Last Night at the Telegraph Club: Parts IV–V

Lily fell into step slightly behind them, because the sidewalk wasn’t quite wide enough to allow all three of them to walk abreast.

When she finally appeared, her face coming into the light for a transitory moment, Lily caught her breath.

There was a hubbub on the other side of the room, and for a moment all of them turned to watch as a couple got up—the wife was wobbly, and her husband had to put his arm around her waist to keep her steady—and after the couple had departed, Rhonda turned back to the table and her gaze fell on Lily.

“Oh, you’d find a place,” Rhonda said, shooting an appraising kind of glance at Kath.

She seemed pensive, her earlier excitement extinguished, and Lily wondered what she was thinking.

And yet she also felt protective of Chinatown. She didn’t want anyone to disparage it—not even Shirley.

When she returned she had a contrite expression on her face, and Lily had to give in because she had known Shirley her entire life, and this was the first time Shirley had asked for her forgiveness.

Something was under construction near the south end of the building. Trucks and winches had been left there, along with giant bales of thick wire.

And yet there was an unexplained sadness beneath Shirley’s bravado, and Lily wasn’t sure how to ask about it.

Lily wondered if Kath was going to the Telegraph Club with them, and the thought raised a strange jealousy in her while another part of her sank into a fatalistic gloom.

The girls in their pink tutus twirled with varying skill, kicking up their legs exuberantly as they spun.

She smiled at Lily and added, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
It was the first time anyone had acknowledged, even obliquely, that for a little while, Lily had been gone.

On Christmas Eve, Frankie played a shepherd in the Christmas Nativity tableau at church.

She couldn’t always fully understand when her mother talked about politics, but she knew her mother well enough to hear the cynicism in her tone.

They were as enraptured with their costumes as they were with the importance of their endeavor: representing the young Chinese in America.

The responsibility, imparted to them by Grace and the other mothers, seemed to rest lightly on their slim shoulders.

There was something very appealing to her about their large, boisterous family, with many generations and cousins all living together above their restaurant.

There was a time, before Lily was born, when Grace had thought she would move to China with Joseph and be part of his family, as was proper for a Chinese wife, but the Japanese invasion of Shanghai had scuttled those plans.

In China, Joseph’s family would outrank the Lums, but here in America, Grace wasn’t sure the same social stratification applied.

People treated Joseph with respect to his face, but Grace knew that to many of Chinatown’s residents—all those old bachelors crowded six to a room—Dr. Joseph Hu was an uppity Shanghainese who didn’t speak their language.

The drink smelled astringent, practically medicinal, and when she took a tiny sip, it was sharp on her tongue and a shock to swallow, like cold fire.

The scent was heady...

“That stuff’s terrible,” she groused.

Past the living room was a small dining room with a white Formica-and-chrome dinette set and an antique mirrored buffet, on top of which were clustered several bottles and cocktail glasses.

Lily left her coat on the bench with the others and wandered over to the rust-colored sofa; above it were several framed photos hung in a somewhat haphazard order.

There was a proprietary air to Lana’s behavior that made Lily realize this wasn’t Tommy’s apartment—it was Tommy and Lana’s.

Flora gave Lily a reproachful look—Lily thought Flora hadn’t yet accepted that Shirley had welcomed her back into their group of friends—and pulled the magazine out of Lily’s hands, flipping to a story on evening gowns.

Flora’s father’s shop held an assortment of art pieces and tourist tchotchkes; there was always something funny or interesting to discover.

There were matchbox-size cars painted garishly red and yellow, and baby dolls with eyes that rolled open when they were picked up.

On the right side was a poster that Lily couldn’t remember seeing before, emblazoned with a large dark headline: PLEDGE OF LOYALTY.

The Chinese communists are the stooges of Soviet
 Russia.

Lily had to force herself to go meet them, tamping down the hot, panicky feeling that bubbled inside her, as if something sordid might spill out of her against her will.

Lily had been inordinately nervous about seeing Kath again, but when the moment arrived—there she was, standing at her locker in an ordinary-looking skirt and blouse—it was disappointingly anticlimactic.

Lily had been inordinately nervous about seeing Kath again, but when the moment arrived—there she was, standing at her locker in an ordinary-looking skirt and blouse—it was disappointingly anticlimactic.

She was even more aware of the undulating space between them, like an invisible barrier that could not be crossed—not in public.

She didn’t see Lily at all, but Lily saw the jaunty way she walked, head up and shoulders back, carefree.

She regaled Lily and their friends with her plan to rework her pageant speech, which she would practice at a full dress rehearsal on Friday night.

...her fear was subsumed beneath much more powerful feelings.

They opened the door at the end and plunged through, and just as Lily was stepping out from beneath the stairs, more women came—dozens, all of them, it seemed—heading pell-mell for that door.

Lily was fourteen now, and Judy suspected her interest in those mechanized marvels had waned, so she followed her niece inside to wait for her.