The name my mama gave me was AnnaMae, the same as my grandmama who was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. People used to say she looked just like Lena Horne. I never knew who Lena Horne was, but if she looked anything like my grandmama, then she was a pretty lady.
But my grandmama was more than gorgeous, she was smart, too. It didn't matter that she never finished the sixth grade; she used to always say, "AnnaMae, you don't need school to be smart, you need sense to be smart."
That was how she used to teach me things, but giving me sayings that I would always remember. And one of her sayings was, "What goes up, must come down."
Grandmama was always right, and that was why I knew Tamara Collin's star was about to come down. And I was gonna make sure that it came down not only fast, but so hard that she'd break her freakin' neck!
I'd been thinking about this for six long years now, but my plan just started really coming together a little more than a month ago. I was finally going to be able to make Tamara's life so miserable that she'd want to die; I was finally going to be able to destroy her completely.
It was like the Revenge Gods were truly on my side because when I'd walked in here this morning and found out that Donovan Dobbs was going to be playing the lead, I was stunned. Gwen hadn't told me about that until right before Tamara got here, and I couldn't believe she'd kept that from me. Not that Gwen knew about my connection to Tamara, but I was the reason why Tamara was even here. I'd made that suggestion to Gwen when she was crying in that Houston hotel's lobby bar on the last night of her last play last year.
October 1, 2015
"What am I going to do?" Gwen asked and I swear a couple of tears dropped into her martini glass.
I felt so sorry for her. This was only her second play and this scandal could have cost her everything. "Think about it this way," I began. "You made the problem go away, right? This isn't going to be a stain on you, or your plays, or your reputation."
"Yeah, the problem is gone, but at what cost?" She shook her head. "How am I going to explain this to Eli?" She downed her martini. "Will he believe that after eight weeks on tour I made no money at all?" Then she raised her hand to the bartender and told him to bring her two more.
I wished there was something I could do for the woman who'd given me so much.
"You don't have to stay with me," Gwen slurred. "You need to get up to your room and go on to bed. Don't you have an early flight tomorrow?" She didn't give me a chance to tell her that I wasn't going anywhere before she said, "I can take care of myself."
It didn't matter what she said, I was going to stay. And so, I joined her, though I ordered only a ginger ale knowing that I might have to carry Gwen up to her room.
I let her slobber and cry over a few more drinks as a plan fixed in my mind. Finally I said, "I think you need to put this behind you and move onto the next play. Do you have anything in mind?"
To anyone else, I probably sounded like I was just trying to come to the aid of a friend. And it was true, that's how I saw Gwen. She'd given me the opportunity to be in both of her plays.
It had happened after she auditioned in a couple of small towns: Bitter End, Tennessee, Knob Lick, Missouri, and the place where I'd been born and raised, Itta Bena, Mississippi. I did not believe it when Ms. Evans, who owned Ms. Evans School of Acting and Modeling, had called with the news."
"AnnaMae, I just had to let my star student know. A big time New York City producer is holding auditions right here in town for her first play. You'd be perfect."
"Oh, my God," I'd said before the woman, who'd been my acting and modeling coach all through high school, went on to tell the specifics of the event that would be held in the auditorium of Mississippi Valley State University.
I'd been the first in line that Wednesday morning, calling in sick to my cashier's job at Betty Bea's Beauty Supply. I'd prayed the whole time that I'd get some part in the play - I didn't care what...I'd play a tree if they were paying me more than the four dollars and eighty-five cents an hour I was earning at Betty Bea's and if it would give me a chance to get away from the horror that had been my life in the last year.
Every prayer I'd prayed had been answered. I'd been cast in a secondary role as the star's personal assistant. But that was a big chance! A thousand dollars a week for ten weeks, and I'd be staying in hotels in cities that I'd only seen on TV: Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, DC.
I later learned that in other plays actresses would have been paid two, even three times what I'd earned. It had been Gwen's husband's idea to go to real small towns where people were thirsty. But that was fine with me 'cause I was beyond thirty; I was so dehydrated, she could have paid me a nickel and I would have said yes to my chance of becoming a star!
I'd worked hard to not only perform well, but I made it my goal to get close to Gwen...and it worked. She'd cast me in this play, too, and the way things had been going, I had no doubt that I was going to be one of her actresses that she'd call all the time.
But my future was in jeopardy now. I had to talk her into making a comeback, something big that would help her to mentally get past this scandal. Because not only did I need these gigs for the opportunity, but I needed them because I knew, I just knew that being in the same industry as Tamara would get me close to her. I never really had a plan to pay her back. Not until I sat with Gwen that night, not until I suggested that she hit the road again, with a new play and a bigger star - someone like Tamara Collins.
Even now, I remembered the way Gwen had looked at me that night when I said that. Her eyes were glazed, her stare was a bit shaky as she tried to focus her glance on me. But behind all that drunkenness, there was hope in her eyes.
I wasn't privy to the details, but when Gwen had called ten months later and told me that she had another role for me in this, her third play starring - Tamara Collins - I actually got down on my knees and thanked the Lord for giving me this chance for revenge.
I wish I were more patient, I wish I could last through the ten weeks of this play and just torture Tamara, every single day. I could do it with all the chances I'd have to put my arms around (and maybe even talk Gwen into writing in a few kisses) with the man that I was sure Tamara still loved. I could do it with lots of other little things - finding a way to contact Donovan's wife and after she showed up in one city, I could then set up chance encounters with the many jump offs Donovan was rumored to have in all the other cities.
But the problem was, I couldn't wait. Just seeing Tamara made me hungry for that sweet taste of revenge. I had something planned that would make the national humiliation she'd experienced when Donovan had left her seem like a day at the beach. Because after what she'd done to me, she deserved it. I was sure that she hadn't cried enough, her heart hadn't hurt enough. I wanted her to have the kind of pain that would leave her crying every night. I wanted her to have a pain that she'd never be able to forget.
When the door to the conference room opened and Tamara came back in, I moved to the other side of the large room, though I watched her the entire time. My chest ached from the way my heart banged. And my hands stung from the way my nails pressed into the skin of my palms.
I hated everything about her as she strutted like she was better than the rest of us. She sat down in the opposite corner, away from everyone and I had to push down my desire to walk right up to her and punch her in her face.
I hadn't been sure how this was gonna go down this morning. I hadn't been sure if Tamara would see me and run over to greet me like we were old friends, or if now that she was this big time actress, she would be aloof and just say hello.
But that heffa hadn't done either one of those things. She acted like she didn't even know me. As if I looked that different after eleven years. Granted, the last time she'd laid her eyes on me, right before she traipsed off to return to Yale, I was fourteen, still in braces and pigtails and with legs as thin as twigs (hence my nickname, Twiggy.) But even with the green contact lenses that I wore and my twenty-eight inch honey-blond Malaysian weave, I didn't look all that different. And even though no one called me AnnaMae Wilson anymore (since that didn't really sound like the name of a star), she had to know who I was. But if she was going to play this game, then, I would play it, too. It wasn't important that she remembered me. That had nothing to do with what I had planned for her tonight.
As she sat, and I stared, I felt my patience waning. I just had to do something. Had to make my first move.
I stood and did one of those strolls that I'd learned back home in Ms. Evans's school. Tamara never looked up as I made my way to her. She didn't even look up when I stopped right in front of her. Nor when I stood there for a good thirty seconds. This coon-face never...looked...up.
My fingernails dug deeper into my palms, but I was an actress so I kept my tone cool. "How ya doin'?"
She kinda sighed. "I'm fine," she said as she finally made eye contact. There was not a hint of recognition. Like she'd met so many people in the eleven years since she'd last seen me that there was no way for her to remember all the way back to when she'd been at my house almost every day. Then she said, "How are you?"
Her enunciation was so proper, so crisp, missing that Mississippi drawl that I worked so hard to hide. The way she spoke, I wondered if she was clownin' me and if she was, the price for the debt she had to pay just went up.
I let a couple of moments pass and right when she gave me a dismissive half-smile, then looked down at her script again, I crossed my arms and said, "So, you're really gonna act like you don't remember me?"
This time, when she looked up, one of her eyebrows was raised. "Excuse me?"
I laughed, then did one of her moves. I tossed my hair over my shoulder before I told her, "Bitches like you always frontin'."
She blinked and blinked and blinked. And I glared and glared and glared. Finally, she said, "What did you just say?"
My response was quick, since I was ready and itchin' for this fight. If she didn't watch out, I would take care of her humiliation myself. "You heard me," I said. "I didn't stutter." My words were covered with every bit of the pain I'd felt since 2010.
She moved slowly, first, putting her script next to her purse on the chair beside her, then she rose up like she was really about to do something. I didn't back up and I had to hold back or else I was gonna pop off. But I dropped my hands to my side because if this heffa came for me, I was gonna give everyone in this room a show that would be better than anything we were about to take on the road.
"Sweetheart," she began in a tone that was all sugary-sweet. "I do not know who you think I am, but let me tell you who I am not. I am not someone who will let you call me out of my name. So if you do not...."
"I know who you are, Miss Collins," I said, cutting her off. "I know very well, who and what you are." I lowered my voice to a whisper when I added, "I also know what you did."
She did that blinking thing again. "What in the world are you talking about?"
I wanted to tell her, I wanted to tell her so bad. But another thing that my grandmama always said - there was a time and a place for everything. And this was not the time and tonight would be a better place.
So, I gave her a smirk and just a few words. "In due time, boo." Then, I pulled one of her numbers - I did the same thing she'd just done to Donovan. I turned, put some serious switch in my hips - something else I'd learned from Ms. Evans - and made my way right out of that conference room, slamming the door for extra effect.