17. Myome
MYOME
Iadjusted my hair and rolled my shoulders to loosen up a little bit. I blinked a few times because of the blinding lights and took a deep breath.
“Are you okay?” Charm asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because you look like you’re going to be sick,” Allison offered as she walked over and handed each of us a water bottle.
“You’re doing fine. You have great buzz surrounding your performance at the festival.
Preorders of the album are up as well as sales for the current music.
Things are going great. They’re just going to ask about the album, the process, and the group…
and maybe Drix?” She gave me a small smile.
“The posts the two of you made were trending a few days ago, so…”
I nodded. She was right.
Drix had posted an actual post of us, his first since he’d shared the video of our marriage as a real post and not one that would delete in twenty-four hours.
He’d made a carousel of four items, which was miraculous considering how little he actually shared things to his page and not just his story. Of course, it had racked in the views.
The first photo was one someone sent to a gossip blog of him carrying me through the festival grounds.
The second was a video of me winking at him at the festival while he was backstage.
Then he’d shared one he took of me and one I’d taken of him.
The picture he took of me was when I’d been in the booth with my newly upgraded ring, showing it off and smiling like a goofy.
The one I’d taken was him lying in our bed, his bare chest on full display and his eyes closed.
He had our fingers twined together and was kissing my hand, my ring and his face tattoo at the center of the picture.
That had been the one that took off. People were sharing it all over their pages and calling it relationship goals, which I thought was hilarious.
His caption said, “Till Death”.
And people had been in his comments and messages ever since.
Of course, I’d piggybacked off of his post and made one.
I hadn’t posted anything since our marriage video, so I shared most of what he’d already shared as well as an unposted picture of the two of us in the studio as the cover.
Berlin had a hand on my knee while we looked at each other.
I was full on laughing and he was just grinning at me, his other hand holding a blunt.
I’d posted ten pictures to his four and there were still people calling me stupid for being with Berlin but I didn’t care.
I was in my “my man, my man, my man” era and floating on cloud nine after his tattoo and him telling me he loved me.
I’d even filled out the paperwork to change my last name on all of my documents. I was already Mrs. King but we were going to make it officially official.
“Is that why Myome is sitting in the middle?” Retta asked.
“No. She’s sitting in the middle because she’s the shortest and we don’t want to look like we’re raising the bar or lowering it,” Allison deadpanned.
“She’s in the middle because of the camera’s optics.
That’s it, Retta. We’re all part of the same team.
” Allison turned toward Charm and wiped a little smudge from beneath her lip.
“So smile and act like you like each other, okay?”
“I’ll try my best.” Retta elbowed me as she adjusted how she was sitting.
I shot her a look that I hoped let her know I would fuck her up then readjusted how I was sitting as well.
Allison pulled a pen from her pocket and scribbled the first letter of each of our names on the tops of our water bottles.
“Good luck, and if you don’t know an answer, pull in another member of the group. Smile. Don’t fidget. Sit confidently. It’ll be great.” Allison stood up straight as the two women scheduled to interview us took their seats across from us.
They flipped through cue cards, trading them quickly, then nodded and cleared their throats. I looked over at Allison who smiled and gave us two thumbs up.
“Ready, ladies?” the interviewer asked.
“Of course,” Retta said. “Let’s do this.”
“Alright. Let’s do it. We’ll start in five…
four… three… two…” She adjusted in her seat.
“Hey there, lovebugs. It’s your two favorites, Olivia and Alydia.
” She gestured to her cohost. “We’re here with the beautiful and talented Radiant Reverie.
” A clapping track played and Olivia smiled.
“Do y’all want to introduce yourselves?”
“Sure.” Retta sat up taller. “I’m Retta.”
“I’m Charm.”
“And I’m Myome.”
“It’s so nice to have you ladies here.” Alydia grinned. “We figured we could do a few quick and fun icebreaker questions then go into talking about this upcoming album and just feel it out from there.”
“Sure.” Charm nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay.” Olivia looked at her cue cards. “Why don’t we start with ‘who’s more likely to’?”
We all agreed and Olivia peeked at her card.
“Okay. Who is most likely to mess up choreo?” she asked.
All three of us pointed to me and we giggled.
We got several easy questions like that. It was cute and low stress and I felt the tension leave my body the longer we went. When we wrapped, Alydia took over. She shifted in her seat and tapped her cue cards on the arm.
“So, your new album is about to come out, right? Is it your debut?”
“It is,” Retta confirmed and nodded.
“Well, congratulations. It’s already getting quite a buzz, I think.”
“Yeah. The singles that have come out have been great,” Olivia said. “Can we ask what the inspiration was going into this album?”
“Sure.” Retta jumped in immediately. “We’re all strong women here but being strong and driven doesn’t mean that you don’t want someone to be on your team or don’t want someone to love and hold and this album is sort of speaking to that for us.”
“Yeah and it takes you through all the phases,” Charm said. “We have songs on there that are about being strong, driven women and making our own money but we also have songs about wanting then finding love and ultimately losing it. The album tells a story and I personally think it’s a good one.”
“It sounds like it. I’m excited to hear it in its entirety,” Alydia said. “Hopefully it blows up and we can get really good visuals to go with the storyline.”
“Listen, Alydia loves her visuals, y’all. If you have a music video, she wants it.”
We laughed at that.
“But speaking of being driven and successful and finding and losing love, can I ask if there’s any experiences pulled from real life in the lyrics?”
“Some of them,” Charm offered. “I think the want to navigate this space with someone we care about and who cares about us is inside all of us. I mean, we’re not out here looking for love specifically, but I think it’s natural for women to sometimes think about it, even if they aren’t pursuing it.
So it mostly comes from that. We walked into the studio knowing we wanted a full concept album; so that’s what we tried to do. ”
“Yeah. It’s a little mix of real life experiences and just things we’ve heard about or our thoughts, desires, and fears. It’s just all of our creativity and different perspectives blended and thrown out there for you guys to enjoy,” I said.
“Okay, so let’s jump from there to the mess.” Olivia wagged her eyebrows. “With this album being about love and loss and want, we and the viewers, I'm sure, want to know if there is anyone special in all of your lives?”
“No. No. No.” Charm shook her head. “I am happily single. I’m committed to my music and the group.” She looked at me and I looked at Retta.
She chuckled.
“Well I’m… dating,” Retta offered. “It’s nothing super serious and nothing I want to go public about but there is a man in my life I’m enjoying spending time with.”
Their eyes all trailed over to me.
“Yeah. I’m married,” I said.
“That’s it?” Alydia laughed and everyone else followed suit.
“There’s really not much to say,” I confessed.
“I mean, I don’t think there is. Our relationship is pretty public, but if someone doesn’t know I, uh, I’m married to Drix who is a producer and rapper born and raised here.
We’ve been married for a couple of months now and things are good. I’m happy. He’s great.” I nodded.
“Your relationship is pretty public,” Olivia acknowledged.
“When you first got married people couldn’t look anywhere without seeing you guys online.
It was like boom, boom, boom, honestly. We got hit with the surprise marriage then the cheating rumors then the health scare.
It was insane honestly. How are you and the other women in the group handling it?
I mean, Drix has been a big name in the industry for a while and that comes with lots of noise.
I know it can be rough for you to navigate a new marriage with all the outside opinions, but is it also hard for your groupmates who may sometimes feel like your relationship is taking the front page over the group or the music? ”
“Uhm, I feel like there’s definitely been growing pains in the entire group following my marriage.
” I twisted my wedding ring on my finger without thinking about it.
“I won’t speak on how I think it makes Retta and Charm feel but I will say on my end it was kind of a double-edged sword because we were making music already but we were also really just starting to come into our brand when Drix and I got married.
So I woke up the day after and we were trending and I had all of these new followers, which was great for us to sell concert tickets and reach a new audience, but also so scary.
Like, I’m not media trained.” I laughed.
“And turning to my husband was like turning to a blank wall because he’s not media trained either and he doesn’t care about the media or how the public perceives him. ”
“He’s just like oh well?” Oliva offered. “That’s hilarious. He seems like the type.”