“But she’s discovered that she has a half brother—”
“—who’s fighting her for the inheritance—”
“—so she hired a private investigator to seduce him!”
Lily shot Shirley a confused glance. “What?”
“Well, who do you think that other woman is? She looks like a female private investigator. Only a female PI would look like that. She was probably undercover.”
Lily was amused. “Undercover where?”
“Oh, who knows.”
They had played this game since they were children—inventing stories for strangers they saw in the restaurant—but Shirley tended to lose interest in their inventions before Lily did.
“Did you see the new ad my parents placed?” Shirley asked, setting the latest napkin swan next to the others, all lined up like a funny little army.
“No.”
“It’s in there—I saw it earlier. Keep going. It’s on the same page as the nightclub reviews.”
Lily obediently flipped the pages of the Chronicle to the “After Night Falls” column, which took up half of the page. The other half was filled with ads for restaurants and nightclubs. She skimmed them, hunting for the Eastern Pearl ad. meet me at julian’s xochimilco: serving the best mexican dinner. all-chinese floor shows—superb full-course chinese or american dinner—forbidden city. An illustration of four faces—father, mother, son, and daughter with a bow in her hair—advertised good food! good living includes dining at grant’s.
“There it is,” Shirley said, pointing to an ad near the bottom of the page. A simple black rectangle with the type in bold white read: experience the finest oriental cuisine at the eastern pearl—the best of chinatown.
But Lily’s eye was drawn to a square box directly above the Eastern Pearl ad. It read: tommy andrews male impersonator—world premiere! the telegraph club. 462 broadway. It was a relatively large ad that included a photo of a person who looked like a handsome man with his hair slicked back, dressed in a tuxedo. Something went still inside Lily, as if her heart had taken a breath before it continued beating.
“It’s not very big, but Pa thinks it will get noticed,” Shirley said. “What do you think?”
“Oh, I—I’m sure it’ll get noticed,” Lily said.
“People read that page, don’t they? They always want to know what stars are in town.”
“You’re right. I’m sure people will see it.”
Shirley nodded, satisfied, and Lily forced herself to look up from the photo of Tommy Andrews. Across the restaurant the two women were paying their bill. The woman in the blue dress took a wallet out of her handbag, while the woman with the short hair unexpectedly pulled a billfold out of her trouser pocket. Their dollars tumbled limply onto the table.
Behind the counter, the swinging door to the kitchen opened. Shirley’s mother poked her head out and called, “Shirley, come help me for a minute.”
“Yes, Ma,” Shirley answered. She gave Lily an exasperated glance. “Don’t touch the napkins. I’ll finish them when I get back.”
The bell attached to the restaurant’s front door jingled, and Lily saw the two women leaving. The short-haired woman held the door open for her friend, and then they were gone, and Lily was staring down at the ad for the Telegraph Club again.
Four-sixty-two Broadway must be only a few blocks from the Eastern Pearl. There were several nightclubs on Broadway, just east of Columbus. Lily’s parents always told her to avoid those blocks; they were for adults, they said, and for tourists. Not for good Chinese girls. Not for girls at all. Lily understood that she was supposed to think the clubs were tawdry, but every time she crossed Broadway (always during the day, of course) she’d look down the wide street toward the Bay Bridge in the distance, her gaze lingering on those closed doorways, wondering what they hid from view.
Her palms were a little damp. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was behind the counter. She quickly tore out the page with the Telegraph Club ad, folded it into a neat, small square, and tucked it deep into the pocket of her skirt. She closed the newspaper and slid it back into the pile of Chronicles beneath the counter. As she straightened the stack, she realized her fingertips were smudged with newsprint. She ran to the bathroom and turned on the sink, scrubbing at her fingers with the harsh pink soap until no trace of ink remained.
2
The Eastern Pearl was only a ten-minute walk from the Hu family flat, but that night the journey home seemed to take Lily forever. As soon as she left the restaurant, she had to spend several minutes talking to old Mr. Wong, who was locking up his imports store next door. Then, as she rounded the corner onto Grant Avenue, Charlie Yip at the concession stand called out to her, saying he had her favorite wa mooi* on discount. She bought a small bag to share with her brothers, and as she slid the candy into her skirt pocket, she took care not to crush the folded newspaper.
Outside the Shanghai Palace, a clump of Caucasian tourists blocked the sidewalk. They were dressed up for their night out in Chinatown, and Lily could tell they’d had a few cocktails. None of them noticed her as she slipped around them into the street, dodging a cigarette butt flung by a woman in a fur stole. Lily shot an irritated glance at the woman’s back as a car honked at her, causing Lily to jump out of the way. Now pinned between the tourists and a parked Buick, she was forced to wait for the traffic light to turn red before she could finally cross the street, darting impatiently between idling cars.
When she reached the opposite sidewalk, she glanced back up Grant toward Broadway and North Beach, wondering where the Telegraph Club was exactly. She imagined a tall neon sign over an awning-covered door. She remembered the two women she’d seen at the Eastern Pearl, and she pictured them going to the Telegraph Club. She imagined them taking a seat at a small, round table near the stage, where Tommy Andrews would emerge, dressed to the nines, to sing.
She wanted to take out the newspaper ad right then and there to see Tommy’s face again, but she resisted. Clay Street was right ahead; she was only a couple of blocks from home. She walked faster.
* * *
—
Lily unlocked the front door and hurried up the long wooden stairs to the third-floor landing. The flat was quiet and dark to the left, where the kitchen was, but down the hall to the right the living room door spilled light into the hallway. She hung her jacket on the coatrack, took off her shoes, put on her slippers, and padded toward the living room, passing the closed door to her parents’ bedroom.
Her father was seated on the sofa, reading the newspaper and smoking his pipe. Her younger brothers, Eddie and Frankie, were sprawled on the rug reading comic books. When she entered, her father looked up and smiled. The lenses of his round glasses reflected the lamplight.