Encore || Drake

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

The plane landing into Toronto was bittersweet for me, I was enjoying my first time in first class. The free drinks, free food, fluffy pillows, and blankets that felt like they came right from the dryer. And here I was thinking I hated flying, turns out I just hated flying while poor.

I checked the itinerary that they emailed me in my phone for the 15th time. "You will be picked up by Lawrence." A little more detail would have helped. I scanned over the long line of cars parked in the pick-up area seeing if one of them happened to have "Lawrence" sprawled on the windshield for some reason.

"Come on, girl!" a hand waved at me from the back of a black SUV. "Hurry up, child! Moriah, whatever!" he said flamboyantly.

I cautiously made my way towards the car and the back door shot open.

"Get in, we have things to do and people to see." He said not even looking at me while scrolling through one of two phones in his hands.

I could already tell Lawrence was a character. He was loud, for one. His hair was cut low and dyed gold which reminded me of Sisquo, and he wore a tight pink suit, the pants exposed his ankles, and the jacket exposed his bare chest. Too hot for a shirt I guess.

"This is absolute chaos, I mean, why am I the one picking this girl up? I'm tour manager, I manage things honey, not pick up the side shows." He said into the other phone before hanging up, not giving the person on the other end a chance to answer.

"Side show?" I thought to myself.

"I'm Lawrence, as you heard I'm usually the tour manager but I guess today I'm the help, child." He said placing a thick folder in my lap.

"I'm Moriah." I said lowly, taken aback by the lack of hospitality. I really wasn't in Kansas anymore.

"Mhmm. Fill those out." He said before going back to his phone. "And drive! Carl, please!" he yelled to the front of the car.

I held on tightly as the car shot off, Lawrence kept his poise. I quickly found my seatbelt and snapped myself in. As chaotic and rude Lawrence was I was started to feel excited. This is exactly how I pictured the life of a young, up and coming celebrity would be. Fast paced and always on the go, the total opposite from my slow, southern lifestyle.

I searched in my purse for a pen to get started on the stack of papers in front of me that I assumed he wanted completed by the time we got to our next stop which seemed as though it'd be pretty fast. I got to the bottom of my bag with no luck. Shit. I was going to have to ask him for a pen.

"Do you have a pen by chance?" I asked coyly.

Lawrence looked over at me above his pink tinted sunglasses and rolled his eyes.

"I mean, you're really going to have to get it together." He said pulling a pen from his pocket and handing it to me.

I reached out and before I could touch it he snatched it back.

"This is an Elysee. I want it back." He said before shoving it in my hand.

I nodded pretending I knew what that meant. I quickly began flipping through the pages trying to skim and get a grasp of what everything meant, and then I remembered how everyone always mentions not to sign a contract without reading it all the way through or without lawyers. I then flipped back through the first page and began reading carefully. I felt Lawrence's eyes on me after a few minutes had passed.

"Look, it says you get paid $1000 for each show, against my advice anyway, there are twenty shows. You're also are insured for up to $800,000 in case any bodily harm happens to you. You're contractually obligated to do at least 15 shows. Treat the other five as your sick days and use them wisely or you will have to pay $50,000 unless you have a good lawyer that tells us otherwise, and I'm sure you don't." he sputtered off quickly.

I began signing each paper as he went quickly through the details and he continued.

"That page is a bunch of shit we aren't liable for that I doubt you'll even get into, this page says that you don't have any serious health problems, that last page is emergency contact information. Now hurry up." He said going back to his phone.

I paused at the emergency contact information. The feeling of being alone quickly came back to me. I had no close friends that I could put down, and no family members either. Hoping not to gain his attention again I scribbled down fake names and numbers, and an address to god knows where. Lawrence looked over to what I was writing.

"John and Mary Jones?" he said, reading my writing out loud.

Lawrence gave me a knowing look.

"Girl, if you were in the dead parent's club with me you could have just said so." He took the paper and balled it up. "No one ever goes looking for this file if you died anyway, just legal mess."

I thought I saw him give me a small smile but it disappeared as fast as it came.

"And don't ever in your life sign another contract without a lawyer." He snapped. "I could have been telling you total bullshit but luckily I wasn't because I take care of my people." He rolled his eyes.

After a few minutes of speeding through the streets of Toronto we stopped in front of building located in what I guessed was downtown. After a bunch of yelling from Lawrence on the phone a tiny woman came speed walking out of the building. Lawrence took the folder from my lap and shoved it in her hands, Carl instantly sped off, I looked back to make sure the woman's foot didn't get flattened by a tire, but when I turned around to look out of the back window and she was speed walking back towards the building.

"These Toronto paralegals are sorry." Lawrence commented.

I was beginning to see why he didn't have an assistant.

The rest of the car ride was basically me listening to Lawrence conduct business over the phone, which was mainly him yelling and me nodding whenever he looked over to me to ask "Am I right?". Eventually we pulled up to the Scotiabank Arena and the SUV was led around back through a series of underground tunnels.

"Take it in." Lawrence sang. "This place will either give you your best memories or haunt you in your dreams."

I gave him a puzzled look.

"Why?" I asked.

"Everyone's first performance in front of twenty thousand people is either bad, or really bad. It just depends on what you take from the experience. Remember that." He said with a pointed finger.

The SUV came to a halt in an underground parking deck. We exited the vehicle and Lawrence told me that Carl would drop by belongings off to the hotel. I retrieved my guitar from the trunk and held onto it tightly. It was the one little thing that filled that hole of loneliness for me.