On the Come Up (15 page)

When you start growing that thing?

What, this?

Yeah—what they call that.

It’s a mustache.

AnnMarie laughed. I know it’s a mustache, Albert. I’m saying … It’s like you Chinese or something but I can tell you ain’t, where you from?

Born and raised in Arizona.

Word?

Yup.

Tha’s cool. Where you live now?

In the West Village.

West Village? You live by Dean?

No, he lives in the East Village. West Village is West of Broadway, up to 14th Street. From Houston Street up to 14th.

Oh, that’s cool. That’s cool.

How ’bout you?

I’m from Far Rock. The Rock—that’s Far Rockaway. Yeah …

That’s out there, isn’t it? What is that, the A train?

Yeah, way the fuck out there, excuse my language.

But you got the beaches, am I right?

Yeah, we got beaches.

We don’t have beaches in Arizona.

Word?

Funny thing, whole time I’ve been living in New York, I’ve never taken the train out there. Never been to the Rockaways, not even Coney Island.

AnnMarie laughed. Word? Not even Coney Island?

Albert’s walkie squawked. He pushed the button and said, Copy.

They listened to Maya telling everybody they moving out to Albany Avenue for the next scene. Albert glanced up at AnnMarie, then pushed the button on the walkie and said,
Word
into the speaker.

AnnMarie cracked up at that man.

She had the next two days off. Forty-eight hours broke into four-hour stretches. When Star slept, there was time. Time to doze. Time to eat. To take a shower, sing in the shower, a melody coming to her out the blue, a song she knew by heart, carrying her over the tiredness and the waiting—the anticipation of Star waking, of bottle feeds and diaper change and lap play. Cradling her neck in the cup of her hand. Soft kisses. Blowing on her belly to make her smile. First smile, bubbles of spit, belly kisses and tiny feet. Forty-eight hours broke into laundry runs, four-week clinic visit, weigh-in, inches growed, feed schedule. Her own doctor visit skipped ’cause she had lines to memorize, a story to know and ’cause she wanted to be at home if and when Darius walked in, saying
Hey baby girl
, not to her but to Star. Then she would pass Star to him gently, using both hands to settle her flat on his chest where her lips would pucker and move in reflex, the suck reflex, tongue behind her lips rooting around for the tit or bottle that gonna keep her alive.

Next day, Maya the AD told her, Go on, work with Angie, she’s waiting for you in the yard. Angie was lead drum majorette for the Steppers. A tall girl with dark chocolate skin and nice shoulders. Dean had told her she’d just graduated high school, made the honor roll. Clean white sneaks, that girl could toss a baton and never miss a beat. AnnMarie had to pass a group of kids hanging
on the fence. She heard one of them say
There go the movie star
but she kept walking and didn’t bother with no response.

Angie said, Forget about those haters.

AnnMarie shrugged. I didn’t hear nothing.

Angie laughed, then tossed the baton up in the air. Where your baby at?

She home with my mother.

My cousin just had a baby. Gave her the name Clarissa Janelle Paris Preston Jackson.

Oh, wow. On her birth certificate she got Star Blaze Walker Greene but I just call her Star.

Word. Short and sweet. You got your flag?

Yeah.

Okay. Watch.

Angie tossed the baton, spun it high up in the air and caught it like it was nothing. Angie was pretty. Got a piercing through her tongue. The metal rod click on her teeth when she talk. Dean had gave her a part in the movie. Story goes, she and AnnMarie supposed to be new best friends.

First few times AnnMarie pulled her hand away instead of reaching for the pole like Angie was doing. Angie laughed. She said, That thing hurts if you miss.

But Angie taught her. They did the step routine first, practicing the moves over and over. Then they added the flag toss, Angie by her side, AnnMarie’s eyes on her feet and on the pole in her hands as she flashed up down, up down, up down. She counted out loud, her piercing clacking against her teeth. Step step step step. They worked on it and worked on it ’til Angie said, Tha’s it. You getting it. You
getting
it. And AnnMarie forgot about the kids roaming in and out the yard, sometimes calling out stupid shit, and after a while, a ball game got started down where the hoop was, everybody just doing they thing.

When they took a break, Angie said, You got a man, AnnMarie?

Yeah, I do. My baby father.

Well, we having a cookout this weekend. Y’all should come.

AnnMarie said, Yeah, I come.

Music, dancing—my boyfriend likes to bust it up.

AnnMarie smiled. Word.

AnnMarie had fallen asleep. She came awake blurry-eyed, harsh light beaming down from the mega-bulb up on the stand. Didn’t know where she was for a minute, then it all came into focus. Dean there, sitting on the edge of the couch in somebody’s living room where they’d been filming a scene.

He said, Someone get a soda to wake her up.

She looked around. Where the girls at?

I told them to go to wardrobe, Dean said.

Why? We finished in here? I thought we was gonna do more takes.

You don’t know your lines, AnnMarie.

Yes I do.

No, you don’t, Dean said, sounding angry. You keep messing up.

She felt around on the couch. Where my pages at.

Someone get AnnMarie her lines, he yelled.

Then he said, Here’s what we’re gonna do. I moved up Sonia and Melody’s scene. We’re going to shoot that first. I want you to sit here ’til you know your lines.

She could tell he was PO’d but she was angry too. Far as she knew, Dean didn’t have no baby, no child at home to take care of. No baby father fucking with her late at night when she trying to get a few minutes’ sleep, putting his hands on her, wanting sex. She’d tried to keep Darius offa her but he kept at it, guiding her
head down, then forcing her head down until she gave in. Cum taste in her mouth. She had to get out of bed, rinse her mouth out. Then Star woke again, needing a cuddle and a bottle. What Dean know about raising a baby.

A PA brought her the scene. She forced herself to concentrate. Looked at the pages, saying the words over and over until they were locked in her head. Still she thought about it, how she’d put Star back in the bassinet and went to sleep on the couch instead of the bed where Darius was, not wanting to touch any part of him.

She went to watch the girls. It was a walk and talk on Bergen Street. Bobby had the camera set up to follow them and she watched on the monitor, like a video screen.

With the camera rolling, she heard them talking about AnnMarie’s character. How she hadn’t been coming around no more, how she be hanging with Angie and what up with that. Then the conversation drifted to Melody taking the test, finding out she pregnant and how she don’t want nobody to know, not even the boy who got her pregnant.

When AnnMarie’d told Darius, he’d picked her up and spun her around. Whooping. Her legs dangling off the ground. She’d laughed and said, Put me down, Darius. Put me down. Hell, no, he’d said. I ain’t letting go.

Dean had them do the scene three, four more times. AnnMarie went and sat by Albert, watching the sound tape spool through the machine. She felt a loneliness creeping in, settling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to tell them they just words on a page. Words on a page. How could they know.

Next day was better. Call time wasn’t until ten a.m. and Darius had stayed at his mother’s. She got Star bathed and dressed in a little outfit, yellow ribbon in the curl of hair, white baby shoes on
her feet. Packed a diaper bag she got from the hospital, made sure she had dipes, wipes, three bottles of formula. Then she called Darius, woke him up. She said, You want to come to set with me? I’m bringing Star. He said, I got things to do.

She called up Niki. Niki said, Hell yeah. I come with you.

When AnnMarie opened the door, she could tell Niki’d got herself dressed up. Starched white tee hanging low over ankle-length baggies, but pressed, with a crease down the middle of each pant leg. Brand-new ball cap on her head, bright red. Looked good against her cinnamon skin. Brought out the freckles. She helped AnnMarie lift the stroller down all the stairs to the subway platform, hopped the turnstile, opened up the emergency gate so the stroller could fit through, rode the hour out to Crown Heights. All the crew people coming over to marvel, to make faces at Star, touch her fingers, say how pretty she was. AnnMarie introduced Dean to Niki and Dean said, So you’re Niki. Female Rapper Extraordinaire. And Niki bust out laughing, ducking her head, like she embarrassed. But AnnMarie could tell she liked it. Getting props from the movie director.

At lunch break, Dean said it was okay to leave if AnnMarie came back on time so they pushed Star in the stroller and walked over to the Golden Palace on Nostrand Avenue. Niki told her how she got into it with Nadette again, how Nadette jealous over this that the other thing. That girl always jealous, even though she still living with Dennis. AnnMarie said, Girl, maybe it’s time you change things, you know, ’cause this just ain’t working. Niki thought about it. Then she asked, What up with Darius. Where he at these days. AnnMarie hesitated, then said, He in and out. But she didn’t want to talk about it. She just wanted to eat, Star fast asleep in the stroller, she could use both hands. And when they finished off all the Kung-Pow Chicken, Sweet and Spicy Shrimp and egg rolls, AnnMarie picked up the check and said, I got this. Pulling cash money from her pocket she’d earned from working.

Walking back to set, Niki said, You want me to take Star home? I was gonna stop off at the Target there on Flatbush. They got the Subway Series tees. I could pick up some dipes for you.

AnnMarie hestitated. She trusted Niki but not enough to take Star home alone. Someone cough in her face, that be mad nasty.

You don’t wanna stay ’til we wrap out, AnnMarie asked.

Niki shrugged. They let me wear the headphones?

AnnMarie laughed. Hell yeah, they let you.

AnnMarie was getting mic’d inside the sound truck when Maya came up to the back end and said, Y’all should stay in the van.

Albert turned and looked at her. What’s up?

Some fool has a gun. We’re dealing with it.

AnnMarie said, What? Where.

Stay in the truck, AnnMarie.

But as soon as Maya disappeared street side, AnnMarie leaned out to get a view of things. Didn’t look like nobody had a gun—kids sitting on the benches by the kiddie playground, woman pushing her laundry cart along the path. Everything look normal ’xcept for the crew people standing half hunched behind a car in the middle of the street.

AnnMarie could see Angie sitting over there on her boyfriend’s lap. Mayfield, Tyrone, Jonah. All them, just lounging in the heat, laughing about something.

Then she saw the boy. Couldn’t be more than thirteen, fourteen years old, looking mad sloppy, swinging the gun around and talking to somebody on the far side of the playground.

She ducked back, her heart banging in her chest. She hated the boy right then, the power he had to make her afraid. She felt Albert come up behind her and they watched him without speaking. Then Albert said, Have you seen those PSAs in the subway? It’s a picture of a toy gun next to a real gun. The words say, Can you tell the difference?

AnnMarie shook her head. No, I ain’t never seen that.

Cop car cruised slow up the block, then stopped in the middle of the street. Project kids don’t move. They eyes on each other like the flashing lights don’t exist. Maya and Dean leaning in the driver-side window but AnnMarie couldn’t hear nothing what they saying.

When she looked again, the boy was gone. Maybe it’d been real. Maybe not. A toy gun the way everybody acting, even the cops—even the cops didn’t get out the damn car.

She felt hot, her scalp tingling, and Wallace flashed in her mind. Her friend shot dead in Redfern projects. End of March when it was still cold, frost on the ground first thing in the morning, you see your breath in the air. Darius said he got mistook. Muthafuckers. Mistook for who, AnnMarie had wondered. His blood dried black on the cement in front of the D’Jantes’ ground-floor window. That’s all that’d been left.

There was a burst of laughter. Someone had turned on the sprinkler. The crew people moving between cars, stepping up onto the sidewalk, going about their business.

Albert’s walkie crackled:
All clear
.

I guess we’re clear, Albert said.

AnnMarie nodded but she didn’t say nothing about the boy who’d changed his name to Stack.

It’d been a good day all around, her mother up and on her feet, moving slow but without the cane. You gonna be okay listening for Star when she wake up?

Blessed said, We be fine.

She called Darius, left a message saying they should leave by six o’clock. Hit me back, baby.

Then, just to make sure, she rolled the infant stroller right up to the couch, prepared two bottles of formula, set out Pampers, wipes and sanitizer—all of it on a tray ready to go. Making it easy for Blessed.

She got herself dressed, high heels, denim dress with the snaps you could leave unbuttoned if you want to. Dabbed Glow on her wrists, behind her ears, was putting on mascara when Darius called.

She said, Hey baby, you ready to go.

He said, Why you want to go out there.

His tone stopped her cold.

She said, What you mean, why? I told you. Angie’s having a cookout. You said you go with me.

Darius didn’t say nothing.

She could hear him doing something where he was, rustling around, something.

Darius.

What.

Come on, let’s go. Come get me.

Why don’t you come over here.

AnnMarie tsked. Oh, so you just switch up, last minute—you not going now?

No I ain’t.

AnnMarie sighed. They hadn’t seen each other for three days. He’d been staying out, and it’d been a relief almost, to be alone, just Star to worry about.