid story of abominable acts that are in some cases unprintable, involving high school girls ranging in age from 16 to 18, many from good families. “There was a pattern,” Inspector Herington explained. “Girls would go to the Telegraph Club to see a nightclub act, and once they were there they would be plied with alcohol and invited for dates by older women who were sexual deviates. Once a girl was ensnared, she would recruit her friends from school.”

  At first, the girls would think it was a “lark,” Inspector Herington said. But soon, some of the girls started to wear mannish clothing and were known as “butches,” emulating the older women who had seduced them. These sexual deviates took the lead in inviting unsuspecting teen-age girls to private apartments in the North Beach and Telegraph Hill neighborhood, where marijuana cigarettes were offered, and Benzedrine, known as “bennies,” were for sale.

  The story continued on page five and included a sensational account of a cluttered flat in North Beach, reportedly the home of Telegraph Club owner Joyce Morgan, where a stash of marijuana had been found next to a detective novel. Although several teen girls were mentioned, none were named. Lily read the story several times, both hoping and fearing that she had missed Kath’s name, but it wasn’t there. Each time she read it, the story seemed more bizarre. It was as if the reporter had taken the truth and distorted it into a pulp novel. Reading it made her feel as if she had been splattered with something filthy, and no matter how hard she scrubbed, she would never come clean.

  She crumpled up the newspaper and shoved it back into the trash, sick to her stomach. She poured herself a glass of water and then she couldn’t drink it, instead standing half frozen with panic while she stared blankly out the window. All she could think about was Kath. She remembered her beneath the stairs at the Telegraph Club, the darkness a cocoon around them as they kissed, the sound of Tommy singing in the background like an old record on repeat. She needed to find out what had happened to Kath.

  She ran back into the hall, picking up the telephone and dialing Kath’s number again, but again there was no answer. She hung up in frustration, unsure of what to do. She wished she knew Kath’s address, so she could go there and wait for her to come home—and then she spotted the corner of the telephone book on the shelf beneath the phone. She pulled it out and knelt down on the floor, flipping to the page for Miller, and ran her finger down the numbers, searching for Kath’s. About halfway down the page she found it. She grabbed a pencil and tore off a piece of paper from the notepad by the phone, scribbling down the North Beach address.

  The front doorbell pealed loudly. Lily started and dropped the pencil, which immediately rolled beneath the telephone table. She bent down to retrieve it, but the doorbell sounded again, and there was an impatient edge to the repeated rings.

  Eddie poked his head out of the living room at the end of the hall. “Lily? Are you going to get the door?”

  She gave up on the pencil and scrambled to her feet, discombobulated and tense, thinking irrationally that it must be the police. “Stay in there with Frankie,” she told her brother.

  “Why?”

  “Just go!”

  His eyes widened in surprise, but he retreated, glancing back at her worriedly. As the doorbell rang again, Lily went downstairs. At the bottom she put her hand on the deadbolt and called out, “Who is it?”

  “Lily? It’s Shirley. Let me in.”

  Confused, Lily opened the door. Shirley stood on the front step carrying her purse and a garment bag.

  “What are you doing here?” Lily asked. “Is something wrong with your dress? I thought I was supposed to meet you at the judging.”

  “I just picked up my dress at the cleaners. I need to talk to you.”

  There was something strange about the expression on Shirley’s face. “About what?” Lily asked. She wondered if Shirley’s parents had found out about Calvin.

  “Can I come in?”

  Lily let her in, and Shirley started up the stairs. Lily closed the door and followed. “Did something happen?” she asked.

  Lily heard Eddie saying hello to Shirley, who responded briefly. At the top of the stairs, Shirley took off her shoes and set down her bags. “Are your parents home?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Let’s go in the kitchen.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Lily went after Shirley into the kitchen, and Shirley shut the door. She went to the kitchen table as if she were about to sit down, but then she seemed to think better of it and paced over to the sink, arms crossed.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” Shirley began.

  “Say what? Is your family all right?”

  “They’re fine. This is about—it’s about you.” Shirley lowered her gaze as if it pained her to look at Lily. “Someone saw you last night—this morning, very early—leaving a nightclub in North Beach. It was raided last night for— Honestly, I can’t even bring myself to say it. I told them it was a mistake because what would you be doing at a place like that? But they insisted it was you. It wasn’t you, was it? Tell me it wasn’t you.”

  Lily had to sit. At first, she hadn’t quite believed what Shirley was saying, but slowly—too slowly, and then suddenly as if an explosion had gone off that only she could hear—she understood.

  Shirley knew.

  “—told him you’re not like that. I’ve known you since we were children! I would know if you were like that, but you’re not. Lily, why won’t you say anything? It wasn’t you, was it?”

  She realized all at once, in one great overwhelming rush, how incredibly stupid she had been—how naïve, how ridiculously foolish—to think she could go to the Telegraph Club time after time without consequence. Perhaps once—if she were extremely careful—but she had gone several times. She had left her home in the middle of the night and walked right down Grant Avenue—Grant Avenue!—past restaurants and shops owned by people who had known her since she was born. She hadn’t even bothered to hide her face. She had blithely assumed that in North Beach, surely, no one would recognize her. She had conveniently, recklessly, overlooked that she would be a lone Chinese girl on Broadway at two o’clock in the morning, as conspicuous as she could possibly get. The danger had always been there, but she had chosen to ignore it, and now here was Shirley, looking at her—pl
eading with her—to lie about where she had been.

  Lily knew that she should lie. She should tell Shirley what she wanted to hear. Perhaps whoever had told Shirley hadn’t told anyone else, and if she denied it, Shirley might be able to put an end to this gossip; but as soon as that thought arose, she knew it was already too late. Word traveled lightning fast through Chinatown.

  “Who saw me?” Lily asked.

  Shirley was noticeably startled. “What does it matter?”

  “I want to know. Who saw me?”

  Shirley frowned. “Wallace Lai. One of Calvin’s friends.”

  Of course.

  Shirley asked, “Are you saying he was right?”

  Lily didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. She saw the knowledge pass across Shirley’s face like a ripple on a pond. Her expression hardened and turned cold as she averted her eyes from Lily, as if she couldn’t bear to look at her.

  “Why would you go to a place like that? Were you there with Kathleen Miller?” Shirley spoke Kath’s name bitterly.

  Lily bristled. “What does it matter?”

  “She was arrested last night.”

  Lily felt as if all her breath was knocked out of her. “What? How do you know?”

  “One of Kathleen’s neighbors is on the dance committee, and she called to tell me. The police went to Kathleen’s house this morning. The neighbors all know.”

  “Is she at home now? Is she all right?” She wanted to shake the information out of Shirley.

  “I don’t know,” Shirley said primly. “Are you and Kathleen . . .” Shirley glanced briefly at Lily, and in that quick, skittish look, Lily saw disgust. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I came here to tell you this because I’m your friend—or at least I thought I was before I found out you’ve been lying to me. And lying about something so—so unnatural. I can’t believe you would do this. Did Kathleen do this to you?”