Game Over (7 page)

All in all though, Spliff really did love Ayanna. I could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. He really was crazy about her. And despite everything she was learning about him, Ayanna felt the same way. Th
eir love was deep. It reminded me of what I had with Smiley. And since I loved both of them, I supported them and helped plan the wedding after Spliff proposed.

Eventually, both the baby and the wedding came. Both moments were special and memorable to me. I became a proud
godmother the day their son entered the world and Spliff chose Busta to be his best man at the wedding. The groomsmen looked their part, extra fly dressed in cream suits and Timbos. Jaws dropped when everyone saw them.

That time in my life was a peaceful one. Both of my best friends were in love with each other and it seemed to be working out. I was also good with Busta and The Flipmode Squad. We were all family, although many people
thought me and Busta were fucking. We all spent a few Christmas’ and Thanksgivings together but that was it. Nothing sexual ever happened. It never even crossed my mind, real talk.

From a distance, I watched Ayanna and Spliff’s marriage. I admired their love for each other. Despite the problems of the industry, they were fighting hard to make it work. Damn, I wanted that or something similar. I wanted someone I could come home to. I wanted that badly but I just wasn’t ready for the tradeoff. Too much had to be invested.
A committed relationship meant leaving myself open for the pain. Besides, my love for Hip Hop had gotten deeper. There was no turning back. 

7
-
Game Changer

A few years passed by. I like to think that I matured over those years. The Dame episode forced me to.
At twenty years old, I’d changed. I wasn’t the only one though. Jason and everything between us had begun to change also. We weren’t kids anymore.

Jason had begun to
transform into a Hip Hop celebrity. He had become Jadakiss to everyone around him. He was now too famous to be Jason to me anymore. Because of that, things between us were no longer the same. The invites to meet him on the road stopped. The sharing rooms with six to eight people stopped. The laughing, joking, partying and being happy to be a part of something that seemed bigger than us had stopped. There was no more fun. His life was now filled with shows, interviews, security, photo sessions and a whole lot more. We still kept in touch but we were growing apart, taking different directions in life. It hurt me because I always wanted things between us to stay the way they were before the fame, but life is full of change and it was about to bring even more into my life in the form of someone from my past I hadn’t seen coming.

Several years back, there was this skinny kid from my hood that I never really paid any attention. We had seen each other around but never really
talked. Back then, I was dating this dude from the Brevoort projects in Brooklyn named Quan. Both he and Quan ran in the same circles even though this kid was younger than him. That was to the extent to how he knew me—nothing more, nothing less. I’d never been interested enough to even ask his name. It’s not that he wasn’t cute or anything. He was. We just never felt the need to know each other’s name. That’s why even to this day, it’s still hard to believe that little skinny dude would eventually become famous and the two of us would become very good friends.

Anyway, this same skinny kid pulled up on me at
a club one evening several years later. He introduced himself to me as Fab. At that time, he was in the beginning stages of his successful career. The first thing I noticed about him was his smile, chipped tooth and full lips. They were hot I admitted to myself silently. He worked them attractively as he talked to me. My eyes couldn’t leave them. We soon exchanged numbers.

That night, I was under the impression that Fab wanted to get at me. The way he spoke, his body language, his words; all of it was smooth and attractive. Besides, how often does a man exchange numbers with a female without
intending to get much more? After two weeks of talking on the phone and exchanging two way pages, he never said in exact words that he wanted to hook up with me. The conversation seemed more like the type two friends would have with each other. Still, I felt he had a crush on me. 

At the time, Fab was on a promo run for his new single “Can’t Deny It
.” He was traveling from city to city. When he was headed back to New York, he hit me up and wanted to hook up. By then I’d gotten a 2000 silver Honda Accord coupe funded from my dudes, but mostly from Paul. I drove from Delaware back to NYC to pick up him and his managers, Cheo and Webb, from Newark Airport. I knew Cheo and Webb from my younger days so I felt comfortable around them, especially Webb. We’d had a lot of dealings with one another, where we all chilled together, so it seemed only right. Also, Fab and I weren’t sleeping together so we were just homies kickin’ it like we’d done back in the hood.

From the airport we drove through
Queens to their two bedroom apartment. Now, obviously, after everything I’d seen and every one I’d been around in the industry, I had high expectations for Fab’s apartment. I was expecting floor to ceiling windows, sunken marble floors, expensive wall to wall furniture, walk-in closets full of clothes, two-storied ceilings. I expected his shit to be hot. After all, he had a song and video getting major airplay all over the radio and television.

Boy, was I wrong.

The spot resembled little more than a hole in the wall. There was absolutely
no
living room furniture. Clothes, dirty socks and sneakers were thrown everywhere. The kitchen sink was filled with dirty dishes. Flies were all over the place. Fab’s bedroom consisted of a mattress sitting on the floor and a box fan in the window. There was absolutely nothing
Fabulous
about Fab’s spot. The place was disgusting.  

I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it
was just the woman in me, but I put on some rubber gloves and started cleaning the house without anyone asking me to do so. The guys looked at me like I was crazy. I didn’t care. I just felt like maybe my cleanliness would rub off on them. By the time I was done, the entire spot smelled like Pine Sol.

Even though the accommodations weren’t the best, since it didn’t bother the guys, it didn’t bother me. Since I cleaned it, I was able to deal with it. Besides, if I could get used to a dorm full of funky
broads, I could deal with an apartment that housed three dudes. Shit, if anything, I enjoyed myself. Everything was sweet. We sat on the hard floors eating Chinese food, talking Hip Hop, watching movies and just vibing until we fell asleep. That night, I slept on the mattress with Fab. Think what you want but that’s
all
we did on that mattress. Sleep.

The next morning came around. Fab had some things he needed to do in the city. His record label, Elektra
, had booked him at a nice hotel. I drove him and the others to the hotel and waited. After they checked in, we all rolled out again and headed to the studio. Just like the night before at the apartment, I just fell in place. They treated me like I was one of them. They never tried anything. When they passed the blunt, I was included in the rotation. When they poured a cup, they made sure mine was filled too. They didn’t bite their tongues about anything so I didn’t bite mine neither. After all, we were all basically from the same hood so I had no problem being me. That meant letting my hair down and cussing just like them. That was the way it went from then on.

Of course, people
we ran into talked and whispered. I wasn’t on payroll and I wasn’t any of their girlfriends so people wondered if I was a groupie. They wondered if I was fucking all three of them, especially Fab. But, shit, people talked about Jesus. It didn’t bother me. The three treated me like their sister. What other people thought was their own business. Although, in my mind, I had to sometimes wonder what exactly I was doing there.

Fab, on the other hand, treated me a little more differently than his managers did. He was playful and always smiling at me but never took it further than that. I was just as playful with him, always looking for a reason to nudge him or be near him. I could always tell there was something more behind his smile. It was obvious but I just assumed he was shy and would tell me what was up when he was ready. It was cute to me.

One morning he did something I didn’t quite know how to take. He woke up, got ready and kissed me on my forehead. He was gone before I could ask him why he’d done it. I just sat there wondering. It made me smile. It was obvious he liked me but for whatever his reasons were, he just didn’t want to say it. I noticed in public, he was always free but when it was just me and him, he would get nervous. I don’t know what it was. Maybe I intimidated him somehow. I’m not sure. I now know that those three days we spent together and moments like that one would eventually change.

Later that day, we met up at his photo shoot. From there, we hopped into my
ride and headed to a press conference. Throughout that day, Fab gave several interviews and free-styled every time someone asked him to, eager to show off his skills. It was at that moment that I became a fan. I liked “Can’t Deny It” like everyone else but hearing him freestyle took the shit to another level. I was amazed. He could spit about anything anyone would ask him at the drop of a dime. And it all sounded as hot as if he had written it the day before.

Just like Jason, he was happy to finally be given the chance to let the whole world know how
talented he was. The past three days of living in an average apartment didn’t bother him. Eating lunch, breakfast and dinner on the floor didn’t bother him. Being broke didn’t bother him. There was no ego. He had that innocence that most artists have when they’re coming into the game just before success sinks its claws into them and turns them into egotistical ass monsters that you can’t stand to be around.

After an interview, DJ Clue, who I
already knew at the time, stopped by and told Fab he had a surprise for him.

“What is it?” Fab asked with that smile I liked.

“We have to go to Queens to get it.”

Fab and his manager
rolled out and told me they would be right back. A couple hours later, they returned in a brand new black Mercedes Coupe. My mouth dropped. That moment changed something in me. Seeing Fab happy made me happy. But that was one of those key moments in my life where I can put a finger on it and say, “Something changed.”

A moment ago, Fab didn’t have a penny to his name
, just a closet full of jerseys. He was living in a hole in the wall. He didn’t have anything but his talent to rhyme. Three days later, he was whipping a brand new Benz because of that talent. It was at that moment that I was no longer satisfied with just wanting to be a part of Hip Hop. I wanted more. I wanted to be a mover and shaker in the game. I wanted to make decisions and sign checks. I decided to listen and pay attention to the mechanics and the ins and outs of the game. I understood that was where the real money was.

The next morning, we got dressed.
Fab hopped in his Benz, I hopped in my Accord and we made plans to get with each other later. It didn’t happen though. Needless to say, Fab blew up. His success kept him busy and his name grew. We would see each other at events and parties. Sometimes we would speak, other times we didn’t. He would always text me right after those moments and ask me why I didn’t speak. That shit was childish to me. I never understood it. Success was changing him like it changed everybody. Sometimes I’d respond to his texts, other times I wouldn’t. He still had a special place in my heart though. Every time I’d see him in his videos showing off his money and cars, I couldn’t help but smile, remembering those three days in that raggedy apartment when he had nothing. I’ll always treasure those times.

I went on with my life, realizing my time would come eventually. Finally, it did. My home girl
, Janine, who I’d known for years, had to drop off some paperwork one day to Anton Marchand, who was rapper Foxy Brown’s brother and manager. While I was waiting for Janine in the lounge of the studio where the photo shoot was taking place, I met a girl named Kiersten, an independent stylist. We small talked for a moment and she told me about her job. She talked about the cities and countries she’d been to and the people she’d worked with detailing all of the glamour. I listened intently to every word. I knew then that styling was what I wanted to do.

Kiersten and I
swapped information and kept in touch. She eventually allowed me to assist her on styling jobs on the weekends. I would drive up from Delaware to New York and bask in my new passion. We worked with high end clients from outside the Hip Hop world, people I didn’t know anything about like Laura Linney and Javier Bardem. We styled them for the cover of
L.A Magazine
. We also worked on issues for
The Source, XXL, Italian Vogue
and even shopped for Britney Spears. The experience meant a lot to me and I learned so much from Kiersten about the basics of styling.

Styling Laura Linney in
Alice & Olivia and Fred Leighton jewelry impressed me the most. That jewelry is considered estate jewelry causing us to have insurance just to walk into the store to pull pieces. It was my first experience seeing that designers allow you to come into their showroom and borrow thousand dollar pieces. Jimmy Choo sending Kiersten 20 to 30 pair of shoes all thrown in a shopping bag sent by messenger excited me too. Along with the fact that when we worked big jobs we would have a car service driving us around the city as we did our pulls.

Despite all the newness and excitement, I remained in school.
I felt the fashion vibe so much that I changed my major the next semester from Nursing to Fashion Merchandising, eager to suck up as much about the craft as possible. Fashion became my new drug. And I knew becoming a stylist was what I was destined to do.

Finally, I had discovered exactly what I wanted out of life. I had discovered a way to create my own identity and make my own way. I would finally be able to break into not only the
Hip Hop world that I loved so much, but also the entertainment world period. It was finally going to happen. I was happy and couldn’t wait to find out where my career decision was going to lead. But little did I know I wasn’t going to like where it would take me.