An overly-eager artist being welcomed into the industry is taken on a bumpy ride as she learns life does not have as many sunny days as she thought. Within the process, she comes to learn that her tour guide is a lot more important to her than she e...
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August 25, 1986 Paris, France
Sheridan wasn't the last of it. Any of it.
My guilt for how much fun I was having without Omar grew. My guilt grew every single day as my relationship began spiraling down the toilet at a rate faster than I'd imagined. On top of that, Prince's down moments turned into down days. Those were becoming just as consistent as my boyfriend's attitude with me. It was as if the veil was being lifted in slow motion, excruciatingly slow motion. I didn't see it because I didn't want to see it but many of the things that made no sense to me then were a long time coming.
He'd been grumpy for the last couple of days by the time we got to Paris. Prince. Prince had been grumpy for those last couple of days. I remembering looking around at everybody's body language and thinking, Something really does not compute. He yelled at me for wearing my bunny slippers to soundcheck, saying I was tracking some oil onto the stage. I wasn't. He'd snapped at his band more times than I could count and no funny, sarcastic jokes ever followed. Does that even sound like him? I don't think so. It was more to it than what we knew and everybody felt it. He felt heavy to be around. Of course not a soul dared to speak on it but we saw it. All speaking on it would've done was cause more issues. Major issues.
So, we laughed it off until he laughed it off. He always laughed it off. Then, he didn't stop laughing and things started getting more terrifyingly anxious. Our laughter ceased and he kept going, smiling and waving his way through it all.
The million dollar question was birthed. Who'd be first to break their silence about what was going on?
"Jill!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. We ran into each other's arms with a heavy crash of joy.
I'd been enamored with that woman since she was a blonde in PurpleRain. We're the same age, we have a lot of similarities in our personality, and we just bond well.
The first time I can remember meeting and speaking to Jill is sometime after Prince's premiere that summer. It was funny because he wasn't around when we met. I met Jill in Los Angeles at a party with people I knew outside of Prince. I'd never been in the room with them at the same until the year after. They were an off and on situation, causing for me to have zero knowledge of their intimacy for a long, long time. That didn't stop me from being friends with the both of them. I simply had to assure that it was very clear how separate our friendships had to be but with Susannah being the main meal on Prince's plate, that wound up being easier than I expected.
"Girl, look at your hair! It's so long!"
Giggling like a schoolgirl, I pulled back from Jill as we examined one another. "Look at mine, look at yours! It's brown and the blonde is almost gone!" After Prince conned her into dying her hair blonde so many years ago, it'd finally grown out. Now, the dye job only remained at her ends.
With what I know now, I'm shocked she even agreed to visit me. I didn't know it yet but Prince and Jill were something wicked. Rumor has it that his final straw being pulled was his engagement to Susannah, leading to Jill finally moving on with her life.
