The Rock Star Wrote Every Song About the Size 22 Girl at the Merch Table novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Release Form

The release was six pages long.

By page two I had found the sentence that mattered.

"I, the undersigned, grant the Label a perpetual, irrevocable license to any recording, vocal or otherwise, and waive all claims of credit, payment, or ownership."

"It doesn't say what recording," I said.

"It doesn't have to." Jude was pacing the hotel carpet in his jeans, shirtless. "It's the voicemail. She knows, Maggie. She figured out whose laugh is on track nine."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"Then I'm not signing it."

"I'll call my lawyer."

"No. Let me deal with her." I folded the pages in half. "She slid an envelope under my door at midnight. I want to see her face when I say no."

He stopped pacing.

He looked at me for a long second, and then he laughed, low and amazed.

"You're something," he said.

"I'm a size 22 with a cash box," I said. "Go to sleep."

He did not sleep.

Neither did I.

In Detroit the next afternoon, Deirdre had set up a folding table in an empty dressing room and put a bottle of sparkling water on it.

She sat behind it in a pale gray suit.

I sat down across from her without being asked and put the release on the table.

"No," I said.

"You haven't read it."

"I read it twice. I'd like a lawyer who works for me to read it a third time."

Her smile didn't move.

"Ms. Doyle, you sell T-shirts for a company in Pittsburgh that nets less than two hundred thousand dollars a year. We're offering you five thousand dollars for a moment of your time."

"For signing away my voice."

"For signing a form."

"If the form was nothing, you wouldn't pay five thousand dollars for it."

Her eyes went cold.

For the first time, I saw what was under the smile, and it wasn't anger.

It was fear.

"Everyone in this business signs," she said. "It's routine. You'd be helping Jude. He's very fragile right now."

"He's not fragile," I said. "He's the least fragile man I've ever seen."

"You've known him two days."

"I know what I know."

The door opened.

Jude walked in with his hair still wet and his tour laminate swinging on his chest.

He didn't look at Deirdre.

He looked at me.

"Hi," he said. "Don't stand up. I'm here to do a thing."

He picked up the release.

Deirdre rose from her chair. "Jude, this is not appropriate."

He tore the pages in half.

Then in half again.

He dropped the pieces into her sparkling water, and they floated there.

"If you slide anything else under her door," he said, "I'll cancel the Atlanta show, and I'll tell everyone exactly why."

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