33. INTERLUDE - Handled
INTERLUDE - Handled
Zaniyah
The hoodie incident had dropped a few weeks ago, and the internet was still lit up. Fourteen countries trending, every blog and podcaster with a ring light scrambling for a take. I had watched approximately all of them, even "THEY WERE FLIRTING THROUGH DISS TRACKS: A TIMELINE". Occupational hazard.
The show's PA met us at the entrance. She got one look at Romi and her whole face did this specific sequence of recognition, panic, and attempted recovery that I had a name for but wasn't professional to say out loud. She stuttered something that was supposed to be a greeting.
I stepped in smoothly. "Zaniyah, I'm her assistant. We confirmed yesterday with your EP."
The PA nodded too fast and fell into step ahead of us, already on her earpiece.
Same sister who I remember watching reruns of Martin with, I thought. Every time.
Romi didn't acknowledge any of it. Sunglasses on, already in character. Full beat, cream coat, forty minutes of effortless. She hadn't said much since we left the apartment. I hadn't pushed. My job was to make sure she walked through that door with nothing to think about except the work.
Everything else was mine to carry.
My Google alert on Niko Savage existed for the same reason you kept a carbon monoxide detector.
Not out of expectation, or because it was my job.
Just because the day you stopped checking was the day it went off.
This morning it had flagged a repost. Nothing direct, simply Niko amplifying a blog comment about legacy artists "struggling to stay relevant in the streaming era" with a single sparkle emoji.
Plausible deniability. Classic. Clocked it.
I screenshotted it, filed it, kept moving. Not today's problem. Probably tomorrow's, though. And definitely hers.
The greenroom was small but well-stocked—snacks nobody touched, a mirror ringed with bulbs, two assistants trying to look busy.
The host, Terrell, came back personally to say hello, which I noted.
He and Romi did the industry embrace, genuine on both sides.
They had history. Not complicated history, just the kind that accumulated from years of being in the same rooms.
I stationed myself near the door with my tablet and let them talk.
My press line buzzed. Interview request from an outlet that had spent the last four days running couple speculation pieces with screenshots they definitely didn't have permission to use. People who thought if you moved a few words around, the answers would change.
Another buzz. The publicist, wanting to know if Romi was going to address the relationship on camera.
I typed back:
she'll address what she wants to address when she wants to address it. that's always been the policy.
Three dots. Then:
understood.
Good.
Terrell's producer ran through the segment format with me while Romi got her makeup touched up: interview first, twenty minutes, then the booth. Romi already knew the format. She'd approved it two weeks ago. I confirmed everything anyway because that was the job.
By the time they called us to set I had cleared four emails, declined two interview requests, approved one social post, and told the label's junior A&R that no, Romi would not be making a joint statement with anyone, and if he emailed me again before five o'clock I would begin to take it personally.
Romi glanced at me on the way out of the greenroom.
I gave her the nod that meant handled, go do your thing.
She walked out like she owned the building, already in the zone.
I found a chair off-camera with a sightline to the set and opened my tablet.
Terrell turned to his camera with that easy grin he was known for. "Y'all know I don't do guest announcements," he said. "Y'all know how I move. But what I will say whoever's in that green room right now? Worth the wait."
The comments were already going bananas. I could see the chat moving on the monitor beside me, thousands of guesses scrolling past in real time. Half of them were wrong. The other half were about to lose their entire minds.
Terrell turned back to the camera, voice climbing. "Y'all want to know who it is? Y'all sure? Because this is the one. The blueprint. The standard every other woman in the game gets measured against, whether they like it or not. The Queen herself. Romi Dulce, come on out!"
The room went up. Staff, PAs, the DJ in the corner, the engineer, everyone who'd been playing it professional all morning gave it up entirely. Somebody whooped. Somebody else started clapping like they were at church.
Romi walked out, and the camera found her immediately. The little red light blinked on, and she winked and gave a small wave. Smiled like she and the camera had a secret.
On the monitor, the streaming numbers went up and up. Higher.
I went back to my emails.
Terrell opened easy, hometown questions, career retrospective, nothing that required armor.
Romi gave him the good version of herself.
Warm, precise, funny when she wanted to be.
The crew relaxed within the first five minutes.
That was the Romi effect. She decided the room temperature, and the room agreed.
I was half-watching, half-managing. My tablet open, phone beside it, running two tracks simultaneously.
The professional track—emails, approvals, a scheduling conflict with the label that I resolved in three texts—and the personal track, which was mostly me monitoring every platform for anything that needed to be snuffed out before it breathed too much air.
The couple thing came up twelve minutes in.
Terrell was smooth about it, framed it as a celebration rather than an interrogation.
Romi smiled, didn't confirm, didn't deny.
On the topic of her sexuality, she said she wasn't going to let anybody hand her a label before she'd worked out her own.
The clip would go everywhere. I had already drafted three different response strategies depending on how the internet received it.
Niko had posted again. Her main account this time. A Pixo story. A GIF. A crown falling in slow motion.
Of course she was watching, probably from her burner. Plausible deniability. Again.
I put my phone face down because it's giving you must really want these problems today.
Terrell was wrapping the interview portion, the energy in the room shifting toward the booth. Romi stood, shook his hand, laughed at something he said. Nothing on her face that wasn't supposed to be there.
But I had seen her peek at her phone between segments.
She knew.
The booth was tucked off the main set, a proper setup: foam walls, good mic, engineer already stationed. Terrell hyped it to his audience as a surprise, even though we'd been planning it for two weeks. Romi took off her jacket, handed it to me without looking, and stepped inside.
I found my spot against the wall, tablet in hand, and watched through the glass.
The beat Terrell's team had pulled was hard and slow enough to make it conversational. Romi listened to it once with her eyes closed, nodded, and that was it. No warm up. No false starts. She just opened her mouth, halfway between a sneer and a growl, and the room changed temperature.
I had watched my sister perform approximately ten thousand times.
Knew every version of her in the booth—the calculated one, the showboating one, the one that was tired but would never let you know it.
This was none of those. This was Romi talking to herself out loud with a beat under it, eyes shut tight.
Every bar landing flat and final, a door slammed.
Then she opened them again, dead straight and fixed, out for blood.
You switched sides/still movin' how I showed you/bit the hand/then copied how it fed you
The engineer looked at Terrell. Terrell looked at his producer. Nobody said anything.
I had my tablet open, but I had stopped reading emails.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at it, expecting the publicist.
I opened it without thinking, turned the volume down to nothing, and watched.
My phone insisted on being as annoying as humanly possible, but something on my face changed when I saw who it was from.
Stacks, in the group chat she had created and named in laws only without asking any of us.
Romi said she had somehow gotten it in her head that I didn't care for her, which was… weird.
A video. Four seconds. Stacks holding her phone up to the camera so you could see Romi on her screen, mid-bar, and then swinging it back around to her own face.
No makeup. Hand clamped over her mouth, eyes wide, a blood red fresh set covering her mouth set in a perfect O. No caption. No context needed.
I watched it twice. Warmth spread somewhere that I was not going to examine right now or possibly ever because I didn't believe in being unprofessional, ever.
Put my phone away.
Got back to work.
…You ain't want her back/you just ain't like who replaced you/Same crew, make moves, vague clues, sneak dissin'
I blinked hard and put my phone face down. Picked it back up. Put it down again. Holy shit. The chat screen on the monitor went nuts. Lots of fire emojis.
Deep dives, weak lies, think pieces, truth-revealin'/Hoes got a group chat full of me/now that's a wild form of healin'
In the booth, Romi was still going, aiming playful trigger fingers toward the camera, a metaphorical gun firing off shots.
It's been quiet on my end/let the noise take shape/Funny how these birds link up/off a lil' hate
She wasn't being cruel. That was the part people never understood about my sister. She was just telling the truth, and the truth had names on it.
…funny when the flock form up/and still can't leave my sky…
The engineer had both elbows on the board, face on screw. Terrell nodded along with his arms crossed and a grin he wasn't trying to hide anymore. Nobody in the room was looking at their phones except me, and I wasn't really looking at mine either.
You'on't even like her/and she don't fuck with you/But the timing look good when it's somethin' to prove
I was watching my big sister.
Y'all'ount want smoke, y'all want proximity/Every slug got my name on it, bitch/that's some strange affinity
And if the shoe fit perfect, I suggest you don't run/ know I left it there on purpose, hoe, I ain't misplace none
She finished the last bar with a smile and a finger wag. Eyes wide open, petty as she pleased, and let the beat run out under her. Pulled the headphones down on the stand. Looked through the glass at no one, the way she did when she was coming back from wherever place the music took her.
The engineer started to say something. Romi held up one finger, and he stopped.
She reached for her phone.
I watched her eyes move across the screen. Watched her glance up, checking the room as if she ain't just air it out. Terrell was talking to his producer, eyes wide. The engineer had turned back to his board, eyebrows raised. Nobody was looking at her.
Nobody except me.
Her face did a thing I didn't have a name for.
Soft wasn't the right word. Relieved wasn't either.
It was more like something she'd been holding for a long time had found someplace to put itself down.
She read what was on that screen, and for about four seconds, she let herself be a person who was happy.
Then she felt the room again and put it away.
I looked down at my tablet.
Romi came out of the booth, and Terrell started talking, the crew coming back to life around her.
She handed me her phone without looking, and I slipped it into my bag.
She accepted the water someone offered, started answering Terrell's follow-up questions with the type of composure that made people think she had never in her life been anything other than completely fine.
My phone buzzed. Cam responded with ellipses and an exclamation mark.
Stacks, again:
ROMI DULCE REALLY CHOSE VIOLENCE ON A THURSDAY, I AM UNWELL
Then a voice memo I could tell without opening was just screaming.
I typed back:
she says you're welcome.
Then I opened my email, found the three things that needed handling before five o'clock, and handled them.
That was the job.
Romi was already laughing at something Terrell said, coat back on, the room fully hers again like she didn't just clear a bitch.
Some things didn't change.
Other things did, though.
I pulled up the rollout strategy doc, made two edits, and sent it to the publicist.
Across the studio, Romi caught my eye. Just for a second. She gave me a tiny nod, the one that meant: it's handled.
I nodded back.