On the Come Up (24 page)

You knock?

No one answer.

She put the key in, pushed open the door. It was quiet. Star was quiet.

Shhh … Go in.

She looked in her mother’s room. Star was sleeping. She stood for a moment wondering whether to give her the medicine or let her be.

She went into her room, Darius had already emptied his pockets, set his phone, blade, pocket change up on the dresser like he thought he staying the night.

Stretched out there on the bed.

He said, Come here baby …

He said, Why you act like that.

She sat down and looked at him.

Why you carrying your blade.

Ain’t nothing. Got a beef to solve.

Who with.

Nobody. Come ’ere and lay with me for a small little minute.

So she laid down and his arm went around her, his fingers brushing skin.

Star sick. I gotta listen for her cough.

Okay.

He rose up on his elbow and leaned in, found her lips, his smell familiar, his taste like the beedie he smoke. And she felt the loneliness expanding, like a balloon stretched tight, making her reach for him.

Then his body was on hers and she could feel him getting hard as he licked and sucked, his hands stroking her body, rubbing between her legs, and it felt good, so she put her tongue in his mouth and felt him grow harder still, then he was pulling her pants down ’til she was free and clear, waiting to be entered but
it was Niki she was thinking of, Niki’s hands brushing her skin, Niki’s lips on hers and her taste, the taste of her and it didn’t take long, soon she was there and it was pouring through her and she tried to make it last with every thrust—she met his with her own, not Darius but Niki on her mind.

All week, Niki’d been on her—she kept asking, So you and Darius getting back together, what’s going on, he been by to see Star. Or she’d drop things here and there like, I saw Darius go by on Bayport. Ain’t that over by his other baby mama house.

A whole month since that first kiss and not once had Niki brought up Darius until now. Not a word. The month passing with little play-fights on the bed, tussles turning into kisses, the kisses into full-on make-outs, hands up the shirt, legs entwined, Niki rubbing and pressing and AnnMarie didn’t know what was happening exactly, all she knew was that she liked how it felt, all the attention Niki was giving her, the way Niki was putting her first over everybody. Nadette. Latania. Even the black China doll.

AnnMarie’d never been more confused in her life. Niki was her best friend. She was mad cool, funny as hell, and she loved Star like her own but did AnnMarie
like
her like her? Niki, who’d walk in without knocking. Was she in love with this girl?

Something had shifted this past week—her best friend replaced by someone else, Niki hangdogging AnnMarie with questions about Darius, dropping seeds a doubt, putting her on the spot with where she going and who she seeing, and do she still like cock, busting on her and laughing, but underneath AnnMarie felt Niki’s neediness like a weight around her neck. Pushing AnnMarie to choose. Hurry the fuck up and choose.

So she finally said, flat out—Yeah, me and Darius back together,
even though it wasn’t true. She’d said it not knowing what would go down, how they friendship might change, knowing only that this secret with Niki just wasn’t working.

They’d been heading over to Nadette’s.

Niki said, Oh so you gonna stay with a muthafucker who beats you and fucks with your head and can’t be faithful to you.

AnnMarie tsked. She said, Faithful. What about you, you can’t even tell nobody we hanging out.

I don’t care what you do.

AnnMarie looked at her. You told me don’t say nothing to Nadette. She too fragile. It’ll break her heart. Like you cheating on her with me.

Niki laughed. You so stupid, AnnMarie, how can I be cheating when we ain’t even a thing.

AnnMarie went quiet. Niki’s words making her cheeks go hot. Trying to mess with her head. Just like Darius. Well, fuck her, AnnMarie thought. And by the time they walked into Nadette’s building, AnnMarie was mad tight, Niki taking the stairs two at a time—each walking in alone, one after the other. Nadette and Teisha was on the sofa, music playing from the stereo, Nadette with a glow on her face, like she’d kissed the sun.

Right away Niki slumped down in a chair and was texting on her phone. AnnMarie said, What up? What y’all doing. Fronting like everything peachy.

Teisha glanced at Niki. What’s wrong with her.

Niki didn’t bother to look up. Kept her head down, texting. Texting. And AnnMarie felt uneasy as Nadette raised her arm, bending her wrist to show off a mad big diamond on her finger.

Oooh, where’d you get that, that is beautiful, Nadette, AnnMarie said, crossing to look at the ring.

They engaged, Teisha said.

Who engaged, you got engaged? To Dennis?

Mm-hm. Proposed to me yesterday.

I thought y’all broke up.

Where you been AnnMarie … He left that skinny-ass clown last week, came back to the one and only true thing, word.

Niki was slumped back in the chair, staring at Nadette. AnnMarie didn’t even have to look, she could feel the hatred pouring out her eyeballs, all of Niki’s questions and neediness making sense all of a sudden. Rejected again.

Nadette lifted her eyes and glared. She said, What. You got something to say?

But Niki just got up and walked out the door.

Teisha shook her head. Why you gotta fuck with her like that.

What, you the one who said they engaged.

AnnMarie stood for a moment, her own heart collapsing. Niki’s shame left behind, like a shadow.

Where you going, AnnMarie, Nadette said. But she didn’t answer, she went out the door, down the stairwell, calling Niki’s name.

Finally catching her in the hall leading to the street, she reached out and grabbed her arm, saying Hold up, Niki. Hold up. But Niki swung around and backed AnnMarie up against the wall, pinning her there with both hands.

What the fuck, Niki, let go. And she did, slamming her hard one last time before backing away and disappearing into the bright white light of the afternoon.

For a second, AnnMarie stood dumb. Feeling the stab of pain where her spine had collided with concrete, pulsing now after Niki had released her. She hesitated, then told her feet to move, went out the door and up the block, catching Niki at the intersection. AnnMarie tried to think of what to say as they crossed the street.

Nadette be mad cold sometime, she finally said.

Niki didn’t answer. Hands in her pocket, she didn’t even shrug.

Did you know they back together?

Niki still didn’t answer so AnnMarie got up the nerve to glance
at her face, saw her eyes crumple as she fought back tears. She’d never seen Niki cry before. Not once in her life and it scared her.

She reached for Niki’s hand but she dodged away, saying, bitch, Don’t touch me.

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.

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.