Taken aback, Lily said, “Of course.” She went to find Flora’s father, who was behind the jewelry case on the other side of the store, taking an inventory of unsold Christmas items. “Mr. Soo, there’s a lady over there who wants someone to help her,” Lily said.
Mr. Soo looked over the top of his black-framed glasses at Lily. “Where?”
She pointed, and he huffed and went off to find her. Lily paused for a moment in front of the Christmas leftovers, her gaze drawn to the wall behind the jewelry case. It was a notice board where advertisements for Chinatown events were posted: a hodgepodge of Cathay Orchestra concerts and YWCA charity raffles and Christmas potlucks for the needy. On the right side was a poster that Lily couldn’t remember seeing before, emblazoned with a large dark headline: PLEDGE OF LOYALTY. She went around the jewelry counter so she could read what was printed below:
1. We Chinese-American citizens pledge our loyalty to the United States.
2. We support the nationalist government of free China and her great leader, President Chiang Kai-shek.
3. We support the United Nations charter and the efforts made by the United Nations troops who are fighting for a united, free and independent Korea.
4. The Chinese communists are the stooges of Soviet Russia. Those who are invading Korea are the Chinese communists, not the Chinese, peace-loving people of free China.
The paper was slightly yellowed, and by the thumbtack holes in it, Lily realized it must have been hanging there for some time, hidden beneath other posters. The bottom third of it was mostly obscured by an ad for a New Year’s Eve concert. Curious, she unpinned the concert ad, and beneath it she read: “Pledged by patriotic members of the Chinese YMCA and YWCA, 1951.”
She had been in junior high school then. It was only a few years ago, but it felt much longer, as if she had been an entirely different person than she was now. She barely knew Kath then, and only as one of the few girls in her math class. She hadn’t yet secretly skimmed that book in the back of Thrifty Drugs. She hadn’t yet gone to the Telegraph Club or Lana and Tommy’s apartment—or stopped on the way home in a dark alley and kissed a girl. （The way her body had fit against Kath’s; the exquisite ache it had caused.）
Behind her the shop door opened, the bell jingling, and she heard Mary’s voice. “Shirley? I’m sorry I’m late!”
Lily spun around, irrationally certain that someone had read her mind, but she was quite alone. There was Mary hurrying through the store, her hair windblown and the umbrella she was carrying damp from rain, and there were Shirley and Flora emerging from the back room, pulling on their coats. Lily had to force herself to go meet them, tamping down the hot, panicky feeling that bubbled inside her, as if something sordid might spill out of her against her will.
“What took you so long?” Shirley asked Mary.
“My brother was sick this morning, and my parents— Oh, forget about it,” Mary said. “Let’s just go!”
34
Shirley pulled a dress out from an overstuffed rack in the juniors section of Macy’s bargain basement. “This is the one,” she declared. Lily came over from the rack nearby as Shirley held it against herself. “What do you think?”
It was two pieces, instead of one: a pale blue halter-neck blouse tucked into a matching full skirt, and accented by a wide darker blue belt. “It’s pretty,” Lily said, “but I thought you wanted a strapless dress?”
Flora came over with an armful of wraps. “You have to try it on. It’s very Hollywood.”
Shirley glanced around. “It’s my size. Where are the dressing rooms?”
The vast windowless space was crowded with bargain hunters drifting from giant bins of marked-down sweaters to spinning racks of dresses in odd sizes. Lily couldn’t see the dressing rooms anywhere, but she did see a Macy’s employee folding blouses at one of the nearby bins.
Shirley saw her too, and said, “Lily, will you go ask that woman?”
Lily knew Shirley was sending her because she didn’t want to go herself and risk facing an unfriendly salesgirl; they often seemed to doubt that any Chinese had the money to pay. Lily didn’t want to go either, but she wanted to argue with Shirley even less, so she straightened her shoulders and approached the woman.
“Excuse me, miss, where are the dressing rooms?” Lily asked politely.
The woman turned toward her. “They’re on the far side. Let me take you—”
Lily froze in surprise, because it was Paula. Not Paula the way she had looked at the Telegraph Club, in her blazer and slacks, but Paula nonetheless. Her short hair was done in a feminine style now, and she wore a tan shirtdress along with her Macy’s smock and identifying name tag, which read MISS WEBSTER. Lily knew that Paula recognized her too, because she saw it in Paula’s slight widening of her eyes, which was followed almost instantly by a shuttering of her expression—as if she had drawn on a mask. The idea that Paula from the Telegraph Club had a job as a Macy’s salesgirl was astonishing. Was Lily supposed to acknowledge that she knew Paula? And if she did, would Paula acknowledge that she knew Lily? Lily was immediately certain that it was dangerous for them to do so. The midnight world in which they had met did not belong here in the brightly lit public afternoon.