Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

  Her thoughts circled back, relentlessly, to Kath. She imagined her in a cold, cement jail cell, or led out in front of a judge, or locked into the padded room of an institution. She went to the window and peered out at the quiet street as if Kath might suddenly appear, but of course she didn’t.

  She had to go to Kath’s house again. Someone had to be home by now, and they would know what had happened to Kath, and Lily would make them tell her.

  She raced to lace on her shoes. She took the key that Lana had given her and left the apartment, locking the door behind her.

  The air was cool and damp; she wished she had thought to borrow one of Lana’s jackets. North Beach seemed like a foreign city around her; unlike Chinatown, the neighborhood was practically deserted, and the quiet made her feel especially conspicuous. She spotted a couple of people going into a corner store, and they looked secretive, as if they knew they shouldn’t be outside.

  Lily heard the snap of firecrackers in the distance. She could see them in her mind’s eye: flashes of bright white light and smoke streaming upward, the paper wrappers fluttering through the air like confetti.

  She wasn’t that far from Chinatown. For a moment she considered going back. Today her mother was cooking a special dinner for the New Year, and she was supposed to help. But then she imagined what it would be like to return home—to be forced to ring the doorbell because she didn’t have any keys, to wait for someone to open the door and let her in. She imagined the look of disappointment and disgust on her father’s face, and she knew she couldn’t go home.

  When she reached Kath’s street, she slowed down as she approached the building. The curtains were all drawn; none of the windows showed any life. Of course, it was Sunday morning. The neighborhood was deserted because people must be at church. Her heart sank at the realization, and she almost turned back, but the thought of returning to Lana’s apartment with nothing to show for it seemed even worse than finding no one at Kath’s home.

  She climbed the front steps to the entryway and rang the doorbell. The building was quiet. After a minute, she pressed the button again. She was about to turn away when the door cracked open.

  A girl peered out. She had giant blue eyes that looked exactly like Kath’s.

  “Are you Kath’s sister?” Lily asked. “Peggy?”

  The girl opened the door all the way. She was about twelve years old, with light brown hair pulled into two wavy pigtails. She looked dubious, but nodded. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Lily, her friend. From school. Is she home?”

  Peggy shook her head. “Your name’s Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  “She told me about you.”

  Lily was astonished. “She did?”

  “Yes. But she’s not here.”

  “Where is she? I’ve been so worried. I called the other day—” Lily cut herself off as Peggy looked past her. Lily twisted around to look up and down the block, but no one was in sight. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell anyone where she is.”

  “You can tell me,” Lily said eagerly, trying to be persuasive. “You said she told you about me, so you know I’m her friend. I just want to know if she’s all right.”

  “I’m not supposed to say anything to anyone,” Peggy said reluctantly.

  “Will she be coming home soon?”

  “I don’t know.” Peggy began to step back into the house. “I’m sorry.”

  “Wait. Wait! If you can’t tell me, can you tell Kath I came by?”

  Peggy hesitated.

  “Can you tell her where I am? I’m not at home. I’m—I’m at Lana’s apartment. Tell her I’m at forty-eight Castle Street.”

  Peggy backed away again, and Lily was afraid she was going to close the door in her face, but then she returned with a small pad of paper and a pencil. “Here,” she said, giving it to Lily.

  Lily took the pad and scribbled down Lana’s address. She wrote: I’m at Lana’s. Lily. She handed it back to Peggy, who read it and nodded somberly.

  “I’ll give it to her if she comes home.”

  And then Peggy shut the door.

  44

  Lana returned carrying two bags of groceries, and Lily jumped up from the sofa to help. “Thanks, you can take that into the kitchen,” Lana said, handing Lily a bag while she nudged the door shut.

  When it was all put away, Lana sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette, and said without preamble, “I saw Parker. I asked him whether your friend Kath would have been arrested, but he thinks no, because she’s under eighteen.”

  Lily took a seat in one of the Chinese chairs. “Does he know where she was taken?”

  “No, but he thinks she would have been released by now. They can’t keep her, not if she didn’t have a record. She didn’t, did she?”

  “No.”

  “She probably went home, if her parents let her. That’s the real question.”

  Remembering her encounter with Kath’s sister, Lily suspected that Kath’s parents had not let her.

  Lana observed her thoughtfully across the coffee table while she smoked. “I think Tommy’s getting out tomorrow morning,” she said, tapping the cigarette into the nearly overflowing ashtray. “I know you’re in a tough spot, honey, but I think you’d better go before then. You can stay here tonight if you need to. Do you have a place to go tomorrow?”

  Lily shrank back against the chair. “I—of course,” she managed to say. “I can go . . . somewhere.”

  “If you don’t have anywhere to go, Parker said you might try the Donaldina Cameron House in Chinatown. Do you know the place?”

  Lily was painfully aware that Lana was watching her with something like pity, and the pity made her shrivel with shame. “Yes, I know the place.” She tried to call up some bravado. “I’ll be fine. Thank you for letting me stay here for a bit.”

  “Happy to. I’m very sorry for what happened.” Lana put out the cigarette and stood up, stretching. “And now I’m going to take a nap. I’m still hungover from last night. You’ll be all right out here? Do you want a book or anything?” She went to the octagonal table and opened the doors, pulling out a few paperback novels. “Here—they’re junk really, but some of them are fun.”

  The covers were as lurid as the paperback romances in the back of Thrifty Drug Store. A woman in a slinky gown, her eyes downcast as a man in a fedora came after her, holding a gun: The Final Mistress. Two men engaged in a brawl in a dark alley while a woman in a ripped dress cowered in the corner: Midnight Caller.

  “Thanks,” Lily said awkwardly.

  Lana yawned. “Oh! I’m going to go collapse. See you in a bit.”

  Lily listened as Lana went back through the apartment and into her bedroom, closing the door with a faint click. Her fingers tightened over the arms of the Chinese chair. Cameron House! Decades ago, Cameron House had taken in fallen Chinese women—prostitutes—but these days it was an after-school program for Chinatown kids. She imagined showing up at Cameron House, approaching the front desk in the wood-lined entryway, and asking for a place to stay. She could see the girl on duty giving her a puzzled look, lifting up the telephone to call one of the women on staff, saying, A destitute girl’s here. No, it couldn’t be done.

  She knew she needed to make a plan, but her mind balked against it. Instead she moved over to the sofa and picked up The Final Mistress. Beneath it, to her shock, was Strange Season. She hadn’t seen the book since the last time she’d read it in Thrifty Drugs.

  She took the book over to the couch and opened it. The spine was creased, and several of the pages were dog-eared. She flipped past the scenes she’d already read, quickly becoming absorbed in the melodrama of Patrice’s love life. Patrice simply couldn’t accept her feelings for Maxine; Maxine called her a tease and threw a vase at her, and then apologized profusely and made love to her on the flo
or of her penthouse foyer. (Lily glanced up to make sure Lana was still in her bedroom when she read that scene.) Patrice’s ex-boyfriend, the one who had left her at the beginning of the book, returned and begged her forgiveness. Patrice took him back and told him she’d done something crazy, then confessed her affair with Maxine.

  Lily had a bad feeling about the confession. She read the scene with growing unease. Patrice’s boyfriend was simply too understanding. “You’ve just made a mistake,” he said to her soothingly. No she hasn’t! Lily thought. But even she didn’t see the surprise ending coming. On the pretext of taking Patrice out to lunch, Patrice’s boyfriend delivered her to an insane asylum. The book ended with Patrice sedated in a hospital bed, whispering Maxine’s name.

  Lily wanted to throw the book across the room. She was so incensed by the ending that when the doorbell rang she started in surprise. She looked toward the kitchen, wondering if Lana would wake up, but when the doorbell sounded a second time, she decided she should answer it and take a message for Lana.

  Lily hurried out into the building’s foyer and opened the front door. To her shock, standing on the front stoop was Aunt Judy.

  45

  You are here!” Aunt Judy exclaimed, and immediately pulled Lily into an embrace. She smelled like the Ivory soap from Lily’s family’s bathroom, along with a trace of ginger and garlic as if she had come straight from the kitchen. The fragrance was so familiar it made Lily cling to her for an unselfconscious moment, as if she were a little girl again. Aunt Judy squeezed her back and said, “You worried us so much. What were you thinking? Nobody knew where you were!” Then she held Lily at arm’s length and studied her closely. “You look all right. Have you eaten?”

  Lily’s eyes pricked with tears. Aunt Judy looked the same as ever; she had always been a small, thin woman in black-framed glasses, a product, she said, of spending too many hours peering at math books in dim lighting. “How did you find me here?” Lily asked.

  Wordlessly Aunt Judy reached into her purse and extracted two pieces of paper. One was the scrap on which she’d written Kath’s address. The other was the note she’d left at Kath’s house, with Lana’s address. She realized her aunt had tracked her down like a detective, and now—Lily’s heart plummeted—Kath would never receive that note.

  “Can I come in? What is this place?” Aunt Judy asked.

  Lily stepped back to let her aunt inside. “I’m staying with a—a friend.”

  She saw Aunt Judy consider taking off her coat and shoes—her fingers briefly touched the top button of her raincoat—but then she seemed to decide she wouldn’t be staying for long. She turned to Lily and said, “You need to come home.”

  Startled, Lily responded, “I can’t.”

  Aunt Judy came farther into the living room and walked around the perimeter, taking in the furniture, the books (Strange Season, Lily noticed with relief, was facedown), the framed headshot of Tommy Andrews. She sat down on the sofa, and Lily saw her look askance at the nude woman table lighter. But Aunt Judy only said, “Why not?”

  Lily sat down stiffly across from her. “Mama told me—we had a fight. She doesn’t want me there.”

  “Your mother told me you had a fight, but she didn’t say she doesn’t want you at home.”

  Lily wondered if her mother had failed to explain the whole truth.

  “Who is this friend you’re staying with?” Aunt Judy asked.

  There it was already: another opportunity to choose whether to lie. A friend from school. She graduated last year. She lives with her brother; he’s not home. She glanced toward the rear of the apartment, wondering when Lana would hear them and emerge from her nap. No. She couldn’t bring Lana into this lie without her permission.

  “Lana Jackson,” Lily said finally. “She lives here with—with Tommy Andrews. That’s Tommy in that picture. She sings at the Telegraph Club, which the police raided on Friday night. It’s a bar for ho-homosexuals. Wallace Lai saw me outside after the raid. I was there.”

  Her aunt regarded her expressionlessly, though her eyebrow twitched when Lily stumbled over the word homosexual. Why did it have to sound so obscene, Lily thought, the x crushed wetly in the back of her mouth.

  “I see,” Aunt Judy said. She seemed at a loss for words. She lowered her eyes to her hands, which she folded together tightly.

  In the silence, Lily heard the ticking of a clock somewhere in the apartment. She saw the pack of Lucky Strikes and thought, wildly, that perhaps if she smoked one, her aunt would be so shocked she would forget what Lily had just said.

  The door to the bedroom came unstuck with its familiar peeling sound, and Lily shot to her feet. A few moments later Lana appeared in the doorway to the living room, tying her silky flowered robe around herself, barefoot and looking like a woman who had just tumbled out of bed. “Hello,” she said, looking from Lily to her aunt. “I thought I heard some voices out here.”

  Aunt Judy rose and went across the room, hand extended. “I’m Judy Fong, Lily’s aunt.”

  Lana shook her hand, blinking. “Oh. I’m Lana Jackson.”

  “Thank you for letting Lily stay with you.”

  Aunt Judy was shorter than Lana, but she held herself as if she were taller. Seeing them together made Lily realize that Lana was closer to her own age than to Aunt Judy’s. Lily had thought Lana was so sophisticated, but now in comparison to Aunt Judy, she seemed young and even a little naïve.

  “I’ve been happy to have her,” Lana said, but it sounded wrong—too prim. She shifted uncomfortably and looked at Lily. “It sounds like you’re leaving?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Yes,” Aunt Judy interrupted. “I’ve come to take her home.”

  Lily balked. “But I told you—”

  “We’ll go home and discuss it with your father.”

  Lily paled. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Lana watched the exchange, her eyebrows rising. “Perhaps I’d better leave you to talk it over,” she said, and began to back away into the dining room.

  “No, we’re leaving,” Aunt Judy said. “We don’t want to overstay our welcome. Thank you again, Miss Jackson. Lily, are you ready? Do you have a coat?”

  There was an edge to her tone, as if she were hurrying Lily out of an unsavory situation, and Lily suddenly realized how Lana must look to her aunt: dressed in that clinging robe, her cleavage showing in a way that it shouldn’t at this time of day, her blond hair mussed from bed and her lipstick half worn off, as if she had been kissing someone. Lily felt a rush of protectiveness toward Lana, who had taken her in despite barely knowing her, and she felt an uncharitable prickling of judgment against her aunt.

  “You’re not listening to me,” Lily said, frustrated.

  Aunt Judy’s expression softened. “We were very worried, Lily. It’s the New Year. Your mother has been working all day to prepare the dinner for everyone. Come home. Please.”

  * * *

  —

  Lily and Aunt Judy walked back to Chinatown. It was still chilly, and Lily still only had her thin cardigan to wear. When they stopped at an intersection a few blocks from Lana’s apartment, Aunt Judy took off her coat and handed it to Lily, and Lily put it on, feeling like a child.

  The streets of Chinatown were littered with firecracker wrappers. The shops were mostly closed to the public today, but a few tourists wandered through anyway, gawking at the calligraphy scrolls they couldn’t read and peering in shop windows at mounds of dried herbs or gaudy souvenirs. Many Chinese were out on the sidewalks in their finest clothes, visiting family and friends or heading to New Year banquets at their clan or district associations.

  During the war, Lily’s mother had taken them to her family association on New Year, but after Lily’s father returned, they stopped going. He wanted to eat Shanghainese food, and the associations were for the Cantonese from Kwangtung. “Th
ey don’t cook the right food,” he had complained. So Lily’s mother had taught herself how to prepare his favorite dishes for the New Year dinner, and when Aunt Judy arrived in 1947, she started helping, too.

  Usually Lily looked forward to the New Year dinner, but this year, she wished she could be anywhere else. She knew that as soon as she got home, she’d have to greet her grandmother and uncles and cousins and pretend that everything was normal. She’d have to obey her parents and especially her mother, who had told her, You won’t tell your aunts and uncles about this. You won’t say a word to your grandmother. It felt like a trap from which there was no escape.

  A few steps away from the front door she briefly considered running away again—but where would she go? She didn’t really have a choice. She might be able to spend one more night on Lana’s sofa, but then what?

  Aunt Judy was already taking out the key to the front door, and then she turned the knob and looked at Lily, gesturing for her to enter first.

  The entryway was dim and smelled like ginger and the syrupy scent of the Shanghai-style braised fish her mother made every New Year. She already heard the voices of her brothers and younger cousins upstairs. They didn’t know she was standing there at the bottom, hesitating to go back to them, where she would be absorbed back into the family as if nothing had happened. Everything she had experienced over the past forty-eight hours would be deliberately ignored.

  “Lily,” Aunt Judy said.

  She climbed up the stairs, her heart sinking.

  46

  The upstairs landing was empty, but several suitcases and bags were pushed against the wall across from the telephone table.