On the Come Up

by Hannah Weyer

  Niki, wait … AnnMarie said. You my best friend. You my one true friend.

  Fuck that. Don’t call me no more, AnnMarie.

  AnnMarie stopped walking, her heart pounding, watching Niki cut across the street, calling over her shoulder: Any a y’all, don’t call me no more. Then she stopped. In the middle of the street, she stood still. Even as a car pulled around the corner, horn blasting, she don’t move, the car swerving as she tapped a cigarette out her pack, tilted her head and lit up.

  50

  When AnnMarie and Niki stopped talking she didn’t have nobody. Four, five months, she was alone—it was Star and work and her mother. She stayed away from Nadette and Teisha, steered clear of their building on her way home from work. Sometimes Star would say, Niki. I want Niki. But AnnMarie didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened. All that drama and heartache. A whole mess a shit.

  Sometimes she’d call up Dean and say, What’s going on. Any little parts for me? He’d say, Not now AnnMarie, I call you if I hear something. And weeks went by like that, phone calls to Dean, leaving messages on his answering machine, trying to hide the loneliness in her voice. Wondering where her life was going and when something good would happen.

  Then one Saturday late in May, they met for lunch. AnnMarie took her time getting dressed, choosing a outfit for herself, then for Star. They hopped the A train, took it to Jay Street where Dean had told her to make the transfer. They rode the F line all the way to Second Avenue, and by the time they arrived Star had fallen asleep. AnnMarie lugged her up the three flights of stairs ’til they was out on the bright, crowded intersection of Houston and First Avenue.

  Dean was waiting. He smiled and gave her a hug but he looked different somehow, maybe ’cause it’d been so long since they’d last met. He led them through the East Village, the streets lined with brick tenement buildings, little shops selling trinkets and wedding gowns, used-clothing stores, bookstores and bars, tattoo parlors. You grow up here? AnnMarie asked, looking into the shopwindows, glancing at all the different type people passing.

  Dean laughed. No, I grew up in New Jersey. In the suburbs.

  How’d you end up living here?

  Beats me, he said. I really couldn’t tell you. I’ve lived all over the place. San Francisco. Boston for college. Atlanta. Washington DC.

  Word, you lived in all those places? I want to live someplace.

  Get yourself a mohawk. You’d fit right in.

  AnnMarie laughed. She said, No, for real, Dean …

  But they’d arrived at a corner restaurant where people was chilling at café-style tables right there on the sidewalk. Dean said, You want Mexican? We can eat outside.

  AnnMarie blinked. We gonna eat out here?

  In or out is fine with me …

  Nah, nah … Outside is good. But AnnMarie thought it was strange, sitting out by the trash cans, an ambulance idling at the curb, somebody walk by, they could reach out and grab your food. The waiter took a chair away to make room for the stroller and they sat down at a corner table with Star who was still napping. Next door, a old grizzled dude sat on a milk crate in front of the deli, a newspaper open in his lap. His eyes drifted from Dean to AnnMarie, studying them for a moment, before going back to his paper.

  AnnMarie stared at the menu. She didn’t feel hungry. Dean asked how she doing, how her mother was, if her job going good and AnnMarie tried, but couldn’t seem to find her voice, so deep had her loneliness been. All she could do was sit up and say, Yeah, yeah. It’s all good. Everything fine, how you doing? You got a new movie? Tell me what’s going on with you.

  You don’t want to know. Family stuff. Dean hung his head, shaking it back and forth for a second. My father crashed his car last week. Pressed the gas instead of the brake pedal. Car sprang forward, jumped the curb, ran right into the window of a bank. AnnMarie’s eyes went wide. Word? He’d said it halfway smiling, like he was picturing something funny so she laughed, then swallowed it as he went quiet.

  Makes you think about what we take for granted, you know …?

  Word, that is sad, Dean, I’m sorry for your father. So he don’t know how to drive a car no more?

  It’s complicated, AnnMarie. My mother says he got confused but we think she’s in denial. My sister says it’s Alzheimer’s, early onset, you know, ’cause he’s only sixty-two …

  AnnMarie’d learned about Alzheimer’s at Caring, something to do with old age, a old-person disease but couldn’t remember what it meant. So she said, You got a sister, Dean?

  I’ve told you about her. She lives in Chicago. A brother too.

  Oh, AnnMarie said, that’s right, I remember now.

  He glanced at her, then away, his face unreadable but she’d heard the irritation in his voice and didn’t quite understand it. AnnMarie studied him for a moment.

  I guess it’s ’cause I always think of you as Dean. You know, like you popped outta thin air or something. Just Dean. No family. Got your own thing going. Making your movies, living your life and alla that.

  And as soon as the words spilled out, partways resentful, it welled up all at once, the divide between them.

  Yeah, I’ve got my own thing going … now. But I had to work for it, AnnMarie.

  She shrugged. I didn’t mean nothing by it, ’cept I forgot. About your sister.

  Dean looked away, glancing at Star in the stroller, her head tipped off to the side. AnnMarie reached over and righted her. But she couldn’t look up, couldn’t look anywhere ’cause if she did she’d start to cry. She felt it brewing, an unmistakable sadness, as if the sidewalk had pulled apart, Dean on one side, receding into his own life, leaving her sitting at the edge of a vast and impassable hole. She kept her eyes on Star, pretending to straighten her pant leg when he said, You know why I like this place?

  He waited for AnnMarie to look up, then leaned forward and said, You can spy on people and they don’t know it. Like eavesdropping. AnnMarie let her eyes go to the street, seeing all the different styles walking: yuppie-type moms pushing strollers, mad punk rockers, a hobo bumming change. Across the street a Chinese dude and dark-skinned girl wearing a African wrap around her head stood together by a wall. Chinese dude got his shirt off, looking like Bruce Lee over there with his six-pack stomach.

  He your type, AnnMarie?

  AnnMarie smiled. Word. He is fine. I could go for Asian.

  How about one a them?

  AnnMarie turned, looking over her shoulder to where Dean had gestured. Two white dudes coming up the block, dressed in tattered jeans, chains dangling, one a them mohawked, metal rods poking out both cheeks, the other with a tattoo covering his entire face like a stamp.

  AnnMarie bust out laughing. Hell no. That is nasty.

  Dean laughed and their eyes met for a moment as the punks went past, stinking of patchouli and sweat. AnnMarie’s gaze drifted back then, watching one passerby after another step to the side, parting for the boys as they moved up the block. Spying, AnnMarie thought and she laughed out loud.

  After Star woke, AnnMarie put her in the toddler seat and they ate the enchiladas and beans the waiter brought over, Dean telling them they got a playground across the way. So when their meal was done he paid the bill and they walked into Tompkins Square Park, entered the playground through the gate, Star running straight for the slides, passing tire swings and spinny seats and a fountain spraying water. Kids running around, a whole playground full of kids, getting sloppy wet, stomping through puddles, rolling on the ground, mothers and fathers hanging close by, soaking up the late afternoon sun.

  Star had a nice time. After a dozen times down the slide, and a turn on the swing, her feet flying up to kick the sky, AnnMarie let her take her shoes off, go in the sandbox. Dean sat down next to AnnMarie on the ledge and they watched her play. A white mother with a crew cut and baggie jeans sat in the sand. She gave Star a bucket to play with and a shovel to dig. Talking to her softly, holding up her own daughter who was light-skinned, with baby dreads.
The two children playing, patting at the sand with the shovels. Dean took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He said, I know I’ve been busy.

  She shrugged. I know you got your problems, Dean … She glanced at him then, saw the wrinkle lines by his eyes. He’d trimmed off his goatee, that’s what it was. That’s why he looked different.

  I’m still here for you, AnnMarie. ’Cause I’m so together. She laughed, bumping him with her shoulder and she took the opening, finally telling him all the things she’d kept bottled up—Miss Beatrice with her teeth holes getting taken by the police, and about the new one, Miss Doris with her mad stupid glares and sharp mouth, how she ain’t seen CeeCee, not once around the way, even though she knew her child almost two years old. And Niki, she finally got to Niki and how much she missed her.

  On the long subway ride home, AnnMarie held Star in her lap. Glimpsing her reflection there in the train window. She thought about Dean. How he’d pushed a fold of bills into her hand when they said good-bye, and made her take it. She smiled for a moment, picturing that tattoo-face muthafucker coming up the block. How all the people had stepped out his way.

  The train picked up speed, must be going under the river, the car rumbling mad loud, ’cause she felt the pressure build in her eardrum as Star squirmed out of her lap.

  She let her go to climb onto her own seat. Sit right, AnnMarie said. So Star straightened her legs, folded her hands in her lap and started up a staring game with the lady across the way. This person like a older version a Niki. Same type skin, wash a freckles and a curly ’fro. Niki’s prettier though, AnnMarie thought. Ain’t-give-a-shit attitude. Switching up her style, cutting off all those curls. AnnMarie always thought it’d been about trying to find a look—Female Rapper Extraordinaire. But now she knew it was about trying to own something. Define herself in a world a straights.

  AnnMarie turned her face to the window, staring past her reflection as the lights in the tunnel blurred and ran. Always going after the wrong girl, AnnMarie thought. She cringed, picturing it—Nadette showing off her ring. You got something to say? Slapping Niki with the reality that she ain’t wanted. Trying to find love in Far Rockaway.

  Maybe that’s why she started going out to Jamaica where Latania live. To be with a group of lesbian girls, where she had a fighting chance. All those times Niki’d taken her along—hop the dollar van, spend the day outta Far Rock. Hanging out, gossiping. Listening to music. One time they went all the way to Kings Plaza, walking through the mall, sipping ice coffees, cracking jokes and talking.

  She missed alla that since they stopped talking. Yeah, she missed it.

  there she go

  51

  One Sunday afternoon, the month before her eighteenth birthday, she went by to Nadette’s, asked if she could get her a fake ID. Turn eighteen, ain’t no way she sitting around, everybody else in the world out there clubbing, having fun. Nadette said, I get you one but what you been up to, AnnMarie? Where you been?

  Ever since the fallout with Niki, AnnMarie had stayed away. She knew Nadette was still working nights, engaged to Dennis and settled.

  AnnMarie said, You know, same ol’ thing. Working for that cranky lady on Beach 96th.

  Oh, you goin’ all the way out there, how you get out there?

  Take the 22, then the 17. It be mad slow, take a hour-fifteen each way. She got something wrong upstairs. I gotta tell her everything. Brush your teeth, do this, do that, help her with her potty.

  That’s nasty, AnnMarie, why you do it. You know I introduce you to my boss. You still got a figure on you. Get your chicas done, you make mad money.

  AnnMarie looked down at her chest. What, my breasts too small?

  Girl, I hook you up.

  AnnMarie thought about it. Do she want to dance like Nadette? She’d seen her one time up on stage. All that attention. Grown men clapping, whistling. Do your thing.

  Monday morning, AnnMarie knocked, then leaned into the door. She said, It’s me, Miss Doris. It’s AnnMarie. Then she used the key she’d been given by Miss Doris’s daughter. The daughter telling her she don’t trust her mother to open the door.

  It was mad stuffy in there, no air moving, first thing AnnMarie did was open the window.

  You ready to take a walk?

  Where we going.

  Outside. Let’s get some air.

  I’m hungry.

  You ain’t eat breakfast yet?

  There’s nothing good in there.

  What you want.

  Miss Doris said, They got that mushroom pizza down on the corner.

  Let’s get pizza then.

  She used to hate Miss Doris. She’d have AnnMarie on her hands and knees cleaning behind the toilet, behind the radiator, mopping the kitchen floor even if it still clean from yesterday. But something had happened. Old age. Dementia, the daughter had called it. AnnMarie wasn’t sure what that meant. All she knew was now the lady don’t ask her to do nothing.

  She helped Miss Doris out of her pajama top, her breasts sagging like two flaps a brown leather. Put her in her tracksuit, only thing she liked to wear.

  What we doing.

  We going for a walk, AnnMarie said.

  I have to go to the bathroom.

  You want me to come with you?

  Hell no. I can do it myself.

  She checked her phone for messages. Paloma had called. Outta the blue. Black China doll with her mule shoes and sweet perfume, hadn’t seen her in six months. Ever since AnnMarie and Niki stop talking.

  Miss Doris was still in the bathroom.

  You okay, Miss Doris?

  AnnMarie poked her head in.

  What? What do you want?

  Let’s go. We going for a walk.

  It’s too hot outside.

  Nah, come on. You see, it feel nice. We go around the block, then get some pizza.

  AnnMarie picked up the twenty dollars and shopping list Miss Doris’s daughter had left on the counter.

  They sat on the bench in the shade, a breeze blowing warm on Ann Marie’s face.

  See, isn’t this nice?

  What we doing out here.

  Just sitting.

  I know we’re sitting. What are we doing, AnnMarie.

  Taking the air, Miss Doris. What, you forgot already?

  I didn’t forget.

  Okay. ’Cause you know I have to write it down on your forehead you start forgetting.

  Miss Doris glanced at her.

  You think I’m losing my mind too.

  No, I know you losing your mind. How old you now, like a hundred fifty?

  Miss Doris tipped her head and laughed.

  Ann Marie smiled.

  Come on now, jus’ feel that breeze.

  When she got home that evening, she called Paloma. Paloma said the designer Dre, he looking to do a fashion show and do she want to meet him. AnnMarie said, Hell yeah, I meet him.

  She laid in bed long after Star had crawled in next to her, two o’clock in the morning. She’d outgrown the crib, had her own bed that AnnMarie had made for her out of a foam mattress and blankets she got on sale at Marshalls. But do she sleep on it? Hell, no. Star sleepwalking to the place she knew be safe.

  AnnMarie shifted, moving Star’s hot little body off to her own side. Pushed the sheet off, the room stiflin’, even with the fan blowing she felt sweat beading on her skin. She knew you could make money modeling. She didn’t know how much but it had to be more than $8.50 a hour, that’s for sure. She closed her eyes. She pictured herself up on the catwalk, strutting in some designer clothes. Then it became a stage with poles and dancers and a light, a single beam of light falling, girls grinding, their skin brown and glistening like oil been rubbed there, then it was her dancing, back arched, leg around the pole, her nipples pierced by tiny points of light. She woke up sweatin’. Sat up, carried Star back to her own bed, covered her with the sheet.

  Got into bed but didn’t go back to sleep. Instead she pulled her notebook off the sill and flipped it open. She p
ulled the curtain back for some light and wrote:

  AUGUST GOAL—

  make more money

  She listened to Star breathing, could tell by the sound her thumb in her mouth, saliva dripping on the sheet. Sheets need changing. Gas bill, electric, phone, MetroCard, she bring lunch to work tomorrow, peanut butter and jelly and a orange—couldn’t think how much she had in her pocketbook, trying to picture what food there was in the fridge, turkey, American, mayo … No, mayo finished off. Buy some tomorrow, clip coupon tomorrow—spread it on thick.

  52

  She met Paloma outside the Jay Street station and walked two blocks to the building where Dre had his studio. Took the stairs to the third floor and walked into a big room with racks of clothes lining the wall, rolls of cloth stacked on shelves, big black worktables and a sewing machine. Dre took both of AnnMarie’s hands in his and said, Hello, beautiful. Why don’t you walk for me.

  He put music on and she worked it right there in the room, the whole while Dre hollering Yeah! Yeah, girl! Go on. That’s it. And out the corner of her eye she caught Paloma laughing into her hand.

  They went to Dunkin’ Donuts after.

  Paloma got a Vanilla Bean Coolatta.

  She said, He a fem but he got mad talent. He likes you, he gonna put you top a the show, I can tell.

  Cool. Cool. Cool. I forgot to ask him. How much he pay.

  Oh, he don’t pay nothing. It’s for the exposure.

  Oh.

  Oh, AnnMarie thought.

  Paloma sipped her drink and they sat in silence, Niki being what they got in common.

  AnnMarie said, So how’s Niki, what she up to.

  She good. She fine. You know, me and hers together now.

  Word?

  Paloma shook out her wrist and showed AnnMarie a gold bracelet with gold charms dangling off the side.

  She got me that for my birthday.

  You had a birthday? When’s your birthday.

  July 30th.

  Okay. Happy birthday—mines is coming up.