︵‿︵‿୨ 1972 ୧‿︵‿︵
THREE YEARS GOES by pretty fast when you're making music for a living. For Sadie, the studio became her happy place, a perfect distraction from all the thoughts and feelings she didn't like to talk about. Instead, it came out in her lyrics, layered over a backtrack and packaged up neatly into chart topping hits in the US.
"Run the tape again, but this time turn up the bass a little bit," Rene suggested, the curly-haired bassist leaning back on the back two legs of her chair with her feet propped up on the mixing board. From her spot on the crouch, Penny let out a loud groan as the tape rewound and the track started again with the same tune that they'd had drilled into their heads for a week. It had been fourteen hours since they arrived in the studio, with the sun having rose and set outside, and they felt no closer to finishing the track than when they'd stepped in.
"No!" Lela hit the stall button before the first verse could start, making the sound tech nearly jump out of his chair. "If I have to hear Sadie's voice one more time on tape I'm gonna bloody rip my hair out — no offence Sadie."
"None taken."
"We got off tour three weeks ago and I've seem more of this bloody studio than my own house," the drummer continued on as she pushed her seat back and stood up to fish a crumpled packet of Marlboro's from her jeans pocket. "Anyone got a lighter? I need a cigarette and something greasy to eat before we keep going."
"Here," Sadie handed a pink metal lighter from her jacket pocket as she stood up from her chair, stretching her arms over her head to ease some of the aches from being sat down all day. "Let's all take a half hour to get our heads on straight. I need the bathroom anyway."
"I saw a pub open down the street earlier. I am in desperate need of a drink," Rene stood up and took the cigarette from between Lela's lips to take a hit before she handed it off to Penny. "Join us when your done with the bathroom Sadie, yeah?"
The blonde nodded. "Don't wait up, I might be a while."
As the rest of her band wandered out of the room and down the hall Sadie went in the opposite direction towards the bathrooms, cursing whichever architect decided that it was a good idea to place them in the middle of the huge building. She had stopped looking at the clock once it passed 10pm, but she knew it must have been late from how deserted the place was. She was glad for the quiet, though. In a world of sound, sometimes she had to relish in the pause.
"Lost darling?" A voice called out from behind her, making her turn on her heel to see a head of black-hair walking down the deserted hallway towards her. He was scruffy, and obscenely tall, with his dark violet button up hung half-open and a sort of arrogance that could only belong to one person.
"Jimmy," she snorted. Another perk of being of her job was meeting other rock stars, including the monolith band Led Zeppelin, although she wouldn't consider meeting their guitarist Jimmy Page a pleasure per se. The last time the blonde was lucky enough to see the guitarist was at one of Bowie's infamous LA parties, where Jimmy had gotten himself so drunk that he vomited all over her silver platform boots in the middle of trying to ask her to dance — and she really loved those boots. "I should've guessed you'd still be sniffing around at this hour. I thought your band would've put a bell on you by now to stop you wandering off."
"Classy as always, Sadie," he chuckled as he finally reached where she was standing, making her crane her head back to compensate for his height. "I could say the same thing about you though. Where's the rest of your crew?"
Sadie shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest. "Taking a break. We've practically been living in the studio since we got off tour," she told him, "and yours?"
"Heading home for the night," he shrugged. "Bono threatened to stab me with a drum stick if I did another retake of my solo. So Robert made the executive decision to call it a day."
Despite herself, Sadie found herself laughing as she shook her bead at the guitarist. "Trust me, I know the feeling," she told him. "I think this will be the last break we take before sunrise. Our manager is pushing for an album by the end of summer and he's already been on my ass about leaving for a few days to watch a friend perform the last show of her tour."
"Your friend..." Jimmy's eyebrows furrowed a little but at her mention, "that's that disco girl from America right?"
"Her name is Catalina and she does more than disco," Sadie corrected him. The blonde had to resist rolling her eyes at the rock artist as he shrugged at her again. She'd never met a man so arrogant before, it was almost as frustrating as it was intriguing. But lucky for her, she knew exactly how to deal men with egos. "In fact... she covered a Led Zeppelin song as a surprise at her last show. The Rolling Stones called it better than the original."
Jimmy rose an eyebrow at her, a small smirk rising on his lips. "That's a big claim."
"Not if you've heard her sing," Sadie told him with her own small grin. "I'd say you should pick up a magazine and read the article yourself, but we both know you don't read unless it's the front of a cereal box."
"And they call me the cocky one," he shook his head at her, his voice making Sadie wonder if he was being sarcastic or genuine. With him, it was impossible to tell. "Well if you're really so confident about Catalina, bring her to my party in a couple days. I'd love to introduce Robert to the woman who sings his own lyrics better than him."
"Careful, Jimmy, or one might think you're being a little bit competitive," Sadie suggested, her grin growing a little as she tilted up her head a little bit. "It'll do you no good anyway. Cat could out-sing any man in her sleep."
"It's not a competition... unless you make it one, Scott," he replied with a small wink that made her roll her eyes.
"I'll see you in a few days," she told him as she finally turned around to resume her walk down the hallway. "Also, I'd lay off the whiskey until we arrive if I were you. You're going to want to be conscious to see her out-sing you."
【☆】
THEIR RECORDING SESSION had ended up extending into the early morning hours of the following day, by when Sadie's vocals had become tired and croaky from so much use and Penny had to replace two broken strings on her guitar. Finally, though, their song was satisfactory for all of them, and by 8am the blond singer was back into her own bed and fast asleep between her two cats; Harrison and Presley. Although it barely felt like she'd slept at all before she woke up to Penny on the phone telling her to say they were on their way to pick her up and take her to help Catalina move into her new London home.
"You could at least smile, Sadie, we're going to see your best friend!" Rene shook her head at the sight of the blonde walking towards the car, resting her elbow on the open window as the blonde raised her middle finger at the sight of her snickering friends.
"I'm fucking exhausted, Rene. I could seriously murder someone right now," she huffed as she opened the door and slumped into the back seat next to Penny. Lela twisted around in the passengers seat to hand her a large mug full of coffee without even a single word — she knew the singer well enough to know how dependant she was on caffeine. "Thank the lord for Lela Maddigan!" Sadie sighed as she grabbed the mug from her friend and downed half of it with a single gulp.
By the time she finished the rest of it their car was only ten minutes away from Catalina's new house, and with her sleepy-blues now mitigated thanks to her coffee, Sadie was beginning to get more and more excited to see her Latina friend once more — and, she supposed, to tell her about the proposition she'd made with the Led Zeppelin guitarist the night before. Oh, how she couldn't wait to smack the smug expression off Jimmy's face when he saw how wrong he'd been...
"— Sadie?" The sight of Penny snapping her fingers in Sadie's face recaptured her attention as she suddenly realised she'd tuned out of the conversation. "You're fantasising again. Did you even hear what I said?"
"Of course," she lied, "but just so we're both on the same page, you were talking about..."
Penny rolled her dark eyes, making Rene snigger from the drivers chair. "I got a call from our manager this morning asking what time we were planning on arriving at Jimmy Page's party tomorrow night so he could organise a car... only, I hadn't even heard he was hosting a party, so imagine my surprise when I was told that apparently sometime last night you somehow got us all invited."
Sadie's eyes widened a little bit, realising that she'd completely forgotten to mention it to her band mates. "Oh," she said, a small, apologetic smile beginning to form. "It must have slipped my mind."
"Unbelievable," the guitarist rolled her eyes a laugh. "And how exactly did that happen?"
"Well..." Sadie started, "I ran into him during our break last night and he was being such a pompous prick that I may have just let it... you know... slip that the Rolling Stones called Catalina's cover of Black Dog better than their original release. He pretty well demanded that I prove it so I... I told him we'd go to his party and show off." She finished off, bracing herself for the reaction of her band members.
Penny sighed, and Rene burst out laughing, while all Lela did was shake her head. "I don't know what it is about that man, Sadie, but you always give him exactly the reaction he wants," the drummer said, continuing on before Sadie could open up her mouth to protest. "And what even makes you think Cat will be okay with that?"
Sadie sank a little into her chair as if Lela was her mother and she'd just been told off. "Cat has always loved meeting new bands... and besides, who wouldn't jump at the chance to meet the people they covered in concert?"
Lela sighed and turned back to face the front. "You'd better be right..." she let the car trail off into an extended silence before Penny clapped her hands to signal it to an untimely end.
"Well I haven't had a good party for ages," she said, "So I am going to take this is a perfect opportunity to raid the liquor and get a good lay." Sadie laughed, at least glad that one of her friends was on board with her.
"We're here," Rene interrupted as they pulled up outside of the huge house Cat had been given for the summer while she recorded her new album. It was grand, with more than one story and a beautiful white finish in the doors and railings. "Holy shit... this is..."
"Bloody amazing!" Penny finished off her friends sentence as she flung open her door to get out and take a better look at the beautiful home. Sadie and the others followed, but Sadie was less interested in admiring the view and more in seeing her best friend exiting the door. It had been only a few weeks since they'd seen each other last, but it felt far longer for the two as a huge smile broke out on the Latina woman's face at the sight of the blonde.
"Cat!" Sadie grinned as she walked over to the small porch steps and took them all in one bounce to wrap her friend in a huge hug, "God you must be so impressed with this place! Your record label really takes care of their dancing queen, huh?"
"It's truly something," Cat agreed with a small laugh as they finally separated from their embrace to turn back and look at the fine finishings. "It just feels a little but empty without any of my things inside."
"That's what we're here for," Rene reminded her as the three other woman walked up the porch stairs towards Cat and Sadie. "Songwriters by night, house movers by day."
Cat laughed, squeezing Sadie's shoulder one more time before she waved her hand to show them all inside. "C'mon let's grab some boxes and finish this before ever paparazzi in the city arrives and sells photos of us to all the tabloids in the US."
｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
word count : 2222
chapter one is over! if you can't tell, i am in love with all the women in this story and catalina is going to have a very big part in it as well. if you want to find out more of her own story, though, i would highly recommend reading riley's 'dancing queen' which will be cat's own story featuring robert plant! it's not completely necessary to be able to read this book, but you won't regret it!!!