On the Come Up (27 page)

Lucinda shrugged.

Why you do that, you don’t gotta do that.

Ain’t no thing.

AnnMarie heard the soft way she said it, thought of the quiet way Lucinda had a talking, and felt her heart flip over.

Lucinda said, Why you looking at me like that—we going inside or we gonna tell the neighbors about it?

But AnnMarie wasn’t listening, she was thinking,
what the fuck am I waiting for
. She knew what she wanted to do and just as
Lucinda opened her mouth to speak, AnnMarie took a step and kissed her. Her lips parting, pressing against Lucinda’s, kissing her the way she’d been dreaming of. She felt her heart melting, her whole body go slack as Lucinda’s hand rose, pulling AnnMarie into an embrace. A month of waiting and wanting, a whole month and when Lucinda drew away, AnnMarie whispered, I think I’m in love.

What your mother gonna say? Lucinda asked, softly.

Fuck my mother, what she know about love.

One evening, not long after, they was coming from the J&B where they’d gone to buy toilet paper and groceries and a toothbrush for Lucinda since she’d started sleeping over. Lu was talking about the game she played on Tuesday, how she’d tried to get in front of the girl but had slipped, the girl landing a three-point jumper.

AnnMarie was saying
uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-oh
, but was only halfways listening ’cause she saw the fellas standing on the corner and felt a stab of apprehension. She slowed down some, falling out a step with Lucinda who didn’t seem to notice, tossing the ball up in the air, still talking her ball-talk when AnnMarie realized one a them was Raymel.

Hadn’t seen him for a long time, heard he’d gone upstate for burglary. She wondered how this gonna go down, one fella pacing, gold flashing on his teeth, his voice loud like he some type a cock-a-the-block. So she kept her eye on Raymel and when she saw the look of recognition pass across his face, she let herself breathe.

What, you gonna walk by, not say hello, Raymel said smiling.

AnnMarie stepped up and hugged him. How you doing, Ray, where you been?

I’ve been good, you know. Keeping it real.

Other fella said, Fuck that. He been on vacation, word, what up.

Raymel laughed, Tha’s right—I been on vacation. Reaching over, taking daps from Gold Mouth, then sipping from the 40 he got tucked in a brown paper bag.

Gold Mouth eyes glassy, pacing, high on something. AnnMarie could feel him moving behind her, his eyes moving from her shoulder to her ass, and all she wanted was to be the fuck outta there.

But Raymel was saying, Where Darius at?

His mother got a place in Redfern. He over there with her in 12-70.

Y’all still together …?

He my baby daddy, let’s put it that way.

Introduce, Raymel. Introduce us to these fine young things, Gold Mouth said, and do they want to party wit’ us?

Raymel looked at her now, like he drinking her up. Something he never woulda done if Darius been around.

Who your friend, AnnMarie, y’all wanna party wit’ us?

But before she could answer, Lucinda said, No. We don’t wanna party wit’ y’all. Come on, AnnMarie, let’s go.

Raymel’s gaze drifting to Lu, checking her like
Who this bitch
, and in that moment, AnnMarie felt herself do it—shift, just a inch, but enough to put space between her and Lu, then it was done.

They walked the rest of the way home in silence. A wall between them. Finally, Lu said, How you know he over in Redfern. I thought you said you hadn’t seen him.

That fool popped up a couple a days ago, wanting to see Star.

So you let him in.

Yeah, I let him in. He Star’s father, ain’t he.

Oh, okay.

Why you questioning me?

I ain’t questioning you.

Truth was they’d played on the floor for a while, the three of them—he’d brought Star a doll and when she pulled the string, the doll cried
Mama
or
Baba
or
Feed me
. They’d laughed, listening to that fake child sound and when he leaned over and kissed her, she’d kissed him back. She didn’t know why. He’d given her money for Star, peeled off five twenties from a wad so thick she could see the bulge after he’d tucked it back in his front pocket.

When they got back to AnnMarie’s building, Lu held out the bag of groceries and said, I’m out.

AnnMarie frowned. Why?

Lu glanced away.

Then she said, I don’t like how you acting.

Fine. Leave then.

Upstairs, she put the groceries on the counter, went into her bedroom and closed the door.

Star walked in and said, Ma, can you—but AnnMarie cut her off, saying, Leave me alone. I play with you in a minute. Star threw herself on the bed next to AnnMarie’s face and started whining so AnnMarie stood up, lifted her daughter and carried her out the room. She said, Sit down, watch TV. Star burst out crying but AnnMarie just turned and went back into her room, closed the door. She didn’t care Star was wailing, her mother’s voice hollering through the door. She laid down on the bed, unable to move, a heavy feeling pressing on her chest like a brick.

When AnnMarie finally rose, she went into the living room and sat Star on her lap, hugged her close. She said, You wanna help me put the groceries away? Star perked up, scrambling from her
mother’s lap, excited over this simple chore and ran to the kitchen where the bag still sat untouched. AnnMarie followed, and the two of them put the cold cuts in the fridge and the bread up on the counter. Star reaching in the bag, pulling out first a roll of toilet paper, then Lucinda’s toothbrush. AnnMarie looked at it in her daughter’s hand. She pictured herself on the street. Shifting, leaning away. Knowing she’d cheated Lucinda outta something and hating herself for it.

She thought, What the fuck you got to be afraid of. You is you. Fuck everybody and they opinion. If you love her, then love her.

You is you.

Be you. Be happy.

She called up Lu’s house. Lu’s mother said, No AnnMarie she’s not here but I’ll tell her you called.

Don’t she got a ball game this weekend, AnnMarie asked.

On Saturday, she got Star dressed in a child-size basketball jersey she’d found at Payless and a mad cute pair of high-tops. Got on the subway and they rode all the way out to St. Francis College in downtown Brooklyn.

AnnMarie and Star found a seat up near the top of the bleachers, clusters of families sitting together, everyone waiting for the game to get started. Feeling flutterflies in her stomach, she watched the girls break from the huddle, black and green jerseys filtering onto the floor, Lucinda taking her position at the circle, ready to pounce for the tip-off.

Look Ma, there she is. There’s Lu, Star said.

That’s right, Boo. Number 18.

And then it started, ref tossed the ball in the air, two centers springing, green team got the tip but all of a sudden there was Lu, reaching in, lightning quick, stealing the ball away from the big girl who was startled, then angry and a step behind. AnnMarie
was on her feet as Lucinda headed for the basket, her stride long and graceful, making the two-point layup, easy, no problem. Couldn’t hear the swish ’cause somebody was shouting,
That’s my girl! That’s my baby!
AnnMarie looked down and saw a woman standing—Lucinda’s mother with two little girls, five and seven, clapping and pounding their feet.

Dang, AnnMarie thought. She don’t lie.

One night after they made love, Lucinda showing AnnMarie what felt good, how to use two fingers and a palm to make her come—they lay side by side, Lu’s head nestled next to hers, the curtain pulled back to let a breeze in. AnnMarie was drifting into an easy sleep when a image appeared out the blue—her mother standing on Gateway Boulevard, raising up her hand, waving all those food stamps around.
Who want ice cream. Who want ice cream
, her mother had shouted, not caring two cents who saw or what it meant. Thinking of AnnMarie and only AnnMarie. No shame in love or how you claim it.

AnnMarie opened her eyes, listening to Lu breathing next to her. She said, I used to look down on my mother. You know, I blamed her for how she is, like she stupid, she lazy, acting like a invalid—never trying to get better, get a job, nothing.

AnnMarie heard Lucinda laugh softly in the dark. She said, You a harsh critic.

AnnMarie nudged her. I’m serious … All those disability checks coming in, it was like why bother, you know …

Lucinda was quiet, then said, Once you in the system, it hard to get out.

AnnMarie lay still, listening for a long time to the night sounds coming up from the street below. Garbage truck making the
bweep bweep bweep
as it idled somewhere out there. She said, I ever tell you about Blessed coming to New York?

Lu said, Hm-mm …

So AnnMarie told her the story all the way from the beginning, of Blessed leaving the man who abused her, coming over with a bag a clothes and AnnMarie just a seed in her belly, not knowing what hurdles there was to jump but jumping blind anyway. How she stole back her life.

And when she got to the end she knew Lu’d fallen alseep somewhere along the way, her breath coming soft and low. AnnMarie started to reach for her arm, to set it across her waist but stopped herself.

She thought about how she’d made Darius
it
, the number one be-all, end-all. Even with making the movie and getting out in the world, she’d tethered herself to him, first for love, then for Star, then simply for the sameness of it. There’d been a comfort in the sameness. She’d never had the guts to tell him down. Five years, coming and going. He could punch her. Fuck her. Kick her in the head. She’d get up … Yeah, she’d get up but she’d say, Come on in.

She didn’t speak these words aloud. But she understood them suddenly and in a deep way. Maybe it was ’cause of Lu laying next to her, the quiet way she spoke, the way she’d spin the ball on her finger, saying, Yeah, I’m listening … Maybe it was ’cause of Niki or the movie, of having known Dean and Albert and Maya, having gone out into the world and come back again, seeing her life as a map with lines and markings … all the boundaries to cross and the ones she’d accepted. All the markings scratched out by petty beefs and throw-downs, the want of attention and money, by having a baby too young. The weight of an arm confused with a promise.

It came to her just before sleep, an idea crystallizing in the dark—how maybe the size of your world ain’t what matter, whether it expand or shrink up or expand again. Hurdles to jump. You jump. Erase the lines, draw new ones. Chart a course and follow.

Right around Star’s fourth birthday Darius came by knocking on the door.

He said, I need to talk to you for a small little minute. Can you step outside?

AnnMarie leaned against the doorjamb considering …

What you want, Darius?

Nah, nothing. I came by to see you. My homeboy Marco, he says he saw you over there at Splash—what, you modeling these days?

A little here and there, yeah …

Well, I wanted to say congratulations and whatnot.

Acting mad nice. Ducking his head like he got admiration and shit. Saying, Yeah … I been over by to Splash, that place sick. You know the DJ, he go by Master XBomb, he work all over the city …

But she stopped paying attention, knowing where this was leading, any second now, he gonna say, How you feel and can I come in …

So she said, Hold up, Darius. I be right back.

She left him in the hall, closed the door, Blessed calling from the bathroom, Who that, AnnMarie. Who knocking …

But AnnMarie didn’t answer, she went past Star playing on the couch, opened the door to her bedroom and said, Darius out there.

Lucinda looked up, her expression blank.

That piece a shit coming to bother you? What he want.

AnnMarie shrugged, crossing to the window where she peeled the curtain back and stared down at the street. Her heart strumming, trying to collect herself. What the fuck she gonna do. He ask to come inside and Lucinda in her bedroom. What she gonna do. It ain’t been a secret but she hadn’t told nobody neither. At least not in Far Rock, the two of them spending most a their time in the West Village of Manhattan, hitting the clubs on All Girl Night, making out in the corner, on the dance floor, in the bathroom stall, acting wild and crazy, dancing up a storm, talking, laughing, meeting other girls, new girls from all over the city. She’d been having the time of her life.

She could feel Lucinda’s eyes on her, waiting.

You want me to leave?

AnnMarie shook her head. Stay here. I’ma go talk to him.

Out in the hallway, Darius had taken a seat at the top of the stairwell.

He sighed.

Word, he started … I just wanted to tell you congratulations, you know … All these muthafuckers posing, like they doing something—I need people in my life who got motivation, you feel me. That’s what I like about you, doing the fashion thing, I need that AnnMarie, respect, word up.

She leaned against the wall. She said, Thank you. That’s nice of you. I appreciate it. But her mind was lifting off, thinking, how she gonna do it. Is she gonna do it?

He kept on rambling, talking about how he doing a R. Kelly remix, and do she want to sing the female part, he gathering some beats, getting his studio together … hit it at the clubs with a new mixtape …

Sounds good, Darius. Let me know when you get the studio set up … I be there.

Darius sighed, pulled out his phone, read a text.

He looked up at her. Where Star at? You gonna let me in?

She let her eyes fall on his face, studying him for a moment. Then she pushed herself away from the wall. She said, Come on then.

Star looked up when they entered. Darius said, Hey baby what you doing … She was standing at a TV tray, putting the pieces of a puzzle together—picture of Dora and that monkey Boots. Star said, It’s a puzzle.

And before Darius could take a seat on the couch, AnnMarie motioned with her head to follow.

He came up behind her as she opened the bedroom door, revealing Lucinda stretched across the bed with her tight jeans and leather do-rag, flipping through a magazine, looking beautiful as ever.