I keep walking. Don’t look back.
When I get on the bus, it is fuller than I expected it to be. I want to eat, but I decide to wait. Who wants to see a big girl eating fries and a burger on a bus? By the time I am home, my fries are cold, but the burger is still good. I don’t throw the bag away. I’m going to use it tonight. Tear it up and make it into something. Maybe a dress for a girl more confident than I am, who doesn’t feel insecure about eating whatever she wants in public. Maybe I’ll morph it into a crown for the queen Dad says I am.
25
llamar
to name
The crown is in the center. It is not a princess crown. Not dainty and sweet. In the background, the names he could have called me emerge:
Hija
Amiga
Erudita
Artista
So?ador
. . .
Daughter
Friend
Scholar
Artist
Dreamer
26
el barrio
the neighborhood
“Okay, so tell me again: what stop do I get off at?” Sam asks.
I repeat the directions to her, part of me not believing she’s really coming. After the fuss her grandma gave, I never thought she’d go anywhere past Lombard and MLK.
“Can you meet me at the bus stop? I told my grandparents you’d meet me and walk me back.”
I want to say no. I want to say, If you don’t feel safe coming to my house, then don’t come. But instead I say, “Sure,” because I know Sam really wants to come and I know she wouldn’t be so scared if her grandma hadn’t polluted her mind with all those stories.
I time the ride and leave to meet Sam. I zip my jacket, pull my hood over my head. October is gone and November has settled in. Not a lot of rain this month, but cloudy, cold, and gray, always.
Sam is not on the first bus, and for one moment—just one—I think, What if something happened to her? The whole story plays out in my mind—she will be on the news every day because she is a white girl and white girls who go missing always make the news. I will volunteer and join the other searchers. We will search all the many places a body could be. Cathedral Park. Some hidden bush under the St. John’s bridge. For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers. And it will be a tragedy only because Sam died in a place she didn’t really belong to. No one will speak of the black and Latino girls who die here, who are from here.
A bus screeches to a stop. I swallow those thoughts, watch the passengers exit the bus, and then I see Sam getting off at the back, smiling her Sam-smile.
We walk to Frank’s. “Jade, my friend, where have you been?” Frank asks. He grabs the silver tongs and begins putting JoJos into a small white bag. I can tell he just made them. The potato wedges have that crisp, golden look that I like. He throws a few packets of ketchup in the bag.
“I’ve been busy with school,” I tell him. “By the time I come home, you’re closed.”
“That’s good, that’s good,” he says. He begins putting chicken wings into another white bag. “Four?”
“Yes, please.”
He nods and puts in a few extra.
Sam walks over to the aisle of chips.
Frank whispers, “How you liking it out there with all them white folks?”
“It’s all right,” I tell him.
“Good, good.”
Sam returns with a bag of Doritos. I hand them to Frank and give him money. He waves his hand in the air. “It’s on the house today,” he says. “Tell your mom I said hello. Haven’t seen her in a while either.”
“I will,” I say. “Thanks for this.” I take the food and walk away. As I’m going out the door, Lee Lee is coming in. “I just left your house. E.J. said you should be back soon,” she says. She reaches out to hug me. I hug her back and smell the hair grease and the fruity lotion she uses all in one. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Lee Lee says.
“I know. I came by the other night, but you weren’t home,” I tell her.
“Don’t even try to put this on me. You’re the one who has to take a canoe, a plane, and a bus to school. If you would be regular, I’d be seeing you every day.” Lee Lee barely gets her joke out, she’s laughing so hard. Then she finally notices that I am not alone, and she pulls her laugh in.
“This is Sam,” I tell her.
“Finally!” Lee Lee opens her arms wide like she’s known Sam forever. They hug. She’s good with anybody who’s good with me and vice versa.
“Nice to meet you,” Sam says.
“What are you two about to do?” Lee Lee asks.
“Nothing. Just going back to my house.”
Lee Lee walks the aisles and gets a candy bar and a soda. After she pays, we walk out together. “You want to go to Andrea’s? Kobe is there,” she says. Lee Lee and Andrea are cousins. They’ve lived together since we were in middle school, but Lee Lee always calls it Andrea’s house. Kobe is their cousin too. He might as well live there. Every time I go over, he’s there or on his way or just leaving.
Sam and I eat the JoJos on the way. Lee Lee gulps her soda. When we get to Andrea’s house, her mom points toward the door at the end of a long hallway. “They in there,” she says. Andrea and Kobe are in her bedroom, listening to music. When they see me, they start screaming like I’m some celebrity or something.
“Jade!” Andrea is the first one to hug me. She is wearing jeans and a shirt, but somehow she still looks stylish. Her makeup is flawless—foundation, eye shadow, mascara, lip gloss. Her weave is long. A mixture of blond and brown wavy hair. Andrea holds on to me, and when she lets go, she asks, “Where have you been?”
“She’s been handling her business!” Kobe says. He kisses me on both cheeks. “How’s my girl?” he asks.
“I’m good, Kobe. How are you?”
“Girl, you know me—I stay fabulous,” he says. “And who do we have here?” He looks Sam up and down.
“This is my friend Sam. She goes to my school.”