On the Come Up (29 page)

Fuck it, AnnMarie thought. Come on, Star, we going. And as she turned to lift Star off the rail she saw it. A figure, far off in the distance, cutting across the field. AnnMarie did a double take, her heart skipping a beat as she realized who it was. Lu, tossing that damn ball back and forth. She watched her climb the grassy slope, and it was as if their eyes had met in that instant, ’cause Lu cocked
her head off to the side, like she do when she embarrassed. Trying to act all nonchalant. Trying to bounce the ball in the grass. And AnnMarie had to laugh. The ball sitting there like a hunk a cement. She couldn’t help it. She laughed, reaching for Star just as the girl rider went past, heard the gallop like the thrum of a baby heartbeat, knowing Lu was there, coming to see where they at.

This book is a work of fiction inspired by the life and oral accountings of my dear friend and sister traveler, Anna Simpson. Singular, beautiful, and sanguine, without her, these pages would be blank.

Huge credit goes to the Film Club kids from the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, including but not limited to my young friends Faustino, Maya, Monica, Rahmel, Woody, Raheem, Achim, Jason, Tati, and Millie, whose voices, musings, and unbridled energy pushed through the walls of an auditorium and alighted as muses to influence the spirit and character of this book.

Also, I thank Messiah Rhodes, who taught me resilience, time and again, by defying his own circumstance and leaping the great divide.

To my early readers, friends and heroes, I thank you: Alyce Barr, Shari Carpenter, Adele Parez, Bruce Weyer, Daisy Wright, Kate Griggs, Mikha Grumet, Lenny Bass, Joseph Entin, Sophie Entin-Bell, and Alexandra Aron.

For their support, encouragement, and kindness along the way, I deeply thank Donna McKay, Kerry Washington, George Pelecanos, Rosie Dastgir, Nelson George, Ted Hope, Vanessa Hope, Anya Epstein, Jacqueline Woodson, my publisher Nan Talese, and my agent Alice Tasman.

And finally, to a group of collaborators whose remarkable talents, generosity, and patience I leaned on during the creation of this book, I thank you Ellis Avery, Jennifer Pooley, Ronit Feldman, and mostly and forever, Jim McKay.

Hannah Weyer is a filmmaker whose narrative and documentary films have screened at the Human Rights Watch and the New York Film Festivals and have won awards at the Sundance, Locarno, Melbourne, Doubletake, and South by Southwest Film Festivals. Her screenwriting credits include
Life Support
(2007), directed by Nelson George, which earned a Golden Globe Award for its lead actress, Queen Latifah. Weyer has worked with teens in the media arts for the past fifteen years and, along with her husband, the filmmaker Jim McKay, started an after-school film club at a public high school in Brooklyn.
On the Come Up
is her first novel.

Visit:
www.HannahWeyer.com

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