Chapter Text
Betty Cooper rolls her eyes and groans audibly upon seeing the music producer signal her to stop singing – for the hundredth time since this morning.
They are at a fancy recording studio in Los Angeles, one of those studios that scare off any fledgling singer that attempts a career in the music industry. It is equipped with the most modern, state-of-the-art facilities worthy of a popular Hollywood star – like her, for example.
They have been trying to record a new track that will be included on her second album, which, to Betty’s frustration, is perpetually in the works. They have been at it for most of the day, and she can sense that everyone in the recording studio is at various levels of exasperation and annoyance.
Because she just can’t get it right.
It is the sixth day of recording for the track, and today is supposedly allotted for vocals – meaning, it is her turn to fill in her part of the song. (She had heard the melody and arrangement the day before, and consequently formed a favorable opinion on it.) All she has to do now is to perfect the vocals, but she has been royally messing up for the past eight hours.
Which is a rare occurrence, because Betty Cooper never flops at anything she tries to do.
She takes a few deliberate breaths to calm her nerves, willing down the increasing discomfort she feels in the pit of her stomach that is slowly rising up her throat. Her fingers curl automatically, nails lightly grazing against the palm of her hands. But instead of pushing too hard until she breaks skin, she rubs the slight irregularities on her palms, reminding herself that she can do this.
She closes her eyes and makes a mental countdown, until she feels her breathing return to a normal rate.
“I’m so sorry. Can I do it one more time?” Betty asks the recording team huddled in the control room on the other side of the glass panel.
“That’s okay, Betty. I think it’s time for a break,” Kevin, the music producer, tells her through the external communicating device. “We’re starving anyway,” he mouths, as he pats his stomach. Betty herself feels her stomach grumble and protest at the extended lack of sustenance.
She removes the headset she’s wearing as she surveys the room. Kevin Keller, said music producer (and also her best friend) seems to be the only friendly face remaining; but she spots the subtle hesitation in the smile he gives her, and Betty realizes just how miserably she is failing. Paul DeSantos, the composer and arranger of the song, is currently massaging his temples. Laura Lim, the head engineer of the studio, is visibly letting out a heavy sigh as she removes her set of headphones.
Kevin opens the door to the live room where she’s recording, pokes his head inside, and says, “Wanna join me for late lunch?”
She gives him an apologetic smile and nods. “Okay.” She looks back at everyone else in the studio, but they are already scuffling towards the exit. Kevin shouts at them to be back in the studio after a 2-hour break.
Betty drags her feet through the threshold towards the control room and finds the nearest couch to collapse into. She slouches on the couch and lets out a sigh of defeat before burying her face in her hands. She refuses to look at Kevin as she mutters, “I’m sorry I’m such a failure, Kev.”
The couch shifts due to an added weight, and she hears him reply, “Nah. Don’t worry about it, Betty. We all have our bad days, today’s just not your day, s’all.”
She scoffs, feeling the knot in her stomach coil. “I don’t know, Kev. I just haven’t been feeling like myself for the longest time. You know? This doesn’t feel like my usual run-of-the-mill depression.”
Kevin’s eyebrows draw together. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs before she answers. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right anymore.” Kevin gives her a look, prodding her to elaborate, so she adds, “Every day I get up, drag myself to whatever commitment I have for the day, but inside, I just don’t feel like doing any of it.”
A considerable pause passes between them.
Kevin has been her best friend (her only trusted friend, really) in the music business. He is one of those stylish and less intimidating young overachievers of the corporate music world. They’ve been each other’s confidants since that day he found her loitering around a management company five years ago. At that time, she had been crying incessantly after an especially big fight with her mother.
“Is Alice giving you a hard time again?” Kevin prods, referring to Betty’s mother (who also stands as her manager). Concern laces his voice, and his frown gets deeper as he scrutinizes her face.
Betty doesn’t answer; instead, she scans the interior of the recording studio. Countless songs that managed to land on the Billboard Charts were recorded in the same room. She has recorded some of her well-received older songs in this room. But right now, strangely, the place is making her uncomfortable, like it is some sort of entrapment, and she is having a hard time escaping.
She inhales deeply, shaking her head as if by doing so, she could expel the thought from her mind.
Betty snaps out of her reverie when she feels a slight shake of her shoulder. She turns and sees Kevin waving a hand in her face. “Hello? Earth to Betty! Have you heard a word I said?” he says, brows raised.
“What?”
“I said, let’s go eat. I’m star—“ he pauses abruptly as he scans her face. “Hey, c’mere.” He must have found something in her expression, because Betty finds herself being pulled to his chest in an embrace.
She closes her eyes, and allows her friend to provide her some semblance of comfort that she apparently craves.
“Let’s just call it a day for now,” Kevin mumbles. “I’ll text everyone to come back tomorrow. Take off some of the edge. For now, first order of business is to fill our stomachs, because I am legitimately famished, lady! C’mon,” he says with a final tap on her back.
.
.
.
Half an hour later, they are walking into a hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurant, a little off the busier streets of Los Angeles. Kevin is craving sushi, so sushi is what they’re getting. Besides, it’s a relatively unknown and hidden place, so the chance of running into paparazzi is low. They go straight to a table at an alcove away from the rest of the restaurant, ideal to get a little privacy.
“Have you heard the latest gossip in town?” Kevin exclaims as soon as they are seated, his eyes growing wide as he covers his mouth in exaggeration.
Betty can’t help rolling her eyes, but she indulges her friend nonetheless. It is his favorite past time, it seems - to gather all the juiciest gossip in Hollywood, and relay it to her in an embellished manner. She hasn’t paused to contemplate the truthfulness of each one. She never believes any of it from the baseline (unless it comes with evidence). She just wants to humor Kevin as he talks animatedly.
She knows from first hand experience that the stories these tabloids churn out are a tangent to reality, and one can never trust any of them. They just publish whatever they deem will generate millions of hits on the internet, or whatever will sell more copies of tabloid magazines. It’s all just for profit in the end, like any other thing in their line of work.
But listening to Kevin talk is a distraction from her thoughts, so she tries to listen anyway.
“Well, your ex-boyfriend—” he draws quotation marks in the air as he drawls, “—Archie Andrews is now off the market after staying single from your alleged break-up years ago.” He finishes with a smirk.
“Really?” Betty replies, eyebrows shooting up.
“Yup, and I heard he’s dating a filthy rich brunette who hails from NYC. I heard she’s a fashion designer.”
“Kev, that’s like a story of the olden times. The brunette has a name, and it’s Veronica Lodge.”
“My, my…what is this? Betty Cooper caving in to rumors?”
She laughs as she shakes her head. “Of course not. I just know for a fact that Archie and Veronica have been in a long-term relationship. They were even dating during that brief period that Archie and I were supposedly dating,” Betty explains.
Kevin widens his eyes, wordlessly asking her to elaborate, so she adds, “Well, you know how our brief, but immensely popular relationship was staged, right?” He nods before Betty furthers, “Archie was already in a long-term relationship with Veronica at the time; high school sweethearts. As far as I can remember, Archie told her about the whole set-up, and Veronica was very gracious and understanding about it.”
Betty’s chest tightens as she remembers her own relationship at the time - only hers did not turn the brighter way like Archie’s did. She welcomes the familiar feeling, an intense regret and remorse whenever she’s reminded of him. These days, the feeling comes to her more often than it used to.
“You know, you never really told me about that part of your story. But I remember, the first time that we met, you looked almost suicidal. Wasn’t that the time that you signed that contract? I think I have a memory of you telling me that. But I never learned why it was so devastating to you,” Kevin says, his hands meeting on the table.
“That’s a story for another time,” Betty finishes with a mysterious smile. She pretends to be busy with an elaborate place mat that a young waitress lays on their table after taking their orders. Betty mouths her thanks to her before she turns her back and leaves them alone again.
“You always say that. It’s almost unfair! You know the details about every romantic excursion I have had for the past five years, and I haven’t heard any of yours!” Kevin protests, a frown beginning to crease on his forehead.
Betty laughs, increasingly amused by this sudden interest in her love life. “Well, for one, my dear Kevin, there’s nothing to tell. My love life is as dry as the Sahara desert.”
“Why does it have to be so though? I mean, girl, in case you forgot, you are Betty Cooper - one of the most popular, sought after performers of Hollywood today!” he says, incredulity evident in his tone.
“Maybe I’m saving myself for my Romeo,” she replies lightly.
“What? Betty—it’s the twenty-first century! Not the Victorian era. You’re allowed to date!”
“Exactly, it’s the twenty-first century. A woman can have the liberty to stay single, just as she has the liberty to date in whatever way. I just happen to choose the former! I like being single, anyway.”
“Gosh, Betty, you’re making me worry endlessly. One of these days, I’ll get in the serious business of looking for this particular Romeo, whoever he is. He might be able to make you happy.”
Betty doesn’t reply, instead she gives him another one of her mysterious smiles.
What he doesn’t know is that Betty has already been on it— she has started on the search for her particular Romeo. One tall, dark, and brooding Romeo of her distant past.
Kevin starts browsing on his cellphone while they wait for their food to arrive. He makes an annoying sort of sound, something between a squeal and a giggle, and he shoves the electronic in her face. “Look at this, Betty! I knew you were gonna be dragged into this!”
She grabs the phone from his grasp and reads:
“Archie Andrews, one half of the nation’s favorite fairytale duo, is allegedly dating someone other than his previous beau, Betty Cooper. For those who remember, the two pop stars dated briefly five years ago, and swept the whole world off their feet with their too-good-to-be-true whirlwind romance. They were a picture-perfect couple, but it only took a few months before the pair parted ways. However, both of them remained single through the years, so a lot of fans couldn’t help but hold out hope that someday the pop prince and princess may find their way back to each other again. This sudden twist of fate suggests that any possibility for a reunion is close to nil.”
She doesn’t finish reading the article and shoves the cellphone back to Kevin.
Betty can feel the start of a migraine, and she massages her temples in an attempt to preclude it from spreading. She doesn’t want to deal with more of this nonsense.
Their food arrives by then, and Betty gives the waitress a polite smile, a force of habit. She’s always been a paragon of refinement and propriety, something that was drilled into her in her youth.
“But this is good though, isn’t it?” Kevin starts again once the waitress is out of earshot. “I mean, people will finally leave you out of this erstwhile make-believe romance. You’re a free woman now!” He touches his left chest in mock glee.
Betty rolls her eyes in exasperation. “I’ve always been a free woman, Kev. And always will be.” (Is she really though?) She doesn’t stop to entertain the thought further and focuses her mind on the food in front of her.
She’s starving.
.
.
.
Later, Betty spends the rest of the day in her apartment. She lives alone in a two-bedroom unit, in one of the nicer residential buildings in Beverly Hills. She does not exactly lead a lavish lifestyle, but Betty does indulge herself to a few luxuries afforded by her fat paycheck— her place of residence included. Her apartment overlooks the affluent city that serves as a home for most of the celebrities rolling in the same world as her.
She changes into a pair of yoga pants and sports bra, endorphins already rising at the thought of exercising. She spends the next hour doing several poses, clearing her mind and calming her nerves in the process. (Yoga, she’s found, is one way to help her deal with her daily stress and her raging mind.)
Betty flops on her couch after she’s satisfied with her exercise, and she starts browsing through her text messages. She has ten messages from her mother, (reminding Betty of various engagements with TV networks, product endorsements, the whole shebang), two messages from her personal assistant about her schedule the next day, one from Kevin asking her if she was safely home, and a message from a certain number that Betty has been hoping would contact her for the past few weeks. The message only says, “Call me as soon as you can, Miss Cooper.”
She doesn’t lose a second and dials the number. The person on the other end of the line answers after two rings.
“Hello, Miss Cooper. I have been waiting for your call.”
“Hi, um, sorry, I only just got to read your text. Any news for me?”
“Yes, I do, in fact. I have found the person you asked me to find.”
Her heart starts picking up speed, and Betty thinks she can hear the drumming of the beats in her ear. She looks at her hand in time to see it tremble.
“Did y—” her voice cracks, so she clears her throat before she tries again, “Did you? What do you have for me?”
“I e-mailed you a copy of all the details I’ve gathered. I could understand the difficulty in locating the gentleman. He goes by a different name, but he’s not exactly hiding. He goes professionally by the name FP Jones III—”
“Hold on a minute. FP Jones III? Why, what does he do?” Betty asks through the receiver, her brows raising mildly.
“He’s a professional photographer, Miss Cooper. In fact, I have detailed in the e-mail all his social media accounts, by which you can reach him. Good luck.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Betty feels a smile forming on her lips, warmth spreading in her chest, and something akin to pride snakes its way into her heart. He did it.
When the line cuts, Betty fumbles for her laptop that’s stashed away on her coffee table. She opens the e-mail, and there she sees the face often visiting her in her slumbers, the face that often sneaks into her mind in her moments of idleness, the face that never fails to tug at her heart and cause her chest to tighten with a pang of sadness and regret.
There it is, the familiar face on the picture, with a mop of messy, midnight black hair covering half his forehead, eyebrows drawn together, deep creases on his forehead, mouth slightly bent downward at the corners, and an ever-piercing ice-blue eyes staring back at her.
“Hey there, Romeo.” Betty Cooper whispers in the air, her lips curving into a smile.