The Other Woman

Chapter 9

The thought of giving up on music for a little while was a short lived fantasy especially since I couldn't manage to keep myself out of the studio. I looked at the time on the dashboard of my car and saw that it was barely even 6 am. Before Daddy opened at about eight for business it was my time now. It was quiet and no one knew where I could be except for Rue who had accompanied more than a few times when I just had to get away. I unlocked the front door with my copy of the key and shut off the alarm system before it became an issue and ran up the fire escape for the studio that I had been using for the last seven or eight years. I removed my sweatshirt and dropped it on the couch and slipped off my Adidas sandals and kicked them to the side allowing my feet to sink into the white plush rug that sat in front of the door.

I paced the room as ritual taking in each piece of equipment in here that assisted in helping me make beautiful music and I said a silent prayer in hopes that it would help me add more words to the pages of my spiral notebook. I thought of one of the first songs that I had written with the assistance of my father and had smiled at the memory of how much this music thing has always been in me and for me to ever consider giving it up was something worse than suicide.

I walked in and took a seat at the white baby grand piano that my father had set up for me after I won my first Grammy and open the cover and traced my fingers across the keys before playing a series of chords. I took a deep breath to clear my mind before removing my notebook from my Michael Kors bag and flipped to my most recent pages of writing. I knew they had given me a month to work but two weeks was all I really needed to come up with lyrics to the music. I kept my fingers at the piano and played the melody over and over again to hopefully get my mind moving. I had become completed enveloped in the music that I hadn't even noticed the banging on the door. I glanced at my cell phone that sat on the piano and realized that it was already almost 7. I opened the door thinking it was one of the janitors but instead it was Drake.

"Um, hi." I said scratching my head and removing my glasses from my face. "What are you doing here?" I asked him. He was dressed in his OVO sweats and some Jays he had his hood up around his face.

"I wanted to use the studio and your dad told me that the door would be open because you'd be here. I was coming past and I heard your piano. Is that 40's beat?" he asked and I nodded inviting him in but instructing him to remove his shoes.

"This is holy ground." I said with a smile and sat on the piano bench. "But yeah, I like hearing it on the piano. He's so talented. I might have to steal him from you." I joked.

"First my song, then my producer? What's next?" he said laughing. I shrugged my shoulders.

"The world." I said and we both enjoyed a laugh.

"So how's the song coming?" he asked and I shrugged my shoulders.

"You'll just have to wait and see." I smiled. "But it's cute. Not the best but it's dope." I lied knowing that I had nothing written as of yet.

"Come on Nay, I'm sure you got something in that book. If you ain't going to show me the song, then play something else for me." he sat stretching his long limbs out in front of him. I grabbed my notebook and flipped a few pages.

"Don't laugh at me okay? If you laugh at me, I'm kicking you out. But I'm not rapper." I said and he chuckled. "I'm serious, keep in mind that I'm an artist and I'm--"

"Sensitive about my shit. I got it Nayomi. Just let me hear something." he urged and I sighed.

"I been through some shit man, but I be on my shit man. I decided that what you give is what you're given. So I been tryna do it right, I been doing like, whatever gets me through the night. What a life. I'm steady always on the go, you steady always on the go, we steady losing all control. What a life. What a life. What a life. They say the truth ain't pretty, but coming from that pretty mouth the truth is fitting. Cause you ain't never talking loud and you know plenty. Yeah you know what I'm talking 'bout, cause you just get me. Yeah you so... pretty." I looked up at Drake who had an unreadable expression on his face. I continued to plat at the keys in front of me loving the way my song sounded with the piano attached to it rather that the beats I helped my father with in the studio. "If everything is dipped in gold, then baby it'll never grow. Everything sweet ain't sugar coated. What a life. What a life. What a life. What a life. What a life. What a life that I've been given. What a life. What a life that I been living. What a life. What a life we die to live in. What a life..." the last chord on the piano played. I pushed my hair out of my face and look up at Drake.