Emako Blue

Jamal gives Eddie a ride to the cemetery, even though he wants to be alone. They do not speak to one another in the twenty-minute ride to the cemetery, and Jamal is grateful to be alone with his thoughts. When they arrive at the cemetery, Jamal walks over to Verna and takes her hand. She gathers Jamal in her arms and whispers, “She was a good girl, wasn’t she?” (109). Jamal agrees that Emako was. Jamal stands apart from the crowd as Emako’s casket descends. He takes a white rose from a woman handing them out and tosses it into her grave, whispering goodbye.

Marcel, Emako’s brother, greets Jamal. Jamal asks how he is doing, and Marcel tells him that he is scared to go back to their house because people keep saying that the rival gang is going to come back looking for Dante. He reveals that he and Latrice are going to live with an aunt in San Diego. Jamal puts a hand on Marcel’s shoulder and tells him to stay out of trouble.

Eddie takes in the views as Jamal drives them to the cemetery but feels guilty for noticing the world’s beauty at a time like this. He wants to tell Jamal that this is all a bad dream and that at any moment Emako will wake up. At the cemetery, Eddie walks up the hill to Emako’s casket. He finds Monterey and hugs her for a long time and lets himself begin to cry.

Savannah’s mother is late picking her up at the church after the funeral, so she calls her. When her mother answers, she tells her that she is still at the salon and that she will be there shortly. The parking lot of the church continues to clear out and a man with bloodshot eyes approaches Savannah, asking for spare change. She hands him 10 dollars, and he thanks her, ambling away.

When Savannah’s mother arrives, she asks her if she wants to go to the cemetery. Savannah declines, and her mother asks if she wants to go shopping instead, which Savannah also declines. She asks to go home. On the ride, Savannah’s mother talks about the community: “What these people need are jobs, jobs and education” (114). Savannah resists the urge to yell at her mother to shut up and goes right to bed when she gets home.

Gina calls her, asking if Jamal was at the funeral. She also asks if Emako looked good in her casket, and Savannah tells her that she cannot believe she would ask her something like that, but that yes, Emako did look good. She tells Gina to call her back later and hangs up.

Savannah wakes up to the sound of rain on the roof and thinks about how scared Emako must have felt in her last moments. She thinks about how kind, talented people like Emako are bullied by people like her and realizes that she is going to have to live with how she treated Emako for the rest of her life. Savannah’s mother comes in and sits on the bed. She asks Savannah if she wants to talk, and Savannah, shocked, admits that she does.

As it begins to rain, people begin to leave the cemetery. Jamal sees Eddie and offers to give him a ride home. As they walk to the car, Jamal states that he still cannot believe this is all real and Eddie agrees. Jamal shares that he thought he and Emako were going to get serious about their relationship. When he first met Emako, he was still a player interested in dating many girls at once and none too seriously. He says, “all of a sudden, I started lovin’ her. Now it feels like someone took a bat to my heart and beat the hell out of it” (118). Jamal takes the long way home to Eddie’s house. They say goodbye, and Eddie stands in the rain as Jamal drives off. Jamal drives back to the cemetery, playing the Aaliyah CD he and Emako listened to together. Everyone is gone when he reaches the cemetery, and he goes to her grave, sits next to it, and cries.

Eddie watches Jamal drive away before going inside. Hortensia greets him, and Eddie startles as she drops the remote. Loud sounds are now a trigger for Eddie’s anxiety. Eddie thinks about how if “they got Emako, maybe they would get me too” (121). He hopes that Tomas stays incarcerated, not wanting him to bring danger to his family upon his release.

Hortensia enters Eddie’s room and says that she is sorry about his friend, and Eddie wonders what will happen to her when he leaves for college. He resolves to make his parents promise to never let Tomas move back home. He pulls out Monterey’s phone number, still in his wallet, and thinks that Arizona is not that far away.

As the crowd scatters at the cemetery, Monterey approaches Verna and apologizes for her loss. Verna asks if Monterey and her parents plan to come to the house after the cemetery for food, but Monterey says that she cannot, not wanting to go back to the place where her best friend died.

Monterey and her parents return to their, car and her mother tells her that she needs to change out of her wet clothes as soon as possible. She pulls a blanket out of the trunk and begins to place it over Monterey. Monterey recoils and says that she is not a baby anymore and can do it herself. Her father agrees, saying that she is not a child anymore, but he tells her to put her seatbelt on.

As they drive home, Monterey thinks about how she does not want Emako to be gone; she wants them to continue to grow up together, and she wants to see Emako become famous.