She began to second-guess their whole plan. She began to calculate how long it would take to scurry home through Chinatown and up the block to her building. She studied her watch again, angling it so that she could read the slim hands, and when she looked up, Kath was standing beneath the streetlight, looking around expectantly.
Lily exhaled in relief. “Kath,” she said, stepping away from the wall.
Kath came out of the light and met her on the dark edge of the sidewalk. “Are you ready?”
“I don’t know,” Lily admitted.
“Do you want to go home?” Kath asked, concerned.
Now that Kath was here—really here, scarcely a foot away from her—the doubt that had risen inside her was held back by something stronger. She wanted to see Tommy Andrews. She shook her head. “Let’s go.”
20
The Telegraph Club’s white neon sign was smaller than Lily had expected, and it glowed over a circular awning that was also printed with the name of the club. Beneath the awning, half-lit by the nearby streetlamp, was a black door, and in front of the black door stood a person whom Lily initially thought was a short, stocky man in a suit, but soon realized was a woman. Lily had seen people like her before （she had always noticed; they had drawn her eye magnetically, somehow, in a way that made her pulse leap）， but never in this context: as if it were natural, and even expected, to be dressed this way.
“You girls sure you’re in the right place?” the bouncer asked.
Lily felt for her fake ID in her handbag, wondering if she should take it out.
“I’ve been here before,” Kath said. “We’re sure.”
The bouncer gave Kath a little grin, and waved them inside with a flourish. “Well then, welcome back,” she said cheerfully.
Relieved, Lily followed Kath into the club, avoiding the bouncer’s gaze. The black door opened into a narrow, dimly lit space. Lily didn’t know where to look at first; she wanted to see everything, but she was afraid to stare. There was a mirrored bar on the left where patrons sat on stools. There was barely enough space on the right for Lily and Kath to pass in single file. Lily was struck most forcefully by the smell of the place: a mixture of booze, perfume, sweat, and cigarette smoke. As she followed Kath down the side of the room, she noticed some of the women turning their heads to look at her, their eyes reflecting the globe lights hanging above.
At the end of the bar, the narrow space opened via an archway into a wider room—perhaps three times as wide—and in the center rear was a tiny stage where a spotlight shone upon a solitary microphone. At the back of the stage was an upright piano, and a woman in a boxy suit with a poodle haircut was seated on the bench, placing her hands on the keys. All around the stage were little round tables, and each one was filled. Kath pulled Lily toward the side of the room and found a small empty space between a table and the wall. The pianist began to play, and the room, which had been lively with conversation and laughter, began to hush.
The rear of the stage was covered by a black curtain, and Lily wondered if someone was going to step out from behind it. She had been waiting for this for so long that these last few moments seemed interminable. She quivered in her shoes as she gazed at the stage, at the people seated near the edge—she was jealous of their proximity to that microphone—and at Kath, who was watching the stage just as she was. Then there was a murmur behind them, and all the people packed into their section turned toward the archway.
Someone was making their way through the crowd.
Lily couldn’t see the person clearly, only the motion of others making way, like a wave, but she followed the ripple and turned along with her neighbors as that person strolled through the audience, and finally stepped onto the low stage and into the spotlight.
Lily knew that this was Tommy Andrews, male impersonator. She knew that the entire point of the show was the fact that the performer was not a man. Someone nearby whispered, “Is that really a woman?” And Lily squirmed with embarrassment, because that question led her to imagine what Tommy’s body looked like under her suit, and that seemed so disrespectful—like those men who had leered at them at the bowling alley. Lily felt a queasy, selfconscious confusion. It was wrong to stare, and yet Tommy was onstage, and they were supposed to look. It would be rude not to watch, so she did.
At first Tommy stood with her back to the room while the pianist continued to play, and the notes began to coalesce into a melody that Lily recognized. The spotlight gleamed on Tommy’s short hair, highlighting the way it was cut sharp against the nape of the neck, right above the white collar that was crisply framed by a black tuxedo jacket. Tommy pulled the microphone toward her mouth, with her face still turned away from the audience and toward the black curtain, and began to sing the first lines to “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”