Merritt smiled, always unsure what to do in the face of that kind of deference, and gave an awkward wave.
“Hi,” she said with a little laugh. “I’m Merritt.”
“I know who you fucking are,” Sadie said, straightening up,her face bright red, mouth still hanging open in an astonished grin. Merritt walked all the way into the room, the small huddle of people between her and Sadie parting like she was Moses.
“Can I have a hug?” she asked, then cringed internally, feeling like the creepy uncle at a family gathering. But it was clearly the right thing to say, as Sadie launched herself into her arms. Merritt hugged her tightly, their height difference large enough that her head practically rested on Sadie’s.
When they separated, Merritt was introduced to the rest of the team, including Marc, the producer, a guy around her age with glasses and a slightly above-it-all expression. She’d heard once that 98 percent of music producers were men, which certainly aligned with her own experience, so she didn’t know why she felt a twinge of disappointment that this seemed like one thing that hadn’t changed in the interim.
“So, are you here to sit in?” said Sadie, shifting her weight anxiously.
“If you want,” said Merritt. “But Audrey sent me demos of a few songs. ‘Something I Said,’ and ‘Fake It,’ and ‘Onea.m.’ If you’re interested, I’d love the chance to work with you on them.”
Sadie’s face went even redder. “I would literallydie.”
“Well, don’t die, because we have you under a three-album contract,” deadpanned the label executive in the corner. Everyone but Merritt laughed.
As nervous as Merritt had been about getting back in the studio, it felt as comfortable as slipping into an old favorite T-shirt, soft from repeated wear. She sat at the piano, Sadie on the couch with a guitar in her lap, working through the vocal harmonies for “Something I Said.”
She was hesitant to make suggestions at first, but when Sadie asked for her input, she played the alternate chord progression she’d been messing around with, plus a few tweaks to the lyricsof the bridge, gratified when Sadie’s face lit up in agreement. When they ran through the new version one full, uninterrupted time, Merritt got goosebumps. Based on Sadie’s expression, she felt it, too.
“Fucking fire,” Sadie said with a giddy grin. Everyone around them nodded and murmured in agreement, which startled Merritt, who’d almost forgotten they were there. “Let’s get in the booth.”
They spent the next couple of hours laying down the different tracks—guitar, piano, layer after layer of vocals. In between takes, she got to know Sadie, who in some ways reminded her so much of herself it was uncanny, but in others couldn’t have been more different.
From her music, she’d expected Sadie to be on the quieter, intense side, but she was bubbly and vivacious—words that had never been used to describe Merritt, at any age. She was an LA native, the youngest of seven—all homeschooled—and it was easy to clock her as the baby of a family where attention was a limited resource. Since she was in her life for only a few days, though, all Merritt could do was make sure her own attention was undivided.
The two of them seamlessly slipped into a working rhythm, their musical chemistry as effortless and natural as Merritt had ever experienced. Slowly, everyone else drifted out of the studio, bored by the monotony of take after take with minute differences audible only to Sadie, Merritt, and Marc.
Late in the afternoon, they gathered around Marc’s monitor to hear his rough mix of the song. He gave up his chair to Sadie, standing behind her as they listened, Merritt leaning against the console.
Merritt couldn’t hear a thing, though, because all she could focus on were Marc’s hands resting on Sadie’s shoulders.
It felt like all the air had been sucked from her lungs.
She told herself she was being too sensitive. She’d been out of the game too long. It was perfectly normal for a grown man to touch the teenage girl he was working with in such a casually affectionate way. Sadie herself didn’t seem to think much of it, her face rapt and attentive, nodding along to the beat with a small smile.
But then, Merritt could vividly remember being in that exact position, rationalizing away her boundaries being pushed by photographers, executives, producers—men who held every card, dangling her dream in front of her like a carrot. She wasn’t special; everyone dealt with this. This wasn’t an industry for prudes or complainers. If a joke or a request or a touch made her uncomfortable, that was her problem. She could easily be replaced with someone who wasn’t.
In the past, she’d even considered herself lucky that all her experiences could be filed under harassment rather than assault, until her therapist had pointed out how twisted it was to think of any of it as “lucky.”
Merritt cleared her throat. “I think I’m going to get some air. Maybe we should all take ten?” She shot Sadie a significant look before grabbing her phone from her bag and heading outside.
She took a lap around the building, checking her texts for the first time all day to find a few from Niko. He’d spent the day at Griffith Park, with a stop at Amoeba Records; her heart squeezed when she saw his haul included some of the albums they’d listened to on their road trip.Wish u were here, he wrote.Hope ur having fun & i know ur kicking ass.
Seeing his texts released the knot in her stomach somewhat, dragging her back to the present. She hesitated, her thumbs hovering over the phone, but decided this wasn’t the time to get into it.
Kicking ass is questionable, she wrote back,but i am having fun, mostly.
I should be back in a few hours. Let me know if you want me to pick up some dinner.
She rounded the corner, relieved to see Sadie leaning against the brick, phone in her hand and hot-pink vape in her mouth. As Merritt approached, Sadie exhaled, a huge cloud of vapor briefly obscuring her face, then offered it to Merritt.
“Want some?”
Merritt came up next to her, eyeing it. “What is it?”
“Just nicotine.”
