The more time passed, the more her anxiety tortured her. She had chewed the acrylic clear off her nails. Her nerves were so bad, and her cuticles were damn near bleeding. All her lash extensions had come out from the flood of tears she had cried. Things hadn’t been this bad between them in a long time, and she wanted it to be over. She just wanted to get back to love, to their routine, to long showers and longer nights. She couldn’t handle this level of miscommunication.
Being in her emotions had her making the worst decisions. She was supposed to be dressed and on her way to an interviewat a major radio station. Day was meeting her there, but Charlie hadn’t even climbed out of bed yet. The only time she could pull herself on her feet was when she was rushing to the bathroom to throw up. She didn’t know if it was the baby or her nerves making her so sick, but she was falling apart. Her phone was going off every few minutes. Call time at the station was ten, and she was officially late. She wondered if her career even mattered if she didn’t have Demi. She might as well give him a baby because, without him, none of this felt worth it. He was the one who believed in her. He was the one who found her singing in a dive bar. It was his connections and complete infatuation with her voice that pushed her into the studio, to begin with.
The doctor had scheduled an emergency D&C for her that same day but seeing Demi’s reaction to her choice made her rethink it altogether. She didn’t like this state of confusion, but no matter how many times she ran things back in her mind, fear always brought her to the conclusion that motherhood was not the best move.
Charlie dragged her body out of bed and to the shower. It was like now that she knew she was pregnant, she felt pregnant. Charlie dressed. No iron. No makeup. Just a frantic heart rushing to get to her man because she had to hear the words.“We’re okay.”
Her text notification chimed, and she knew it wouldn’t stop if she didn’t respond.
Day
Charlie. You need to get here now. You won’t get another shot if you stand up the biggest syndicated radio show in the Midwest.
Charlie
I’m sorry, Day.
Her phone was ringing now, and she owed Day too much to ignore him further.
“Yo, Charlie, I kinda need you not to bail right now,” Day said.
“I’m a mess.” Charlie had somehow made it to her car and she was just sitting there, hands gripping the steering wheel, phone in her lap as Day’s voice came through the speakers.
“Listen, I can push this back to the last segment, but I can’t cancel. I’ve got a whole team here that can make you look like you deserve to be in the spotlight. I need you to suck this shit up and get here. I know you and Demi got y’all shit right now, but it’s time to separate business from pleasure. We already got the side chick thing to deal with, now you’re pregnant…”
Charlie shook her head. “I’m pregnant,” she said in disbelief.
“Yo, what the fuck, man,” Day mumbled. “Charlie, do you want this or not?”
“I do, but…”
“No buts then, Charlie. You got the voice; I can’t give you the vision. You got to let me know that you’re serious about this shit cuz this ain’t for play for me. I make millions in this shit, and some skirt that Demi’s chasing ain’t about to derail what we’ve built. You want to be a housewife or a superstar, Charlie?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Call time has been pushed. You got three and a half hours to get here. If you miss this interview, I’ma consider the decision made. Get your shit together, baby girl.”
He hung up, and Charlie immediately redialed Demi. His voicemail felt disrespectful at this point. She had heard it so many times that it now made her angry.
“Fuck it,” she said stubbornly. She had nothing else to do except to do her job. With a heavy heart, she put her car in drive and chose herself, at least for the next few hours.
“Welcome to The Morning show with Baby and Miss Mix; we have a special guest in the building today.” DJ Baby and his beautiful gossipy co-host had the influence to make or break her career, and Charlie couldn’t even focus.
“Unt uh, we got a late guest, that’s what we got,” Miss Mix added in, laughing.
“Aww, man, here we go with the hazing,” Day interjected. “We ain’t gon’ start this. We gon’ keep it G up here.”
Charlie was so glad he was by her side. He was literally helping to build her career from the ground up, and even through the confusion and the chaos, he defended her in moments like these.
“You know it’s all love up here,” DJ Baby stated. “New artists got to be broken in. She was late but she showed up looking how she looking, and I can’t even be mad.”
Charlie gave a half-hearted smile. “Aww… thank you. I’m so sorry, guys. I wasn’t feeling the best this morning, but believe me I’m honored to be here.”
“So tell us about yourself, Charlie. You literally hit the scene out of nowhere. Everyone knows you from your social media covers. You have over three million views just from singing other artists’ songs. Who are you as an artist, and where did you come from?”
Charlie paused as she contemplated her answer. “I was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. Umm… I’m a normal girl, you know? I’m the girl who just loves music. Like I did this for free in a smoky-ass bar, so this is my art. It’s my passion. The right person just happened to hear me sing, and it became a passion for him too.”
“And this right person just so happens to be the co-founder of Dynasty Records, the married man whose wife outed youraffair in a sex tape awhile back, right?” Charlie was taken aback. She looked at Day for help. They weren’t supposed to ask that. It was on her list of things she wasn’t comfortable addressing. But, of course, these stations made promises that they never planned on keeping sometimes. When the mic came on and the listeners tuned in live, they shot their shots to get the latest salacious story. Charlie couldn’t avoid it.
