Emako Blue Read Online Free PDF Page A

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