On the Come Up (12 page)

First day of Lamaze class, she went looking for him. His sister Vanessa said he went to Raymel’s. She walked the four blocks, took the elevator to the seventh floor, Raymel said, He with Big Mike. They working something out.

Well, let me get Big Mike number then, AnnMarie said.

When’d you get so bossy.

AnnMarie just looked at him.

Big Mike don’t give out his number.

She tsked. Oh, so you his secretary now.

Fuck him. AnnMarie took the bus out to the rec center by herself, couples already seated on yoga mats they had spread out in a semicircle. Girls in front, fellas cupping them from behind. Couple girls there with they mother or auntie, somebody. At least no one was giving her the eyeball. The teacher was smiling, going around, passing out a handout. She saw the boy Terrell from up the block walk in with a girl. Dang, she didn’t know he gonna be a father. He was only a year ahead of her in school. She waited for their eyes to meet but he was busy, settling in behind his girl, looking nervous as hell.

She liked the instructor with her big voice and warm hands, she liked how she’d sat behind her and showed them all how to breathe. She said, All of you sitting here today need to get quiet inside, find the peace within you, we’re going to learn many things during our time together … AnnMarie had drifted off at that point, her mind wandering to the future, to her due date, to Darius … Would he still claim her, would she ever sing again and then there was no stopping the tears from gushing out, the instructor’s arms holding her, rocking her back and forth, saying, Go on now. It’s okay. Breathe. Go on and breathe.

After class, AnnMarie took the bus home. She stared out the window at the dark sky and the passing sidewalks where the people was. Everybody heading home. She felt tired from all that crying and leaned her head on the glass. She wondered who the girl was with Terrell. She looked familiar, but AnnMarie couldn’t place her. Maybe she was Katelyn’s cousin. Everybody always related to somebody. You somebody’s sister or brother or cousin. You a half sister, half brother, half cousin. Bloods in front of the White Castle. Look at Amani’s brother over there. That peewee trying to act like he in the block. Wallace gone … She need to light a candle. Light a candle for Wallace.

House party. Block party. Rec center. Boardwalk. Bench. Storefront. You see it. Everybody making plans. You make plans.

She got off the bus at Central, walked over to the fruit stand. Bought a bag of oranges. Used food stamps ’cause no one around to see.

That Saturday she showered, lotioned, powdered, then inspected herself in front of the mirror. She looked like a damn pear, all that flesh sagging around her middle, no tight melon ball like the other girls, but her breasts were bigger and she kinda liked that. She lifted them up, holding each one in a hand, then stepped up to the mirror and studied the dark widening of her nipples.

She put on her favorite blouse with the cap sleeves and lace around the collar, looked in the mirror, changed outta that, put on a T-shirt instead. Too sloppy. She put the blouse on again, left a extra button undone. That looked better. Put on the black stretch jeans that stayed up without the button fastened. She sat on the bed and laced up her Tims, put on the down vest and looked in the mirror. Maybe no one could tell. Twenty-one weeks, she could still fake it.

She folded up the flyer, put two oranges in her book bag and walked out the door, didn’t tell her mother where she going, just went. Up the block to Mott Avenue, over six blocks to the subway, she’d passed the entrance a million times but had never gone through the doors. ’Cept the one time when they first moved to Far Rock, her and Blessed. Riding all the way down from the Bronx, getting off at the end of the line. Other than that, she’d never had a reason.

She went down three flights of stairs, all the way down into
the station, hesitated, then dropped a handful of change into the slot, asked the station man for a token.

She rode six stops without anyone getting on the car, ’cept a mother who look like she need a bath and four kids who climbed onto the seats next to her and sat mad quiet, overdressed in winter coats zipped up to their chins. One of the little boys turned, stretching his neck up to peer out the window but in a flash the mother whipped her hand across the others, yanked him back down and said,
Sit up straight and act right
.

AnnMarie turned and looked out the window. All the low-rise buildings out there, the empty lots with trash in piles, fences tipped on their sides like they been stepped on by a giant. Beyond that a cargo plane rose up, its wing tipping downward as it curved across the sky, and then without warning the subway car was gliding across water, and what a sight it was, so low were the tracks to the bay that it felt to AnnMarie they were defying gravity, floating instead of sinking into the depths of that wide blue water, soaring along in a box made of steel. Then the train car surged forward and plunged underground and AnnMarie had to take a couple of deep breaths right then because she thought she might throw up. She felt queasy, that queasy feeling like fear. Like, what the fuck she doing, what the fuck she think she doing.

Three days ago, she’d stood in front of Miss July’s office ’til she got up the nerve, then went in and said, Miss July, what this be about? Miss July slid her glasses down her nose and looked at the flyer. She said, Oh, yes. A nice young man from the movie asked permission to put it up. I told him this was a school for pregnant girls but he didn’t seem to mind. Are you going to try out, AnnMarie?

AnnMarie had stood there thinking, then said, They came all the way out here from Manhattan?

Miss July spread the subway map across her desk and showed her where to go. You don’t even need to transfer. Just take the A train all the way—you see?

At Liberty Avenue, three Spanish-looking people got on and a family of Indians, the mother wearing one a those bright flowy-type dresses, silk draped over her shoulder, red dot on the forehead. Wonder what that dot mean, AnnMarie thought, wonder where they going, all dressed up, the man too, silk shirt hanging to his knees, little girl dressed just like her mother.

By Utica, the car was half full of Saturday shoppers. Saturday workers, everybody going somewhere. She felt hungry all of a sudden, so she pulled out one of the oranges, peeled it and ate it piece by piece ’til it was gone. She tried to picture herself in the room, what she’d say to the people there. I’m AnnMarie Walker. My name’s AnnMarie Walker. In the 7th grade I sang “I Will Always Love You” at my school talent show. IS 53. You ever hear a the Night Shade, she’d say. We a singing group.

Hoyt–Schermerhorn

Jay Street

High Street

Broadway–Nassau

Chambers

Canal

She felt movement in her belly, was that a fart coming on? Dang. The oranges be giving her gas. Chinese lady glancing at her. What the fuck you looking at, oh, she talking to the other one, sitting across the way. AnnMarie glanced around the car, three, four, five—where all these Asians come from?

Spring

West 4th

14th
Miss July had said 14th and as the train pulled into the station, AnnMarie saw the number 14 painted on the wall and quickly stood up, filing out with a whole mess a people moving out the doors and onto the platform.

She stood for a long time on the corner of 14th and 8th Avenue, trying to figure out which way the numbers go, then finally she crossed the wide street, walked all the way to the corner before realizing the numbers were going down, not up. Turned around went back the way she came. 15th. 16th. 17th. Dang it’s pretty up here. Look at all these pretty buildings.

Pushing through the glass door of 404 18th Street, sign in at the desk, no guard there but she signed in anyway, flyer said take the elevator to the tenth floor. Her heart wasn’t beating fast then, but as soon as she stepped out, stepped into the big room, like a lobby with folding chairs and girls turning to look at her all at once—yeah, she felt it. Nervous as crap. Standing there like a swollen blob. Gas bubbles knocking around, hands clammy in her pockets. She heard the elevator door start to slide closed and she almost stepped back in. Press the button, go down the way she came. But she didn’t. She didn’t know why. A wish maybe. A wish. She took a breath and walked across the room, letting the fart rip right outta her, saying
’Xcuse me
as she went past the folding chairs and the girls with their eyes glued to her stomach, past the sign that said CASTING in big letters and up to the desk where the white lady sat.

The white lady looked up and she said, What I gotta do now?

When her turn came she walked into the room. Her mouth went dry, seeing five a them sitting at a long wooden table, light pouring in from the big window behind, their faces backlit and unreadable as she moved across the room.

You want me to sit here, she asked, trying to sound natural, not like she bugging out, noticing the Polaroid camera up on the table next to rows of casting pictures. Had to be thirty girl faces spread out across the table.

One a them stood up, reached out her hand, she said, Hi, I’m Alicia. AnnMarie shook it, said, Nice to meet you. Next one said, I’m Jenny, waving from her seat. AnnMarie waved back. Next one coulda said Mary for all AnnMarie heard, her mind going blank from nerves and a sudden self-consciousness. Grown-up white people, all looking her way—can they tell she pregnant? Punked-out lady with dyed black hair, saying she was the casting director. Her voice husky and deep. Go on, AnnMarie, you can sit, make yourself comfortable, do you want something to drink? Alicia, get her something to drink. Punk lady got a pile a bracelets that jangled on her wrist.

AnnMarie took the cup a water. She said thank you, then the man in the middle start talking. He said his name was Donald, Dean, something like that, and he was the director. AnnMarie shifted her gaze from her water cup to the tall white dude with
glasses, looking mad serious as he asked his questions, How old is you, what school do you go to, who your favorite singer, what your favorite movie … And AnnMarie took a breath and answered. I’m fourteen years old. I go to Ida B. Wells, that’s in Queens. My favorite singer is Brandy but I also like Whitney Houston for R&B and Missy Elliott for the more rap style she got going on. I’m a singer too. We got a all-girl group by the name of the Night Shade. In Far Rockaway. That’s where I live, Far Rockaway, Queens. Y’all heard of it?

White dude was jotting things down on a sheet of paper, glancing up at her smiling, nodding his head. She wondered what he writing. What words he putting down on the page.
De-scriptive
language. Her mind drifting back to 8th grade, Ms. Henley class … when she heard him say, If you got stuck in an elevator, who’d you want to get stuck with.

She said, Say what?

Donald Dean said, If you got stuck in an elevator, who would you want to be with?

AnnMarie frowned. She said, I don’t wanna be stuck in a elevator. That don’t make sense.

And they all bust out laughing. AnnMarie felt the heat rise to her cheeks. She bit down on the urge to scrape back her chair and go. Why they laughing. What they laughing for.

But she looked him in the eye and said, What I miss. What’s funny.

The man Donald Dean said, You didn’t miss anything. We like your personality, that’s all.

Then he stood, came around the table and pulled a chair up next to her. He showed her some pages with typewritten words on them. He called it a scene. He said, Take this home and memorize the words.

All of it? she asked.

No, just here—where the name Joycelyn is written. This is the dialogue, he said, for the character Joycelyn. We’re calling you back to read. Just be yourself and you’ll do fine.

Be myself, AnnMarie thought. I can do that.

Over the following six weeks, they called her back exactly four times. The baby getting big inside, her days filled with clinic visits and Ida B. schooling. Chasing down Darius who was out more than in. She hadn’t told him about the tryouts. She’d kept quiet after she heard Teisha say to Nadette, Why they want to cast a girl who got a baby on the way. That baby doing flips and turns, bumping around in there. Sometimes she could see it, an imprint of a fist or a elbow, hard and bony, poking through her skin. But the movie people kept calling.

She’d practice the lines, trying them out different ways. Her mother looking at her outta her good eye. What you doing? Nothing, Ma. Nothing. Each time they call, she’d pick up the phone. She’d say, Did I get the part? Did I get it? But they’d say, We need to see you again.

So she went. Got herself up, put something nice on, took the train all the way into the city. She didn’t always have money for the fare so twice she stood by the emergency gate, waiting for someone to come off the platform. Slip through when no one was looking.

Sometimes she’d read lines for the director—Dean was his name, she’d finally figured that out, not Donald. Sometimes they’d just sit and talk. Like regular people. She start to feel comfortable. The way he’d sit mad quiet and listen. Nodding his head, like he considering what she got to say. He’d ask her what her favorite
subject was, about school, choir class and she told him about Mr. Preston from IS 53. About her baby father, Darius, and her due date. She even told him about the stroke her mother had and how she still recovering.