One Thing About Blue by Maureen O’Leary
One thing about Blue, she always had a scheme. The summer after high school I drove a van she got from her cousin who we just called Cousin. Blue got Cousin to take out seats and cut a hole in the floor so I could drive over the metal circle thing at gas stations. I drove and Cousin unscrewed the bolts to siphon diesel. We got the job done six times and Blue knew a guy who drove his own long-haul truck to sell gas to, so there was money to be made. That’s something Blue liked to say.
I was afraid of Cousin because he was big and grumpy, but he didn’t talk much. I wasn’t supposed to drive but Blue said I was smarter than people thought and taught me how, so I became our driver. Nobody suspected me bumping over the metal thing in the middle of the night except for the sleepy-looking man who worked at the 7-Eleven on Broadway in Tahoe Park. He called the police.
Me and Cousin served the time. Blue made the money. I went to County for eighteen months and that’s where I got caught in the middle of a bad fight one time and ended up with a ruined face.
Mr. Cox who was my teacher visited right before I got out. I looked messed up compared to before and his eyes wobbled when he first saw me. He had on a nice shirt and I bet his shoes were shined. Mr. Cox always dressed like he was headed somewhere better than room 32, which was where the special-ed kids learned. I felt sorry for him sitting there with a phone to his ear and his red face and his ironed shirt. He liked showing PowerPoints of his vacations. There was a picture of him and his wife at the Grand Canyon and he told us that every year somebody got too close to the edge and fell off because the canyon could hypnotize you if you weren’t careful. He also said he got to go to fun places because he worked hard. He said, I work hard and so should you.
He held the phone thing away like he was afraid his lips might touch the plastic. He asked me how I was.
My shirt was not ironed. My shirt was orange and white stripes and I would never enjoy a Creamsicle again in the summertime, I will tell you. The color orange made my teeth hurt forever after two years of that’s all I got to wear.
I said I was going home to my mom in Oak Park and he said he gave my name for a job cleaning classrooms at the charter high school there.
You can’t be haunted by the past, Georgia, he said, and wouldn’t look me too long in the face. He said the most important thing was hard work.
Cutting the circle hole in the bottom of the van was hard work. Sparks flew everywhere. Driving so the hole in the van matched the circle in the ground was hard work. But he didn’t need to know all that.
Mr. Cox told me to remember I had a disordered brain. Whenever I thought I found a shortcut, I had to remember it was going to be a disordered shortcut. Period.
Mr. Cox was a nice man. Not a creeper. Nice dresser. Worked hard. Always visited his former students when they were about to get out of jail.
My first night at the charter-school job, I didn’t recognize Blue. I went in to the office and there was a lady standing at the copier, the machine’s light going back and forth.
She collected the papers and smiled like she knew something about me. Her hair was blond and in a twist. She also smelled like a whole other person than last time I saw her at Cousin’s house in West Sac. Back then her perfume was diesel and french fry grease and her hair was black. Back then she wore Dickies and men’s undershirts and a ball cap from Mobil gas. This lady looked like the waitress in the steak restaurant my mom took me to after I got out to celebrate. But this was still Blue. Same face. I would know her no matter what.
I said, I didn’t know you worked here, and she smiled without showing any teeth and didn’t say anything about my face. She didn’t like her teeth because of the gap in the middle, though when we were kids I made her laugh so she couldn’t help showing the gap. I loved her teeth.
What I mean to say is I can only tell what happened the best I can, but do not think I will say a word against Blue.
I was supposed to empty trash and dry-mop the floors in the classrooms, yet Blue said no. She told Mr. Cox that there was an opening for a janitor so he would not ask questions, but there was more to the job. There was money to be made.
My neck got hot because I hated fighting with Blue. I wasn’t mad about my time inside. I made the choice to drive the van. She didn’t force me. I never wanted her to suffer same as me. But I didn’t want to do her schemes anymore either. I didn’t want to get in trouble ever again.
Then she proved herself by showing me the empty rooms with no desks, no garbage cans to dump out, nothing but shiny floors. In the office we ordered clothes for me off Amazon using the school’s account. Pencil skirts and high-heel shoes. Button shirts like a steakhouse waitress. Blue gave me an envelope of cash and told me I should deposit the money in a bank. She said I needed to be smart and put my pay in a checking account I could look at online.
Then we went to her apartment in Midtown and she cut off my split ends and dyed my hair blond same as her. After she rinsed out the bleach, she held my head and made me look at us in the mirror side by side, her jaw square and whole, the side of my face looking like I fell into a wall. When I tried to look down, she held me tighter and forced me to look.
You are beautiful, she said. You are smart.
Her long nails scraped the back of my head lightly when she used the blow dryer and her touch made me shiver and want to cry.
She said we had to change our names at the job. She was Bea Andersen. I was Jo Little. We used to call each other Bee and Geo, short for Blue and Georgia, when we were kids, so there would be no slipping.
We’re different people now, she said. So we must change our names at work.
Blue dropped me at home at midnight and my mom was waiting with the light on in her room. She worked at Costco and went to meetings four times a week so she got tired a lot. She called for me, lying on her side all tucked in.
She said I smelled funny. She asked who did that to my hair and I said Blue.
She sat up in bed. Please, Georgia, anybody but Blue. And she was crying. I patted her cheeks with my fingertips and I was sorry to make her cry. But Blue was a canyon I fell into just by standing near the edge. Explaining this would not be a comfort, so I said, I love you, Mom. I said, I promise I will stay free.
I went in a few more nights to dust-mop the already clean floors. I emptied the garbage in the office. The school was big and the classrooms were empty except one hallway had a few rooms with desks in rows, white boards, and signs on the walls saying Work Hard and No Excuses. The garbage cans never had trash. The boards never had writing.
Blue was a canyon I fell into just by standing near the edge.
On Friday, Blue gave me a bottle of Dior perfume and the clothes. She said she had an idea for us. Like she said, there was money. I would get paid way more but I could not tell anybody what we were doing. My ears got hot. I thought about my mom crying in bed. I wanted to go home.
The look on your face, Blue said. Girl. She put her arms around me and I was a baby bird made of light bones and skinny feathers. She was meaty. She smelled like particles and money. Her face was wet pressing against mine and the salt from her tears burned my skin.
Georgia, I owe you, Blue said. I will never hurt you again. Trust me.
I trust you, I said. But I didn’t.
I went to work at five o’clock the next day. I was Blue’s assistant and she didn’t want me to talk to anybody at the meeting. Me being her assistant made her seem like a boss and that was the important thing.
The lobby was big as a parking garage and there were three tables set up in a U around a screen. Blue was making the projector work with a clicker. You look good, she said. She sniffed me. Good perfume, she said. Not too much. Enough. You smell rich.
Her top was silky. Her nails were shiny as vanilla ice cream. She said to pretend to take notes. There was a man coming to the meeting. That is, there were many men coming to the meeting, but only one was important.
How would I know which one was important?
Blue said I would know.
The men were coming in. A wash of them in suits, ties, dress-up shoes that made noise on the concrete. This is the superintendent, Blue said. Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Lewis’s eyes were above me watching the door. This was not the important man. The important man was entering with a lady with short blond hair and a purple dress. Her heels clicked on the floor like Blue’s. Mr. Lewis greeted the important man who was tall and thin and wore a tie. He was dad age. Grandpa age. He moved like a dancer on television. He wasn’t dancing but he moved graceful. When the tall graceful man entered, the other men talked faster, their voices a hum of bees. I became dizzy.
Blue moved me to a seat by the short-hair lady. The important man shook hands with everybody. When he came to Blue, he leaned down to talk in her ear. I wondered what he said. His hand was on her back. She brought him to me.
I’m Jim Bell, he said. I shook his hand firm like my mom taught me. You must be Jo. Ms. Andersen speaks so highly of you.
That’s nice, I said.
The meeting started. Mr. Lewis was talking. The blond-hair lady whispered to me, Jim has a Purple Heart from Vietnam. He doesn’t like to talk about the war but I think people here should know. Jim is a hero.
Blue showed a video of kids in black polo shirts and tan pants walking into the school. In the lobby there were pictures of kids in black shirts sitting in front of computers and holding basketballs. I never saw these kids. These kids who made no mess, left no garbage, whose teachers never wrote on the whiteboards.
Mr. Lewis was saying the charter high school had the best graduation record for minority kids in the city. The kids in the video walked in slow motion across the lobby. I never saw their footprints when I swept at night.
We send more minority students to four-year colleges than any other school in Northern California. This was Blue now talking. The movie was over and there was a graph with a jagged line full of spikes and valleys. Mountains. Canyons.
The woman whispered next to my face, her breath minty fresh. She said, Jim is the kindest man I have ever known.
Blue said to come in the next day at four p.m. She said to sit at her desk and she would be back soon. I opened her laptop and researched Purple Heart. A medal for bravery. When Jim Bell told the meeting that he planned a substantial donation, the short-hair lady whispered to me, I told you so.
I researched Jim Bell. There was a Jim Bell who was a soccer player in England. The important Jim Bell was in charge of Bell Partners Developing.
A man came in looking mean, and when Mr. Lewis stepped out of his office the man asked where were the students and Mr. Lewis said to remember we were a year-round schedule and this was our fall break. They closed the door and there was stern talking. My head tingled like when people were fighting in jail. Something bad was happening and I was going to get stuck in the middle. I was going to get hit.
I was about to run out when Mr. Lewis banged the door open. He rushed me yelling questions.
What did you do with that permit? You said you filed the permit.
The man behind him shook his head like he couldn’t believe someone was as dumb as me. They were mad at me. My face bones hurt. I looked down at my hands.
Goddamnit, Ms. Andersen depended on you. I depended on you. This is unacceptable. There are legal repercussions to your mistake, Jo. We can only hope nothing comes of this. We can only pray to God that the city council decides to give us another chance. Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know?
I clutched my skirt to keep from shaking. I squeezed my eyes closed. The mad man left and nobody said goodbye. Mr. Lewis kept yelling at me. I saw purple hearts bursting.
Suddenly Mr. Lewis stopped yelling and I heard him step into the hall. I heard him go into his office again and close the door.
Blue came in carrying her purse and jacket. I’m fired now, I said. Maybe they will arrest me.
Blue said no and to get my stuff. We were going somewhere fun.
Normally I loved riding around in the front seat when Blue was driving. In high school she took me everywhere and we sang along to the radio. We drove over the Yolo Causeway sometimes because Blue liked to look at the owls that hid in the trees by a dirt road there. On the way back into Sacramento toward the tall buildings coming up out of the flat land, she liked to say that we were headed to the Emerald City, and whenever I was with Blue I could believe that we were.
In the car was where she explained things to me, such as who at school was nice and who was only pretending. Teachers to trust and teachers to avoid. But that night in the passenger seat of Blue’s car, the sun was setting and the sky was on pink fire and my stomach hurt from getting in trouble. My head hurt too and I said I felt like I was dying.
Oh baby bird, she said, I wish you didn’t feel that way.
She took me to Dutch Brothers for a blue drink, which made me feel better. Don’t spill, she said. After we drive, we are going to dinner with Jim.
We took a turn through the Delta by the river that was a broken mirror for the sky that held storm clouds purple as hearts.
This is haunted country, Blue said.
I shivered in the way only she could make me.
She explained things when we got back to town. We’re not supposed to have those kinds of meetings on public property, she said. Not without a permission slip.
I didn’t know, I said. I tried to remember a permission slip. My mom signed a permission slip for camp at Sly Park when I was in seventh grade. That was all I could think of.
There wasn’t one, Blue said. If we filed with the district, we would have had to say what the meeting was for and we can’t do that.
I didn’t know what she was talking about. The ice cubes rattled in my cup over a bump in the road. They sounded like cracked glass.
We pulled into a parking lot and went into a restaurant. White tablecloths. Candles. Blue said to the lady we were guests of Jim and she brought us to a table where Jim was. He shook my hand and kissed my cheek. I felt that kiss in my body, and even though he was as old as a grandpa, I wondered if he could like me.
Mr. Lewis sends his regrets, Blue said. You just have us tonight.
He told us he was delighted and that we should get what we wanted, and I looked at Blue, who laughed with her teeth out and said we would have steak and shrimp but first we needed red wine.
This is a good night, Jim said. The work you are doing with the charter is really something. You are changing the world. Gives me faith.
Blue touched his arm, her fingernails white beetles on his sleeve. She asked him if he knew how she met me. She said, I met Jo at the Sacramento Children’s Home. We were there together. Roommates. She laughed again.
I wiped my mouth. Ran my tongue over my teeth in case there was lettuce there from the salad. In our front room my mom kept a photo of me sleeping on a hospital bed, my bald head covered in a beanie and wires, tubes everywhere. To remind her to never drink again, she said. The red wine burned in my stomach, which was already having a rough day. Jim looked at me. I wondered, Why tell this to the important man? My mom got sent to jail after my brain was injured in her DUI. I didn’t like people knowing about me like that. I can hide better if people don’t know. I was wondering if maybe Jim could like me, but how could he like me now?
Blue touched my hand under the table where Jim couldn’t see. I studied hard and got into Berkeley, she said. I worked to pay my way through and I just want to pay that forward, you know? Give kids like me a chance.
My grandson just graduated from Berkeley, Jim said. I don’t suppose you would know him. It’s a big school. Franklin Bell?
Blue tapped her finger on her chin. She was thinking. Wait, she said. Alpha Delta Phi?
Jim smiled like he was the happiest man in the world.
Oh, he was way too cool for me, but I knew of him. Everyone knew of him. Great guy, Blue said. Really great guy.
He would be lucky to know you, Jim said. I don’t know what happened with your parents, but if you were my daughter, I would be very proud.
When Jim excused himself to the bathroom, I said to Blue, I didn’t know you went to Berkeley.
Oh Georgia, she said.
When he came back to the table, Jim wasn’t looking at me or caring anything about me. He was falling off the cliff of Blue. The air was filling his jacket. He was dropping through the sky.
When the bill came, Blue grabbed the leather folder thing. This is on me, she said. Your gift to the charter means the entire world to those kids. She blinked back tears, building diamonds on her mascara. I remembered Blue in a ball cap and undershirt in Cousin’s backyard off Jefferson Boulevard. We covered our ears as he cut a hole in the van big enough to siphon gas through. She taught me when there was money to be made.
She set her purse on the table and took out a pink wallet. My wallet. I looked down and there was my orange purse we bought on Amazon, open.
Jim tried to insist. Blue didn’t care. She signed my name on the bill. The money was everything in the account and more. I did not speak. I felt wind against my face. Jim’s blue eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled at me. We were both lost. And yet me, the one with the injured brain, I was the only one who knew it.
When I got home, my mom called me from her bedroom but I stopped for a minute to look at the pictures on the shelf. The school photos of when I was little with no front teeth and then up to junior high. In seventh grade I had a big smile because I didn’t know what was going to happen.
There’s one picture of me and Mom in our backyard and we are happy. That was right after she got out of jail and before I got arrested. There were no pictures of me since being in County but I knew what I looked like. I was broken to pieces in a jail-yard fight and glued back together by a jail infirmary doctor. I had a crescent-moon scar under my eye, and my right cheekbone was sunk so far in my face was crooked.
Sometimes I looked at the girl in the seventh-grade picture who wasn’t in the car wreck yet. She didn’t have an injured brain yet. She never took a disordered shortcut. What happened to you, girl in seventh grade? She was off at Berkeley, working her way through.
Mom was looking at a show on her iPad with earbuds. She took one out for me so I could watch too. Her body smelled like cinnamon. I rested my head in the soft part of her shoulder and watched that show she was into about bikers with a tough mom who is in charge of everybody.
I worry about you, my mom said into my hair. I remembered that my bank account was empty and my stomach hurt. My mom would be so pissed if she knew. I didn’t know why Blue wanted me to pay, but I couldn’t be mad. She didn’t force me.
Blue didn’t tell Jim Bell everything. She didn’t tell about how after Sacramento Children’s we landed in the same group home on 59th Street with windows that had locks but no bars. She didn’t tell about the nights we ran through the park, playing on the swings and singing our favorite songs to the moon.
I’m proud of you getting a job, but Blue is rotten, Mom said. I don’t trust her.
I was so tired. My head was full of static. There were gunshots in my right ear from the show and gunshots in my left ear from down the street.
Blue is mine, I said. You can’t take her away.
There is one more part to the story. Blue wanted me in at two the next afternoon. I took a long time getting ready. I would be like the lady in my mom’s show who was so tough that no one would be mean to her. I would tell Blue to pay me back. No one would yell at me that day. No one would blame anything on me.
When I saw Jim Bell was in the office, I didn’t feel so tough anymore. He shook my hand and kissed me on the cheek. He asked me what was wrong. I touched my face and felt the hollow place where the doctors could not fix the tiny fractures in my cheekbone. The wetness on my skin.
You should be careful, I said.
He tilted his head. Blue came into the office then with Mr. Lewis and a boy in a black shirt and tan pants. My head felt sparkling. Something was strange. The boy seemed like someone I knew, but at the same time I did not know him.
This is Nathan, Blue said. He is our student body president.
Jim shook his hand but did not kiss him on the cheek.
We are on a year-round schedule, Mr. Lewis said to Jim Bell. Which means we are on break right now. But I wanted you to get a chance to talk to a student. Get a tour from a young person you are allowing to get a college preparatory education.
The way Mr. Lewis talked made me think of choking. He made me think of drinking sand.
Nathan led Jim Bell on a tour. Mr. Lewis walked alongside with his hands clasped behind his back like he was out for a stroll.
We were going to the rooms with desks.
This is where I take AP calculus, Nathan said.
With enough community support, we could serve every underprivileged student in the city, Mr. Lewis said.
Nathan was applying to MIT. He wanted to study chemical engineering.
Jim looked at his watch and said, I’m proud of you, son. He patted Nathan’s shoulder. I was jealous of Nathan. What would make Jim say he was proud of me?
When Jim left, Mr. Lewis walked off and Nathan, Blue, and I were alone.
Hey, Georgia, Nathan said. He had a sideways smile I swear I knew before.
Hey, I said. Pretending like I knew what was going on. I knew how to pretend.
I could pretend all day.
It’s Nate, Blue said. Don’t you remember him?
Think of me short, he said. Think of me following you guys around and begging you to play with me.
He was Nate from the home. Ten years later. Warm honey flowed through my chest whenever I remembered things I wanted to remember. It was a sweet feeling. A coming-home feeling.
You go here now? I asked.
Warm honey flowed through my chest whenever I remembered things I wanted to remember. It was a sweet feeling. A coming-home feeling.
Blue and he laughed. I’m here now, he said.
Blue wanted to show us something. We went outside to one of the older buildings, one that was round and full of windows. There was a giant stage and red-velvet seats and a balcony. I tried to picture the whole room filled with students and that just made the empty space feel lonely. Behind the curtains Blue flipped a switch for the lights.
We climbed stairs to a room of dusty couches and a window overlooking the stage. There were tools left behind. A screwdriver. A hammer.
Nate said, This place is haunted. I would not come here at night.
Would you for a thousand dollars? Blue asked. She sounded far away. She put her fingers on the window.
No way, said Nate.
Would you for a million? Blue tapped on the glass.
Nate pulled his shirt out of his waistband and said for a million he would. He cracked his knuckles. Blue took the hammer off the ground and smashed the glass. We watched the pieces fall to the stage below and catch the lights like stars.
In the office, Blue wanted my bank password and username.
I didn’t say anything.
Then she said, So I can pay you back. You didn’t think I was going to pay you back?
Blue taught me how to drive a stick shift. She taught me how to rig a locked window so I could escape at night and climb back in when I wanted. She taught me that the Yum Yum Donuts on Franklin Boulevard put out free donuts by their dumpsters at night. She taught me not to take pills at parties and to protect my drinks and she taught me that somebody cared about me.
Blue hugged me tight. After I got home, I looked into my bank account and there was still minus seventeen dollars and twenty-four cents.
When I went to work the next day, the door was locked. I texted Blue and got a red Not Delivered message. Maybe we were having a day off and nobody told me. My heart was beating fast when I walked home. I had a bad feeling.
That night, Blue tapped on my window. She crawled through and landed on my bed. Her ponytail was black through the back of her ball cap.
She told me I needed to listen. You are beautiful, she said. You are the most beautiful one who ever lived. Please don’t forget that. Please don’t forget me.
I never could, I said. Don’t you know that? You are my best friend.
I was going to just leave and not tell you, she said. I thought that might be better for you. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to see you.
She would not tell me where she was going. She warned me to never go back to the charter high school. She told me never to try to find her. She told me never to talk to Jim. If I saw him in the street or whatever, I needed to pretend I didn’t see him. I needed to pretend I didn’t know him.
Dye your hair back to brown, she said.
She hugged me so close she hurt my ribs. My mom called through the wall.
I’m sorry you went to jail, Blue said. It was my fault what happened to you. She put her hand on my face. She patted my messed-up cheek with soft fingers.
I love you, Georgia, she said. Don’t forget me, she said, and she was gone.
Mr. Lewis is superintendent someplace else now. The charter school has somebody else in charge. Sometimes I see kids around my neighborhood in black shirts and tan pants and I wonder if they are the kids I never saw in the school. I dreamed I saw Jim Bell. I’m proud of you, he said in my dream. He shook my hand and kissed me on the cheek. I know this will never happen. I don’t go the same places Jim Bell goes.
A man came to our house because Jim Bell hired him to find me, which he did through the bank card Blue used to pay for dinner. The man knew about me. Knew about my mom and my brain injury and that I was hurt in County. He wasn’t a mean man. He wasn’t mad at me. He just had questions.
Do you know where the other woman is? Jim says she went by Bea Andersen. I’m not law enforcement. I just want to talk to her. Jim Bell wants to get some answers. He deserves that, I think. Don’t you think he deserves that? The man won a Purple Heart. He thought he was giving money so kids could learn, and instead this woman embezzled the funds. That means she took the money for herself. You’re not in trouble. You’re as much a victim as he is—that’s what Jim says, and I agree.
I said, Please tell Jim I am sorry. I literally don’t know.
He left a card. Sergio Castillo. Private Investigator. I was glad my mom wasn’t home. He never came over again.
One more thing happened.
A year later on a full moon, Cousin who got arrested same as me came to the gym where I work. I give out towels at the desk and keep things nice. My hands smell like cleaner a lot but I like the job. I go by my own name. Coach Carl who owns the gym is nice to me. No one ever yells at me.
Blue’s cousin waited by my car after I closed up because he said he wanted to show me something. I went into his van and I saw there was a circle cut out of the floor. Our van from before had been confiscated by the police. This was another van.
I almost said, No thank you, but he told me not to worry. We drove down Highway 99 past Elk Grove and then took an exit past Lodi and went until we hit the river and took that snaky road for over an hour.
I asked if we were going to see Blue. I missed my friend. I wanted her to know that I wasn’t mad about her using my bank card to pay for the fancy dinner. I made that five hundred dollars back and more. I worked a lot. My mom wanted me to save up for school but I didn’t want to go.
Cousin didn’t answer me. We went on a dirt road.
My shoulders got cold. Cousin was never really mean to me, but this wasn’t right. I looked at my phone. No signal.
I thought about jumping out while we were moving, but what if I broke my legs? Then Cousin slowed down. Stopped. Looked at his phone. Backed up some. Killed the engine and the lights.
The moon was bright enough to see by. We parked at the edge of a field under a big oak with branches like knuckles. This is it, Cousin said. I ducked because I thought I was going to get hit. He ignored me and went to the back like in the old days. But instead of a bolt tool, he had a posthole digger. He put on a headlamp and pushed the digger into the soft ground, pulling up soil and grass. After a couple clods thrown out the back door, he clanged on metal. He got on his stomach and pulled a box out of the hole.
One thing about Blue, Cousin said. She always tries to make things right.
He put the muddy metal box on my lap. It was a safe with a combination lock.
She called me last night telling where to find it, he said. Half for you, half for me.
I wanted to know how much.
He would not answer but he said that Blue said that I was smart enough to be careful with this amount of money. I couldn’t buy a Lamborghini. Nothing flashy that police would notice.
I said okay.
You can’t deposit this amount in a regular bank account, he said. The IRS will want to know where the money came from. The police will want to know. Do you hear what I’m saying?
I said I did.
He turned on the radio. Hummed along. More relaxed now. Happy. She told me you’re smart, he said. I guess we both are.
We hit the road that snaked along the river, taking the Delta way back to Sac. The moon played around on the surface of the water and I thought, This place is haunted.
I thought, This place is free.
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