It was a quiet day. Cha Cha was back from her morning classes, and we were talking on the couch. She was showing me her crochet things, her yarn box, and promising me she would teach me how to crochet. She couldn't believe I couldn't crochet, claiming it was the best hobby, so relaxing and made you feel like you were doing something because you were creating something out of nothing with every new loop of yarn.

She was smiling at me, a fun Selena song on in the background coming from the little radio in the sewing room off the living room. Cha Cha had been in there for a while before coming out with her yarn box to show me. I don't know what made her want to show me at that moment, but I was glad she did because as soon as that song finished the world changed.

"See this? Pull the hook. Asi. See it? You made a connecting loop! That is the base of crochet." She beamed at me.

I liked the way she said the word "crochet." She said "crow-chet" like Sasha would. I didn't have the heart to correct her, it was too precious. In the background, the lovely young woman that she'd been telling me about for over a week and a half was singing. She'd told me this song was one of her favorites, "Como la Flor", and how much this woman, Selena, meant to her because her songs were nearly always about happy things like falling in love. The songs made her happy, reminders of joy and dance. She'd told me she used so many Selena songs in her classes, because the kids liked Selena, too. How it was a chance to bond and have fun while teaching them how to dance with music they already loved.

Cha Cha was smiling at me, holding the crochet square firmly in her hands for me as I played around trying to loop the yellow yarn to the orange mini square to start another square next to it.

The DJ on the radio started talking in Spanish and I happened to be watching her face at that moment. Studying her happy eyes as she showed me something she loved, I heard the DJ starting to say "Selena" over and over and felt Cha Cha's grip on the crochet square weaken.

She gasped, her eyes going wide, her dark brown irises turning towards the sewing room. She seemed to freeze there next to me, dropping the square completely. Her leg which was pressed to mine so close on the couch started to tremble. And then quickly, too quickly, her eyes went glassy and her mouth dropped open.

"Ay no..." she whispered almost to herself, staring at the doorway to the sewing room. As the frozen sudden pause went on, her mouth drooped into a frown, a small crease in her brow formed. "No, no, no," she said louder, and the panic in her voice rose up panic in me.

I jumped as she made a violent shift to the side, staying in her spot next to me, but falling over and then coming back up like someone had struck her, and in that moment tears started to rush down her face. My body went up in fright.

"No, no, no!" she wailed, staring more intensely at the sewing room. The radio DJ was talking quickly, rapidly, in Spanish and the only word I could understand was "Selena" and he was saying this over and over in between Spanish words.

"Cha Cha-" I began to say, going to grab her as she threw herself down on the side of the couch again, but she burst out before I could say another word.

"Selena esta muerta!" she cried. "Muerta! Ay dios mio, no puede ser verdad! No puede...no puede..." She'd gone into whimpers in these last words and I wanted very much to remind her that I didn't understand Spanish and I didn't know what she was saying. I didn't know what she was saying or what the DJ was saying and a feeling of helplessness fell over me quickly as a veil as panic set in.

"Cha Cha, English," I urged her, hoping she could understand me in her sudden grief, but she was crying now and not saying a word as the DJ kept going on and on.

"Ay, English," she whimpered, coming back up to me and laying against me, her voice squeaky, "I am sorry. Oh...Georgina, DJ say..." She sniffled, and I wondered in a panic what was going on, because she never used broken English anymore. What was making her this upset to use- "Georgina, DJ say Selena es murdered...murdered..."

I gasped. "What? But-"

"She die...she die this afternoon, she die...she... Ohhh... Ohhhhh..." Cha Cha started to sob, heaving against me in grief. Her arms wrapped around me, gripping me tight. Automatically my arms wrapped around her, shifting on my couch cushion to hold her better. She pressed herself to me like a little kid and cried into my sweater.

Something in me wanted to turn the radio off, but I knew there was no point. This helplessness wanted me to do something, but there was nothing that could be done. Turning the radio off would not make it better. I could only hold her tight, unable to do anything else.

I didn't know very much about Selena, but I did know some things. And while thinking over what I knew, thinking about her, my eyes snapped open wide and I gasped inside.

Ruiz. Ruiz loved Selena, too. She'd told me a long time ago that one of her favorite songs to perform with Ambrose was one of her songs. What was that song? "It mimics the heart sound. It's about love longing, but you can not say it. Whenever we perform it, people go wild with us. They don't speak Spanish, but somehow they get it, too."

I was about to bring this up in deep concern, but right at that moment, Cha Cha snapped up from me, her wet eyes wide in renewed panic. Her eyeliner was dripping down in her streams of tears. "Oh no! Oh no!" she cried out anew, getting up from the couch faster than a second.

"What?!" I gasped, my eyes flicking to the sewing room where the DJ was still speaking rapidly in foreign words that I wished desperately that I understood.

"No no!" she cried, suddenly running around the couch and into the hallway.

"What?!" I called out after her, trying to get off the couch, but I found at the worst possible time my legs had gone weak. This happened from time to time, but why now? Why now?! I tried to use the table as leverage, because the couch cushions were too soft to get a good enough grip to heave me up, but it was to no avail. The helpless feeling overtook me completely and I shook my head at myself, upset that I couldn't follow her at a time like this.

The sound of the phone dialing loudly answered me back. Seven insistent beeping sounds and then three more shortly after. I heard her pounding the wall with her fist and oh god I wanted to be in that kitchen with her.

"Cha Cha?" I called, a little scared now, surprising myself.

"I need to speak to Dr. Morales!" she said in her panic on the phone. "He's not in?! What do you mean he's on vacation?! He's supposed to be- No, don't transfer me to his-!" She let out a deeply frustrated noise, as helpless as I felt and I heard her pound the wall again so hard. The phone hit the cradle and more loud noises in the kitchen made me jump on the couch. In under a minute she was speaking again, and it took me the rest of that minute to realize she was on her cellphone now.

"I need to speak to a patient. Yes, I know they're in group. I know. Please, it's an emergency. I need to speak to Ambrose Valencia. Yes, I will wait. Please." I could hear how controlled she was making her voice. I attempted again to get off the couch, but my legs would not gain purchase. A part of me wanted to call to her, ask her to bring me to the kitchen so I could be with her, comfort her, but the larger part of me knew this was not my problem to fix. Not right now.

Even from the living room, I could hear her long red nails clicking on the tabletop in anticipation, her very hands in a panic. When she'd said Ambrose's name, it hadn't immediately clicked with me what she was doing so suddenly, but slowly it was dawning on me and before I could think much more she began speaking again.

"Ambrose," she said with authority. She'd switched to what I'd come to identify as her "mommy voice", one she'd often speak to him with that was both sweet, but also deeply protective and wise. She paused, and I assumed he was speaking to her. "No, Ambrose I'm fine- Well, actually. Ambrose, I needed to tell you. Um..."

Very gently, she relayed the news of Selena and finally what the DJ had been saying became clear to me as the details emerged in her English. She was telling him softly, and suddenly she stopped speaking. She gasped and her sobs returned, drifting to me down the hallway and into the living room. "Ambrose, I had to tell you. I know it's hard, but you have to stay strong. When I heard, I thought of you. I don't you to get so upset that you... Don't say that. Don't say that! Sweetie... I know. I knooow, sweetie. I know. I know how much she means to you. But I'm here for you. Ruiz is going to be too, on Monday... Yes, Monday, sweetie it can't be no sooner. Lo se, lo siento, lo se, lo se..."

She began speaking in Spanish only, making me left to my own thoughts in the living room. I gripped the couch, again wishing I could get up to go to her, but I just couldn't. On the radio the young woman they loved so much was singing again, in Spanish. It was a slow song, one I'd heard over and over again, because Cha Cha loved it so much. I stared at the glass topped table, my reflection looking back at me. Hearing Cha Cha's panicked voice in a language I could not understand, trying to comfort somebody else when she was so upset herself, a distant memory suddenly formed and I could not make it go away. A little inappropriate memory, but so the same it struck me right in the heart.

It had been the summer of 1969. I was in my apartment, in my bedroom watching the black and white television that Avi had gotten for me some months before for Christmas. I was in my bed, upset at my own things, maybe even crying again, lost in my thoughts, when a news broadcast came on with words that sounded foreign to me. But the newscaster said her name again and I snapped up in my bed, staring at the TV uncomprehending.

The newscaster was saying Judy Garland had died. But I didn't know how that could be possible, she was so young. Immediately, my thoughts turned darkly cloudy and my thoughts went to only one person. It showed me only one face.

"Paulie," I'd whispered to myself in fear, gripping my blankets and staring at the newscaster like he wasn't even real.

Paulie. Because Paulie loved Judy Garland so much. He loved Judy Garland so much he'd made his career around her. She was his everything, he knew every word to her movies, knew all of her songs. Just singing her song "Get Happy" made him get happy just like the lyrics.

A few days later after so much crazed wondering, Avi had told me what had happened at the Stonewall Inn, a place we'd gone to so often, and made me aghast. "People are rioting. It's madness. They say it's because of Judy Garland. I heard they're challenging the cops, because they don't want to take any shit right now." I could only think of Paulie, wondering if he was among them or doing something far worse. Avi had no words to say about Paulie, which made me wonder if he was even thinking about him, but I knew better. Avi didn't know either. He didn't talk to Paulie anymore and I knew why, but it was too painful to bear, not knowing.

It had been too painful, but those wandering thoughts about Paulie. I cried more about the idea of Paulie using again to ease his pain that I did about Judy Garland's death. How I couldn't be there for him when somebody he loved so much, had touched his life so much, had passed. He'd been there for me when Marilyn Monroe had passed and I had been eternally grateful to him for that, but I could not return the favor, and it tore me apart at the seams.

So I was relived that Cha Cha could call Ambrose, comfort him at this time when somebody he loved so much had died. They hadn't known Selena personally just like we hadn't known Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe personally, but still these deaths impacted us to the point of breaking. We didn't know them, but the love was there, loving even the idea of them because they were with us, touching us, during so many important times in our lives.

After a time, I heard Cha Cha hang up and she dragged her feet down the hallway. I watched her come down, and she rounded the couch. I watched as she entered the sewing room and turned off the radio. Watched her as she came back, plopping next to me entirely spent. Now, I could be there for her in her time of need, finally around her like before and she collapsed into me, closing her eyes and just laying there on me.

About an hour later, the phone rang and the situation came full circle as I heard Cha Cha speaking to Ruiz. They spoke Spanish, but I knew they were talking about Selena, because I heard her name over and over. Cha Cha spoke slowly, her grief heavy.

I could only hope they were comforting each other as their flowing sad Spanish words traveled into my ears as a constant and overwhelming current.