On the Come Up

by Hannah Weyer

  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?

  callback

  18

  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.

  19

  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.

  She didn’t sing or nothing, she just was herself.

  20

  In April, Dean called. He said, I want to come out and meet Blessed.

  She said, You wanna do what?

  She thought maybe he thick—no one like Dean ever come out to Far Rockaway.

  She said, Why you gotta meet my mother.

  You’re a minor, AnnMarie. You’re about to have a baby. I have to meet your mother to see if we can do this.

  So she cleaned the apartment, top to bottom. Shoved everything out the way, into the closet, into Blessed’s room. Swept the floor, cleaned the bathroom, washed dishes, cleared off the sofa, making things nice. Baby kicking her in the rib, high up there, it was hard to breathe.

  Blessed thought AnnMarie was crazy. What the hell you doing? She said. You gonna hurt yourself. Her mother only partways understanding what was going on. In one ear, out the other. In Blessed’s mind it was like, Who coming out here? The director? Director of what.

  But she got her mother changed outta her house dress, squeezed her into the purple dress she used to wear to church, combed out her wig, made her put it on.

  Dean took the A train all the way out, all the way the fuck out to Mott Avenue. She knew how long it took to get here from Manhattan. It was the end of the line. AnnMarie stood at the station entrance, waiting. People glancing at her sideways, looking at her swollen belly, but she didn’t care. When he came up the steps in one piece she smiled, satisfied, and they walked back to Gateway along Mott Avenue, AnnMarie pointing out the Thriftway, Tina’s hair salon, the 101st Precinct and the Crown Fried Chicken on the corner.

  She brought him upstairs, introduced him to Blessed who told him to go on, sit down. AnnMarie, bring him a Coke. You want a Coke, Mr. Dean? AnnMarie moving from the fridge to the sofa as Blessed got settled at one end, waiting for Dean to start talking. But he pulled out a box of cookies and a bag of baby oranges so she had to deal with the TV trays and setting out little plates and finding napkins and when he fi
nally got to it, explaining the movie and AnnMarie’s role, she held her breath, thinking, Don’t switch up, don’t switch up, please don’t switch up and change your mind. She could hardly concentrate, picturing her life through his eyes—the mad small apartment, even with the kitchen window open the room felt stifling, her mother sitting there in that too-tight dress, lipstick on, one a her eyeballs not working, staring sideways. Do he even know where to look when he look at her face?

  But then she heard him say, The shoot days are long and there are rehearsals, lots of rehearsals, Mrs. Walker. I need to know if we can do this with AnnMarie. She’s got to show up on time, every day. Can I count on you? Can I count on your support? Blessed glanced at AnnMarie, then kinda leaned forward, looking at him outta her good eye. She said, I’m not going nowhere. I’m proud of my daughter. I’ma help her any way I can.

  Dang, AnnMarie thought.

  First time she heard that come out her mouth.

  She proud a me.

  Star blazing, blazing Star

  21

  She was eight month pregnant when Dean called rehearsal. Blessed start scraping the bottom of her purse for change, cashing in coupons for food, giving AnnMarie any extra she had. Subway rides out to Utica Avenue and back, money for lunch. She was big as a house. Wide load, peeps. Watch out. Baby poking around in there, letting AnnMarie know she was alive and strong. They met up in the basement of a church, across the street from Albany Houses in Crown Heights. It was AnnMarie. It was Sonia and Melody—those girls playing the parts of her best friends. Both of them marveling, reaching out to touch her belly. Oooh, when you due, what you gonna name her, you got a crib yet? Sonia was nineteen and going to acting school in Manhattan. A true professional. Melody was a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx. A intellectual type, with long kinky hair and fair skin, always asking questions. They’d spend hours together with Dean. Memorizing lines, practicing the scenes.

  Dean told them it wasn’t going to be one a those big Hollywood movies you see with all the glitz and glamour and movie stars. It’s an art film, he called it. Low budget. Everybody pitching in to make it work. There’s gonna be a marching band and you girls are gonna learn an instrument or be on flags ’cause the band’s a part of the movie too. The Crown Heights Steppers. AnnMarie and the other girls watched them practice one day. Those kids spinning the flags way up high in the air, keeping the beat. Turning, spinning. Stepping.

  Dean would tell them, This is a story about friendship, it’s about change. Your high school closes and you have the summer to figure out what you’re gonna do next. Melody’s character finds out she pregnant and decides not to go back to school. Word, AnnMarie thought, I can relate to that.

  Even though Dean was the director, he act more like a coach. Giving them pep talks, cheering them on if they mess up. Talking about improvise. Stay loose, Dean would say. Don’t worry so much about the lines on the page. You got your own story, use it. Put it back behind the words and let it flow. AnnMarie was in a daze of wide-open happiness.

  She’d kept it from Darius. That first audition, the callbacks. Even Dean coming out to meet her mother. Ever since they’d taken his equipment, he’d been moody. Drinking Hennessy before noon, angry all the time. Not even the weed he smoke take the edge off. So she waited until the movie was a sure thing.

  You doing what, he said.

  She could feel the suspicion, then the jealousy pouring out his eyes and her heart just shrunk up. ’Cause she’d learned by now how he saw the world, how he thought there wasn’t room enough for everybody on the come up.

  She said, I’ma talk to the director. Maybe he can use some a your beats.

  He looked at her sideways. What you mean?

  She said, Every movie got music, right? Why not yours? Putting her arms around him then, looking up into his eyes, her belly bumping against him.

  You got mad talent, Darius. Give me one a your CDs. I show it to him, she said. Because she loved him and wanted him to be happy.

  He didn’t say nothing for a minute but she could see the gears turning.

  What you got to lose, she asked.

  Yeah, yeah … he said. You could ask him.

  She had to lay on her side now when she slept. Baby inside need to breathe, the doctor told her. She knew it was a girl baby ’cause she’d asked. She could feel the kicks and burps, the thrum of the baby heartbeat like the gallop of horses. Baby heart got four valves, doctor at the clinic told her, rolling jelly juice around her tummy, the sonogram wand pressed against her skin. A real live breathing thing.

  She started making a list of baby names. Ashlee, Brianna, Makayla, Chasity, Dawn, Skye, Star. She’d show them to Darius. What you think, baby, she’d ask. If it a boy, I’d name him Blaze, he said. Oh, I like that. Blaze. She hadn’t told him the baby was a girl. Could you name a girl Blaze, she thought. Blazing Star. Star Blazing.

  Then the money start to appear. Out of nowhere. Cash money sitting out in piles in the studio room. AnnMarie’d walk in, her eyes going wide. She’d say, What you doing Darius. Where’d you get all that money. Sessions, baby. Recording sessions. He told her he was producing. Working out of Z-Sounds since his own studio wasn’t more than a room with four walls. Maybe it was true. She wanted to think it was true. But later she heard through the grapevine—Dennis telling Nadette and Nadette telling Niki and Niki finally telling her—Darius on a robbing spree. Sticking up strangers on the street. Going into any store ain’t got plexiglass for protection.

  Speakers appeared. Then a console. Microphones. All those piles of money turned into music gold.

  She wanted to scream, What you doing? We got a baby on the way and you robbing people? You gonna get caught, stupid.

  But he was happier. Hugging her more. Holding her at night. Drumming beats with his fingertips on her leg, a rhythm playing her to sleep. She’d murmur, You gonna get us a crib, baby? He’d say, You know it.

  And then it went down, three days before her due date. A beautiful day. Sunny, no rain clouds, June 24. All day she’d been feeling fine, couple little cramp-type feelings here and there but nothing to get excited about. She took a bath in the afternoon, woke up still in the water, her body buoyant, realizing she’d dozed off. Watched TV for a while, called Darius, waited for him to come by, but she was restless, moving around the house ’cause the crampy feeling start to grow, like pressure building. Dean called. He asked how she feeling. She said, I’m fine, Dean. Everything good. Sonia called, asked if she had the baby yet. She said, No, Sonia, I still got three days. Then at nine o’clock that evening, she got the urge to eat Chinese. Darius was still out somewhere so she called up Niki and they went over to Lucky’s for some Sweet and Spicy Chicken.

  Niki had got her hair cornrowed, the cinnamon curls plaited in neat parallel rows, crown to nape. She kept rubbing with the heel of her hand. What’s the matter, AnnMarie asked. Sunshine put ’em in too tight? Yeah, yeah … they’s killing me. I think I have to take ’em out.

  I do it for you, AnnMarie said. Niki got up to get their food, brought it back on a plastic tray. She start to eat. I decided to go for my GED, Niki said.

  Yeah? That’s cool. AnnMarie nodded, trying to be a good friend, to pay attention but she felt light-headed. She picked up her fork and start to eat. I can do a summer program, then I’ma get a job in a bank, Niki was saying, her voice sounding far away. AnnMarie felt herself expand, a feeling like she gonna burst so she put the fork down and leaned back, spice flavor strange on her tongue. She didn’t feel right. Hot, like a oven had turned on inside her body.

  Niki said, There go Darius. AnnMarie looked up and saw him passing on the street, Jason and Raymel trailing after him, moving up the block at a clip. In a second they gone. She got up, waddled to the door, pulled it open and stepped outside.

  What they doing.

  Darius! she called. But he didn’t turn. She saw him reach up, pull his ball cap low over his eyes and enter the A-rab’s store, Raymel a shadow behind him. Jason leaning up aga
inst the wall, his eye on the street. Muthafucka. He robbing that dude right now. All of a sudden she felt the pain, like a rope wrapping tight around her belly. She reached for the wall and leaned. Here we go, she thought. A contraction for sure. Gripping her like a vise and squeezing. Like pain she ain’t never felt before. Breathe, she told herself. Lamaze teacher said, Breathe.

  Then she heard Niki’s voice saying, What up AnnMarie, you okay? She knew she supposed to count, look at a clock, something, time the contraction when the pain stop. That’s what Lamaze had said. You got a watch, she asked. But before the words out her mouth another belt cinched tight and made her double over. She leaned both hands on the wall and could feel herself rocking, a moan coming out her mouth, then she was in the bathroom. All of a sudden she was sitting on the toilet, Niki holding her hand, saying, Maybe we should go to the hospital. She moaned, leaning forward, feeling the pressure build, a feeling like she got to push. Then she saw the blood and a wave of fear passed through her. Bleeding, why she bleeding. Nobody said nothing about blood. She waddled out the bathroom, Niki next to her, saying, Hold up, AnnMarie, pull up your pants but she was heading for the door and to the street beyond, she got to get to Darius. Up the block. Get Darius and go to hospital.

  How she made it to St. John’s six blocks away she didn’t know. Everything had gone fuzzy. There was Niki’s shoulder. Niki’s arms holding her when she froze up, bracing herself against each tightening, the pressure like a boulder pushing down. AnnMarie moaning, She’s coming … This baby coming out.

  Next thing she knew she was standing in the lobby of the emergency room, water all over the floor, soaking through her Reeboks. Then she was in a room, up on a bed, hospital gown on one minute, undone the next, pooling there around her wrists. She was on her hands and knees, butt naked and sweating, her whole body wet with sweat but she didn’t care—strangers all around, who was these people, someone strapping a belt around her waist, beeping sounds and the tight feeling coming fast and hard now. Pain like nothing else and she was breathing, breathing, low and deep, trying to get on top of the pain. She rode it. Her body swaying on its own, her head down between her shoulders until her elbows gave out and she was collapsing, no longer on all fours but on her back where the bed was inclined and she saw Blessed then, appearing outta nowhere. Ma, she said. Ma … and Blessed took AnnMarie’s hand and said, Push AnnMarie push. And she bore down with everything she had, squinting past her knees, some doctor man between her legs, where the fuck did he come from? Saying, Okay AnnMarie, one more good one, one more like that …