And all of a sudden it was almost painful to watch Tommy onstage. She had to look away as if she were a drowning person surfacing for air. She saw that there were some men in the audience—husbands with their wives or girlfriends, seated in a clump on one side of the room as if they had huddled together for safety. The men seemed to be having a good time, applauding and grinning, giving each other approving glances as if to congratulate themselves on their adventurousness. The wives and girlfriends were more mixed in their expressions. One looked absolutely mortified and could barely keep her eyes on the stage; one leaned forward with a broad smile, occasionally giving her husband a smirk. The smirk was so thick with suggestion that it made Lily queasy, even though she didn’t understand what it meant. The not knowing made it worse; it opened a Pandora’s box of implication, and yet she was painfully aware of her own na?veté. She couldn’t even imagine what that woman wanted, but she was certain it was shameful.
Beyond those couples, most of the audience was women, and some of those women were dressed like men. None as finely as Tommy, but some wore ties and vests, while others wore blazers with open-collared shirts. Some women were done up for a night on the town in cocktail dresses, with sparkling earrings and necklaces around their pale throats. There were a few Negro women seated together, but Lily was the only Chinese girl in the room. That meant there was no one from Chinatown to recognize her, but it also made her stand out all the more.
She shrank back as far as she could, and when her foot touched the wall, she realized she could inch back a tiny bit more until she was entirely pressed against the wall, and Kath was half a foot in front of her, partly blocking her view. Now she felt safer, and when the song ended and the room burst into applause, she took off her jacket and draped it over her arm. Her blouse was damp where she had sweated through the back, but at least she was cooler.
Kath glanced at her and asked, “Are you all right?”
Lily nodded, but there was no time for her to elaborate, because Tommy was starting another number. This one was livelier, and it involved her stepping off the stage and flirting with the women seated around the perimeter. Lily was extra glad, now, that she was hidden against the far wall. She had dreamed about Tommy visiting her table, but now that she was in the room the possibility of that attention felt distinctly alarming. Instead she held her breath as Tommy perched on the edge of each table she visited, smiling down at the woman she had chosen and joking with the man nearby. She seemed utterly comfortable with what she was doing, as if wearing a man’s suit and flirting with women were the most normal thing in the world. She leaned toward a blushing woman in a low-cut green dress, singing “You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me,” then turning to her male partner and adding, “Not you, sir.”
The room broke into laughter at the aside, and Lily laughed along nervously, even though she was afraid she didn’t get the joke. She had wanted so desperately to come here, but the reality of the Telegraph Club was not what she had imagined. In her imagination, Tommy Andrews had been a lone, pure figure who could be admired from a cool distance. She had not been this swaggering creature who sauntered over to strange women and kissed their hands, who strode back onstage and surveyed the room like a king looking over his realm. In her imagination, Tommy had been like a matinee idol—sweet-faced and tender. In reality, Tommy was a woman made of flesh and blood, and that frightened Lily most of all.
21
At the end of Tommy’s set, the audience loosened up, stood and stretched, moved toward the bar or away from it. Kath spotted several women deserting a table nearby. She quickly claimed it, and Lily followed.
Kath looked around excitedly and asked, “What did you think?”
“I’m not sure.” Lily heard the strained selfconsciousness in her voice and wished she had said something different.
Kath looked at her then—really looked at her—as if trying to decipher what was beneath Lily’s words. Lily awkwardly dropped her gaze, studying the scarred wooden surface of the table. The votive candle at the center flickered within its red glass cup, and Lily imagined she could feel the heat from it radiating out in invisible waves.
“If you want to leave, we can go,” Kath said.
Lily looked up at her friend in surprise. Kath had taken off her coat, and Lily noticed for the first time that Kath wore a collared shirt with its top button undone.
“I don’t want to leave,” Lily managed to say, and Kath nodded, and they sat there for a moment as the bustle around them went on: women carrying beers across the room; wineglasses ringing together; someone wondering loudly when Tommy’s next set would begin.
Two women suddenly appeared at their table, and one of them asked, “Are you using these two chairs? Do you mind if we take them?”
“No, go ahead,” Kath said, and the two women sat down, pulling their chairs back and away slightly to give them some room. One of the women was wearing a blazer and collared shirt, and her hair was cut boyishly short, but in a style that could be called feminine if she put on a dress. The other woman was wearing a blouse and a skirt, her hair waved and fastened with a silver barrette; she didn’t look much older than a high school senior.
Kath scooted her chair closer to Lily and asked, “Do you want something to drink?”
“We can’t,” Lily whispered, turning her head away from their tablemates.
“I’ll get you something. I mean, Elizabeth Flaherty will.” Kath grinned.
“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Lily said, worried.
“It’ll be fine,” Kath assured her. “I’ll be back in a minute. Tommy’s second set won’t start for a little while.”
And then Kath got up and left her there, sitting with the two strange women who had their backs half turned to her. Lily took a shallow breath, holding herself very still as if that might render her invisible. The women at her table were talking about a movie they’d seen recently; it sounded like a French film, and Lily wondered where they had seen it. 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.
When Kath returned with two glasses of beer, the women made room for her to slide into her seat, and the one in the blazer took that as an excuse to say, “We haven’t seen you here before, have we? I’m Paula, and this is Claire.”
Kath introduced herself and shook Paula’s hand. “I’ve been here before with my friend Jean Warnock. Do you know her? She’s at Cal. This is my friend Lily.”