Uptown Dreams - Softcover

Miller, Karen E. Quinones

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743296087 ISBN 13: 9780743296083

Publisher: Pocket Books

Synopsis

Writer and welfare mother Brenda Carver, aspiring actress Rosa Rivera, and political activist Sharif Goldsby support and protect one another in their Harlem Ida Barrett Wells Tower home while pursuing independent goals and sharing life lessons. By the author of Using What You Got. Originally published as Ida B. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author:

Karen E. Quinones Miller is the Essence bestselling author of Satin Doll, I'm Telling, Using What You Got and Uptown Dreams. She has been nominated for the NAACP Literary Award. In addition, she is a literary consultant, CEO of Oshun Publishing Company, and a former literary agent. She lives in Philadelphia with her daughter, Camille.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

Dear Brenda,

How you doing, Kiddo? Sorry this letter is handwritten, but I couldn't get to the legal library to use the word processor. They've got us on lockdown again because some idiot gangsta wannabe in here shanked some white dude. The fucked up thing is he ain't even know the guy. He just did it to get some respect. Little punk. He's going to get respect all right. Soon as the guards let us all out of our cells he's going to get his ass kicked for getting us all locked up like this over some stupid shit. But don't worry, Kiddo, I'm not even thinking about getting involved in that shit. I'm a two-digit midget. Only thirty-five days and I'm out of this hell hole.

I got your letter, and I miss hearing your voice too, Kiddo. But I'm not going to make any more collect calls to you. It hurt my heart when your telephone got turned off a couple of months ago. A father is supposed to help his kids, not hurt them.

It's funny, but the closer I am to getting out, the more I reflect about what a lousy father I was to you. The feds have kept me away for twenty-five years, but I wasn't really part of your life even before they threw me in here. I didn't understand what it meant to be a father. What a gift from God children are, and how they need love and nurturing to make them whole. I've got a lot of making up to do. To you and to my grandkids. How's Bootsy doing in summer school? Tell him he'd better get his act together, because Granddad is coming home and I'm going to keep my foot on his neck. Only twelve years old and he thinks he's a man. Harlem will do that to a boy, and don't I know it.

I'm going to sign off now because they're getting ready to collect the mail and I want to get this letter out to you today. Give the kids a hug from their old granddad, and tell your crazy ass mother I said hello. And let her know I'm going to kick her ass for letting you have all those kids. (Just kidding!)

I love you, Kiddo, and I look forward to being with you and the kids.

Love, Dad

P. S. Write me back real soon!

Brenda stood by the long triple row of steel gray mailboxes in the lobby of the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Tower, reading the letter before carefully refolding it, and replacing it in the envelope. She closed her eyes as she slowly moved her fingers over the return address: Jamison Edwards, U. S. Penitentiary, 1300 Metropolitan, Leavenworth, KS 66048. She sighed, and dismally shook her head. She knew his image from photographs she had seen, but as much as she wanted to, she could not actually remember the father she'd not seen since she was two years old. The man who had started writing her only three years before to say that he wanted to reclaim the daughter he ignored while he was free.

"Ooh, that's good. I'd better write that down," she said out loud as she started shuffling in her pocketbook and pulled out a pen and notepad. "The man who had started writing her only three years before to say that he wanted to reclaim the daughter he ignored while he was free." She looked at the words with a satisfied smile. Oh, yeah. That's really deep.

"Damn, it's not even ten o'clock and it's already hot as hell out there."

Brenda looked up to see a hefty chocolate skinned, middle-aged woman with a slightly skewed honey-blond wig enter the lobby of the Ida B. She was pulling a shopping cart piled high with white plastic bags filled with groceries with one hand, and wiping sweat off her forehead with the palm of the other.

"How are you doing, Miss Jackie?" Brenda asked as she slipped the envelope and notepad into her pocketbook.

"Girl, I ain't doing so good. I think I'm having heart palpitations again. I know I gotta bad heart, even though the doctors say there ain't nothing wrong with it. But what do they know." The woman started patting her heaving, but very deeply sagging, bosom as she leaned heavily against the yellow concrete walls of the building lobby.

"And you know my sugar's been acting up lately. I gotta talk to my doctor today 'cause I think he needs to put me back on insulin. Never should have taken me off, if you ask me. I told my daughter if I die she should sue that Asian bastard. They don't give a shit about black folks, you know. And I was feeling light-headed yesterday, so I think my blood pressure going up again. I'd be lucky if I don't die of a stroke like Mrs. Johnson did last week. I didn't see you at the funeral."

"I wasn't able to go because..." Brenda started.

"Child, I don't blame you. Ain't nobody here in Ida B. liked that mean old woman, anyway. Always calling the police on someone," Miss Jackie cut her off. "I wouldn't go myself if she weren't a member of my church."

"Well, I actually liked her, but -- "

"Oh, please, you don't have to pretend for me. You know she tried to get my Ronald locked up, talking about he's the one what started that fire in the second-floor staircase a while back. I know he ain't do it."

Brenda winced at Miss Jackie's use of the word "what" in place of "that." She was a stickler for English herself, but there was no sense in trying to correct the woman.

"I raised my son better than that. She probably did it herself, just to cause some trouble," Miss Jackie started fanning herself with her hand. "I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but ain't no use lying either, if you ask me. But girl, you shoulda went to that funeral and seen the way her grandchildren acted out. I guess you heard about it, huh?"

"Well, no. But -- "

"Mmm, mmm, mmm, let me tell you. You know that high-yaller one what moved up to Mount Vernon with that big-time drug dealer? You know, the one what thinks she's so cute. Well, she was up at the funeral wearing a black dress what was so short it was just sinful. Hmmph! Sinful, I say."

"Well, Miss Jackie, I've gotta go, so -- "

"And then she had the nerve to be up in that church, crying and carrying on talking about how much she loved her grandmother," Miss Jackie continued, causing Brenda to utter an involuntary, but very audible, sigh which she ignored. "And then she threw herself on the casket and everybody could see her black lace bikini underwear. Oh, child, it was scandalous. If Mrs. Johnson wasn't already dead she would have died of shame. Them grandkids worried that poor woman so much they probably the ones what really killed her. You know that her youngest grandson is locked up for killing somebody up in the Bronx. And they wouldn't even let him come out to go to his own grandmother's funeral. Ain't that something?"

"Miss Jackie -- "

"He never was no good, though, if you ask me. And then with that other grandson of hers, Sharif, liking men like that. And you know what the Good Book says about homosexuals..."

"Miss Jackie, I've really got to run," Brenda said with a note of finality.

"Oh, child, you go 'head. Don't let me hold you." Miss Jackie straightened herself up and grabbed the handle of her shopping cart. "I've got to go upstairs and put these groceries away. Where you going anyway, all dressed up wearing that nice suit? Peach really looks nice on you, Brenda. Brings out the highlights in your complexion. Not all girls dark as you got highlights, but you do. I be noticing things like that, you know. And I like them shoes. You looking real spiffy. What, you going out on a job interview or something? But I don't know if you should be wearing your hair like that. What they call it? Twists? Oh, don't get me wrong, I like them all right. They suit you. But, you know, a lot of white folks ain't gonna hire someone what looks like they might be some kind of radical or something."

"Hey, chica! How you doing, Miss Jackie?"

Brenda gave a sigh of relief as a thin but shapely young Puerto Rican woman -- wearing blue flip-flops, rhinestone studded jeans, and a red halter top that barely covered her ample breasts -- walked up and gave her a gentle shove on the shoulder.

"Girl, Rosa, I'm standing here having heart palpitations -- " Miss Jackie started.

"Yeah, Miss Jackie, that's nice." Rosa gave the woman a quick nod, then turned her back on her to address Brenda. "Did the mailman get here yet?"

"Yeah. He's getting here earlier and earlier. I came downstairs at nine-thirty and he'd already been and gone," Brenda said as she gave the younger woman a return shove.

"Uh huh," Miss Jackie nodded. "He sure is been getting here early these days. I think it's 'cause they moved up Ida B. on his route so it's his first stop, and that way when they close the building next year the rest of his route isn't affected too much. Uh huh. That's just what I think. Ain't that something about them closing the Ida B.?"

"Yeah. That's really something, Miss Jackie," Rosa said absentmindedly.

"Those are just rumors about them closing the Ida B., Miss Jackie. Nobody's received any notices yet," Brenda said. "Come on, Rosa. Hurry up and grab your mail so you can walk me to the bus stop."

"You crazy? I ain't going out in that heat," Rosa said as she opened her mailbox and pulled out a bunch of envelopes. "Shit, ain't nothing here but bills."

"I know what you mean, Rosa, not wanting to go out in this heat," Miss Jackie said. "I was just telling Brenda it's so hot out there that -- "

"Yeah, Miss Jackie, that's nice." Rosa grabbed Brenda's arm and started pulling her toward the door. "Okay, I'ma walk you, 'cause I got something to tell you anyway. Girl, I got the serious hook-up. One of my cousins started working at The Gap, and you know the gift cards they have now? Well, you give her three hundred dollars and she can hook you up with a seven hundred card. Is that the shit or what?"

"Damn, that'll come in handy for the kids' back-to-school shopping," Brenda nodded.

"I'm telling you, chica. But you can't wait until September and shit. You got to get the card now, because my cousin don't never stay at no job too long. You can use the card later, but I'm telling you, you'd better get that shit now while the getting's good. I'm going to get a card and do some my shopping for Eddie, eve...

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• ISBN 10: 0743296087
• ISBN 13: 9780743296083
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 231