Last Night at the Telegraph Club: Part II

“Louisa Ramirez is moving to San Jose and has to drop out of dance committee. She was supposed to be in charge of refreshments.” Shirley sounded personally affronted.

She had felt constrained by her mother’s admonition to tell her if Shirley was still involved with the youth group.

Lily didn’t know if she should tell Shirley that the G-men had taken her father’s naturalization papers. Shirley’s family had their own issues with citizenship; her father had come to America with false papers after the 1906 earthquake.

On and on it went, depicting a ruthless international organization that brooked no dissent and was bent on undermining every American value.

On and on it went, depicting a ruthless international organization that brooked no dissent and was bent on undermining every American value.

There was Grant Avenue, hung with red lanterns, smelling of roast pork and raucous with Chinese vendors hawking their wares, and Lily felt a rush of relief: here was home.

She noticed her looking up at the painted balconies and pagoda rooflines, the red paper lanterns and the gilded or crimson signs thrusting out over the street like pushy Chinese shoppers.

She noticed her looking up at the painted balconies and pagoda rooflines, the red paper lanterns and the gilded or crimson signs thrusting out over the street like pushy Chinese shoppers.

There were obstacles on the sidewalk to navigate around too: buckets of iced fish lined up in pearlescent rows; bushels of green-and-white bok choy and mounds of gnarled ginger roots; tourists gaping at the glistening roast ducks hanging on hooks in the deli windows.

And through it all there was a cacophony of smells and sounds: bitter herbs mingling with sweet buns; the quick, harsh Cantonese of shopkeepers making deals; the rank background stench of yesterday’s seafood.

“What do they do at a meeting? Calisthenics or something?” Lily said doubtfully.

“Oh, it’s just a little thing,” Lily said, pretending nonchalance. “Nothing like a real rocket. I hope I can see a real one someday.”

They’d pasted on clusters of sequins for eyes, which gave the ghosts and skeletons a glazed-over look. Shirley had probably been aiming for whimsical, but Lily found them a little disturbing.

She looked like the princess of the ball, and she was reveling in it.

It was Shirley who made the first brave foray onto the dance floor, dragging Will with her, and soon afterward other couples followed, holding each other at regulation distance as they moved like jerky robots across the gym.

Instead she glanced over at the refreshment table—it didn’t look like the punch needed replenishing—and around the periphery toward the main doors, where she caught sight of a girl hovering near the wall, hands clasped in front of her.

The fog seemed to swallow up all sounds, including the dull beat of their footsteps, rendering the city abnormally silent.

They smiled at each other tentatively, and then Lily felt a little self-conscious and had to look away.

They stood together quietly, and Lily looked out at the blackness, imagining she could just discern the faint motion of the water.

“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.”

The Spook-A-Rama was still going full steam when they returned, shivering, to the warm, dry vestibule of the gym.

“I told you I’m not good at sports,” Lily said ruefully.

Kath reached for the pencil and brandished it as if it were a sword.

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine Tommy Andrews singing to the women in the audience—to her—but her imagination seemed to balk tonight, as if it refused to show her this fantasy anymore because she was about to see the real thing.

Clarke spent several pages on the mysteries of Venus, which seemed to exasperate him. The planet was completely covered by clouds that obscured all traces of the surface.

It was not an auspicious beginning to the night, and he was certain that Grace was noting all these little errors in her mental ledger, as if toting up harbingers of bad luck.

It was not an auspicious beginning to the night, and he was certain that Grace was noting all these little errors in her mental ledger, as if toting up harbingers of bad luck.

When they arrived at the Forbidden City, the nightclub’s red neon sign cast a devilish glow over the scalloped awning advertising the “All-Chinese Floor Show.”

Then they passed through a circular archway decorated with sinuous dragons on a sky-blue background and entered the front bar, where the ceiling was painted with fluffy white clouds and patrons were ordering drinks from the Chinese bartender.

He saw Grace reading the menu with consternation, and when he examined the menu himself, he understood immediately.

When the drink was delivered, he was disappointed to discover it was 70 percent crushed ice with a smattering of pineapple on top.

“How is it?” he asked, though he still felt partially enmeshed in his memory (the clang of the scalpel against the metal tray).

And then a trio of Chinese women dressed in diaphanous veils emerged, arms raised and fingers gracefully extended, to twirl across the dance floor.

He particularly enjoyed the Mei Lings, a duo of dancers who evoked Fred and Ginger in their lifts and dips around the dance floor.

The music was loud and brash; the smell of perfume and cigarettes lay heavy on the air.