Chapter Eight - Sadie’s Receipts
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sadie’s Receipts
“What happened?”
“Sadie Rowe wants to send us documents.”
The mug stopped halfway to my mouth.
“What documents?”
“Emails and approval chains relating to the duet.”
I stepped off the porch.
“Why?”
“Her counsel says she wants a record showing what she was told before she agreed to the recording and the dedication.”
I looked toward the pines. Thin fog hung between them.
“Does she want something from me?”
“Not according to the email.”
“An endorsement?”
“Nothing.”
“A joint statement?”
“None.”
“Then why now?”
“Because your statement yesterday explicitly said you were not accusing her of an affair.”
I had not expected that sentence to reach her this quickly.
Priya continued. “Her team is getting pressure to let the romantic speculation run because it helps both the duet and her profile. She wants distance from that story.”
“Reasonable.”
“It is.”
“Can we trust the documents?”
“We preserve what she sends, verify what we can, and avoid calling anything conclusive before we do the work.”
“I appreciate your distrust.”
“It’s one of my most expensive qualities.”
I carried the mug inside.
“What exactly is she sending?”
“A folder. Her counsel says it includes email threads about your approval of the revised bridge, the demo sample, and the televised dedication.”
I curled my fingers harder around the handle.
“My approval.”
“That is what Sadie says she was told.”
“By whom?”
“Let’s read before we decide.”
Twenty minutes later, Priya was on speaker beside my laptop at the kitchen table.
A secure link appeared in my inbox. The folder contained twelve files.
Just PDFs of email chains, a session schedule, run-of-show drafts, and internal-message screenshots.
The ordinariness made me angrier. Big betrayals should have required better stationery. Priya opened the first email.
“June, you should read these yourself.”
“I am.” The earliest thread was from six weeks before the award show. Sadie had written to her manager, copying a Northline A new voice, old marriage.
One chosen, one discarded. The structure was so familiar nobody needed evidence.
Put two women near the same famous man and the public supplied a competition for free.
But Sadie had been asking about me before I knew enough to ask about her. She had noticed the danger in the word muse. She had asked whether my voice was cleared. She had questioned the bridge. Someone had answered every concern with my invented consent.
“Priya.”
“Yes?”
“I want to talk to her.”
“Her counsel offered a short call if you wanted one. Counsel present on both sides.”
“Today?”
“I’ll ask.” The call happened at two. Priya stayed on.
So did Sadie’s lawyer, a woman named Celeste who spoke only to establish that the conversation was voluntary and not settlement negotiation.
Sadie appeared on my laptop wearing no makeup, her hair pulled into a knot, a plain gray sweatshirt replacing the white dress the internet had turned into evidence of seduction.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
“Thank you for what you put in your statement,” she said. Her voice was plainer without a microphone, less polished by the room around it.
“You didn’t owe me that,” she added.
“I wasn’t doing you a favor.”
“I understand.” Good answer. She looked directly into the camera.
“I need you to know I asked.”
“I read the emails.”
“I should have asked you.”
The sentence caught me off guard.
“You were told I approved.”
“I was.”
“I’m not sure why you would have had my number.”
“I could have gotten it.”
There was no performance in her regret. No tears. No attempt to make me reassure her.
“I believed people whose job was to know,” she continued. “That was convenient for me.”
I understood that kind of sentence too well.
“Convenience gets expensive later.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Apparently.” I studied her face.
“Did Eli ever tell you I approved?”
“Never.” The answer came immediately.
“Did he ever tell you the song was his?”
Sadie hesitated.
“He talked about it as something the two of you had lived through. I assumed that meant you were part of the inspiration. I did not know you were the sole writer until after the show.”
The words hurt differently from jealousy.
“Did you think the dedication was romantic?”
“I thought it was marketing pretending not to be marketing.”
“Until he said it.”
“Right.” Her gaze dropped briefly.
“When he said my muse, I knew how it sounded.”
“I saw your face.”
“I was trying not to make mine the story.”
“Same.” Something almost like humor passed between us. It did not make us friends. I did not want a friend built from the wreckage of one television broadcast, and Sadie did not seem interested in auditioning for the role. That made me trust her more.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Withdraw from any further promotion of the duet. My lawyer is notifying Northline today.”
My shoulders eased.
“Because of the rights issue?”
“Because I was told I had your consent when I didn’t.”
“And the romantic angle?”
Her expression hardened.
“I’m not going to sell a fake affair to rescue a single.”
That was the line. She did not apologize for being young or singing well, and she did not promise to disappear so my marriage could feel safer. She simply named a line she would not cross.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For the emails?”
“For not making me hate you to make this easier.”
Sadie held my gaze.
“They tried to make me hate you first.”
“How?”
“After the takedown. I was told you were angry about me personally. That you had been jealous since rehearsals.”
“Who told you?”
“My manager heard it from Nolan’s office.”
Priya finally spoke.
“Sadie, do you have that in writing?”
“No. Phone call.”
“Then please have your counsel preserve your manager’s notes and call records if they exist.”
Celeste answered before Sadie could.
“We’re already doing that.”
The call ended ten minutes later without promises of coffee, a photograph, or a clean emotional bow.
After the screen went dark, I stayed at the kitchen table. The public had drawn a triangle because triangles sold. Eli at the center. Sadie on one side. Me on the other. But the documents showed something else. Sadie had not taken my place. Someone had told her I had willingly given it to her.
Every trail of that permission led back toward the same office.