Page 2 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

“A job?” I snort, noting that he’s on foot today. “You can’t even give me a ride. The point of having a Cadillac is to drive it.”

“Delilah is a temperamental creature.” Last summer, Kai joined me unloading delivery crates to save enough money to buy his first car, since his father wouldn’t cover the cost. Once he had enough, he immediately abandoned the job, and I didn’t blame him. I’ve gotten enough splinters from those crates to start my own toothpick company. “She needs her beauty rest.”

“You can just admit you bought a lemon.”

Kai glances up the street in horror as though his beloved red Cadillac, barely visible where it’s parked in front of his home, can hear me.

“She’s not a lemon. She’s just…a little unpredictable.” I arch an eyebrow at him. Contrary to what he’s saying, Delilah is very predictable. She predictably won’t start. “Hey, think maybe you can use your relic to fix her?”

“That’s not how it works,” I say, absentmindedly touching my fox. “God knows I wish it actually did something helpful.”

“I know,” he sighs mournfully, as though my priority for any working magic would be his car problems and not my rent. He lightly socks me on the shoulder. “So, you actually going to come to school today? You know, I can try to get you back on the team to pitch. We don’t stand a chance against Hollywood High. We need the Dragon.”

Ever since childhood, Kai has called me the Dragon, for my zodiac. Even though we were born the same year and are the same age, he dubbed himself Tiger because he says it’s luckier. Lately, though, I haven’t felt like anything other than a stray mutt meant for kicking.

“I haven’t been on the team for years, Kai,” I point out. “Not since…” I trail off, and Kai mercifully doesn’t fill in the rest. I clear my throat. “Even if you could get me on, I wouldn’t have time.”

“Make the time,” Kai demands with the ease of someone whose biggest life responsibility is homework.

“Can’t.” I try not to sound stressed, but it’s hard. “My family is going to need all the money I can make. Might even get an after-school job, too.”

Kai catches my drift, and his face sobers. He shifts and glances over his shoulder again, but this time I can tell he’s looking toward my apartment, farther up the street from his home.

“How is Emi doing? Is she all right?”

News of my sister Emi’s pregnancy got out a few days ago after someone saw her at the doctor, and it spread through our Japanese neighborhood like a virus. You’d think it wouldn’t be such a big deal considering our community has much bigger problems looming: Curfew. Travel restrictions. Arrests of men for following Japanese sumo matches, having fishing boats, or running gardening supply shops. But I guess despite everything, people are always going to be judgy, nosy assholes, and the neighborhood’s response to Emi’s pregnancy proved it.

“She’s good.” I don’t tell him that I heard her crying last night through the thin walls of the bedroom she shares with Mama as I lay on the couch in the living room, which is where I sleep.

“Tell her to keep her chin up,” Kai says forcefully. I nod, unsure what to say. “Anyways. Baseball team. You. Pitching. Hollywood Hills on their knees, weeping. Think it over.”

“I will,” I say in mock seriousness. “I’ll let you know, Tiger. All right, I gotta go get cleaned up.”

Kai claps me on the shoulder and bounds off, heading toward school. I keep going the opposite way.

A few houses down, I pass Mr. Nomura. He sits on his porch and peels a mandarin orange. He’s been wearing his uniform from the Great War ever since the first regulation came down on us as a protest or something. Medals and bars march across his chest, making him look even more rigid than normal, which is saying a lot because the guy has the same stick up his ass as Kai’s parents. I duck by, but he’s already seen me.

“Han’nin!” he says under his breath. Criminal. He’s been saying this since I was fourteen, but the word’s a blade against my skin. Draws blood every time. He’s a member of the Japanese American Citizens League, or the JACL, and thinks my wrongdoings hold back our entire community. I feel like he knows I’m planning on skipping school today and is adding it to the tally of my sins that he keeps in his head.

I keep striding along until I reach our apartment. Emi is sitting on the stoop with a book.

For a few moments, I watch. Rarely is Emi unguarded, but when there’s a book between her and the world, her eyes get a sharp, hungry look as they tear into the words. When we were little, she used to read to me. We’d sit in the closet, protected by broomsticks and mopheads, the shaky eye of a flashlight throwing a yellow circle on the pages. She’d read. I’d lean against her. We’d stay that way till the sound of Mama’s wine bottle clinking against one of her pink water glasses was replaced by snoring.

Now it’s different. I work and go to school when I can. She doesn’t do either anymore. We don’t see each other much.

Sometimes I wish she’d read to me again.

I shove my hands in my pockets and amble toward her.

“Ren!” she exclaims as my shadow falls on her page. “How was work? You’re so sweaty.”

“Nice to see you, too. You feeling okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.” She rolls her eyes at me but closes the book and sets it aside. Her hands flutter like two doves, finally intertwining and settling on her stomach. “I’m merely having a baby, Ren. I’m not afflicted with the plague.”

I’m glad she seems to be in good spirits, especially with the neighbors gossiping about her pregnancy. They couldn’t be more sanctimonious about it, especially because it proves them right. Mama, Emi, and I are the damp threatening to settle in and ruin the community from the inside out. Drunk mother. Unwed pregnant daughter. Criminal son. If they could, our neighborhood would cut us out and flick us away like a speck of rot on a peach.

Once the baby is here, I’ll head off for Santa Fe. I’ve heard there are countless ranches right outside the city where the land is like our ocean here—just goes on forever under a red sun. I’ll get a job. Send money back and breathe air that isn’t tainted with memories.