Finally, there was the door to the bathroom. Claire went in as another woman came out, brushing past Lily to hurry back downstairs. At last it was Lily’s turn, and she stepped into the bathroom and found that there were only two stalls, and one of them had a handwritten sign taped to it that read OUT OF ORDER. She went into the one that Claire had vacated—Claire was washing her hands at the sink—and the stall smelled of urine, but Lily had no choice but to use it. She hovered above the seat so that she wouldn’t have to touch it.
When she was finished, she pulled the chain on the tank and water plunged into the bowl. She straightened her blouse and skirt and stockings, and as she reached for the latch on the door she noticed that all sorts of messages had been graffitied on in pen, or scratched through the beige paint. FOR A GOOD TIME CALL JOANIE, someone had written, and beneath that a different hand had added: JUST DON’T CALL BEFORE NOON. There was a heart scratched above the handle of the stall door, and inside the heart were two names: NANCY + CAROL.
A swell of applause rose from downstairs. She hurried out to wash her hands, and then found Claire standing in the hallway, smiling at her cheerfully.
“You didn’t have to wait,” Lily said, surprised.
“I wouldn’t leave you up here alone. You looked a little lost back there.”
There was only kindness in her voice, and Lily felt overwhelmed by it. “Thank you,” Lily said.
Claire shrugged it off. “Let’s go. Tommy’s second set is usually better, because it’s after the tourists leave.”
Lily followed her back down to the stage room, where Tommy was singing in the spotlight. When they returned to their table, Kath leaned close to her and said, “I was getting worried! I got you another beer.”
The idea of drinking another one seemed scandalous to Lily, but she didn’t want to be impolite, and she could practically hear Shirley saying, Don’t be such a square. “Thanks,” she said to Kath, and picked up her glass. The beer was cold, and with each sip it became easier to watch Tommy onstage, to laugh and applaud when the others did. Perhaps it was because the initial shock of seeing a woman impersonate a man was wearing off, and she knew a little about what to expect now. Or perhaps it was because the tourists had mostly left, as Claire predicted, and the audience was almost all women. The club felt looser now; it felt lighter, as if finally Tommy was among friends. The one or two men remaining in the audience could be overlooked at last, and Tommy did overlook them.
Lily thought that Claire was right: Tommy’s second set was better than the first. She changed the lyrics to the songs she sang now, and the changes were so direct that Lily could hardly believe what she was hearing. When a beautiful lady like you / Meets an irresistible gay girl like me. The rest of the audience wasn’t as surprised, though; or if they were, it was a delighted kind of surprise, because they laughed to hear it.
Tommy flirted shamelessly with a woman in a green dress seated at a table near the stage with two other women, and the woman in the green dress loved it so much Tommy brought her onstage to serenade her with “Secret Love.” This time Lily was fairly certain Tommy hadn’t changed a single word, and Lily was struck by how duplicitous a song could be, as if multiple languages were hidden within the lyrics. Tommy ended her set with a rollicking rendition of “Keep It Gay,” and when it was over, she sauntered offstage and back to the bar, and the way some women shook her hand or slapped her shoulder, it was obvious that they knew her.
Afterward, Lily assumed it was time to go home, but when she looked at Kath, she didn’t seem to be in a rush. Lily touched her arm and asked, “Should we go?”
“We can if you want. They’ll tell us when last call is, and then we’ll have to leave, anyway.”
“What time is it?”
Kath held her watch closer to the votive candle, angling it to catch the light. “About half past one.”
Claire had gotten up as soon as Tommy’s set was over, and now she returned with Lana and two glasses of wine in tow. They pulled over an extra chair, and Claire introduced Lana all around—“We met Kath here tonight, and you remember her friend Lily”—and the question of leaving seemed to fade. Lily finished her beer and wondered whether Tommy would join them. It began to seem inevitable, and her pulse quickened as she imagined what might happen. Tommy would drag a chair over and sit down, taking out her pack of cigarettes; she would offer them around, and Lana would accept one. There would be more beers, and more conversation that Lily didn’t quite understand, and all the while she would have to work hard not to stare, not to gaze at the way Tommy’s hair was artfully slicked back with that little wave, or the way her collar pressed intimately against her throat.