Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

  She loved Kath.

  It was crystal clear to her now, and it was exhilarating and illuminating and it turned everything upside down, because there was no way to resolve her love for Kath with the demands her mother was making. If she lied, she would betray Kath, and she refused to do that. But even if she could live with lying, would it make any difference in her father’s situation? If he hadn’t gotten his papers back, it was probably because he refused to lie about Calvin, not because Wallace Lai had seen her leaving the Telegraph Club. And if her father wouldn’t lie, why should she?

  Lily took a deep breath. “I didn’t make a mistake. You can ask me as many times as you want, but I’m not going to lie.” The more she spoke, the bolder she felt.

  Her mother abruptly stood up, shoving her chair back with a screech. Lily recoiled.

  “You ran away!” her mother cried. “You left this house and didn’t tell anyone where you were going. Anything could have happened to you!”

  Lily’s father reached out to put a steadying hand on her mother’s arm. She seemed about to say something utterly furious—her face was turning a blotchy red—but then, as if it took all her effort to restrain herself, she threw off her husband’s hand and stalked out of the kitchen. Lily heard her mother’s footsteps receding quickly down the hallway, and then a door slammed shut.

  Shocked, Lily turned to her father. He seemed as stunned as she was, and finally their eyes met. He winced, and bent forward to stub out his cigarette. There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence. Lily glanced at Aunt Judy, who was watching her brother worriedly, but remained quiet.

  Finally, Lily’s father scrubbed a hand over his face and said, “There’s no other choice, then. You’ll go with your aunt to Pasadena to finish the school year.”

  Lily stared at her father uncomprehendingly. “What?”

  “Your aunt and uncle have offered to take you away from here while—while things settle down,” her father said. “They’re making a big sacrifice to help you. They’ve even offered to take you down to Pasadena right away—tomorrow. There’s no reason to wait. Today you should pack your things, and tomorrow you’ll take the train to Pasadena. Judy thinks you’ll be able to enroll in the high school there. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Aunt Judy said. “I know this must come as a surprise.”

  Lily stared at her father, and then at her aunt. Her head throbbed painfully; it was the only real thing in the room. Everything her father and aunt said seemed utterly unbelievable.

  “We think this will be best for you,” Aunt Judy said. “It’ll get you away from—from the complications here.”

  It would take her away from Kath. She understood that immediately; it was like a gut punch.

  “This is for your own good,” her father said. “You’ll be safe in Pasadena.”

  They were afraid, Lily realized, that there would be more trouble if she stayed—trouble for herself, trouble for her father. And they wanted to make sure she wasn’t here in Chinatown, inviting gossip. They wanted to hide her away until people forgot what had happened.

  “I don’t want to go,” she said, shaking her head.

  Her father looked at her bleakly. “You’ll have to learn that sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do.”

  Lily gazed at her father in disbelief, and then in growing anger.

  “I live very close to the high school in Pasadena,” Aunt Judy said. “You’ll be able to walk there. Once we get home we can go right away and make sure you can enroll. If you can’t, your father said it might be possible for you to finish your senior year by correspondence. And, you know, maybe we can find you a part-time job or something at the lab. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Lily could barely register her aunt’s words. They were splitting her up from Kath.

  “We want you to be happy,” her father said. “You’ll be free from distractions in Pasadena.”

  Even though she didn’t know where Kath was or if she was all right, she had believed that eventually she would find out, and they would be together again. The idea that she might never see Kath again took her breath away. She felt faint; she felt as if she might dissolve into thin air.

  “I’m going to call Galileo to see if you need to collect any paperwork for your transfer,” her father said.

  She felt Kath’s hand letting go of hers again and again; her fingers sliding through hers over and over. Everything she and Kath had done could be erased so easily. It could be erased by her family pretending it had never happened. It could be erased by her parents uprooting her from her home and sending her away so that Kath would not know where she was. It could be erased because they were her parents and she was their daughter, and they loved her, and she could not disobey them even if it broke her heart.

  “You should pack your things,” her father said. “Be ready to leave tomorrow morning.”

  48

  Lily’s father brought out an old brown suitcase and gave it to her to use. A luggage tag with an address in Chinese hung from the handle. Lily could read her father’s name and the characters for Shanghai, China.

  She opened the suitcase on her bed. Her grandmother’s powdery scent clung to the blankets; already the room was no longer hers. She packed her clothes quickly, without looking at them. She shoved in the new dress she’d worn to the Telegraph Club two nights ago, not bothering to fold it. She tossed in her black pumps and a hairbrush. Her father came into the doorway, looking anxious. She ignored him and kept packing. She didn’t want to speak to him; she didn’t want to speak to any of them.

  “I knew a doctor once, a woman, who was a lesbian,” he said.

  The sound of the word was startling, and she froze for a second, but she refused to acknowledge him.

  “She was a very successful doctor,” he continued. “She was Chinese too, like you.”

  This slowed her down for a moment, but only a moment.

  “I admired her skill as a physician. But everyone knew about her personal life, and she never married. There were rumors, of course, but she lived alone. I think she still lives alone. This is what your mother and I are worried about. We want you to marry and have children. You should have a full life, not a stunted one in which you wind up alone, with no one to care for you. Remember this.”

  He was imagining a tragic future for her as if she were one of the strangers in the Eastern Pearl that she and Shirley liked to invent stories for. It only made her more angry.

  When she didn’t respond, he exhaled in resignation and left.

  She continued to roughly throw her clothes into the suitcase. She thought about Lana and Tommy in their cozy if cheaply furnished North Beach apartment. They were not stunted. She thought about Claire and Paula, and the indulgent tone in Claire’s voice as she described Paula as solid. They had full lives. She thought about Kath, and a hollow seemed to open up inside her. It had gravity; it pulled at her in a way that made her sway on her feet. She had to sit down on the edge of her bed, and suddenly she remembered the Collier’s magazine that Kath had given her, but it wasn’t on top of the stack of books that made her nightstand.

  She began to unstack them, hunting for the magazine, but although she found the one her aunt had given her, Kath’s issue wasn’t there. She moved all the books aside in case it had fallen against the wall, but there was nothing. She looked around the room, wondering in rising panic if someone had stolen it from her, or if her mother had come into her room and thrown it away. It was only a magazine, but she had to bring it with her. Kath had given it to her.

  Her book bag. She spun on her heel and rushed out of her room, running down the hall to find her book bag where she had left it on the floor beside the bench. She knelt down and unbuckled it and there it was, tucked in the back behind The Exploration of Space. She let out her breath in relief.

  Footsteps approached from the k
itchen. Aunt Judy stood a few feet away. “Are you all right?”

  Her anger surged up again. If her aunt hadn’t played detective and found Lily in North Beach—if she hadn’t offered to take her back to Pasadena—

  She rose to her feet, leaving the magazine in her bag; she didn’t want her aunt to see it. “I’m fine,” she said, because her aunt looked so forlorn.

  Back in her room, she looked at the cover illustration of spaceships traveling toward the red planet before carefully tucking it between her clothes in the suitcase. She glanced over her shoulder, then opened The Exploration of Space. The photograph of Tommy was still there. She remembered Kath picking it up off the floor of the girls’ bathroom and holding it out to her. For a moment, they’d both held this piece of paper, like a talisman that had called them into existence, together. How long ago that was, and yet it felt like yesterday.

  * * *

  —

  Somehow, time did not stop. The suitcase was packed; her grandmother returned from the temple; Uncle Sam and Aunt May returned from the playground with Minnie and Jack. There was lunch to make—leftovers from the New Year dinner—and there was another mess to clean up. Eddie and Frankie came home from school. Uncle Francis returned much later than expected, because he had gone to the train station to exchange his and Aunt Judy’s tickets for new ones that departed tomorrow—and to buy one for Lily.

  Late that afternoon, Lily’s parents gathered Eddie and Frankie and Lily together and explained that Lily was going to Pasadena for a while. “She’ll finish high school there,” her father said.

  “Why?” Frankie asked.

  “It’s best for her,” their mother said in a tone of voice that indicated no further questions would be answered.

  Eddie followed Lily away from their parents and whispered, “Did something happen? I heard some things at school. I didn’t know what to do.”

  She drew him back into his bedroom, pushing the door shut. “What did you hear?”

  His cheeks went pink.

  “Never mind,” she said. “You don’t have to say it. Do you think I’m disgusting?”

  He frowned and shook his head. “Of course not. I don’t care what they said. You’re my sister. Should I beat them up?”

  She had to take a deep breath to prevent herself from crying. “No. But will you do something for me?”

  “What?”

  She pulled a small envelope from her skirt pocket. It was addressed to Peggy Miller on Union Street. She wasn’t sure if Kath’s parents would confiscate her mail, but she thought that Peggy would pass on a letter. “Will you mail this for me?”

  He took the envelope. “Peggy Miller,” he said in surprise. “She’s the sister of—” He cut himself off, looking embarrassed. “I heard something about her sister.”

  “And me?” Lily said.

  He reddened. “Maybe.”

  “It’s all right. Just—will you mail this to Peggy?”

  “Well, I know her,” Eddie said. “We’re both in the band. She’s first-chair trombone. I could give it to her.”

  Lily was relieved. “You will?

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t let anyone else have it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and impulsively pulled him into a hug. After a startled moment, he hugged her back.

  As they parted, she asked, “Will you tell me one more thing?”

  “What?”

  “Did Shirley win Miss Chinatown?”

  He was surprised. “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “Some girl from George Washington High School.”

  She felt an entirely ungracious satisfaction.

  * * *

  —

  And then it was time to go.

  The morning of her departure, all the adults pretended as if it were completely normal for Lily to be leaving with her aunt and uncle in the middle of the New Year festival. The children’s questions were shushed, and they were herded away into the living room to look out the window for the waiting taxi.

  Lily’s mother thrust a paper bag full of steamed buns into her hands. They were still warm, and Lily realized her mother must have just run out to buy them. “Don’t forget to eat,” her mother said stiffly.

  Lily’s father carried her suitcase down the stairs and put it into the trunk beside Aunt Judy’s and Uncle Francis’s luggage. On the sidewalk, he placed his hands on Lily’s shoulders and looked her in the eye, finally, and said, “Listen to your aunt and uncle. Call us when you get there.”

  Lily turned away first, angry with herself for wanting to cry.

  The taxi ride to the train station was a blur. They crossed the Bay Bridge on the lower deck, heading toward Oakland, and the bay whipped past through the steel girders—water and boats and tiny crested waves. It made her queasy. She rolled down the window to catch the breeze, but it smelled of a noxious combination of exhaust and seawater. She closed her eyes and wished she was going in the other direction.

  The train station was smaller than she had expected, but still confusing, with countless people rushing around with their suitcases and tickets clutched in their hands. She was embarrassingly grateful to have her aunt and uncle to guide her in the right direction. Uncle Francis lit a cigarette while they waited and paced, smoking; Aunt Judy sat on a bench beside Lily, studying the train schedule. When their train was announced, Aunt Judy jumped up and Uncle Francis put out his cigarette, and Lily followed them down the platform and onto the train. Aunt Judy gestured for Lily to take the seat by the window.

  Lily had tossed a random novel from her bedside stack into her bag when she packed yesterday. She hadn’t even glanced at it then, but now she pulled it out and saw that it was The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Aunt Judy had given it to her. She opened it, but she couldn’t focus on the words. She felt as if her mind had been turned off, and all this was happening to someone who looked like her but couldn’t possibly be her.

  After the train started moving, and after the conductor came through to check their tickets, Uncle Francis went to the lounge car for a coffee. Once they were alone, Aunt Judy turned to Lily.

  “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but I need to tell you something,” she said. “Please listen.”

  Lily didn’t speak, but she closed her book.

  “I really am trying to do what’s best for you,” Aunt Judy said.

  She put her hand on Lily’s arm, and Lily tried not to stiffen in response. Her aunt’s thin gold wedding ring glinted in the light from the window.

  “I know it feels like the end of the world now, but it’s not,” Aunt Judy continued. “In a few months you’ll graduate from high school, and your whole life will be ahead of you.”

  My life is right now, Lily wanted to retort, and she raised her gaze to her aunt’s face to say it, and was stopped short by the expression there. A pleading look, straightforward and earnest. The bright bubble of tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t understand what you’ve been going through,” Aunt Judy said, “but you’ll just have to put up with me until I do understand.”

  Aunt Judy squeezed Lily’s arm, and then she let go. Lily nodded slightly, just enough for Aunt Judy to notice, and it felt like wrenching a door open the tiniest crack. It was all she could do just then, and she had to turn away to look out the window to avoid seeing the hope on her aunt’s face.

  Lily watched the city of Oakland roll by, brick buildings and chimney stacks and the chrome glint of crawling traffic. She wondered where Kath was. She wondered if Kath could sense her, sitting here on this train as it took her away. Perhaps it was possible, if she closed her eyes and sent out her thoughts along the steel track like a message along a telegraph wire.

  I love you. I love you.

  The train swayed gently beneath her, and she
leaned against the window to feel the cool glass against her cheek, and she was sure that Kath had heard her, she was sure.

  * * *

  —

  Later, Uncle Francis returned with a newspaper that he split with Aunt Judy. Lily kept her book closed on her lap as she gazed out the window. After Oakland, they passed through suburbs and small towns, and then there was a flash of water—the end of San Francisco Bay, glittering beneath the cloud-scudded sky. The train stopped for a while in San Jose, just long enough for the passengers to stand and stretch and think about dashing into the station, and then it continued onward.

  Lily pulled out the bag of steamed buns her mother had given her and shared it with her aunt and uncle. Lily raised one to her mouth and took a bite, and the taste jolted her: the caramelized edges of the meat, the fluffy softness of the bun, the savory-sweetness where the sauce had soaked, jamlike, into the dough.

  Rounded green hills dotted with live oaks went by, and all of a sudden the clouds that had been dogging them since San Francisco were gone, and the sky was robin’s-egg blue. A hawk soared overhead, riding a draft of wind on widespread wings.

  Lily realized she had never been this far from San Francisco before, and a fleeting thrill went through her. This was the world.

  One Year Later

  EPILOGUE

  It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, and Vesuvio’s was mostly empty. Lily looked past the long wooden bar with its few patrons, past the colorful paintings hanging from the upper walls, and toward the rear of the room. A row of small tables with cane-back chairs lined the wall across from the bar, and there at the end, in a shadowy corner, she saw her.

  Kath saw Lily too, and stood up.

  All last year, through letters and long-distance phone calls, Lily had imagined her, but now she realized her imagination had left out all the important details. As Kath stepped out from behind the table, Lily remembered the way she stood, hands nervously hidden in her pockets. As Lily came closer, she saw the familiar, slightly shy expression on Kath’s face, and the same patches of color in her pale cheeks.