Emako Blue

by Brenda Woods

“Just a’ight?”

  She took a sip of orange soda and I was just getting ready to make a move when she opened the door and got out. “I gotta go. My mama has to go to work. Thanks, Jamal. Peace.”

  I lowered my voice. “Yeah, peace.”

  I drove away slowly, watching her in the rearview mirror as she walked up the short path to her house, because baby girl was so fine.

  Gina was cool, but Emako was mo’ better.

  Savannah

  Monterey entered the church and glared at me like I didn’t belong there. I said to myself, No, she did not disrespect me up in here. But you know what? I didn’t let it bother me. I mean, we all had the right to say good-bye to Emako, even me.

  I know that most people thought that I was hating on Emako or something, and I suppose I was, but you gotta understand. I mean, the girl had everything going for her. She could sing. And, yeah, she was pretty. I had to give her that too. But she was . . . nice. That was the part that really messed with me. That was the part I didn’t trust. I thought she was just acting and I was waiting for her mask to come off so that I could see what was underneath.

  Now, if Emako had been like me, we would have been too tight. But no matter what I did to that girl, she wouldn’t let me pull her down into my little hell. That’s too deep, huh?

  I looked around the church. I was sorry. But now I would never be able to tell her that. So, I suppose Emako had won the battle. The war had started at the beginning of the year.

  By October, I was already wishing the year were over. I was too tired of getting up at 6:30, five days a week. School sucked.

  Emako was talking to Mr. Santos when I showed up at chorus that day and Jamal was staring at her like he’d been hypnotized. Again. Jamal was trying to be a player, but I was keeping an eye on him because his girlfriend, Gina, was my best friend. Gina and I lived in the same neighborhood and we had gone to the same private school before they kicked me out because I failed geometry and refused to go to summer school. What did I look like, a mathematician?

  I went over to where he was standing and got in his face.

  “Why you always trippin’, Savannah?” he said.

  “Because Gina is my girl and I’m sure she would like to know that you are in here tryin’ to get in ghetto girl’s face. I mean, do I look like I’m blind?”

  “No, it just looks like you’re ugly!” Jamal raised his voice.

  “Get outta my face. I don’t know why Gina wants to be with you anyway. You ain’t even on her level.”

  “But I’m fine.”

  I sneered at him. “Shut up.”

  “Thought so,” Jamal said, having the last word.

  Eddie started to laugh.

  “What you laughin’ at, Eddie? You ain’t even in this,” I said.

  Before Eddie could say anything, Mr. Santos got out his tuning forks and told us to be quiet. I thought to myself, What kind of a name is that for a sister, Emako? Like having a Japanese name was going to stop her from being ghetto.

  Emako began to sing and took over the room with that voice. I looked her over from head to toe. I thought about the house in the hills with the view of the city and the swimming pool that I went home to every day, and that made me feel good, like I had something that she didn’t.

  After an hour of the Emako show, previously called chorus, I went outside and waited for my mother. She pulled up in her new white Mercedes and I got in.

  “How was school?” she asked.

  “Same as every day, boring,” I replied.

  I switched the channel on the radio to 100.3, The Beat, and pumped up the volume.

  “Turn that ghetto music down,” my mother said.

  “It’s not ghetto music. Everyone listens to it, even white kids.”

  “Even white kids. That makes it okay?”

  “That’s not what I meant. Why is everyone on my case today? Could you just get off my back! Turn on whatever you want or just turn it off! Whatever!”

  “Why are you so upset? I just asked you to turn the music down,” she asked.

  I turned off the radio. “Just leave me alone.”

  My mother took a deep breath and sighed.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  When we got home, my mother’s silky terrier, Lillie, met us at the front door, yelping. My mother picked her up in her arms and kissed her. Sometimes I think my mother loves that little dog more than she loves me. I hated that dog.

  I went to my room and sat down to check my e-mail. I looked down at the ring on my pinkie finger that had a real diamond, not a cubic z, then looked at myself in the mirror. I thought about Emako and decided to start a little something.

  I thought I would have to wait awhile for the perfect opportunity, but I didn’t. The next day before lunch, I went into the bathroom and there she was. Alone.

  “Hey, Emako,” I said as the door closed behind me.

  Emako was standing in front of the mirror, putting on lip gloss. She turned and smiled. “Hey, Savannah.”

  I walked over to the mirror and stood beside her. I stared into the mirror at her reflection. “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  “About what?” she asked.

  “About Jamal.”

  “What about him?”

  “His girlfriend, Gina, is my best friend. We used to go to the Cartwright School together. Have you ever heard of that school?”

  “Not really,” Emako replied.

  “It’s in Beverly Hills.”

  “Oh.”

  “Gina’s father is a judge.”

  “What’s that got to do with Jamal?”

  “I see him tryin’ to be all up on you. But I suppose you’re used to that.”

  “Ain’t nuthin’.”

  “Anyway, Jamal and Gina been together for two years. Real tight. And sometimes Jamal tries to be a player. But he always gets back with Gina when he’s finished with his little chicken heads.”

  “I’m not a little chicken head.”

  “I know that, and that’s why I wanted to let you know. So you won’t get your feelings hurt. I’m just tryin’ to be nice.” I gave her my most sincere look, hoping she would swallow it.

  Emako turned away from the mirror and looked me in the face. “I’ll remember that.”

  Eddie

  When I got to the church, I started looking for the holy water. Then I remembered that it wasn’t a Catholic church. I made the sign of the cross anyway.

  There were plenty of people everywhere and by the time I found a seat, the minister had already started talking. Someone put a hand on my shoulder and I turned around and stared into Monterey’s bloodshot eyes. She squeezed my hand and I watched the tears roll down her cheeks, but I kept my tears. I stayed strong. Strong.

  I let go of her and looked forward, listening to the minister’s words. Sobs and moans were coming from everywhere. Sorrow floated through the air.

  I pictured Emako with angel’s wings, flying through the church like she was happy. I know it wasn’t right, but I started to smile. You have to understand. She sang like a pájarito, like a bird.

  I had been in the chorus last year. We’d do these concerts at Christmas, and Mr. Santos was teaching us to read music. He was cool and I liked to sing. Besides, I thought it would look good on my transcripts.

  The first time I saw Emako, I thought she looked good, but I was always shy around girls like her.

  The one I really wanted to talk to was her friend Monterey. I thought she was cute, but every time I said something to her, she acted nervous.

  One day I tried to talk to Monterey after practice. She was standing beside Emako.

  “Hey, Eddie,” Emako said.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  Monterey grinned at me without showing her braces, but she didn’t say anything, so I said to Emako, “You have a fantastic voice.”

  “Thanks,” was her reply. She gave me a funny look and I hoped she didn’t think I was trying to come on to her.


  Monterey just stared at me.

  “And you too, Monterey. You have a good voice too,” I added.

  Monterey remained silent.

  “See ya,” I said, and turned to go.

  “Peace,” was their reply.

  I caught my bus just as it was pulling away from the curb, and sat down for the long ride home. I thought about Monterey and wondered if she would ever talk to me. She seemed even more shy than me. Maybe I should ask her for her phone number. What if she said no?

  I shook my head. I had more important things to think about. It was my senior year and I couldn’t wait to graduate. I had gone to summer school three years in a row to graduate early.

  I couldn’t wait for my future to become my present, for the present to become my past.

  I couldn’t wait to be in college and away from the streets that had taught me to watch my back, day and night, the streets that had caught my only brother, Tomas.

  Tomas.

  He was incarcerated.

  His body was covered with jailhouse tats.

  Me, I was clean, the joy of my mother, my father’s hope.

  The bus came to a stop and some loud kids from middle school stumbled down the aisle and sat down. I gazed out of the window as the bus began to crawl through streets cluttered with cars, horns honking, women holding the hands of children who could barely walk, pulling them across the streets, lights turning red, orange hands flashing DON’T WALK, sidewalks buckled, gray concrete pushed up by the roots of rebellious trees. An ambulance screamed by and the bus stopped. I thought about Monterey again and smiled because she was kind of shy, like me. Then a car backfired and I jumped. L.A. was making me nervous.

  “Hortensia?” I called when I got in the house.

  “What?” my baby sister yelled from her room.

  “Just checking,” I said.

  She peeked through her door. She was little and pretty, like my mother. “Checking what?”

  “To make sure you’re okay,” I replied.

  “You worry too much. Like it’s your job to worry. You need to get a new job.”

  “Shut up. You’re only saying that because you heard Mom say it,” I said.

  “It’s true,” she said, and closed the door to her room.

  I looked in the refrigerator. “You want something to eat?” I yelled.

  “No!”

  I glanced up at the clock. My mother will walk through the door any minute, I thought, and then she will wash her hands and start to cook. The house will start to smell good.

  I closed the refrigerator and checked the mail. There was another letter from Tomas. That meant tonight my mother would read it and cry. I took the letter into my room and put it in a drawer. I didn’t want her to see it. I was getting tired of her tears for Tomas.

  Monterey

  Emako and I were getting tighter and tighter. At least once a week she was at my house or I was at hers, and we always ate lunch together.

  The day before Thanksgiving, I was standing at my locker when Emako grabbed my arm.

  “You comin’ with me!” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Where?”

  “To Melrose.”

  “On the bus?”

  “Yeah, on the bus.”

  “I havta call my daddy,” I said, loading my backpack with books.

  “I’ll be outside,” she said, and began to walk away. She stopped and turned around. “It’s vacation, Monterey. What’s with all the books?”

  “I gotta study.”

  “Ain’t it a shame,” she said, waving her empty backpack.

  I stopped at the pay phone and called my daddy to tell him, really to ask him.

  “Yes, I have enough money for a taxi if it gets too dark. . . . Yes, it would be a good idea if I had my own cell phone for emergencies. . . . Yes, I remembered to bring home my books to study.” He was getting on my nerves.

  We got off the bus and strolled down Melrose, passing shops where they sell see-through bell-bottoms and thong bikinis, and my eyes were wide open like a tourist’s. A transvestite passed us wearing six-inch silver heels, a skintight lime-green spandex dress, a waist-length red wig, and rhinestone earrings. We laughed ourselves into a small jewelry shop.

  I picked up a bracelet with little dangling moons and stars. “This is dope, huh?”

  “Yeah, it’s kinda sweet,” Emako said, looking at the tiny price tag. “Thirty-five dollars,” she said, squinting.

  I put down the bracelet, opened my wallet, and counted my money. “I only have twenty dollars,” I said.

  Emako counted her money. “I only have nine dollars.”

  I looked at the bracelet once more. “Maybe it’ll still be here the next time we come.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she replied.

  We went back onto the street just as two tattooed men went by, both wearing leather vests and spiked blue hair.

  “Freaky, huh?” Emako said.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  We kept going down Melrose until Emako stopped in front of Johnny Rockets. “You ever eat in there?” Emako asked.

  “No,” I replied. “You?”

  “No,” she answered. “You hungry?”

  I looked at her and smiled. “Yeah.”

  We strutted in, sat down in a window booth, and I felt like I was grown.

  That Saturday, Emako and I were sitting in my room, listening to CDs.

  My daddy knocked on the door. “What kind of pizza do you kids want?”

  I looked over at Emako, who shrugged her shoulders.

  I replied, “Thin crust, pepperoni and sausage, no tomatoes, and some Mountain Dew . . . and we’re not kids, Daddy,” I added.

  “Sorry,” he said through the cracked-open door.

  Emako picked up a copy of Vibe magazine. She held it up in front of me and pointed to a picture of a handsome brother. “He kinda looks like Jamal, huh?”

  “Kinda,” I said, and turned on the TV. “So, what’s up with you and Jamal anyway?”

  Emako fixed her eyes on me and hesitated, as if there were a right or wrong answer.

  “I know you are not tryin’ to get in my bizness, Monterey,” she replied.

  “I sure am,” I said.

  “That’s only becuz you don’t have no bizness of your own to be in.” Emako laughed.

  “You ain’t funny. That’s okay, Emako, go ahead and laugh, but it’s Saturday night and here you are, sittin’ up in here with me, getting ready to eat take-out pizza. So, like I said, what’s up with you and Jamal?”

  “Ain’t nuthin’ ro-man-tic. Besides, he has this girlfriend who goes to private school and lives in the hills and, according to Savannah, him and . . . Gina—that’s her name—are wrapped up too tight. At least that’s what Savannah tells me. She says she doesn’t want my feelin’s hurt.”

  “Why is Savannah all up in your life?”

  “She said she was just tryin’ to be nice.”

  “Savannah ain’t nice. Even I know that,” I replied.

  “I know, but I kinda feel sorry for her,” Emako said.

  “Why?”

  “Savannah don’t seem very happy. You know . . . like, she never smiles or laughs.”

  “If I looked like her, I wouldn’t be smilin’ either. . . . Savannah is too ugly,” I said, and changed the channel to BET, Rap City. Busta Rhymes was out of control. I got up to dance.

  “Sit down, Monterey. You dance like a white girl.”

  “Hey!” I said. “Why you wanna diss me like that?”

  “I’m just clownin’ with you,” Emako said.

  I sat back down and turned the channel to MTV. “What you doin’ tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Drivin’ up to Wayside to see my brother Dante. It’s visitin’ day. Once a month we go up there, sit around for a few hours, talkin’ and laughin’. Don’t misunderstand me. It ain’t like some picnic in the park, but Mama misses him.” Emako looked down. “When he first got sent there, I used to tell everyone that
he went to Kansas to stay with my auntie, but everybody knew that I was lyin’. They knew where he really was. Besides, we don’t even know nobody in Kansas. So I just started telling the truth. ‘He’s at Wayside. ’ I figured that if anyone had a problem with that, then I had a problem with them.”

  “What’d he do?” I asked.

  “Gangbangin’, ballin’, got busted for dealin’ dope and carryin’ a concealed weapon and got two years. I figure he’s better off there. If he was still home with my mama, he’d be in the ground. Mama said he’s gonna get rehabilitated. She thinks he’s gonna get out, go to some trade school, learn to be a plumber or something, and his past is gonna stop following him around, but I know it won’t. Boys round our block won’t let it. He’s in too deep, so I know that he’s just gonna get out and get shot or sent up again. Dante . . . he’s got bad karma.”

  We stopped talking and watched television for a while.

  My daddy knocked. “Pizza’s here.”

  We sat down on the floor and opened the pizza box.

  “I got a job at Burger King. I start next week.” Emako smiled as she picked up a can of Mountain Dew.

  “For real?” I asked.

  “Yeah, for real . . . the BK that’s right around the corner from my house. I put in a application at Popeye’s Chicken too, but they wouldn’t hire me because I didn’t have no experience. Can you believe that? I spoze it’s easier to learn to fry hamburgers than chicken. Anyway, it’ll feel good to start putting a little change in my mama’s pocket. She’s been strugglin’ since my daddy left.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone,” Emako replied.

  “Gone where?”

  “Just gone, Monterey. Been gone so long, my mama calls him Been Gone Bobby Blue. I think he’s dead, but my mama said no. She said he’s just another invisible man who knows how to get lost and stay lost unless he smells money. Then you turn around and see him walking down the street toward the house, wearing a suit, smilin’ like he just got back from a vacation in Hawaii. And then, when the money runs out, he’s gone again.”

  I looked down at my pizza. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Why you gotta look so sad? It ain’t the end of my world. Besides, you wait and see. When I’m famous and livin’ large, he’ll show up with his hand out, ready to be my daddy, and you know what?”