Page 27 of Searching for Sadie
It wasn't that she didn't like Zara. Zara was nice enough, and really if she had to be in contact with anyone from the show, she's the producer she would have chosen. But Sadie knew, even if she liked Zara, she was here to do her job. And using Sadie’s life to make good TV was her job.
"I was going to set my socials public today."
"Oh, babes. We're past that. You made the show runners nervous with your little disappearing act. They wanted to come here and get you to turn your socials on, but then I'm also taking you to a meeting with a lawyer to go over your contract."
"You can't be serious. I’ve done everything they asked of me."
"Well... That's not true," she said as she picked up one of her aunt's ceramic teddy bear figures and scrunched her face at it. "What is this place?" she asked with a disgusted look on her face.
"I inherited this place from my great aunt and just in the nick of time since I lost my job," she said pointedly to Zara.
"I heard about that. Why did they fire you?"
"Because of the show."
"But it hasn't even air yet?"
“The entertainment industry is small.”
“I really am sorry about that, Sadie.”
Sadie just shrugged. "Let's get this over with," she said as she took out her phone.
Sadie had been running away from all of this, but all these attention hungry little chickens were coming home to roost. She went into the setting and turned her profile public.
"Okay, now if you could be friends with your castmates."
"All of them?" Sadie asked.
Zara nodded. "All of them."
Sadie took a deep breath as she accepted the friend request she dreaded most.
She showed her phone to Zara. "Happy?"
"Was that so hard?"
Sadie just glared at her. No, the mere act of accepting some requests and moving a toggle was not hard... But all the nonsense that was about to hit when promos for the show dropped, yeah, all of that was going to be excruciating.
"I'll be here tomorrow morning at nine to pick you up for the meeting."
"Zara, please it's not necessary. I’ll play nice."
"You should’ve been answering your phone, babes. It's out of my hands. They wanted me to move here and be your minder, but if you play nice then that doesn't have to happen."
"Fine."
"Okay, well, I'm going back to the inn, but I’ll be there tomorrow to pick you up and we’ll have our meeting there."
"I'll be here," she said as she walked Zara to the door.
Sadie watched her pull out. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was only 3:30 and she was already climb into bed and hide from the world.In fact, she thought she might do just that, load up some movies and hide. In the morning, she would have to face everything she'd been running from, and she was not ready for that.
When she was already in bed, blankets pulled up around her and she heard a knock at the door. She just couldn't do it right now, even if it was her handsome neighbor. She couldn't face anything right now.
The next morning, sure enough, at nine, Zara sent a car for her.
All she had to do was get through this meeting. Then she could go home. She hadn't checked her social media except to see that the little red circle with notifications was climbing higher and higher.
