On the Come Up Read Online Free PDF Page A

store.
    So AnnMarie went, glad to be outside again. She cut across the street, went up to Cornega, picturing Carlton’s dumb smile, and tsked out loud.
Don’t she look grown?
It bothered her they knew things she couldn’t remember. Ninja-fucking Turtles. Superpowers. She thought hard, trying to picture Pinky’s house, push pass the hazy space in her mind, when all of a sudden Kayla and Leela popped up, clear as day. They’d been her foster sisters at Grandma Mason’s house. Twins, but not the identical kind. Both of them thin-boned and small, same age as AnnMarie, but tiny like twiggy birds. One of them had dry skin. Leela. Flaky dry skin, that girlhad some kinda skin trouble. Grandma Mason catch her scratching, she’d beat that girl with the belt she let hang from a nail by the window. There’d been Shemar too. Another foster brother, a year younger than the twins. He got the top bunk ’cause Grandma Mason liked him best.
    No Ninja Turtles up there in the Bronx, AnnMarie thought. Never any candy at all. Except when the older boys came upstairs. Grandma Mason’s grandsons. With their Mars Bars and Nestlé Crunch. Grandma Mason would yank AnnMarie from the broom closet. Why you hiding, she’d say. They’s your foster brothers too.
    At the bodega, AnnMarie reached up and pressed the bell. She waited, knowing somebody inside watching the video screen, checking to see who out there. She heard the buzz and went in, past the old man buying a lottery ticket, down the aisle to the back where the soda was. She plucked a Fanta off the shelf when the A-rab start up shouting,
One at a time. One at a time
. AnnMarie turned. She could see him behind the counter, looking intently at the video screen, then heard the buzzer as the door swung open and in stepped Raymel, his face lighting up when he saw her.
    Damn, girl, he said. I was just thinking about you.
    Hey Raymel, what up … Happy to see him too, but trapped now ’cause all she had was the food stamp in her pocket. No way she pulling it out in front of him.
    What you doing, you going to Sunshine’s?
    Sunshine, what they doing?
    She having a little thing. Me and Jason headin’ over …
    She knew Sunshine lived with her boyfriend somewhere over there on Walcott, behind Redfern Houses. He a dealer or something, but he had mad swag. Drove a car and everything.
    Who gonna be there?
    Everybody.
    And that’s all it took. AnnMarie set the Fanta back up on the shelf and walked down the aisle. Yeah, yeah … I’ma go with y’all.
    Raymel grinned, said to the man, Let me get a Zig-Zag.
    Ma! She said into the pay phone. Ma, I’ma go to this little birthday party for Patrice. Patrice from choir? Her mother go to church with you, no ma, I just ran into them. Her mother throwing her a little party, please can I go. Since I ain’t getting my own party … please ma. Please. There gonna be cake.
    Her eye flitting over to Jason and Raymel who cracked up into they hands.
    When she crept in after midnight, all the lights were off. She let her eyes adjust, listening to the low raspy sound of someone breathing. The buffalo on the couch. She slipped across the floor and stood in her doorway. Carlotta asleep in her bed, window fan blowing hot air through the room. She went into Blessed’s room, unbuckled her sandals, left her shorts and T-shirt on and crawled in next to her mother, mad slow, careful not to bump her, even though she knew it took a thunder of elephants to wake her up.
    She lay there for a long while, thinking about Sunshine’s party. How she’d seen Darius come in with his homies through the haze a weed smoke. She tried to find Raymel but he’d disappeared somewhere, the room packed tight with people she didn’t know. All a them older, outta high school at least. She wished she’d worn her satin hoodie. What would she have said to Darius anyway. Leaning up against the wall, looking mad fine. Some chick going up to him, talking in his ear. AnnMarie’d stepped on