A group of four young women—probably in their early twenties—came walking down the sidewalk toward them, two of them in slacks, one pair arm in arm. Three of them were Caucasian, and one was possibly Mexican. One of the women in slacks had a debonair style to her in the way she walked, with her hands in her pockets and her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The woman beside her—the darker one, with a head of glossy black curls—was looking at her with a pleased expression, but Lily couldn’t tell if the woman was pleased with herself or admiring her companion. And then she slipped her hand around her friend’s arm, their hips softly bumping together, and the woman in sunglasses turned her head and gave her a flirty little grin that struck Lily as shockingly bold. They were in public!
Lily glanced surreptitiously at Kath to see if she had noticed. Kath seemed to be watching the girls too, and there was something particularly studied about the bland expression on her face. Lily wondered if this was the moment they would finally talk about the Telegraph Club, but Kath seemed content to stay quiet. Was there something significant, then, in her silence? Lily felt as if the newspaper clipping and Kath’s acknowledgment that she had gone to the club made an invisible chain linking her and Kath together, and every once in a while she heard the chain clink like silver against glass: a faint, resonant ring. Did Kath hear it? How could she not? And yet Lily couldn’t bring herself to speak of it. What would she even say?
The moment was slipping away again. She watched the four young women disappear around the corner, and when they were gone, she felt a peculiar sense of loss. She said, “I should be getting home.”
“Me too,” Kath said.
Lily got up from the ground and offered a hand to Kath. Kath hesitated for a moment, but then let Lily pull her to her feet. Kath’s hand was cooler than Lily expected, and for one second, two, neither of them let go. Lily felt a sudden rush of heat in her face, and Kath dropped her hand. They both spoke at the same time.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodbye.”
Lily turned away, walking briskly toward Columbus, not letting herself look back even though she wanted to.
9
At the intersection of Broadway and Columbus, Lily saw the Thrifty Drug Store sign across the street. She wondered if that novel was still there. The last time she’d gone, she had read through almost to the end before she had to leave, and she was dying to know what happened. She glanced at her watch. The light turned green, and she was halfway across the street before she knew she’d given into her impulse, and then she began to hurry so that she’d have as much time as possible to read. She was almost there—twenty feet, fifteen—when she saw one of her mother’s friends from the Chinese Hospital, Mrs. Mok, hurrying toward the drug store. She had an anxious scowl on her face, and she pulled open the door to Thrifty and plunged inside as if she too were racing against the clock. She hadn’t seen Lily.
Lily sighed in disappointment and turned back toward Grant Avenue. She glanced at her watch. She was still a little early to pick up Frankie, so she decided to head home first. Perhaps one afternoon she should bring Kath to Thrifty and show the book to her. The thought was startling, and she began to imagine the two of them in that alcove in the back of Thrifty, spinning through the book racks. She pictured herself finding the book and plucking it out of the rack, handing it to Kath. She wondered what Kath might say upon seeing the cover with those two women. An excited thrill went through her.
Lost in thought, Lily barely noticed when she reached Clay Street. She climbed the last uphill block automatically, and then she inserted her key into the front door. Inside it was cool and dim, and voices floated down the wooden staircase. It sounded like her parents were home early, which was unusual. She climbed the stairs, and as she approached the top floor she heard someone come out of the kitchen—her father. He stood waiting for her on the landing, and he was still wearing his doctor’s coat, as if he’d come straight from the hospital and forgotten to take it off.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He studied her almost clinically, and she paused a few steps from the top, wondering for a terrifying moment if somehow he knew she had been thinking about that book.
“Put down your things and come into the kitchen,” he said. “Your mother and I need to talk to you.”
The tone of his voice was grave. She left her book bag on the bench and hurriedly slipped off her shoes, following him into the kitchen. Her mother was sitting at the table, holding a water glass. She was still wearing her nurse’s uniform; she hadn’t even taken off her shoes. Her father leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.
“Sit down,” he said.
She pulled out a chair and took a seat. Her mind raced. “Is it Eddie? Or Frankie?” she asked.
“No, they’re fine,” her mother said.
“Two FBI agents pulled me out of work today,” her father said. “They wanted to interview me about a young man I treated last week. They think he’s a member of a Communist organization in Chinatown.”
His words were so unexpected that at first she simply stared at him, dumbfounded. Finally she said, “But why would they ask you?”
“The FBI and the immigration service are very worried about Communists.” Her mother spoke almost primly, sitting ramrod straight in her chair. She made no move to drink her water, only kept her fingers squeezed around the glass as if it were a safety railing. “When they find someone they think is a Communist, they interview that person’s acquaintances as part of the investigation.”
Her father put his hand on her mother’s shoulder briefly, pressing down. Her mother’s fingers twitched around the glass. “The agents asked me if I knew anything about this man—my patient—but I said no,” her father said. “I only knew him as a patient. And then they said that he was part of an organization that was known to harbor Communist sympathies, the Chinese American Democratic Youth League. The members call it the Man Ts’ing.”
A small shock went through her. “They’re a Communist group?”
“That’s what the agents said,” her father answered.
Lily wondered which of the boys at the picnic was her father’s patient.
“They’re leftists,” her mother said, spitting out the word as if it were dirty. “They’re young, and they don’t know what they’re doing.”