LIKE DIAMONDS

One: Sad Girl

Lana

Elizabeth took a long look at her glass of Bourbon before taking an equally long drink. She wasn't even close to getting wasted, her alcohol tolerance was annoyingly high after regularly drinking for the best part of her life. Jim, Jose, Jack and Johnnie were the most loyal of her friends, after all, and she was just as loyal to them. Well, she used to be—she had quit for a few years. She had promised to herself she was better off, she didn't need it, didn't need them. But after that whole fucking fiasco, well—

Old habits die hard.

She sighed. She thought she was sad, but if she was honest to herself, she was actually mindblowingly bored. For the past couple of months, Elizabeth had barely gotten up from the linen and silk sheets of her Chateau Marmont suite to use the bathroom and to open the door when room service brought her food –and booze, mostly booze—. She had thousands of missed calls in her cell, though she didn't feel particularly compelled to return any of them. Maybe Chuck's, but only because she knew her sister's interest in her wellbeing was completely genuine. She had nothing to lose or gain, unlike her agents and record label. They had bet big on her—and she had lost, lost, lost.

She begun feeling her way around the bed in search of the remote, and found it buried underneath one of the puffy pillows. She turned on the TV, just to have something to do. She wasn't a big fan of television, and rather preferred losing herself in a good book any day of the week, but she had spent so much time in self confinement that she had already read all the books she had brought to the suite a good two or three times—each. She had all her favorites with her, of course. From Howl, to Lolita, and A Clockwork Orange. She lately had developed a liking for Neruda's calm poems, and was obsessed with Nabokov's real life letters to his wife, Véra. Who would have thought that one of history's most scandalous authors was actually a loyal, lovesick puppy? Elizabeth couldn't have enough.

MTV was on. She was sick of it; they never put music anymore, just the dumb reality shows about pregnant girls and dumb boys pranking each other. What happened to the killer music videos she grew up admiring, to Nirvana's Unplugged and Guns and Roses live shows?

She was about to change the channel when the screen turned violet, big black letters announcing "MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS" and then "PRIMADONNA". Not a second had passed when the camera made a close shot of a woman's face. She was gorgeous, Elizabeth caught herself thinking. Marina, as she guessed the singer was called, had olive skin –that magnificent permanent tan that Mediterranean people always had no matter the season–, wavy blonde hair with dark roots that touched her shoulders softly, and a shitload of make-up. She was made to look like a doll, Elizabeth realized a few seconds in with a smile. Bright, pink, bubblegum lips, the same tone as her cheeks, and almost every cute, princessy dress she was wearing in the video. Her eyelashes were thick and black, Twiggy style. A black little heart just under her left eye almost passed as a birthmark, or a tiny tattoo. Probably just make up, though.

The video mainly consisted of various shots of Marina around an empty mansion. She has everything she wants, but she's alone, always making eye contact with the camera, like she wants to make sure our eyes are always on her and only her. The perfect image of a lonesome queen, she's flirty, smiley, and delightfully self-conscious. Elizabeth finds herself softly moving to the catchy beat of the pop song, admiring the way the song is actually self-deprecating—in a fun way. One moment, Marina's shamelessly admitting the size of her ego, and then in the next line, she confesses just how very sad she actually is, and how every day feels like a shore, a burden. And even though Elizabeth would never imagine herself releasing music with that particular sound, she knows exactly what the singer means, and is surprised at how deeply she can relate to her lyrics.

Around the final minute, though, things start to feel different. Suddenly, Marina's seen in the back of a car, the flirty smile from before nowhere to be seen. The screen is black and white, and it is raining. She looks reflexive and reserved for a second, and then playful and colorful in another. Elizabeth founds the juxtaposition intriguing. And then black-and-white Marina, the one in the back of the car enters a car-wash, her head nervously turning to see if the camera is still focusing on her. And in that moment Elizabeth realizes that is all a farce, and the Primadonna actually wants to be left alone. Or at least that's what the video shows. So that's why the video feels so… invasive. It´s like she´s putting on a show.

And with a last "Primadonna girl…" and an intense stare, the video ends. Elizabeth was hooked. She stands from the nest she's made of a bed for the last two months and opens her laptop, quickly pre-ordering the singer's new album, Electra Heart and— oh, wait, there's another one. The Family Jewels. Well, she gets that one, too.

While the songs sinc in her phone –the first time she's giving it use since she locked herself in the Marmont— she wonders how she never heard of Marina, or her Diamonds, for that matter, before. She was in the music business herself, how could she not have heard of her before?

Well, she thought she was in the music business. Who knows if she still was. Could you ruin your own career before it even fucking started?

She could feel herself getting in that rabithole of despair again… and then a link from the same page where she had bought Marina's albums caught her attention. Neon Records, Marina's label, was throwing a party to celebrate "Primadonna"'s video release. What Elizabeth had just seen was a release! So that meant…

…PARTY WITH MARINA AND HER DIAMONDS IN CELEBRATION OF HER FABULOUS NEW VIDEO AND HER UPCOMING NEW ALBUM, ELECTRA HEART…

Elizabeth's eyebrows arched with surprise and delight at the next phrase.

…WE AWAIT YOU AT 9:00 PM IN THE WORLD FAMOUS POOL OF THE CHATEAU MARMONT. INVITATION ONLY.

The coincidence was too grand to pass. Granted, the Marmont had hosted countless Hollywood parties, but it just felt like a case of "If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must go to Mohammed". Maybe it was time she put herself out of confinement. She was starting to feel like partying…

Granted, she didn't have an invitation. But she was sure she could get in the party that was being thrown in what had become slowly, but surely, her new home. After all, everybody knew her—she was America's favorite joke.

As she headed to her closet in the search for the perfect party dress, she smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like years. There were some perks in being Lana del Rey, after all.