Last Night at the Telegraph Club: Part III

It was some nebulous fear better left unsaid.

She slid her hands into her jacket pockets and glanced around warily.

The bouncer gave Kath a little grin, and waved them inside with a flourish.

She had been waiting for this for so long that these last few moments seemed interminable.

She quivered in her shoes as she gazed at the stage, at the people seated near the edge—she was jealous of their proximity to that microphone—and at Kath, who was watching the stage just as she was.

At first Tommy stood with her back to the room while the pianist continued to play, and the notes began to coalesce into a melody that Lily recognized.

It was acknowledgment of how immaculate the male impersonation was, how shockingly well staged.

The black-and-white photograph in the Chronicle had been a poor imitation of reality, smudged and blurry. It had left out all the important details: the sheen of pomade on the waves of Tommy’s hair; the precise folds of her black bow tie; the gold signet ring on her pinkie finger as she cupped the microphone close to her mouth.

The song was languid and liquid, with a hint of jaded self-reproach as if Tommy were confessing that she had fallen in love against her wishes.

The song was languid and liquid, with a hint of jaded self-reproach as if Tommy were confessing that she had fallen in love against her wishes.

The song was languid and liquid, with a hint of jaded self- reproach as if Tommy were confessing that she had fallen in love against her wishes.

The not knowing made it worse; it opened a Pandora’s box of implication, and yet she was painfully aware of her own naïveté.

They seemed quite absorbed in teasing out the nuances of the movie—it appeared to be about a schoolgirl—and though Lily didn’t allow herself to look in their direction, she listened quite attentively.

Claire didn’t seem to hear the umbrage in Lily’s voice.

This time Lily was fairly certain Tommy hadn’t changed a single word, and Lily was struck by how duplicitous a song could be, as if multiple languages were hidden within the lyrics.

Tommy ended her set with a rollicking rendition of “Keep It Gay,” and when it was over, she sauntered offstage and back to the bar, and the way some women shook her hand or slapped her shoulder, it was obvious that they knew her.

Tommy ended her set with a rollicking rendition of “Keep It Gay,” and when it was over, she sauntered offstage and back to the bar, and the way some women shook her hand or slapped her shoulder, it was obvious that they knew her.

Someone honked repeatedly, and a black car careened up Columbus, and the pedestrians nearby shouted at the driver to watch out.

No one seemed to be able to tell what she had done or where she had gone Friday night, even though she felt as if it must be written on her forehead. It gave her the disorienting feeling that perhaps she had imagined the whole thing.

Tommy’s eyes half-closed as she crooned into the microphone she held to her mouth.

Japan was vanquished but Korea and China might invade, and now it was the Soviets who could drop atomic bombs.

The specter of nuclear annihilation was still frightening if she truly thought about it, but over the years she had learned not to think about it and to dismiss the drills as useless.

The thought was disquieting; she felt an urgent need to go to her.

Lily couldn’t decide if this was an apology or an underhanded way for Shirley to blame Lily for what had happened between them.

As she helped her mother peel chestnuts and chop onions and laap ch’eung for the glutinous rice stuffing, her thoughts returned over and over again to the Telegraph Club.

She was dimly reflected in the kitchen window, and she scrutinized her figure critically.

“Well, we won’t go in that massive spaceship he envisions. He’s a brilliant scientist, of course, but it’s impractical to start with such a huge endeavor.”

He seemed especially rankled by the welcome that the American government had rolled out for the former Nazi.

The late-night conversation about Wernher von Braun and Hsue-shen Tsien fell in the same category: tantalizing glimpses into an adult world that seemed completely separate from the mundane reality of her daily life.

The long driveway in front of the California Academy of Sciences was thronged with cars, their headlights creating a moving sea of light in the early evening darkness.

She had stepped out of the building that served as her college dormitory to see a seemingly endless convoy of vehicles rolling down the dark streets, their headlights like lanterns floating down a river.

Judy couldn’t see the dome of the Morrison Planetarium from their vantage point, but she knew it rose from the roof just beyond the front facade of the building.

Judy checked to make sure that Lily wasn’t simply feigning interest, but her niece seemed quite engaged.

“Wouldn’t that be something if they were?” he mused, as if taken by the idea.

“That’s not how it would look!” Judy chided him. “It would be much more graceful.”