Silence.
No, wait. If I listen closely, I can hear the sound of nails being pounded into my coffin.
“I look like a thug?” Christina says finally. “I act like a thug?”
See? This is why I keep my mouth shut—things never come out the way I mean them. I hear how messed up my words are, how horrible I sound, but it’s like I can’t stop them. The words just keep coming, like ants out of a flooded anthill. “I didn’t say that you are a criminal, I didn’t say it was okay for people to judge you! I just said—”
“Yeah, I know,” says Christina, “I heard you. You said no wonder your mom doesn’t want you to hang out with us, because we act like thugs. Fine. Leave. I’m done with you. Get out of my sight before I punch your face in.”
Wisely, I decide it’s best not to point out to Christina the deep irony of her last sentence. Then I realize that I’m shaking. I look at Jamie for help, but she just takes my hand and leads me away.
Once we’re out of earshot, Jamie turns to me. “What the fuck was that?”
I stare at her, confused. “Huh?”
“What. The fuck. Was that. What’s wrong with you?”
Then it sinks in. She thinks that mess we just left is my fault. And that pisses me off. “What’s wrong with me? They’re the ones who attacked me. All I did was back you up. Didn’t you just tell JJ that he had to act against stereotype? Didn’t Arturo just call him lazy? Just because I said it and not you, just because I’m Asian and not Mexican. Like I haven’t experienced racism. Like they’re not racist. Where does Christina get off calling me a loser nerd just because I’m Asian? She never liked me.” Which is true. “And it’s because I’m Asian.” Which might be true.
Jamie looks back at Christina, then at me. “She didn’t trust you at first because she didn’t want me to get hurt. But now, yeah. It’s about more than that. Why should she trust you?” You don’t trust her. You’re . . . biased. Because you think she’s too ‘Mexican’—no, it’s true. Admit it.”
“She just said she was going to punch me in the face.”
“She was being ironic.”
“It didn’t sound that way to me.”
“That’s because you’re afraid of her. And for no good reason.”
“I’m not afraid of her.” Okay, I might be, a little bit. But is that because she’s Mexican, or is it because she puts me down all the time? I’m not racist, am I? How do I untangle all these threads? “Anyway, how come it’s okay for you and Arturo to say that JJ needs to work harder, but not okay for me to say it? That’s messed up.”
Jamie’s jaw tightens and she gazes at me and says, “Because Arturo and I have been friends with JJ since kindergarten. We know that he’s a good person and a sweet big brother. We know that he loves Star Wars and that he used to love school. We know that he got picked out of the audience to do some acting thing this one time at an assembly in elementary school, and people gave him a standing ovation. Not just to be nice, but because he was so good. But his parents won’t pay for classes or let him take theater at school because they don’t want him to be an actor. We know all of that. So we get to say whatever we want. You’re not allowed because you’ve known him for a couple of months and you think he’s a lazy Mexican. You think he’s a loser. You basically said he’s a criminal.”
“I did not.”
“You said he looks and acts like a thug. Same thing.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—how can your friends expect people to treat them like individuals if they dress like stereotypes?”
“The same reason you expect to be treated like an individual even though you look like a stereotype.”
“I don’t look like a stereotype.”
“No makeup. No jewelry. No nail polish. Conservative clothes. Big heavy backpack. You’re a total stereotype.”
This takes me aback a little, but I’m not giving up. “Yeah, and Christina treats me like one.”
“She calls me a loser nerd, too, you know.”
“I know. But with me, it was different. She was totally talking about me being Asian.”
Jamie looks like she’s going to argue, but she stops herself. “Yeah, I know. I never said it was right.”
“Your friends think I’m not good enough for them.”
She doesn’t say anything. Just starts walking again.
Then she stops and says, “No. You think they’re not good enough for you.”
“That’s not true.”
“You know, Christina’s as smart as anyone in the Honors program. The only reason she’s not in it is because she missed the application deadline in eighth grade. I missed it, too, but I got lucky because my mom went to the office and fought for me.”
“School has nothing to do with it.”
“I bet if she was in Honors classes you’d have given her a chance.”
“Yeah, and if I wasn’t in Honors classes, or if I was Mexican, she’d have given me a chance. I mean, JJ’s failing math, and we get along. Anyway, my point is they don’t want you to hang out with me.”
“My point is, maybe that’s because you don’t want to hang out with them. And don’t forget your friends don’t want you to hang out with them, either.”
“Yeah, but I still am. I’m still trying.”
“I know. But they are, too. Christina is. She really is.” She lets out a long breath and looks back at JJ, Arturo, and Christina. “Maybe we shouldn’t hang out this weekend, after all. I’ll just go home with them after school today, and I’ll spend some, like, quality time with them over the weekend after the invitational, and I’ll talk to them, and it’ll be all good next week. I promise. ’Kay?”
“Um. Okay.” What else can I say? But there’s still a part of me that feels like things aren’t quite fair. “I just wish I could explain that I didn’t mean what I said in a racist way.”
A shadow passes over Jamie’s face. “I’ll tell them you didn’t mean it. But . . . maybe you could think about it from their point of view. ’Cause it’s—it’s kind of my point of view, too.”
That knocks the wind out of me a bit. I hadn’t thought about it that way. I don’t know why.
“Can you just try? For me?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” She takes my hand and laces her fingers through mine.
A warm glow flickers somewhere inside me and radiates through my body, and I can feel a sort of bashful, lovestruck smile spread across my face.
Jamie’s got the same smile on her face, and it looks like she’s really hoping I’ll kiss her, and I really want to, and think I might be able to screw up the courage to do it, but at that moment Caleb and his friends come clomping around the corner in their big boots. So I drop Jamie’s hand and back up a step instead. “So, okay,” I say, “we’ll hang out next week.”
26