Behind Officer Barlowe’s back, JJ is mouthing the words, “What the fuck?” which are my sentiments exactly, but I just shake my head.
“What? A Japanese girl and you’ve never been to Gombei? Now, that’s a crime. It’s very authentic. One of the original restaurants in Japantown. They even have tatami mats for you to sit on—gotta take off your shoes and everything.”
“Oh.”
“So, Sana.” The cop looks closely at my face. “You look like a good kid. You get good grades?”
Wait—what? I nod.
“Straight As, I bet?”
“Um, mostly. I’m getting a B in trig.” B minus, actually, but I figure it’s best to round up.
“So what are you doing here with this bunch? You don’t look like you belong with them. They your friends?” My mouth opens and closes. And opens and closes again.
“She’s my girlfriend,” Jamie announces, and puts her arm around my shoulder. Oh, no.
Now Officer Barlowe laughs. “Ohhhh, I see how it is.” He addresses me again. “Do your parents know what kind of, ah, girl you’re dating?” I nod. It’s not exactly a lie. Mom knows Jamie, right?
“Do they know where you are?”
“They know I’m with her right now.” Which is also not a lie, so please, please, please don’t let him call Mom and Dad.
Now he nods slowly, as if making up his mind. “I’m gonna let you and your friends go because you look like a good kid and I don’t want you to get in trouble. But you need to find yourself a new . . .” He grins and winks at me. “. . . girlfriend, young lady. You keep hanging out with these kids, they’ll drag you down, and I won’t let you off so easy next time. But there’s not gonna be a next time, right?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“You gonna get yourself a new girlfriend? And a better crowd to hang out with?”
What am I going to say—No? And openly defy a police officer? But I can’t exactly say yes in front of Jamie and everyone, can I? I look at my feet as the gears spin wildly in my head.
Finally, Officer Barlowe rescues me. “Ah, you don’t need to answer, I’m just givin’ you a hard time. Making sure you’re more careful in the future. Making sure all of you are more careful in the future.” He looks hard at JJ, Arturo, Christina, and Jamie.
Christina stares back blankly (she’s good at that), and JJ shrugs and looks away, but Arturo nods and says, “Yes, sir, officer. Thank you.” He sticks out his hand to shake once more.
Officer Barlowe narrows his eyes and shakes Arturo’s hand. “Adios, primo.”
As he walks away, Arturo mutters, “I’m not your primo.”
Christina lets out a nervous giggle and says, “Ave Maria Madre Purissima, I thought we were dead!” Then she turns to JJ and says, “I told you not to try that fake ID. I told you we’d get in trouble.”
JJ laughs and says, “Jeezus, calm down! No one got in trouble. Let it go! Why you gotta be such an old lady all the time?”
Christina clicks her tongue—tsk—and fixes JJ with that icy stare that I’ve come to know so well. “You’ve got nothing on the line, but I’ve got a job, Arturo’s got a job, Jamie’s got her whole future. You could’ve flushed her whole fucking future down the toilet, JJ, and you don’t even care. So shut up and think about someone besides yourself for once.”
JJ scowls at her but doesn’t say anything—just gets in the back seat of the car and slams the door shut.
Arturo whistles, long and low. “Well, okay then,” he says, and gets in the driver’s seat, leaving Jamie, me, and Christina standing outside the car.
In the silence Jamie says, “Christina, I don’t need you to protect me.”
“Yeah, well. Someone has to,” she replies, and for the briefest of moments, her eyes meet mine and I get the feeling I’ve failed some kind of test.
Jamie must feel it, too, because she glances at me before saying, “No, they don’t. And there’s no guarantee I’m gonna get in, anyway, so just—”
“Other people might not understand what it means to you, but I do.” Another significant look at me. Then she ducks into the passenger seat and slams the door, hard.
Jamie looks at me apologetically. I don’t know what to do—Christina’s such tricky territory—so I say, “It’s okay,” even though it’s not really.
After a couple minutes of awkward silence in the car, JJ says to no one in particular, “Just because we’re Mexican, bruh. That’s it. Just because I’m wearing a hoodie and I got brown skin. That’s fucked up.”
“You don’t think the clerk called the cop because of your ID?” I venture.
“Nah. As far as he knows, we left right afterward.” JJ has a point. And that cop didn’t even pull into the lot until after JJ had given up asking other people. “Anyways,” he continues, “remember the time that security guard questioned me, and all I was doing was buying diapers for Mateo? And I was wearing my nice button-down shirt ’cause it was after church, so you can’t blame it on a hoodie, either. It’s who I am, not what I’m wearing or what I’m doing.”
“We all know why he came over,” says Arturo. “Just be glad it ended okay.”
“Yeah, good thing Sana came along,” Christina says. “It could’ve been worse if you weren’t with us, with your sushi and your Tokyo and all that. Did you see how nice he was to you?”
“She’s our Asian good-luck charm,” Arturo quips. “You gotta come out with us more often.” I smile weakly. No, thanks. No way I’m risking getting stopped by cops again.
“She’s not that lucky, bruh. I didn’t get my beer,” says JJ.
“Shut up, JJ. No one bought you beer because you look like a thirteen-year-old with that sad little mustache,” Christina snickers.
They go back and forth like this until we turn off Bowers Avenue and into the neighborhood, and Jamie asks Arturo to drop us off at home.
Arturo says with a grin, “Yeah, I see how it is. You two need some”—he puts up air quotes—“alone time.”
“Shut up,” says Jamie, but she’s smiling.
I, of course, say nothing.
When we get back into the apartment, Jamie wraps her arms around me and presses her forehead against mine. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I was kinda hoping it would be a little different with them tonight. I mean, we don’t usually get harassed by asshole cops.”
“It was . . . an adventure,” I say.
Jamie lifts her shoulders and shakes her head. Then she says, “It was going okay until then, though, right? Did you like hanging out with everyone? Aren’t JJ and Christina a trip?”
If anything, tonight’s experience has left me feeling even more uncomfortable than before, and not just because of the cop. But Jamie looks so hopeful, and I know how much she wants me and Christina to like each other, so I say, “Yeah. I did.”
Apparently I’m not very convincing, because she looks carefully at my face. “You sure?”
“Hey, let’s not talk about this anymore.” I kiss her. “Everything’s fine.” I kiss her again. “I promise.” And again.
Success. We don’t talk about it again for the rest of the time I’m at her house.
25