Dreamer by Mariama Diallo

     

            My heart was trying to escape, pounding so hard that the once crisply ironed shirt I was sweating through danced involuntary to its rhythm. My knuckles were sore from clenching them so hard. There were nothing more for me to do; my notes were memorized, I practiced my smile in the mirror, and practiced my handshake at least two hundred times with my best friend, Lacey. All I could do was wait until my name was called, when I could finally rise out of the chair that would soon give up against my growing, dead nervous weight.

            I have been living for this day every since I was nine years old. I grew up in a group home on the corner of Mother Gaston and Pitkin in Brooklyn, New York. My parents and I were in a terrible car accident when I was seven years old. I was in the car with them. My parents died upon impact, but I made it out the car crash with scrapes and lacerations across my body. I never felt so alone in my life, for I had no relatives and siblings to call my own. After spending two weeks in the hospital healing, utterly alone and lost, I was immediately crammed into the overcrowded, overrun 3-story brownstone that long since lost its charm. For the next two years, I refused to listen to any of the directors or counselors of the home and effectively locked myself in a tiny room on the top floor, where the walls had peeling paint and dozens of holes the size of my fists. I only opened that door to run swiftly to the bathroom, to take my meals, to visit the doctor every six months, and to allow my psychiatrist into the room. She urged me to speak about what I was feeling, but I never opened my mouth to anyone. I bottled up my feelings of pain and hurt in my writing. Whenever I can scavenge together pieces of paper I would write short scenes and scripts. My parents and I loved movies and wrote our own scripts and performed them. I remember fondly when they said, “Evangeline, baby, you are going to go so far with your writing and acting!”

            One day two years later, I noticed that there was a huge crowd gathering outside of our home. I pressed my face against the dirty window and there was a huge banner attached to our gate with a huge snapshot of a beautiful, black women that read “Oprah Winfrey: The Power of Defining Who You Are, No Matter Where You Come From” with that days date on it, August 8, 1996. And then it hit me; that day was the anniversary of the car accident. I began to sob and cry so loudly with the unreleased pain, until I suddenly felt the hands of someone hugging me close. I looked up through the clouds of my tears, and noticed that it was the same woman from the poster. I suppose she was looking for the bathroom and stumbled upon me crying. For some reason, I trusted her and allowed myself to cry in her arms. She asked me what was wrong and told her of the pain I had been suffering from. She listened while clutching my small hand in her soft palm, and when I finally ran out of words, she talked to me. The most important thing that I remembered from that conversation was when she said, “You have to take it easy on yourself, and begin to live for yourself now.” She then made me smile when she described her tour of the group home, and described people running around for her like a headless chicken. She picked up one of my scripts, and she spent time reading it to my embarrassment. No one reads my stuff! She finally looked up and sends solemnly, “You got a talent. You have to share this with the world one day!”  I didn’t really understand what she meant, but I nodded my head and vowed on that day that I work hard for my future. She was there at the group home to give a speech. Our home was a great setting for the topic of her speech. After listening to her 45 minutes, i there that Oprah was rich, a great actress, and amazing speaker. And I made one more promise to myself: that I would one day work for the woman who restored faith in my life. After that day, I made myself into a perfectionist, and concerned myself with every detail of my future. Over the years my friends complained that I was no fun, and took my future too seriously. But how could I tell them that I needed to plan my future, because I was scared if I didn’t plan my future, my fate would end like my parents fate.

            Bringing myself back to the present, I silently chanted to myself why this I would have to ace this interview. It was going to be an interview, to get the chance to be a writer on a new show Oprah Winfrey was producing on her OWN Network. I chanted to myself, “You need this, because Oprah saved you from being a mute. You need this because you need a successful future. You need this because you have no job right now, and you are living on a friend’s couch. You need this  because you have eight hundred and seven dollars in your bank -”.

            “Evangeline Carroll!” “Evangeline”, “Ms. Carroll”.

            After trying to roll some saliva around in my mouth, I jumped up and responded with a weak ‘Here, yes, I am here.” I jumped up so hard that I knocked over my bag that was resting in my life and the papers spread before me. The man who was to interview me, wearing a Hugo Boss suit that still looked crisply ironed, rolled his eyes, “Please hurry. I have limited time.”

            After pulling up my papers and rushing into the room with 11 foot windows and a desk the size of a king sized bed, I knew that I had no space to keep screwing up. I stuffed the papers in my bag, looked up, held my hand as practiced with my practiced smiled, and said too brightly, “Hello! My name is Evangeline Carroll.”

            He lightly grasped my hand and said, “Yes, I know”. He didn’t even say his name, and before I knew it, he began asking me questions about my experience and my training. While I gave him practiced responses, he yawned three times exactly and not eve discretely, trained his eyes on the clock above my head. While I was still trying to get my response in, he says, “As Ms. Winfrey’s Creative Director and a person looking out for Ms. Winfrey’s best interest, you do not have the experience or training for this position. Honey, we had interviewers come in whose parents are in the business. You are an unknown in this industry, a risk to Ms. Winfrey’s empire.” I didn’t want to be hurt by this arrogant man’s word, but I couldn’t help feeling inadequate.

            But I remembered! “Here!” I told him, I have a portfolio of all of my writings ever since I was a young girl. Of course, my recent work is much better -” And in his way, he cut me off, and said. “No. You are too much of a risk. Be realistic and professional. You have already wasted enough of my time.” And with that statement, he looked to his huge Mac screen, effectively dismissing me. My heart felt like it wasn’t beating anymore, and I began to miss the dance it did with my shirt earlier. At least then, I had hope enough to be nervous.

            I felt so broken and hopeless. I worked and polished myself since I was a young girl to try to work for and be impacted by the woman who anchored me out of a sadness I was swimming in for years. And now I couldn't even a finish an interview.

            I gathered my stuff and walked with my chin held high and tears resting on the bottom of my eyelids. I ran to the elevator and once it stopped on my floor, I dived in the metal box. I searched for the Lobby button, behind clouded eyes in the cool, heartless elevator. I began to fight the tears that was now ruining my make up, quickly dashing the fallen tears away. When the elevator opened, I flung myself into the Spring New York City day. I ran to the train station, no longer having a reason to care how my outfit got ruined. I no longer felt the pain in the foreign, alien heels. My life was broken, once again.

The sun dappled through her Honda Civic window, beckoning her to feel the glow of hope she once felt. A week ago, after getting home, she didn't leave her home for three days, staying in her Brooklyn apartment. Throwing herself a pity party, she lit her favorite incense, blasted Whitney Houston through the rooms, ordered take out, and devoured her emergency Hagen Daze Chocolate ice cream. She took out the overflowing trash on the fourth day, and on the fifth day took herself out to buy the Newspaper and hunted through the classified section of the Newspaper. On the sixth day, she opened her bible, entitled “Daily Planner” and went insane when she realized the next day was the annual Writers Festival in Rochester, New York.

            So today, on the seventh day, she slapped her hair into a bun, threw on her favorite dress, packed a snack for the car ride, picked up her portfolio from the doorway that she dropped a week ago, boarded her car, and head up to Rochester.

            The Annual Pennington Writer's Festival showcased upcoming writer's in all mediums: television, music, cinema, blogging, book writing, poetry, radio; you name it. Producers, writers, and directors came to the festival to grab up anything that was great enough for them. Every year I came here to showcase my talent for writing in television and cinema. While my work was never received by the big name producers and writers, after my reading, I would get a great applause from the audience. It never bothered me before if my work wasn't picked, but this year I had a lot riding on my script. My self esteem was at stake, my financial security was at stake, and my future was at stake. I needed this more than anything.

            After finally finding a parking spot in the overfilled parking lot, I hastily made my way to the check in desk. I smiled as I received my name tag and gift bag, ran up to the lecture hall that I would be in, and stumbled back a step when I saw the packed room that I would be presenting from. My heart began to beat fast, my self esteem rose up a few degrees as people began to smile, point, and wave at me. This must be a dream! I thought.

            I smoothed my skirt down, opened my portfolio on the desk to the first page, looked out at the audience that I had, cleared my throat into the protruding microphone and clearly said, “Good Morning Everyone. You all don't know how beautiful you look from here. I am happy to be here to read an excerpt of a script I have been working and completed in just one year.”

            There was some gasps in the audience. I chuckled and eased their surprise.

            “I have been out of work, so don't be that amazed.” The audience gave an easy laugh. I continued. “This script is about a girl fighting hard to find her way in life, trying to fight the obstacles in her way, until she realizes all she needed was love.”

            I took a breath, and began to read from the end of the script. Thirty minutes later after reading the final word of my script, I looked up at the audience because there was no applause. Their response was even better. Faces gleamed with tears, beaming smiles poured out to me. Suddenly, they collectively realized no one applauded, and in a sudden collective burst of energy, everyone jumped to their feet and applauded and made noises.

            I stood up, unaware of the tears gleaming on my own face, and bowed and blew kisses to the strangers who restored a hope that was swept away a week ago. And suddenly in this small room in the Sticks of the state of New York, I realized something. I realized that it was great that Oprah gave me hope all those years ago, but after that I should have dreamed something greater than working for that woman. I should have dreamed of finding happiness, and being able to give my own self hope when I needed it. So now, I took in the beautiful faces around me and took in the love they were giving me and knew that everything would be okay.

            After the reading, many people came up to me to tell me how great my work was. But there was one person who really took my breath away. A young, lanky teenage girl made her way up to me, and stuck out her hand and said, “Hi, I'm Cindy. I simply wanted to say that I hope to one day see your work, and hope that millions of others get to also. I love writing, and today you showed me that I can make something out of my life if I just do what I love. Thank you so much for that.”

            Before I could even get a word in, she wrapped her arms around so that I keep feeling her thin, vertebrates around me and gave me a hug. She ran off, and I sat there dazed. What a week.

A month later . . .

            “Your total is $147.62.”

            Damn, I thought. There goes a whopping amount of money I don't have. I hunted for my Visa account, praying while I handed it to the bored woman that it wouldn't get declined, and sent a thanks up to God when my receipt for groceries printed out. I got tired of eating Ramen noodles, drinking tap water, and microwavable popcorn. A trip to the supermarket became a need.

            I packed my groceries into my bright red shopping cart , and pushed my cart and myself back to my apartment. It was the afternoon, the streets were deserted by everyone at work or school. Making my way to the stoop of my apartment building, I considered writing a letter to my best friend from college, Lacey lend me money. She forced me to take some money from her as a Christmas gift and when she noticed there was no heat in the apartment, told me that if I ever needed anything, she was the first and last person that I called.

            I forced my cart up the steps, took out my key, opened the front door, wrestled with my cart some more, and made my way to my mailbox. I searched for the tiniest key on my key chain. I opened my mailbox, sifted through the rent and electricity bill, junk mail from Barnes and Nobles and Target, until I found a letter from an address I didn't recognize. Looking up at the top left corner, I dropped my keys and all the other mail in my hands when I read, “OWN Productions”. I tore open the letter, and began to read,

            “Dear Ms. Evangeline Carroll . . .”