“What do you think of Tommy Andrews?” Sally asked. “I think she’s pretty classy.”
“Classy onstage, anyway,” Rhonda said archly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jean asked. “Do you know her?”
“Not well. I know of her. She was with a friend of mine last year—before the femme she’s with now—I forget her name.”
“Lana Jackson,” Lily said, and they all looked at her in surprise. Their attention made her nervous, but she tried to pretend as if all of this—the club, the conversation, these strange women with their strange slang—was entirely normal. “I met her last time we were here, in the bathroom line.”
“Well, what do you think of Tommy?” Rhonda asked, tapping her cigarette against the ashtray.
“I guess I think she’s . . . talented.”
Jean snickered, and Lily went red.
“Don’t tease her,” Sally said. “She’s just a baby.” Sally looked at Lily empathetically. “Don’t worry about it—Jean’s barely out of diapers herself. We’ve been right where you are.” She cast a frown at Jean, who raised her hands.
“All right, sorry, I didn’t mean it.” Jean smiled at Lily in a more friendly way. “I like Tommy too. I want to know where she gets her suits.”
“They’re obviously custom. Would you wear one?” Rhonda asked, cocking her head at Jean.
Jean laughed. “I can’t afford it.” She glanced across the table at Kath. “I think you’d like one.”
Kath seemed taken aback. “A suit?” She shook her head. “Where would I wear it?”
“Oh, you’d find a place,” Rhonda said, shooting an appraising kind of glance at Kath. “I can see it.”
Kath looked uncomfortable. “Nah. It’s not my style.”
“Not yet.” Rhonda sounded amused. “I can see them coming a mile away, those baby butches.” Her voice was honeyed, teasing.
Kath was holding another half-smoked cigarette in her hand, and now she raised it to her mouth and took a shallow puff on it, the smoke emerging in a cloud rather than a stream. She shook her head, but there was a hint of a smile in her eyes, and Lily realized she was trying to hide the fact that she was pleased. Rhonda had apparently paid Kath a compliment, and Lily felt an electric clutch in her belly as she recognized it, butch like a blue ribbon awarded at the county fair, baby like a promise.
Kath’s gaze flickered briefly to Lily, and then she tapped her cigarette against the ashtray, and this time she didn’t miss.
26
Lily, what are you doing today? I don’t have to work!”
Shirley’s voice vibrated through the telephone line with what Lily felt was excessive energy for just past eight o’clock in the morning. Dramatic music came down the hall from the living room, where her brothers were watching Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, the tinny notes crescendoing in an explosion as a rocket presumably blasted off. Lily rubbed a hand over her eyes and answered, “I have a trig problem set. Why?”
“Do it tomorrow. Let’s go somewhere.”
“Where?” Lily stretched the telephone cord out as far as she could to look through the window in her brothers’ room, but the curtains were still drawn. “Is it going to rain?”
“No, it’s perfectly nice. It’s probably going to be sunny. Come on, I have to get out of Chinatown.”
There was an undercurrent of urgency in Shirley’s voice that surprised Lily. “I have to ask my parents. When do you—”
“Meet me on the corner in an hour.”
“But where do you want to go? I have to tell them—”
“Tell them we’re going to Aquatic Park. I’ll see you soon!” And she hung up.
* * *
—
“I don’t really want to go to Aquatic Park,” Shirley admitted as they walked down Grant Avenue. “It’s too close to school. We’re there every day.”
“Where do you want to go?” Lily asked. “The Embarcadero?”
The sky was overcast, and the flat gray light muted the reds and golds of Chinatown, giving them an ashy tint. The shopkeepers were opening their storefronts, unlocking their doors and poking their heads out to frown up at the sky, wondering whether it would open up on them.
“Let’s go to Sutro’s. We can see the Seal Rocks! And they have that museum, don’t they, that’s free?”
“Sutro’s! That’s so far.”