Lily heard footsteps crossing the bathroom floor, and then they stopped. There was a rustle of paper. A moment later the girl said, “Lily? Is that you in there?”
Lily froze. How had the girl known who she was? The voice sounded familiar, but she didn’t quite recognize it.
“Lily? Are you all right?”
“Yes, sorry,” Lily said, heart racing. She bent down to pick up her bag, and even more items spilled from it: a pencil case; a math textbook; her Senior Goals notebook; a Kotex pad that slid across the floor.
She opened the stall door. Kathleen Miller stood in the middle of the bathroom with the Tommy Andrews ad in one hand and Lily’s math notebook in the other. Lily’s name was written across the front in her neat cursive script.
“My—my bag fell,” Lily said. Hurriedly she began to gather her things, picking up the two magazine clippings first, which had come to rest between her stall and Kathleen’s feet.
Kathleen helped her, chasing after a stray pencil that went under the sink, rounding up the notebooks while Lily collected the pad. Lily stuffed everything into her book bag, then straightened up and held out her hand for the newspaper clipping, which Kathleen had retained. The words male impersonator seemed to scream out in bold black type.
“I was just . . . using it for a bookmark,” Lily said, and blushed.
Kathleen seemed reluctant to give it back to her. There was an odd expression on her face, but after a silent, awkward moment in which Lily began to fear that Kathleen knew what that ad meant, Kathleen wordlessly handed it over. Lily found The Exploration of Space again and quickly slid the newspaper back inside.
There was a knock on the girls’ bathroom door. Will’s voice called, “Lily? Are you in there? Is everything all right?”
Lily looked at the closed door in shock.
“Are you sick?” Kathleen asked, concerned. “You don’t look so good.”
Lily tried to latch her book bag closed. “He asked me—he asked me to the dance,” she said in a low voice, hoping he couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t get her book bag closed. “He wants an answer, but I—I can’t.” The bag lolled open, its contents exposed.
The concern on Kathleen’s face cleared. She gave a quick nod and said, “I’ll tell him you’re not feeling well. You don’t have to give him an answer right now.”
It wasn’t a question. The calm certainty of Kathleen’s statement filled Lily with sudden relief. “I don’t,” she agreed.
Kathleen immediately left the girls’ restroom to talk to Will. Lily was too stunned to intervene. When Kathleen returned a moment later, she had a briskness to her, a determination.
“What happened?” Lily asked.
“I told him you were having, you know, girl problems.” Kathleen gave her a small smile. “He didn’t want to hear anything more.”
Lily knew she should be embarrassed by what Kathleen had told Will, but instead she wanted to laugh. “Oh my goodness. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Kathleen gave Lily that determined look again. “You know, I’ve seen Tommy Andrews before.”
The words were spoken softly, but to Lily they sounded like firecrackers. “What?”
“Tommy Andrews. I’ve seen her before.” Now Kathleen’s face went a little pink. “At the Telegraph Club.” Her jaw tightened, and she dropped her eyes to the floor as she said, “My friend Jean and I went over the summer.”
The bathroom was so quiet Lily heard the drip of the faucet on the left-hand sink, a tiny plink against the porcelain. Kathleen raised her eyes to meet hers, and in that gaze Lily saw that Kathleen knew what she had given her: an opening.
The water dripped again. A question hovered in the back of her throat, tangled up with the paralyzing sensation of being on the cusp of connection. She couldn’t put it into words.
Finally Kathleen said, with a faint look of disappointment, “I have to go home. I’m supposed to babysit.” She started to head toward the door.
“Wait,” Lily said. The moment was about to slip from her grasp, and she couldn’t let that happen. She finally latched her book bag closed. She slung the bag over her shoulder, and it came to rest against her hip like a nudge. “I’ll walk with you. I mean, can I walk out with you?”
Kathleen turned back with a surprised smile. “Sure.”
* * *
—
Kathleen lived in North Beach near Washington Square. She was half Italian and Catholic on her mother’s side; she had three siblings—one older, two younger; and most days after school she had to babysit her younger sister and brother, although her sister was twelve and could’ve managed on her own. She spoke about her siblings with a mixture of exasperation and love that Lily found quite endearing. As they walked down Columbus together, talking about their families and math class, Lily wondered why she hadn’t gotten to know Kathleen before. They had been in the same classes together for years, but it was as if they had been figurines in an automated diorama, moving on mechanical tracks that approached each other but never intersected until now. Today they had broken free from those prescribed grooves, and Lily was acutely aware of the unprecedented nature of their new friendliness.
At the corner of Columbus and Filbert, where Washington Square Park occupied a flat green expanse of North Beach, Kathleen said, “I have to turn here.”
They stopped at the intersection, and Lily wondered if this was the moment she would ask the unspoken question still caught in her throat—but no, Kathleen was moving on, and Lily said hastily, “Thanks, Kathleen. Thanks for helping me out with Will.”
“You’re welcome.” Kathleen paused, then asked, “Do you mind—will you call me Kath? My friends call me Kath, not Kathleen.”
She seemed a little abashed; a shyness flickered across her face, which turned the palest shade of pink. Her cheeks, Lily noticed, were now the same color as her lips: that delicate shade of blush, like a peony.
“Of course,” Lily said. “I’ll see you at school, Kath.”
When they parted, Kath walked east toward the Gothic towers of Saints Peter and Paul Church, and Lily headed south toward Chinatown. The word friends echoed in Lily’s memory like the chime of water dripping into the bathroom sink.
8
What did you do?” Shirley demanded in a whisper. She had cornered Lily at her locker in the ten minutes between the end of school and the start of student council. “Will is acting so uptight about the dance. Did he ask you to go with him?”
Ever since that afternoon by the trophy case, Will had avoided being alone with Lily, and when they were with their other friends, he carefully did not meet her eyes. She had been happy to accept this delicate distancing because it absolved her of having to give him an answer. She was disappointed that Shirley had noticed.