On the Come Up (21 page)

Feedback bounced off the walls as the festival people started to make their announcements and there was a shift in the room, AnnMarie could feel it, as the crowd settled down, the room growing quiet. The festival person talking about the movie and the director, Dean, and how happy they was to debut the film. AnnMarie turned, glancing around to see if Omar Epps had made it inside. Didn’t see nobody—where’d Dean go, everyone clapping all of a sudden so AnnMarie raised her hands and clapped along with them, then the lights went down and the movie start to play.

She could barely pay attention, felt the flutterflies, her stomach bubbling but she held her eyes to the screen, watching herself act. Walking down the hall of the school with Melody, Sonia bent over her drum case, heard her voice say:
What up, what up, what up
. She thought, Dang. Is that what I look like … That what I sound like …? And she smiled, remembering the moment—Bobby with the big-ass camera up on his shoulder, walking backwards out the door, three four five times they had to do it—all the project kids hanging outside. Maya passing them the walkie-talkie through the fence. She heard the audience laughing here and there but it was hard to get lost in the story because she kept thinking about
everything she’d done and been through to get there. The lead drum majorette, Angie, teaching her to toss the flag high up in the air and catch it with both hands. How Darius had plucked her in the eye and made her suck his dick and all the sleepless nights with Star, those hazy hours of night, feeding time, diaper change. She wondered how Star doing. That girl took her first step and she’d missed it. She’d missed it. And before she knew what was happening, she felt tears burning—Sonia up there on the screen in the last shot of the movie. Riding on a train, just sitting, staring out the window, thinking about something. She could hear how quiet it had got—a hush like no one was breathing. Then the picture cut to black and names start to pop up in the credit roll and everyone was clapping. Clapping, clapping, clapping, mad loud.

Melody reached for AnnMarie and pulled her into an embrace. AnnMarie hugged her back and they rocked each other, laughing, AnnMarie’s chin on her shoulder. She could feel all the people in the room, felt their eyes on her as the lights went up, but she dialed them down and scanned the room, like radar—looking for Omar Epps. Tried to spot his fine brown face in the crowd.

They went that night to a fancy restaurant to celebrate. It had crisp linen tablecloths and cloth napkins and two forks instead of one and wineglasses on the table, even before Dean had ordered the wine. It was the whole family—Melody, Dean, Maya, Albert, Bobby … Eating and laughing, having so much fun.

The menu was in French but Maya leaned over and told her to get the linguine type thing with cream sauce. AnnMarie looked at her and said, You speak French, Maya? Maya laughed. She said, Only menu French, AnnMarie.

People who’d seen the movie start dropping by the table. Just regular people, strangers coming over to say congratulations. Pulling up chairs, sitting down next to Dean, talking in his ear. Melody got up to use the bathroom just as a old white couple, like old in they fifties, dressed in matching ski coats and corduroy pants, tapped her on the shoulder. They said, We just wanted to tell you, we loved the movie. You were wonderful. We sooo enjoyed it. Smiling real big. Beautiful work, the man said. I’m a professor of film studies at USU. We drive in from Salt Lake City every year to attend the festival and this is one of the best movies we’ve seen.

Thank you thank you thank you, AnnMarie said.

It was so real, the lady said. And kind of sad if you think about it …

Yes, the professor man said, it reminds me of that ethnographic film we saw recently, what was the title …

Sad? What’s sad about it, AnnMarie thought.

But she said, Yeah, Dean? He’s the director—he said our type movie, it’s called realism. That’s the movie style.

Oh, they said. My goodness, a talented actress and smart too. Then they started asking AnnMarie questions, all kinds a questions—Who is she, where do she come from, you so young, what it like to be in a movie. And when Melody returned, they all got into a conversation about realism and the facts of life and how some girls choose to keep they babies, the professor and his wife pulling up chairs, leaning in to listen and Melody said, She a mother too, nodding to AnnMarie. They gasped, looking at her. You’re a mother and you acted in a movie? You’re so young. Oh my goodness …

Two waiters had to come over, bring a extra table, put it at the end ’cause it was one big party all of a sudden—all the people spilling off the sides, Dean coming over to introduce himself, pulling up a chair, and for a long time the linguine with cream sauce sat untouched on her plate. It wasn’t until later, much later, when things had died down, that she got to it, picked up a fork and ate the whole thing cold.

The movie came out in Manhattan.

It played for a month at a theater there in the West Village. Limited distribution, Dean called it. But it had a great run, great audience response, he told her. People loved it. It did so good that they moved it to another theater on Houston Street where it played for three more weeks. She remembered Albert, the sound man, talking about Houston Street near to where he lived by NYU. She took the train into the city one Saturday afternoon, just to see. To see the film title up there on the marquee. To look again at her face blown up big next to Sonia and Melody.

It played in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta. It even went to Hawaii. She got her name in the
New York Times
, in the
New York Post
, in some other newspaper she never heard of called the
Village Voice
. They said she was compelling.
A compelling performance. Authentic
. Hell yeah, she authentic. When she met Dean for lunch, he brought her the clippings and she put them in the scrapbook that she’d started when Star was first born. Sonogram pictures, Star as a newborn, Star’s first birthday, pictures from the movie set.

But it never played in Far Rockaway—ain’t no theater out there anyway. Got to go to Jamaica you want to see a movie. Take the dollar van to Green Acres you want to see a picture. And she realized there’d be disappointments.

There gonna be disappointments.

She never went back to high school. After stepping out, flying to the festival and having the time of her life—she never went back. She did some acting—a couple little roles here and there, but no starring role like Sonia.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have her eye on the prize or that she’d lost track of the direction. But it was simple. Far Rock didn’t have no superhighway to Hollywood and one little art movie ain’t got enough gas to get you there. So when all the activity died down and the apartment on Gateway Boulevard shrunk back to size, she knew she needed to get herself a backup plan.

It took her a whole year before she gave in and went out to Ida B. for a job training seminar. Her and three other teenage mothers sat on folding chairs underneath the hum of fluorescents in a basement room of the building. The job counselor told them there was lots of alternatives for girls like them—training programs and career paths and options. It was up to them to reach up and grab the opportunity. The lady presented a slide show, pressing the little clicker button, swapping out one picture after another, advertisements for various training schools, teenage graduates frozen on a pale yellow background, all of them dressed in uniforms, all different kinds of uniforms—hospitality, housekeeping,
janitorial, customer service, food service, health industry. The lady passed out a information packet. AnnMarie flipped it open and stared at the glossy pages with the same teenagers smiling, teeth white and triumphant.

Then she rode the bus home. She thought about how
hospitality
be code for maid training and
janitorial
be code for toilet scrubbing and how
food industry
meant McDonald’s. Do she want to have a career at McDonald’s. You work hard, the career lady said, climb the ladder, next thing you know you’re the manager, you’re running the restaurant, do you see? Do you see how it works?

Do she want to be a manager at McDonald’s? How she gonna get another acting job if she working full-time at fast food. And where the fuck Darius. Hadn’t seen him in nearly two weeks. She knew his other baby mama, CeeCee, had given birth to a baby boy. Nadette had told her about it after he’d shown up at Crush one night, showing off a picture of his newborn. CeeCee back working, Nadette said. She on the money train, dancing, Darius don’t gotta do shit. Fuck all if he gave AnnMarie any money for Star. Last time was when she turned two. Took a twenty out his pocket, set it on the kitchen counter. She just looked at it. What the fuck she supposed to do with twenty dollars.

By the time she stepped through the door, AnnMarie was in a foul mood, feeling sorry for herself and cranky. She dropped the information folder onto the couch and picked up Star, scowling.

What’s the matter with you? Blessed said.

AnnMarie ignored her. Why her pantie’s wet. You didn’t put her on the potty seat?

She refuse.

AnnMarie tsked, walked Star into the bathroom, stripped her down and sat her on the potty chair. She said, You gotta learn,
Booboo. You ain’t wearing a diaper no more, you got to pee on the seat. Now sit there ’til you go …

I don’t gotta …

Just sit there.

Why? I don’t gotta go.

AnnMarie groaned. I’m trying to teach you something. Now sit.

Niki walked in right then, said, Hey y’all what up.

Blessed glanced up. Don’t bother with her—she’s in a bad mood.

Niki laughed, looking at AnnMarie. Why, what’s the matter with you.

AnnMarie tsked. They telling me about options.

Who telling you?

Ida B. That job training thing over there …

Blessed had been holding one of the flyers close to her face, her sight blurry, trying to read the words. What this say, Niki. Do it say
Nurse School?

Niki sat down on the couch, took the flyer from Blessed’s hand. Yeah. It says
Caring. Nursing Aide Training Program
.

Blessed nodded. Um-hm. You got a brain in you, AnnMarie. You could be a nurse aide. Get yourself a job in a hospital.

Hell yeah … Help out all the injuries, Niki said. Take a pulse … find a beat. Find a beat, take a pulse. Niki turning it into a rhyme.

AnnMarie cracked up. Shut up, Niki. Crazy.

AnnMarie shifted, thinking about it. Niki’d gone ahead and got her GED. Took her a year to do it, but she made it happen. Still didn’t have no job but she was looking. Wanted to work in a bank. Be around all that money. She’d even gone into TD Bank, asked
for a application but they told her she need to get a degree first. Next step. Always a step.

Do the nursing program, AnnMarie. You make a good nurse, her mother was saying, sounding positive.

Niki said, I let you take my temperature.

AnnMarie laughed. But it gave her a boost of confidence.
Nurse
sounded better than
janitor
or
french-fry maker
so she called up Dean and asked to borrow the money, got herself enrolled in Caring.

It wasn’t a regular school with kids her age going eight a.m. to three p.m. Didn’t need no GED, just the tuition money up front, eight hundred dollars. There was twelve people in her group, mostly older women in their twenties and thirties, from the West Indies. She didn’t know when exactly she realized
nursing
meant home health aide. Same job all the women had coming in and out the house, taking care of Blessed. But there was no backing out, her mother hollering—
Since when you think you better than everybody else?

They met twice a week six–nine p.m. on Lefferts Boulevard. She got trained in how to do blood pressure, how to check vitals, how to feed somebody if they eats from the stomach, how to clean the tube so it stay sanitized. And when the eight-week program ended, she got a recommendation from the teacher and a placement at a agency that sent her out to neighborhoods and into apartment buildings all over Queens and Brooklyn. Old people mostly. They bodies fallin’ apart with something. Diabetes. HIV. High blood pressures. Depression. In pain. Slow moving. Slow talking. Most of ’em cranky to be alive and living this way. So they’d yell a lot. In her head she’d think, You screamin’ at me? For $8.50 an hour? Huh-uh. This ain’t worth it.

But she went. ’Cause she needed the paycheck coming in. Eight in the morning go in, make they breakfast, clean dishes, clean bathroom, sweep floors. Wash clothes. Made sure they took
their medication. Went to supermarket. Took them out for walks. When the day was done, she’d go home to Star and Blessed, sometimes Niki was there, all of them hanging out, waiting, on Gateway Boulevard.

For a while she got placed with this one lady, Miss Beatrice. She was funny. A butch type, hair shaved off clean to the scalp and hefty. Wore the baggy clothes. Miss Beatrice had arthritis in her joints, had to use a walker to get around, just like Blessed. AnnMarie’d help her into a wheelchair, they’d go down to the street, stroll around. Miss Beatrice was different from the others. She was easygoing and liked to talk, they was always talking. AnnMarie would tell her things about her life and Beatrice would do the same, telling AnnMarie about her favorite Chihuahua that had died and her sister who ain’t spoke to her in ten years and the neighbor she had one time, smoke so much weed you get high just breathing in his exhale.

Yeah, Miss Beatrice was cool. After a few weeks, AnnMarie felt they more like friends. Sometimes she start laughing about something and AnnMarie’d see her gums. Beatrice didn’t have no teeth in the front, only on the sides where the vampire teeth be at. AnnMarie’d think, Oooh, please close your mouth. That is disgusting.

One time AnnMarie said, Miss Beatrice, what happened to your teeth? As soon as she said it though, she knew it was wrong ’cause Miss Beatrice sat back on the couch, and went quiet.