The fear she had been trying to keep at bay flooded through her. She jumped up and ran, and she heard him calling after her, laughingly, “I’m not gonna hurt you, China doll. Just saying hello. Nay ho, nay ho!”
Her skin crawled and she ran faster, leaving the park behind as she fled uphill. Coit Tower loomed in the distance. She remembered leaving Tommy’s party with Kath that night, Coit Tower a candle behind them as they emerged from Castle Street.
Castle Street. Lana and Tommy lived there at number forty-something.
The idea was so startling, and it felt so right that she almost laughed out loud. But her relief was short-lived; she suddenly remembered that the Chronicle had said Tommy had been arrested. She was probably in jail.
But Lana might be there, and Lana would know what to do.
Lily glanced up at Coit Tower, trying to remember where it had been in relation to Lana’s apartment. North Beach wasn’t that large, but it wasn’t her neighborhood. At the next corner store, she went inside and asked the man behind the counter where Castle Street was. He gave her a funny look, but he also gave her directions, and then she headed up the steepest part of Green Street, passing slivers of dark alleys on her left—one of them might have been the one that Kath had pulled her into—and then there it was.
She turned onto the block and started studying the building numbers. She was afraid she wouldn’t recognize Lana’s building, but when she came to it, she was certain. She remembered the front stoop and the way the curtains hung over the window. Light shone through a crack in the curtains. Someone was home.
She hesitated. There were plenty of reasons she shouldn’t knock on the door. Lana barely knew her. She would be a virtual stranger showing up like a beggar on her front step. And if Tommy was in jail, this had to be a terrible time for Lana. The wind whipped around her, plastering her fog-dampened hair across her eyes so that she had to scrape it aside with freezing fingers.
She had nowhere else to go.
She climbed the three steps and found the button labeled JACKSON and pressed it. She heard it ring. Just when she was about to try peeking through the crack in the window curtains, the door opened.
There was Lana, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, dressed in slim blue checkered pants, a pink sweater, and a pair of red-and-gold Chinese slippers.
Her penciled eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re that girl from the club—Lily, isn’t it? My goodness, you look like a drowned kitten!” Lana glanced behind her at the empty street. “Well, you’d better come in.”
42
Take off that sweater—you’ll catch a cold,” Lana said. “And leave your shoes there. I’ll bring you a blanket.”
There was a gently compelling quality about Lana, and Lily felt a sense of relief in surrendering to her orders. She peeled off her cardigan and took off her wet shoes and socks, putting them in front of the electric heater. Lana returned from the bedroom with a crocheted purple-and-white blanket, which she wrapped around Lily’s shoulders. She stepped back and gave Lily an appraising look, as if she were examining a rather sad work of art, and said, “Take a seat. I’ll make you something hot to drink.”
“You don’t have to,” Lily said.
“I’ll just reheat some coffee.”
Left alone in the living room, Lily sat down on the rust-colored sofa, tucking her cold feet under the edge of the blanket.
“Do you want cream and sugar?” Lana called from the kitchen.
“Yes, please.”
A pile of unopened mail on the coffee table bumped against a dinner plate stained with the remains of what looked like scrambled eggs. A half-filled ashtray squatted nearby, along with a smudged wineglass, a half-empty bottle of wine, a table lighter in the shape of a nude woman, and a pack of Lucky Strikes. The record player was standing open on the octagonal table in the corner, and a few records were leaning against it on the floor. Only one lamp was turned on, giving the living room a warm, golden glow. It felt different than it had the night of the party—cozier, more like someone’s home—and when she remembered Sal and Patsy dancing together in the small open space between the bench and the kitchen door, it seemed like a strange fantasy.
Lana emerged from the kitchen carrying a mug of coffee, and when she handed it to Lily, she said, “I added a little whisky. I think you need it.”
“Thank you.” Lily sipped the coffee hesitantly. It was hot and sweet and left a pleasant warmth in her stomach.
Lana took a seat across from Lily. She reached for the Lucky Strikes and pulled one out, holding it between her lips while she thumbed the lighter. A flame shot out of the nude woman’s head. “This was a gag gift from one of Tommy’s friends,” Lana said. “It’s awful, isn’t it? At least you don’t have to squeeze her breasts to get it to work. I’ve seen one of those too.” She put the lighter back on the table and pulled the ashtray closer to herself. “Sorry for the mess. It’s been quite a day. But I think it’s been one for you too.”
Lily cupped her hands around her coffee mug. “I’m sorry to barge in on you uninvited.”
Lana waved her hand, the cigarette trailing smoke. “I have a feeling you wouldn’t be here unless you had to be.” She leaned forward to pour some wine into the smudged glass, then sat back, kicking off her slippers to tuck her feet up beside her, and took a sip. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
It turned out, to Lily’s surprise, that she did want to tell her. The living room felt so intimate, and Lana seemed like someone who had heard everything and would be surprised at nothing. Lily found herself spilling out the whole story, from the moment she left Kath at the Telegraph Club to her confrontations with Shirley and her mother, to her chilly trek through the city to Lana’s front door.