On the Come Up (17 page)

Days went by. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AnnMarie with the morning sickness, waves of nausea crashing. Star start up crying, AnnMarie’d look at her and groan. On Thursday Dean called. He said, The movie got into a festival. An important festival, AnnMarie, called Sundance.

He said, It’s great news. Really great news.

What’s the matter, AnnMarie. Why aren’t you excited.

No, that’s great, Dean. I’m happy for you. I’m very happy for you.

No, AnnMarie, be happy for you. Be happy ’cause we’re all going. We’re going in January. We’ll go to the screenings, you’ll talk to people, talk about your experience, see other movies if you want to … It’s going to be a great time.

AnnMarie sat down and took a breath. She said, We going where?

Utah, AnnMarie. We’re flying to Utah.

Flying. On a airplane? She didn’t know where Utah was but she heard the excitement in his voice, the enthusiasm like a dose of medicine. She pressed the phone to her ear, she said, I don’t got money for a airplane, Dean.

He said, Don’t worry, AnnMarie, all you need is a warm coat.

And she smiled then. ’Cause it was good news and what she’d been waiting for. She tried to picture it. A film festival. In Utah. Utah …? Where that at. She’d have to look on a map.

The next few days floated past, AnnMarie daydreaming, a little bubble of excitement knocking around inside, blocking out the image of the plus-sign. She called up Sonia and Melody, left messages on their answering machines. What you gonna wear, what you gonna bring. Can you believe it? We going on a airplane. The phone start ringing off the hook, calls back and forth. She went by to see Niki and Niki let her talk, going on and on about the news, AnnMarie bugging with excitement. Niki leaned back on the bed and grinned. Word—you a movie star now. AnnMarie threw her arms around Niki and squeezed, Niki laughing. She said, Dang, AnnMarie, calm down. AnnMarie let her go and said, I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I never been on a airplane before.

Niki said, What you gonna do with Star. You bringing her with you? And AnnMarie realized she hadn’t thought that part out so
there were more phone calls and messages left, waiting for Dean to call back and when the phone rang on Saturday afternoon, she ran across the room and picked up.

She heard a operator’s voice saying, Will you accept the charges from Darius Greene. She thought, Charges? Who this on my phone. Then she heard his voice thin and faint in the background, saying,
AnnMarie! AnnMarie …

Darius?

The operator cut in, Do you accept the charges? No speaking unless you
accept the charges
.

AnnMarie said, Yes I do and get off the line. She heard the click and said, Darius? Where are you?

I’m in jail, baby. They saying I robbed a store. But I got mistook, you know how they do—I ain’t done it and these muthafuckas beat me upside the head with a book, tryin’ to get me to confess. And his voice faded a little at that point ’cause she was thinking about the movie festival and the plus-sign she hadn’t told him about and how she need to get Star on jar food and what did he just say, they beating him in the head with a book?

I need you, baby … Come get me out.

Come where, she asked. Get you out how?

Was he crying? The line start to crackle and his voice broke up but she’d heard him.

I need you, baby. You all I got.

AnnMarie stood there for a long while after she hung up the phone. Then she ran into the bathroom, brought to her knees by an upswell of nausea. Vomit from lunch turning into dry heaves and after she finished off, she rinsed her mouth, then walked back into the room where Star was, crawling across the floor of the Pack
’n Play. She watched her daughter lace her fingers around the lip of the playpen and pull herself up. Just like that. All in one motion, Star was standing, her eyes shining, smiling like she the Cheshire Cat. AnnMarie tried to be happy, scooping her up, smothering her with kisses. Deciding right then to keep the phone call a secret. She said, Ma, you know what Star just did? Ma, come out here and take a look at this.

On Monday morning, she went down to the bank and withdrew the last of her movie money. Closed out the account. It was exactly seventy dollars. Folded the bills and slipped them in her pocket. She’d called up Raymel. He told her how it usually went down. Probably a sentence hearing, he’d said. Bring bail money just in case. She made up an excuse and left Star at home with her mother, caught the dollar van and rode it all the way out to the Queens County Courthouse. Stood in line at security, then followed the flow of people up the stairs and into the building. Saw a window and a sign that said information, but the stool was empty behind the plexiglass. AnnMarie waited, peering into the big room with a low ceiling, tiles missing in places, a couple of women talking in a corner behind a desk. ’Xcuse me, AnnMarie said, pushing her mouth up to the slatted talk hole. ’Xcuse me, she said again. One of the women turned, moving her round ass mad slow across the room where she plunked down behind a desk, not the stool by the window, and pulled open a drawer, hunting for something. AnnMarie said, How can I find out about sentencing. Without looking up, the woman said, Window 5. Up the stairs, second floor. AnnMarie climbed the stairs and found the line of people, snaking all the way down the corridor, shoulders slumped, a dead feeling in the air, music blasting from somebody’s headphones.

Next
.

Next
.

Step to the line
.

Come to the line
.

Come to the line
.

Come to the line
.

When AnnMarie’s turn came, she stepped to the window. What courtroom I go to for sentencing? she asked.

Name.

Ann Marie Walker.

The man behind the desk had his eyes on the computer screen, his finger tapping at a key. Tapping. Tapping.

There’s no AnnMarie Walker. What was the arrest date?

No, wait, AnnMarie said, confused, you want
my
name?

The man glanced at her. He said, Name of the defendant.

Defendant?

Who got arrested, the man said, impatient.

Oh. Darius. Darius Greene.

Arrest date.

I don’t know, he called me on Saturday but I don’t know—

Precinct.

I don’t know.

The man looked up again, his eyes on her like she stupid.

I don’t know the precinct. Maybe the 101 …? You don’t got his name in there?

He said, How old are you?

I’m fifteen.

He shook his head, went back to the computer screen, tapping on the key with his finger.

Come on, mister, you don’t got his name in there? Darius
Greene. G-R-E-E-N-E. He said to come here and bring him bail money.

Courtroom B.

He looked past her then and said,
Next. Step to the line
.

AnnMarie stood at the back of the courtroom and scanned the half-filled benches. Right away she spotted Raymel’s dented-in head in the back row and knew she’d come to the right place. She excused her way past a old grandma holding a toddler in her lap, stepped over two women who’d fallen asleep, heads drooping into they chest.

Raymel looked up as she approached, then turned to the girl next to him and told her to scoot down.

AnnMarie said, What up, he come out yet?

Nah … We been here waiting.

AnnMarie glanced past him to the girl on his left—she was about AnnMarie’s age, with blue eye shadow and a mouth shiny with lip gloss.

How long you been waiting, AnnMarie asked.

Mad long, the girl said. A hour at least.

Raymel stretched. He said, I’m getting hungry.

Word, the girl said.

AnnMarie looked to the front of the room. The judge up there, his face patchy and gray, eyeing one black dude after another as each one shuffled out the green door in city-issue jumpsuits. Landing at the table where a white man stood in a loose-fitting blue suit. AnnMarie couldn’t see his face, only the way he stood, like he needed a iron and a press to straighten his back, communicating with the judge.

Who that? AnnMarie whispered.

He the lawyer, I think, Raymel said.

Say what? He look mad sloppy.

The girl laughed softly. AnnMarie glanced at her and their eyes met.

I hope he ain’t here for Darius.

Drug possession. Domestic violence. Illegal weapon. Resisting arrest. Disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct. Robbery. Attempted Robbery. Resisting Arrest. Assault. Hearing dates passed out. Bail set. Bail denied. But no Darius. Then the judge was standing, scooping up his robe from around his ankles. Smacked the gavel on wood. Lunch break. Raymel stood up and stretched. He said, I be back. And then he was scooting past the girl and gone.

Where he going, AnnMarie asked.

The girl shrugged. They sat for a moment in silence as people started to file out the courtroom. AnnMarie wondered what she should do. Others had stayed put, lingering by the benches, standing and stretching, then taking a seat again.

She glanced at the girl.

Where you from? You live in Far Rockaway?

The girl said, Yeah … I live with my aunt.

How you know Raymel, you his girl?

The girl shook her head. She said, I’m CeeCee.

Okay. I’m AnnMarie.

The girl said, I know who you are.

AnnMarie looked at her.

Darius told me about you.

AnnMarie frowned. Darius?

And her heart buckled right then, hearing the words come outta that lip-gloss mouth, saying, Yeah, he my boyfriend.

Excuse me? What you mean he your boyfriend—you know I’m his baby mother …

I know, he told me all about you. He said y’all ain’t together anymore.

AnnMarie stared in disbelief but CeeCee kept smiling, sitting there like it ain’t no thing.

No, we’re still together, AnnMarie said. He lives with me at my mother’s house.

CeeCee ignored that. She said, Did you like the clothes I got for Star?

Say what?

The outfits I got for Star, did they fit?

The girl had opened up her bag, her hand inside searching for something.

The Baby Phat and little Tommy outfits …

You bought those?

Um-hm, she said, pulling out her wallet. The Puma booties, I chose the 6-to-9 month so she had room to grow. AnnMarie just looked at her in shock. Muthafucker. This girl buying clothes for Star? CeeCee flipped open her wallet and held it out to Ann Marie.

AnnMarie saw Star’s face staring up at her, the picture tucked beneath the square of clear plastic. It was the same picture AnnMarie carried in her wallet, this girl rambling on about how Darius said she could be Star’s stepmother and how happy she is to be there if Star need anything, how she can’t wait to meet her, that baby so cute, she such a cute baby. AnnMarie’s head spinning, her whole body going numb.

’Cept the thumping of her heart. She wanted to rip it outta her chest. Crack her rib cage open, yank it out her own damn self. She felt a rustle next to her, the girl moving past down the aisle, but she kept her eye on the door. The green one that had opened and closed a dozen times, all the boys and men walking through
in they jumpsuits. She looked down at her hand, pictured a gun there, a gun she’d raise up and shoot him with.

By December, that little plus-sign became a negative—she start bleedin’ in the middle of the night, AnnMarie curled up in a ball a pain, the crampy feeling taking her breath away. Blessed said, Throw the sheets out. They ain’t worth keeping.

Darius, he never even knew. She never told him. Muthafucker. Let him rot in jail. He tried calling. Do you accept the charges. She hung up the phone.

And the days went by like that. Rolling past in slow motion. A feeling like she underwater. Like she’d never been in a movie, never done nothing special at all.

She woke up, blurry-eyed, four forty-five in the morning, the space on the bed next to her empty, Star standing in the crib, wet with pee. AnnMarie stumbled over, lifted her out, got her nightie off, onesie off, diaper sagging, searched in the dark for a clean one and found the pack empty. She brought Star into the bed anyway, pulling the covers up to her chin, hand on her belly the way she liked, and they slept again until the clang and hiss of the radiator woke them for good.