Lily spun the rack of tawdry paperbacks again, then began to flip through novel after novel, hunting for the provocative cover of Strange Season. The blonde (that had to be Patrice) in her negligee on the floor; the brunette (Maxine, with dark eyes) above in her sultry black gown. Lily was aware of Kath beside her, watching, and she said, “It’s been here for weeks. I thought it would still be here.”
Kath pulled a book from the next rack over—a detective novel with the silhouette of a corpse on the cover—and asked, “What was the title? I’ll help you look.”
“Strange Season.”
Kath put the detective novel back and started to look through the other books. When Lily had finished with the romance rack she moved on to science fiction, wondering if it had been mistakenly placed there, but at last she had to admit defeat.
“It’s gone,” Lily said, sighing. “I suppose someone bought it.” She couldn’t imagine who might have had the nerve to put their money down on the counter. Someone very bold.
“What was it about?” Kath asked.
When she decided to show the book to Kath, Lily hadn’t considered the possibility that it would be gone. She had hoped the book would do the work of voicing the questions she wanted to ask, but without it, she was back where she had started. She was faced with a choice now: She could explain what the book had been about, or she could lie. Kath was watching her expectantly, and there was something in her expression that made Lily hope that perhaps she already knew the book, but Lily told herself that was wishful thinking. In all the time they had spent together, all those walks down Columbus, they had never brought up the Telegraph Club or Kath’s friend Jean. Not once. Lily wanted to believe that the total absence of those topics signified their importance, but it probably meant nothing.
She felt queasy, and Kath reached out and touched her arm.
“Are you all right?” Kath asked.
Kath’s fingers pressed lightly against Lily’s upper arm. She saw both concern and curiosity in Kath’s eyes. They were grayish blue, like the sky covered by a scudding sheet of rainclouds.
Lily backed away into the corner between the science fiction rack and the rear wall of the store, and Kath followed her. They were quite alone now, and above them the fluorescent light buzzed as if a mosquito were trapped inside the bulb.
“It was about two women.” Lily’s mouth felt so dry she might choke on the words. “That book, Strange Season. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.” And then she asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Kath’s eyes widened briefly, and then she looked down at the floor and over at the science fiction rack and back at Lily, who felt her heart thudding like a drum, her blood rushing through her veins and turning her skin pink as she waited for Kath’s response. An eternity seemed to pass; the heat of the fluorescent light on her head was like an artificial sun; the cash register at the front of the store rang like an alarm bell.
Finally Kath said one soft word: “Yes.”
* * *
—
They left Thrifty Drug Store and walked down Columbus, away from Chinatown and North Beach, toward the Filipino restaurants and groceries of Manilatown. The afternoon sunlight caused the shadows to slant eastward, downhill, as if pointing them forward, and as they walked, Lily told Kath more about what she had read.
“They kissed each other,” she reported, and saying it out loud was thrilling; it made her blush. And yet she couldn’t say the word the book had used to describe those kinds of girls: lesbian. The word felt dangerous, and also powerful, as if uttering it would summon someone or something—a policeman to arrest them for saying that word, or even worse, a real-life lesbian herself. She glanced at Kath sideways and asked, “Have you ever known any girls . . . like that?”
They stopped at the next intersection. Kath looked very grave. Her face was quite pale, except for two burning spots right below her cheekbones, as if she had misapplied rouge with rough fingers. She said quietly, “My friend Jean. She’s . . . like that.”
“The one who took you to the Telegraph Club?”
Kath nodded. “They’re all like that, there. Well, except for the tourists—and even then, maybe.”
The light had turned green, but they hadn’t moved. They were at Pacific, across from the International Settlement, marked by a neon sign topped with colorful flags that arched over the street. Beyond that were signs for the Sahara Sands and Gay ’N Frisky nightclubs, and a giant naked female leg kicked out from the roof of the Barbary Coast club like an obscene invitation. Lily looked away selfconsciously as she imagined what went on in there.
Behind them a man whistled. “Hello, girls!”
Lily stiffened.
“You two looking for some fun?” And now he was beside them, a middle-aged man in a banged-up fedora, looking like an out-of-work accountant.
“No, thank you,” Kath said. She stepped closer to Lily, nudging her to keep walking, but the light had turned red again, trapping them against the traffic.
He leered at them. “You’re a little far from home now, aren’tcha? I love a little China doll, I do.”
Lily grabbed Kath’s hand and pulled her westward along Pacific, back toward Chinatown.
“Nothing like a little affection between girls—always makes my day!” he said, laughing.
Lily heard another man nearby laugh too, as if he had been watching the whole exchange, and her face burned with shame. Even if those men were horrible, she and Kath had been talking about that very thing, and it felt as if this were some kind of judgment from on high. She walked faster and faster as if she could outrun the shame, until Kath dragged at her hand and said, “Stop—Lily—slow down.”
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 halted on the corner and let go of Kath’s hand.