Last Night at the Telegraph Club

At school, Lily and Shirley look through job brochures in preparation for a report on careers for their class. Shirley bemoans the fact that a member of the dance committee had to drop out. Seeing this as a way to avoid Will, Lily volunteers.

Shirley fills her in on what’s needed for the dance. Then, Lily asks about the picnic they attended and Calvin. Shirley says that her parents told her not to go to any more of them. Lily adds that the government is using Communism as an excuse to deport Chinese Americans.

After they eat lunch, Shirley tells Lily that she didn’t have to join the committee to avoid Will and that she wouldn’t have made her go to the dance with him.

Later, Lily looks through the pamphlet she found warning against Communism. However, she’s somewhat drawn to the section that outlines Communism’s greatest strength, which is to make people feel like they should take control over others, and states that it encourages this desire. Within this explanation, “[f]our words seemed to rise up off the page in whispers: secret, lust, natural, try” (91).

She decides to ask Kath to go with her the next day to the drugstore to see the novel