"Sadie!"
Sylva pushed open the door of the hotel suite, her expression both indignant and angry and a magazine in her hand. "Sadie, where are you!"
"What's up?" Sadie poked her head out of the bathroom, where she had been carefully blowdrying her hair. "Syl, what's the matter! You look ready to eat someone!" "She usually looks like that." Nancy put in from her seat in the lounge, not even bothering to look up from her book. Such outbursts were common from the impetuous Sylvina, and she saw no reason for alarm. Copper emerged from her bedroom, casting the keyboardist a quizzical look.
"What's all the fuss?" She asked. "Syl, what are you shrieking about now?"
"This magazine." Sylva flung the offending article down on the table, her voice shaking with anger. "Sadie, have you seen the article in here this morning?"
Sadie looked puzzled.
"Article? Magazine? I only just got out of the shower!"
"I think we should sue them till they go out of business." Sylva dropped down into an empty armchair. "How dare they write such an article about us anyhow?"
"Syl, we're lost. Not an uncommon event when you go on the rampage." With a sigh Nancy set her book aside, meeting the keyboardist's gaze. "What's so terrible about this article?"
"You remember that story when Topaz first joined Jewel and how they hounded her about her exes back in Toronto?" Sylva asked. Nancy and Copper exchanged looks.
"Sure." Copper agreed. "But all of that was quickly disproved as media hype anyway. What about it?"
"Take a look. I'm too disgusted to read it again." Sylva indicated the magazine with her feet. "It's Sadie it concerns mostly, anyhow."
"Me?" Sadie blanched. "They wrote an article...a bad article...about me?"
"Let's see." Copper bent to pick up the magazine, flicking through it. "The media are funny people, they'll write whatever they want to get a story. The least fuss made, the sooner it's forgotten. Haven't we all learnt that yet?"
"Read the damn thing and see if you agree." Sylva returned grimly.
"No." Sadie grabbed the magazine out of Copper's hand. "If it's about me I want to read it."
"Chill out, Sadie. It's probably no biggie." Nancy said with a shrug. "Copper's right. The press do report crazy stuff. I seem to remember one of the things they accused poor Topaz of was drug abuse...crazy as it seems."
"Drug abuse?" Sadie repeated. Then she frowned.
"Fine. I'm going in my room to read this." She decided. "I don't want disturbing. Okay?"
"Sure, whatever you say." Sylva nodded.
"Was it really horrendous, Syl?" Copper asked once Sadie was gone. Sylva nodded.
"Yeah. It was." She said shortly.
"Poor Sadie. She's so new to all of this." Copper sighed.
"Topaz got through it though." Nancy pointed out. "And in the end it made the four of us closer."
"I guess." Sylva nodded. She frowned. "I miss Topaz. I wish she was with us."
"She couldn't leave Hollie so young." Copper said sensibly. "Nor did she want to and that's understandable. Sadie's a good singer and a good guitarist and she fits into the setup great, you know that."
"I know. I didn't mean we shouldn't have Sadie." Sylva responded. "I just wish there were five of us, that's all. Hollie's an angel baby, but Topaz is my best friend and I miss her so bad."
"I'm glad Sadie joined the party." Nancy owned. "I know she hasn't got the training I had as a kid, but it's nice to have someone else in the group who can compose a little, you know? It takes the pressure off me and believe it or not I like the idea of co-writing some songs. It's a lot of fun."
"Do you think she's okay?" Copper sent a glance towards the door of Sadie's room.
"She has to handle the press in her own way." Nancy said wisely. "It sucks, of course, if they've written a bad article about her, but I s'pose it's a learning curve. We've all been there...it's her turn."
"I hope so." Copper nodded. "Guess this is where we could use Topaz. She understands Sadie best of all of us."
"Sometimes I feel like we don't know her all that well." Sylva sighed. "Sometimes she reacts so strange. D'ya think it's because she's English?"
"I resent that. I'm half English." Nancy raised an eyebrow. "And Mom wouldn't thank you, either."
"I meant because we're from different places we have different ways of handling things, silly." Sylva retorted.
"Shh!" Copper put up her hand. "I thought...does anyone else hear Sadie crying?"
There was silence as the three girls listened. Then, slowly, Nancy nodded.
"I think I hear it too." She agreed. Sylva bit her lip.
"That stupid magazine, I'll wring their necks." She muttered. "I promised Topaz before we came out here that I'd look after Sadie if she felt overawed by everything on tour...if they upset her..."
"Why should Sadie need you to look after her? She's older than you." Nancy objected, getting to her feet.
"I don't know. Seemed odd to me, but Topaz asked me to so I agreed." Sylva shrugged. "Guess it's lack of experience in the public eye. Come on, let's go see if she's all right."
"Good." Copper looked relieved. "I didn't like the idea of leaving her to cry, whatever she said."
Nancy was the first one to reach the door and tentatively she knocked.
"Sadie?" She called gently. "It's Nancy...are you okay in there?"
"I said I didn't want to be disturbed." Sadie's voice came back almost at once, slightly shaky and indistinct.
"Well, we don't like to think you're crying on your own in there." Sylva put in her bit, grabbing the handle and swinging open the door.
Sadie was sprawled on her stomach on the bed, the magazine on the floor and she recoiled as they entered.
"I said leave me alone! I can handle my own problems and my own situations!" She exclaimed.
"Maybe you can." Copper said softly. "But you gotta realise now Sadie that you're not just out on your own here. You're a Jewel...we're a team and what affects you affects us too...whether actually, emotionally or in the media. We're your friends and we're worried about you."
This sent Sadie into more spasms of tears, and she buried her head in her pillow.
"You won't be." She murmured, her voice muffled. "Not if you'd seen..."
"I've seen the article." Sylva said stolidly. "And I'm mad as hell that they wrote it, to be honest. Some welcome home to England for you, huh?"
"I feel like I've been totally violated." Sadie responded softly. "Humiliated and exposed for public reading pleasure. That's not why I joined this band! Everything was going so well and now it's r...r...ruined! Should've known I c...c...couldn't have something good happen to me and l...last, shouldn't I? I should know my l...luck by now."
"Don't be silly. It's just an article." Copper came to the bedside, pulling Sadie gently into a sitting position and hugging her tightly. "Listen. The press do things like this. They do. They think it's fun, some of the worst of them, to take a human being and scandalise them. They don't care about the truth."
"Oh..." Sadie bit her lip. "Oh, I know that. I do. T...Topaz w...warned me before we left America that it happened."
"Then don't cry, huh? It's no big deal." Nancy sat down on the end of the bed.
Sadie took a shuddery gulp of air.
"You don't understand." She said shakily. "You don't know the half of it, any of you...I was too afraid, and now..." She swallowed hard, closing her eyes as more tears threatened.
"Now you won't want me to be a Jewel any more." She whispered.
"Because of one article?" Sylva snorted. "Come off it, Sadie!"
"What do you mean, you were too afraid?" Copper asked gently. "Afraid of what? Neal?"
Sadie did not answer, and Copper shot Sylva a questioning glance.
"Syl, is Neal in the article?"
"No names are mentioned." Sylva said slowly. "Except Sadie's."
"I've barely thought about him since I went to the States." Sadie murmured. "I bet...I bet this is his way of getting back at me. He s...sent someone to the press with the story, most likely...I hate him so much for this! I hate him and I wish he were dead! I wish he were dead!"
"You don't know he did anything." Nancy said sensibly. "Look, Sadie, why are you getting so wound up? It's words on paper. It doesn't mean anything."
Sadie bit her lip.
"Because it's true." She whispered.
Sylva's eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped. Fixing Sadie with an incredulous stare she slowly retrieved the magazine from the floor, flicking it open.
"What? All of it?" She demanded. Sadie nodded morosely.
"M...more or less." She admitted brokenly. "See? Now you'll hate me and want me out of your group. And how can I blame you? I hate me too. I hate me for being gullible and stupid and I should never have kept it from you. Now you're all dragged down with me and...and it's not f...fair. Jewel have a good reputation and I...I've ruined it forever."
"Neither Nancy or I know what's in the article." Copper said softly. "But if you want to tell us, in your words, then we're listening."
"Syl, quit gawking and sit." Nancy instructed. "Whatever this great hidden truth is, it isn't helping that you're looking at Sadie like she's morphed into Frankenjewel, now is it?"
Sylva blushed.
"I'm sorry, Sadie." She said sheepishly. "I didn't mean...I just...wow. I never thought for one moment it could be true."
"Shows how well you know me then." Sadie said bitterly. "Doesn't it? You all think of me as good little Sadie Monahue, abused by her ex-boyfriend, fled to America to escape his clutches...well, that at least is true. But there's more...oh god, a hell of a lot more. I'm not good little Sadie Monahue. Good girls don't have police records, do they? They don't wind up in front of the judge for petty theft and end up spending months in prison or juvenile detention, do they? And they don't..." She faltered, then, "And they don't wind up being stuck in a rehabilitation clinic whilst everyone tries to figure out what in heck is wrong with me and why in hell I got mixed up in the stuff I did."
"You went to jail?" Now it was Nancy's turn to gawp.
"You poor thing." Copper hugged her friend again. "It must've been awful."
"I can't picture you a thief." Slowly Nancy got a grip on herself, eying Sadie carefully. "Why'd you do it, anyway?"
"The first time it was...oh, I dunno, guess you'd say it was a dare gone wrong." Sadie responded sadly. "I never meant to be caught...I was only a kid, really. Fifteen or sixteen, no older. The judge was an old guy who had a particular hate for teen offenders - and the legal aid I had was not much cop. The end result was that I spent a harrowing couple of months in juvenile detention, for a crime that most kids I knew got off with a warning for."
"Most kids you knew?" Sylva demanded. Sadie laughed hollowly.
"I come from a rough area. Most all the kids I grew up with did something or other against the grain." She said darkly. "Vandalism, theiving, you name it. I grew up in the worst part of Birmingham, really. There were five of us, there wasn't enough money for any better. It was the sacrifice for us not living in military accomodation - Mum didn't want us growing up in a wire enclosure community." She shrugged. "So we didn't. Then when we moved to Kent, after she died, there was even less money to keep us...so we ended up in the worst hell-hole of an estate that you can imagine living in. But still, there are worse places..."
She shivered. "I hated juvenile hall. Hated it."
"So why did you get yourself sent back?" Copper asked gently.
Sadie grimaced.
"I came out with an attitude. Hell, if you ask my sister I had one before, but a worse one. Kinda felt like I was against the whole system. I did my time, and all that, I knew how to handle it. Anyhow, I got in with some...not so nice people. I guess you'd call it a gang...there were all kinds of stuff going down with 'em. That's how I met Neal...guess he pretty much ran the show, everyone was scared of him. Me? I fell in love with him." She sighed. "Dumb, huh? Violent, chauvenistic...I don't get it either. But it was the worst thing that coulda happened to me. Neil was into dealing drugs...draw and smack mostly...and I got sucked into the chain." She shrugged. "Within a year I was living with the guy. The deal was that so long as I was living with him and doing as he told me to do, he'd make sure I got what I needed."
"So you used drugs too?" Copper asked. Sadie nodded.
"Yeah." She agreed, lowering her gaze. "I...I know, it must sound so terrible to you guys, all these things I've done and I didn't tell you till my contract was signed and all. If you want me to leave the band I...I will, I just..."
"Don't be daft." Nancy interrupted her. "You were a dumb kid. So what? It happens. Now get over it and move on."
"What Nancy is trying to say, Sadie, in her own delicate way, is that we don't intend on judging you on the past." Copper said slowly. "So long as those things are all well behind you, then it's hardly important."
"I'm clean. I've been clean four years or more." Sadie nodded. "I give you my word on that, Copper. And I'm not a thief, I swear I'm not. Yeah, I did dumb things and got caught, but most of the time it was Neal making me, or I needed to do it to...to pay for the drugs." She blushed uncomfortably. "My last conviction was for possession...and it sorted me out. The judge was a nice guy, he basically told me in court that I needed help, not punishment if I was ever going to get out of the loop. He gave me the option of rehab as part of my sentence. I didn't want help really, not then, but my sister was in floods of tears and begged me to do it...so I did. Better than going to jail anyhow." She sighed. "Guess I realised that it was the only way I was possibly going to get anywhere. If I had just gone to jail, well, when I got out, nothing would have changed and I'd probably have been back there again in a matter of months." She smiled weakly. "Once I put my mind to something, I tend to be stubborn as hell. I wouldn't let myself go back - and I haven't. Only now..." She bit her lip. "I'm so sorry. I never meant for this...I just wanted a fresh chance to make my family proud, that's all."
"Alyssa is very proud of you." Copper murmured. "And your nieces think the world of you. I'd say that you succeeded."
"Does Topaz know about this?"
"No." Sadie shook her head. "I think she suspects something's up, but I never told her any of it. Why?"
"She asked me to look out for you when we came to England, make sure things didn't intimidate you." Sylva responded. "I just wondered."
"What is Jetta gonna say?" Sadie looked fearful. "And Phyllis...will they kick me out? What will they do to me?"
"Mom will want to know the truth." Nancy said slowly. "Other than that, I don't know what their reaction will be. I'm sorry, Sadie. I wish I could be more helpful."
At that moment the phone began to ring, and exchanging looks with her bandmates, Sylva reached for the receiver. She frowned.
"It's Jetta." She said quietly. "Sadie...she wants to talk to you."