“I heard that the Five Twenty-Nine Club might be starting up a Saturday night show with a new male impersonator,” Sally said. “Have you ever been there?”
“I heard it’s all hookers and dykes, and you can get bennies there under the table,” Jean said with a grin.
The words shocked Lily, but Jean said them as casually as one might say girl or boy or aspirin. She fought the urge to look over her shoulder.
Rhonda merely shrugged. “Sometimes it’s fun to have a little sleaze with your night out, but they better watch it if they don’t want to get raided.”
They laughed, and Lily forced herself to laugh too, though she wasn’t sure what was funny about it. Lily glanced at Kath, who looked almost exhilarated by what was being said, and Lily was ashamed of her own prudish reaction. The last thing she wanted was to behave like her mother. She shuddered inwardly. She tried to relax and drank more of her beer.
“What do you think of Tommy Andrews?” Sally asked. “I think she’s pretty classy.”
“Classy onstage, anyway,” Rhonda said archly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jean asked. “Do you know her?”
“Not well. I know of her. She was with a friend of mine last year—before the femme she’s with now—I forget her name.”
“Lana Jackson,” Lily said, and they all looked at her in surprise. Their attention made her nervous, but she tried to pretend as if all of this—the club, the conversation, these strange women with their strange slang—was entirely normal. “I met her last time we were here, in the bathroom line.”
“Well, what do you think of Tommy?” Rhonda asked, tapping her cigarette against the ashtray.
“I guess I think she’s . . . talented.”
Jean snickered, and Lily went red.
“Don’t tease her,” Sally said. “She’s just a baby.” Sally looked at Lily empathetically. “Don’t worry about it—Jean’s barely out of diapers herself. We’ve been right where you are.” She cast a frown at Jean, who raised her hands.
“All right, sorry, I didn’t mean it.” Jean smiled at Lily in a more friendly way. “I like Tommy too. I want to know where she gets her suits.”
“They’re obviously custom. Would you wear one?” Rhonda asked, cocking her head at Jean.
Jean laughed. “I can’t afford it.” She glanced across the table at Kath. “I think you’d like one.”
Kath seemed taken aback. “A suit?” She shook her head. “Where would I wear it?”
“Oh, you’d find a place,” Rhonda said, shooting an appraising kind of glance at Kath. “I can see it.”
Kath looked uncomfortable. “Nah. It’s not my style.”
“Not yet.” Rhonda sounded amused. “I can see them coming a mile away, those baby butches.” Her voice was honeyed, teasing.
Kath was holding another half-smoked cigarette in her hand, and now she raised it to her mouth and took a shallow puff on it, the smoke emerging in a cloud rather than a stream. She shook her head, but there was a hint of a smile in her eyes, and Lily realized she was trying to hide the fact that she was pleased. Rhonda had apparently paid Kath a compliment, and Lily felt an electric clutch in her belly as she recognized it, butch like a blue ribbon awarded at the county fair, baby like a promise.
Kath’s gaze flickered briefly to Lily, and then she tapped her cigarette against the ashtray, and this time she didn’t miss.
26
Lily, what are you doing today? I don’t have to work!”
Shirley’s voice vibrated through the telephone line with what Lily felt was excessive energy for just past eight o’clock in the morning. Dramatic music came down the hall from the living room, where her brothers were watching Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, the tinny notes crescendoing in an explosion as a rocket presumably blasted off. Lily rubbed a hand over her eyes and answered, “I have a trig problem set. Why?”
“Do it tomorrow. Let’s go somewhere.”
“Where?” Lily stretched the telephone cord out as far as she could to look through the window in her brothers’ room, but the curtains were still drawn. “Is it going to rain?”
“No, it’s perfectly nice. It’s probably going to be sunny. Come on, I have to get out of Chinatown.”
There was an undercurrent of urgency in Shirley’s voice that surprised Lily. “I have to ask my parents. When do you—”
“Meet me on the corner in an hour.”
“But where do you want to go? I have to tell them—”
“Tell them we’re going to Aquatic Park. I’ll see you soon!” And she hung up.
* * *
—
“I don’t really want to go to Aquatic Park,” Shirley admitted as they walked down Grant Avenue. “It’s too close to school. We’re there every day.”
“Where do you want to go?” Lily asked. “The Embarcadero?”
The sky was overcast, and the flat gray light muted the reds and golds of Chinatown, giving them an ashy tint. The shopkeepers were opening their storefronts, unlocking their doors and poking their heads out to frown up at the sky, wondering whether it would open up on them.
“Let’s go to Sutro’s. We can see the Seal Rocks! And they have that museum, don’t they, that’s free?”
“Sutro’s! That’s so far.”
“I have all day.” Shirley gave a little skip of excitement. “Do you have to be back soon?”
“No.” The wind caused Lily’s skirt to flap against her shins. She suspected it would be freezing out by Ocean Beach, but there was a franticness to Shirley that told her she had made up her mind, and Lily knew there was no use arguing.