“Aight now.”
“I’m sorry,” she says between giggles.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not.”
I start looking through Tanya’s bookcases, picking up a random pen to throw at Dani when I hear her giggle again.
“Ha, look at this.” Dani holds up a letter for me.
It seems that Tanya liked to keep her desk clear in favor of shoving everything inside the desk drawers, so Dani and I are sitting on the floor across from each other going through each one.
I scan the letter and then read through it thoroughly three more times to make sure I’m not seeing things.
“Is this a love letter?”
“Yep,” she says around a smile.
“From Prince?”
“Prince.”
“TheePrince?”
“The artist formerly known as,” she responds.
I shake my head. “That’s wild.”
She rummages through the rest of the papers lying at the bottom of the drawer. “It looks like it was only one and I don’t think she responded. Imagine turning down Prince!”
“You think George up there putting hands on Prince for his wife?”
George was long gone before Dani and I came around, but the very fact that he got Tanya to marry him tells me that George did not play around.
Dani sighs dreamily. “Either that or she’s charmed her way into the weirdest, but somehow rightest, poly relationship.”
“Now you sound jealous,” I mock.
Her eyes jump like she’s been caught with her hands in the cookie jar. “I just can’t believe she knew Prince and didn’t introduce me.” She shrugs, accepting her lot in life, and continues searching the drawers.
The drama is strong with this one too.
We look through a few more interesting mementos of Tanya’s before I have to stand up to stretch my legs.
My foot hits the wall as I stand, sending one of the hall-of-fame photos crashing to the ground.
“Shit,” I curse. Dani starts to help me, but I tell her to stay where she is so I can clean up the glass. As I’m sweeping the last piece, I notice something sticking out of the back of the photo.
I pull it out and unfold it. It’s a note, written in Tanya’s handwriting.
During Halle’s senior year, she was the lead in a play with her boyfriend. They broke up during rehearsals because he cheated on her with her understudy. I went to the opening night of the play and watched her act out a scene where she was supposed to pretend to cut his hair off. She didn’t pretend. She cut that boy’s 4B curls in front of a packed audience. Everyone gasped in shock. I gave her a standing ovation.
I flip what’s left of the frame over to find a picture of Halle Hewitt, a famed Broadway actress, and one of Tanya’s past mentees.
Did Tanya write a card to go along with every one of these photos?
I hand the picture and card to Dani and grab another off the wall.
