Lily heard the creak of wheels rolling in her direction, and she quickly peeked around the book rack, her skin flushed. A clerk was pushing a metal cart stacked with boxes of Kleenex past the shelves of Modess and Kotex. She hurriedly closed the book and stuffed it into the rack behind the novel Framed in Guilt. She sidled over to the next rack—science fiction—and pretended to peruse the books.
Her position enabled her to keep an eye on the clerk, who was restocking the shelves at the end of the aisle. She itched to return to Strange Season, but she didn’t dare read it while the clerk was so nearby—and she could never, ever buy it. The clerk was moving so slowly she felt as if she might jump out of her skin. Usually the science fiction rack was her favorite, but today her eyes skipped over the cover illustrations of planets and rocket ships without registering them. She couldn’t stop imagining Patrice and Maxine on that couch together. She wanted to know—she needed to know—what happened next, but as the minutes ticked past, she realized she wouldn’t find out today. She had to go get Frankie from school. She cast one last look at the rack that held Strange Season, and left.
* * *
—
For the rest of that day—as she met Frankie and walked home with him, as she did her homework, as she ate dinner with her family—all she could think about was that book. She knew that what she had read in Strange Season was not only scandalous, it was perverse. She should feel dirtied by reading it; she should feel guilty for being thrilled by it.
The problem was, she didn’t. She felt as if she had finally cracked the last part of a code she had been puzzling over for so long that she couldn’t remember when she had started deciphering it. She felt exhilarated.
She went to bed imagining Maxine’s hand on the buttons of Patrice’s blouse, unbuttoning it. She slid her own hand beneath the placket of her nightgown; she felt her own warm skin beneath her fingertips. In the quiet darkness of her bedroom she felt the faint but insistent beating of her heart, and she felt its quickening. She imagined the blouse sliding off Patrice’s shoulders, the pale swell of her breasts. Lily’s whole body went hot. She felt the need to cross her legs against the hungry ache at the center of her body. She imagined them kissing the way Marlon Brando had kissed Mary Murphy in The Wild One, which she and Shirley had snuck into last February. (“Don’t be such a square,” Shirley had said when Lily had worried about getting caught.) But now, in Lily’s imagination, Marlon Brando became Max, crushing Patrice bonelessly in her arms. And then their lips pressed together, and Lily tugged up the hem of her nightgown and pressed her fingers between her thighs, and pressed, and pressed.
6
Is this the right place?” Lily asked.
The address that Will had given them was a basement on Stockton Street. The metal bulkhead doors were open, tied to waist-high barriers on either side, and stairs led down from the sidewalk to a closed door.
“There’s a sign,” Shirley said, pointing.
A placard tied to the barriers was printed in both Chinese and English. Lily understood only about half of the Chinese characters, but the English read: CHINESE AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC YOUTH LEAGUE.
The door at the bottom of the stairs suddenly opened, and an unfamiliar young Chinese woman with a pouf of short curled hair bounded up the steps. When she saw Lily and Shirley, she asked in Mandarin Chinese, “你們是來參加聚會的嗎?”*
Lily could speak Cantonese relatively fluently, but her Mandarin was much worse; she only knew a little of it because her father spoke Mandarin. She decided to respond in English. “We’re here to meet Will Chan. Do you know him?”
The girl beamed at them. “Oh, they’re coming,” she said in Mandarin-accented English. “They went to get his brother’s car.” She extended her hand. “Edna Yang. Are you coming to the picnic too?”
Lily shook her hand; Edna’s grip was firm and no-nonsense. “Yes, we are. I’m Lily Hu.”
“Shirley Lum,” Shirley said, shaking Edna’s hand as well.
Behind Edna, a stream of people had begun coming up the stairs—girls in skirts and sweaters, boys in chinos and athletic jackets—carrying foil-covered plates and white pastry boxes tied with red string.
Lily and Shirley stepped aside for them, and now the basement entrance seemed like the door to a clown car. The honking of a horn drew Lily’s attention to the street, where a green Plymouth sedan had pulled up, double-parked, and Will leaned out the front passenger window and waved. “Lily! Shirley!” he called.
A young man emerged from the driver’s side of the car, running around to open the trunk, and Lily recognized him as Will’s brother, Calvin. Will got out while the youth group members packed the trunk with picnic supplies. They argued, laughingly, over whether the boxes should be stacked or not, and whether the bottles of soda would be too shaken up by the trip, and then Shirley volunteered to hold the pot of soy sauce chicken on her lap so that it wouldn’t spill. When the trunk was finally closed, the driver of the car came around to the passenger side, and Will said, “Calvin, you remember Shirley and Lily.” Shirley gave him a sort of curtsy because her hands were full with the chicken pot.
“Sure I do,” Calvin said. He had Will’s face, but leaner and more defined, and he smiled at Shirley as he asked, “You really want to carry that pot?”
Shirley laughed. “I’m happy to.”
Calvin had never made much of an impression on Lily, though she had seen enough of him over the years to recognize him. He’d always had his own friends, a couple of years older than Lily and Shirley’s group. Now he was a student at San Francisco State, and Lily couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him. She noticed Shirley giving him a grateful smile as he helped her into the front seat of the car, then carefully handed her the pot. When he closed the door, he lightly slapped the roof twice, then leaned into the window with an easy smile and said, “You’re all set.”
“We’ll sit in the back,” Will said, opening the rear door for Lily.
“But where are Hanson and Flora?” Lily asked.
“They couldn’t make it,” Shirley called back. “Sorry about that, Will. Get in, Lily.”