Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

  There was accusation in her tone, but also a hint of hope, as if Shirley would forgive Lily for everything as long as Kathleen had made her do this. It rankled. Lily was the one who now averted her eyes. Shirley never believed that Lily could do anything on her own. Shirley always thought of Lily as a follower, and perhaps Lily had never given her any reason to doubt that, until now.

  “Kath didn’t do anything to me,” Lily said.

  “Of course she did. She’s—she’s kwai lo.* Chinese people don’t go to places like that. Chinese people aren’t like that. I can see that you’re confused. They must have done a number on you—oh, I’m so angry at them for doing this to you!”

  “Nobody did anything to me,” Lily insisted.

  “Don’t you understand?” Shirley came over to the table and pulled out a chair, sitting down and facing her. “Lily, you have to snap out of it. Obviously they brought you there against your will—or they were seducing you or—I don’t even want to think about what they’d want with a Chinese girl. It’s disgusting. But you can fight it. Don’t let this ruin your life. Kathleen Miller’s out of the picture now that she’s been arrested—thank God for that—but you need to admit to your mistakes. Maybe it’s not too late for you and Will. I can talk to him.”

  As Shirley went on about talking to Will and how he still had feelings for her and how this must be a phase, Lily’s heart beat faster and faster. She had to bend over and put her head in her hands while she took several deep breaths. Below her on the wooden floor was a scattering of crumbs that must have fallen from her toast, hours ago. She thought, inanely, that she had better clean that up before her mother returned.

  “I’ll talk to Wallace Lai too,” Shirley continued. “I’ll tell him it was all a mistake, and he can tell whoever else he told that it was a mistake.”

  “Stop it,” Lily said, her words muffled by her hands.

  “Unfortunately he wasn’t alone when he saw you. Some others might already know, but I told Calvin to tell Wallace that you weren’t like that. I told him—”

  “Stop it!” Lily stood up, pushing her chair back violently. The legs screeched across the floor.

  “Lily—”

  “Nobody made me go there,” Lily said angrily. “Nobody forced me to do anything. I went there because I wanted to. I don’t want to go on any dates with Will Chan, and you know he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me! We are not going to be double-dating with Calvin and Will—isn’t that what you want? I know you’re dating Calvin. I saw him drop you off in North Beach.”

  Shirley’s face went white. “What does that have to do with this?”

  “You said I was lying to you. You were lying to me too.”

  Shirley, who had been gaping up at Lily, got to her feet. “If you know so much, you know why I kept that to myself.”

  “Because he’s a Communist.”

  “He’s not a Communist! Don’t be a child. He’s not a Communist—he’s an American with a right to go to whatever meetings he wants to go to. There’s nothing wrong with Calvin. I love him.” Shirley’s face flushed as she spoke, her voice rising. “But there’s everything wrong with that nightclub. And with Kathleen Miller. The shame you will bring on your family—”

  “Shame?” Lily interrupted. “You know what’s worse than shame? Being deported.”

  Shirley flinched.

  “You can believe whatever you want about Calvin, but it doesn’t matter if he’s really a Communist as long as the government thinks he is one. Did you know the FBI interviewed my father about him? Did Calvin tell you? They wanted my father to say Calvin was a known Communist, and he wouldn’t, so they took his citizenship papers. My father is in danger because he was protecting your boyfriend! If they deport my father because your boyfriend wants to be an American who can go to meetings— You’re being so stupid!”

  Lily was breathless with anger; it had spilled out of her in one hot rush.

  Shirley’s face shut down immediately. All emotion fled from it as if she had turned into a mannequin; even the two red spots on her cheeks looked painted on. She took a quick, sharp breath. “If that’s what you think, we have nothing left to say to each other. I don’t think you should come with me to the Miss Chinatown judging anymore. I can’t have someone like you there. You should know that your parents are going to find out. Everyone’s going to find out because Wallace Lai’s a gossip, and if you won’t even bother to deny it, I can’t help you. I tried. I told you last fall—don’t you remember?—I told you about Kathleen Miller. I warned you, but you didn’t listen. I’ve been trying to watch out for you.” Shirley’s voice betrayed her with the slightest hitch. There was a sudden brightness in her eyes that she blinked away. “Obviously you didn’t appreciate it,” Shirley said, and started for the door.

  Once, Lily had admired the way Shirley sailed through the world with such confidence, as if she wore an impenetrable armor that protected her against all slights, real or imagined. Lily had envied Shirley that armor, but now she saw that it was an illusion, and those who possessed the right knowledge could pierce it at will. Lily knew Shirley better than anyone; she could wound her thoughtlessly, and she had.

  I love him, Shirley had declared. Love was the justification for all her secrets, but it also made her vulnerable. And Lily understood. She suddenly felt horrible.

  “Shirley, wait,” Lily said. She reached for Shirley’s arm as she passed, pulling her back.

  The expression on Shirley’s face stopped her cold. It was plain repugnance. Shirley’s eyes dropped to Lily’s hand, and she pulled away.

  Horrified and humiliated, Lily said, “You can’t think—”

  Shirley didn’t look at her. “I think you should stay away from me from now on.”

  Lily almost laughed. “Oh my God. You think—I’ve never—” She fell silent, her face burning.

  Shirley marched to the kitchen door and yanked it open, going to collect her things from the bench on the landing. Lily didn’t move; she couldn’t believe what Shirley had implied. The silence between them seemed to pulse. Lily heard every thump and slide as Shirley put on her shoes, every rustle as she slung her garment bag over her arm. And then suddenly Shirley came back into the kitchen doorway. She was pulling something out of her purse, holding it out to Lily.

  Her scarf. It dangled from Shirley’s hand like a brown woolen snake, the fringed end discolored as if it had been dragged through a gutter.

  “This is yours, isn’t it?” Shirley said.

  At the end of the scarf a cloth tag had been sewn onto the wool, and a name was embroidered on it in white thread: l hu. Lily had done it herself. She remembered missing her scarf after she fled the club, but it had seemed so inconsequential at the time. She felt faint.

  “Wallace found it on the street,” Shirley said. “He brought it over to Calvin this morning. I told them there had to be a mistake, maybe someone stole it, but—” Shirley shook her head. “I thought I should bring it back to you, so at least they don’t have it.”

  When Lily said nothing, Shirley tossed the scarf onto the nearest kitchen chair and left.

  As she descended the stairs, Lily distinctly heard the crunch of the key in the lock; she heard the creak of the hinges as the front door opened; and then she heard her mother’s voice.

  “Shirley! What brings you here?”

  In the pause before Shirley answered, Lily was fatalistically certain that Shirley was going to tell her mother the whole story right then and there, but Shirley merely said, “I came by to talk to Lily about Miss Chinatown. She’s not coming tonight.”

  “But I thought—what happened?”

  “It’s just better this way. I’d better go.”

  Lily imagined her mother giving Shirley a puzzled look. She imagined Shirley avoiding that look and quickly making her last few steps down the stairs, and a moment later, the door cl
osed behind her. Hurriedly, Lily grabbed her scarf from the chair and went to hang it on the coatrack on the landing. She heard her mother’s footsteps slowly ascending, and then she came into view, carrying two white bakery boxes. She placed the boxes on the bench as she removed her coat and shoes.

  Lily was standing nervously outside the kitchen. A paralyzing anxiety had overtaken her, making her head throb.

  “What’s going on?” her mother asked calmly. “Did you and Shirley have another fight?”

  Lily remembered that Aunt Judy and Uncle Francis were arriving that night, and Uncle Sam was bringing his entire family tomorrow morning. The thought of them all converging on the flat now—they would be here the entire week, for the New Year festivities—made the throbbing in her head even worse, so that she had to reach out and clutch the kitchen doorframe to keep her balance.

  “Are you all right?” her mother said.

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, taking a shallow breath in a futile attempt to tamp down her rising panic. Wallace Lai’s a gossip. There was an unmistakable threat in what Shirley had told her, and she realized that she had two options: she could wait for the gossip to spread through all of Chinatown until her parents found out, or she could tell them herself right now. She didn’t know how long it would take for the rumors to spread, but given that it was New Year week, they would probably spread quickly—and it was likely that her whole family would be here when they heard them. The idea of facing her uncles—oh God, her grandmother was coming, too—

  She could barely breathe anymore. She felt nauseated, and her mother asked, “Are you sick? Maybe you do have what Frankie had.”

  “No,” she said, but she didn’t resist when her mother came over to her and led her by the arm back into the kitchen—right past the spot where Shirley had looked at her as if she were a pervert.

  “Sit down,” her mother said, and Lily obeyed. Her mother placed a cool hand on Lily’s flushed forehead, and went to get her a glass of water. It was the same glass she had tried to drink earlier, and the sight of it paradoxically calmed her because it seemed so ridiculous. Everything was moving in circles. She couldn’t get out of the kitchen; it was only the person she spoke to who changed. Here was her mother sitting down across from her, reaching for her hands and chafing them as if she were frozen. She felt the rub of her mother’s wedding ring against her skin, and her mother’s face swam into focus, her brown eyes full of the sharp worry of love, and Lily thought, You will never look at me like this again.

  40

  Lily went to the trash can and retrieved the crumpled-up newspaper. She brought it over to the kitchen table and spread it out, smoothing down the wrinkled, wet corners. The right half of the front page was ripped, and the letters of the headline were smeared, but the story was still readable.

  “What is this?” her mother asked.

  “I was there last night. At the Telegraph Club. Shirley came over to tell me that someone saw me.” Lily sat down again and waited, lowering her gaze to her hands. The ink from the newspaper had stained her fingertips gray.

  “I don’t understand. This story has nothing to do with you.”

  “I was there,” she repeated. “I don’t know how else to tell you,” she added a little desperately.

  Her mother pulled the newspaper toward her and leaned closer to read it. When she turned the page to read the second half of the story, Lily closed her eyes. The ticking of the clock over the stove sounded like a countdown. She felt almost as if she were floating untethered from her body. She wasn’t all here—she couldn’t be.

  “You’re not in the story,” her mother said, sounding very far away.

  “No, but I was at the club,” Lily said. “Wallace Lai saw me outside.”

  Where had he seen her? She remembered the men on that side street, their glowing cigarettes.

  “You couldn’t have been anywhere near that place,” her mother said. “You were at home last night, asleep!”

  Lily opened her eyes. Her mother’s face was pale beneath her powder; she looked unnaturally white.

  “I went out,” Lily said. She was sure her own face was bright red; she felt the blood rushing to her head as she spoke. “I went to that club. Wallace Lai saw me there, and Shirley came to tell me. Everyone’s going to know soon. I thought I should tell you first.”

  Her mother’s gaze dropped down to the newspaper again. There was an ad for ladies’ hosiery on the page next to the second half of the story, with an illustration of a woman’s legs dressed in sheer nylons. The ad seemed deliberately obscene to Lily, and as if her mother agreed, she closed the newspaper and flipped it over.

  “It must have been a mistake,” her mother said tightly. “You’re a good Chinese girl. Whoever Wallace Lai saw—it wasn’t you.”

  Lily felt as if she were stuck on a broken track in a diorama, as if she were not herself but merely the figurine of a Chinese girl that kept jerking back to the beginning rather than continuing through her miniature world. It was clear that if she agreed with her mother—and Shirley—if she would only tell them what they wanted to hear, then she could move forward on her prescribed path. But that would mean erasing all her trips to the Telegraph Club; it would mean denying her desire to go at all. It meant suppressing her feelings for Kath, and at that moment, her feelings seemed to swell inside her so painfully that she was terrified she might burst. Was this what it felt like to love someone? She wished she could ask Shirley how she had known.

  Her mother was waiting for her to say it had been a mistake, but Lily couldn’t do it. “No,” she said. Her voice sounded ugly to her ears, but it relieved some of the pressure building inside her. “He didn’t make a mistake,” she insisted. “I was there.”

  “Lily, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying,” she said, frustrated.

  “You’re saying you were at this—this club for homosexuals?”

  Her mother’s voice rose on the last, shocking word. Lily had never heard her mother say it before. All she could do was nod, and her mother’s face went even paler.

  “Why?” her mother demanded.

  “I wanted to go,” Lily said. It felt like making an obscene confession.

  Her mother shook her head. “You’ve been influenced by someone—who? It can’t be Shirley. You wouldn’t do this on your own.”

  “I did,” Lily said. Her eyes grew hot.

  “You’re a good Chinese girl, Lily. I don’t understand. What would make you go somewhere like this?” Her mother looked so confused.

  Lily took a trembling breath. “I—I think I’m like them.”

  Her mother’s eyes widened. “You think— No. You’re not. You’ve never even had a boyfriend! You’ll grow up and marry and realize that this was all a mistake, a temporary—”

  “It’s not a mistake,” she protested.

  “Lily. 胡麗麗!”* her mother cried, saying her full name in Mandarin the way her father did. “What has gotten into you? If only one person saw you outside this club—we can deal with it. You’re young. You’ll find a boyfriend in college. You won’t go to that place again, and you’ll forget about it right away. Do you hear me?”

  “You’re not listening to me!” Lily cried. “I’m like them.”

  It wasn’t Lily who was the figurine in a diorama; it was her mother. Her mother was going round and round on that track, hearing only what she wanted to hear.

  Her mother stood up, snatching the newspaper off the table and crumpling it in her hands. She threw it into the trash again. “There are no homosexuals in this family,” she said, the words thick with disgust.

  Her mother’s chest heaved, and Lily saw that her hand was now stained with newsprint just like Lily’s. In the trash can, the newspaper itself was slowly coming uncrumpled; it was unfurling as if it were a living thing, the words sex devia
te screaming across the room.

  “You are young,” her mother said harshly. “You aren’t even eighteen years old yet. Sometimes girls have these ideas when they’re younger—before they meet their husbands. Girls love their friends and mistake that for the love they’ll have for their husbands. It only becomes an illness when you won’t let go of the idea. We’ll tell your father. He’ll be able to help you. You won’t tell your aunts and uncles about this. You won’t say a word to your grandmother. Do you hear me? Everyone knows you’re a good Chinese girl. This is just a mistake.”

  The more her mother insisted it was a mistake, the more certain Lily was that it wasn’t. Perhaps that was the most perverse part of this: the inside-outness of everything, as if denial would make it go away, when it only made the pain in her chest tighten, when it only made her emotions clearer.

  “It’s not a mistake,” Lily said miserably.

  Her mother strode across the kitchen and slapped her.

  Lily jerked backward, shocked. Her mother hadn’t hit her in years—since she was eight or nine—and she instantly felt like that child again, cowering in fear of another strike. With the terror came a crippling guilt and the belief that she must have done something awful, that she deserved this punishment.

  She raised a hand to her stinging face; tears sprang into her eyes. Her mother looked both horrified and horrifying, her pale face suddenly blotchy with red, her brown eyes bright with anger.

  “There are no homosexuals in this family,” her mother spit out again. “Are you my daughter?”

  The tears spilled hotly from Lily’s eyes. She turned away from her mother and fled from the kitchen. In the hallway she saw Eddie and Frankie standing uncertainly outside the living room.

  “Lily?” Eddie said.

  She didn’t answer him. She put on her shoes, but her fingers couldn’t work the laces properly. She clutched the railing as she stumbled down the stairs. She heard her mother calling her—no, she was calling for Eddie, telling him to stop—and then she was at the front door. She wrenched it open; she stepped outside and down onto the sidewalk. She was crying freely now. The air was misty and wet. She didn’t know where she was going; she only knew she had to go away.