TITLE: Isn't She Lucky, This Hollywood Girl?
AUTHOR: Goddess Isa
EMAIL: goddessisa@aol.com
SUMMARY: Cordy really, really hates her life.
SPOILER: None really. Minor S2 Angel but excruciatingly minor
RATING: TV-PG
DISCLAIMER: Joss owns the characters. Britney Spears owns the song. Justin Timberlake owns Britney Spears.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: DIFFERENT than my story This Hollywood Girl. In the same vein, but still different.
AUTHOR'S NOTES 2: I thought it might be fun to do a Cordy fic. And it was.
9/23/00
AUTHOR'S NOTES 3: Visit my website - http://planetslaythis.homestead.com




"Miss Chase?" Lilia called. "Miss Chase, you're wanted on set."

"Andrew Baker's on the phone," Arla shouted. "He wants to discuss turning your guest spot into recurring."

"Cordy, honey," Harvey's voice floated over the PA. I know I promised you the weekend off, but Universal just called, and they want you....."

On her bed, Cordelia turned around, successfully tuning them all out.

All of them. Lilia, the director's assistant who drove her completely insane, and Arla, her personal gofer from Hell, and Harvey, the publicist who never seemed to sleep and never, ever shut up.

Cordelia was constantly in demand. She was, after all, one of the hottest young actresses out there. Movie premieres, charity functions, interviews, press junkets, magazine photo shoots, studio after studio. This was her life now, a Hollywood princess who never seemed to find the glamour and glitz that everyone always talked about.

She hated it.

Cordy sighed and got off the bed. She tried to avoid her reflection in the mirror, but it was difficult since her trailer was covered with them.

In the bathroom, Cordy washed her face to remove the track marks her tears and drawn through her makeup. The mascara lines falling down her cheeks had taken a bit more work to remove, the last remainder of hours spent lying on the bed, crying her eyes out. She wondered if her eyes were extra puffy today, or if the redness had just stayed over from her bout with tears last night.

Cordy hadn't bothered to go home since they'd stopped shooting at seven-fifteen a.m. and Harvey said she was wanted back on the set by ten. Now, twenty-two minutes late and not giving a flying fuck about it, Cordelia stared at her eyes and figured she'd let Sydney, her personal makeup artist on set, worry about making her look beautiful.

She poured herself some coffee and changed into jeans and a tee shirt, knowing that she'd probably spend most of the day in ugly wardrobe anyway. She wasn't looking forward to her looooooong day at work, but it wasn't like she could just call in sick.

On the short walk from her trailer to the set, Cordelia's cell phone rang four times, her pager beeped unendingly and people called her name from all directions. She ignored them until a pang in her chest caused her to pick up her pager and read it.

When she saw the number, her heart stopped. She grabbed her cell phone and dialed so fast, she broke three nails without noticing.

"Angel, what's wrong?" she shouted as soon as he picked up.

"Wesley's been kidnapped."

"What?"

"Faith, too," Angel told her. "They got Spike and Xander last week and no one's heard from them. We fear the worst because they--"

"Who the Hell is They?" Cordy interrupted.

"The Initiative."

"I thought Buffy took them all down."

"So did she."

"So," Cordy smacked a hair stylist to get her to back off. She entered a trailer belonging to the casting director and locked the door. The trailer was rocking, a sign that someone was getting some in the back bedroom. She ignored it and asked Angel, "What's their deal? What can we do?"

"Their deal is, they're psycho, and I could really use an extra pair of eyes for research, if you can come."

"Oh, Angel, I'd love to," Cordy frowned. "But I've got to work."

"I understand."

Cordelia could tell by his voice that he didn't understand at all.

"Maybe I can come by later tonight, or tomorrow," Cordy suggested, "Put in an hour or two?"

"It's okay," Angel said, "You have work. Have fun." he hung up and Cordy snorted.

"Have fun?" she asked herself. "Yeah. Right."


*****


After working another fifteen-hour day, Cordy sat down to do an interview with Entertainment Tonight Online. It took them a record two questions to get annoying.

"So. Are you seeing anyone?" the woman, whose name was Melody or Chime or something musical like that, asked in a high voice that gave Cordy a migraine.

"I don't have time," Cordy pulled out a Virginia Slim and lit it. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Not at all. You were saying? About seeing someone?"

"Oh, right. Well, I don't really have time for anything serious right now. I can't even get to the store to buy my own damned cigarettes with the hours I work. I've been stealing toilet paper out of the trailers for a month now just so I have something to wipe my ass with."

The interview ended there. Cordy finalized her plans for a photo shoot in two days and left for the sanctuary of her trailer.

All alone, late at night, Cordy extinguished her last cigarette, a poor habit suggested by her agent to keep her weight down. Cordy had lost track of time, so she threw the batters from her alarm clock in the toilet and unplugged her phone.

Bundled up in bed, Cordy cried until she was out of tears.

And the next day, she would start the same process all over again.


//This is a story about a girl named Lucky

Early morning
She wakes up
Knock, knock, knock on the door

It's time for makeup
Perfect smile
It's you they're all waiting for

They go
"Isn't she lovely, this Hollywood girl?"
And they say

She's so lucky
She's a star
But she cry, cry, cries
In her lonely heart, thinking
If there's nothing missing in my life
Then why do these tears come at night

Lost in an image
In her dream
But there's no one there to wake her up
And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning
But tell me
What happens when it stops?

They go
"Isn't she lovely, this Hollywood girl?"
And they say

She's so lucky
She's a star
But she cry, cry, cries
In her lonely heart, thinking
If there's nothing missing in my life
Then why do these tears come at night

Isn't she lucky, this Hollywood girl?

She is so lucky
But why does she cry?
If there is nothing
Missing in her life

Why do tears come at night?

And they say
She's so lucky
She's a star
But she cry, cry, cries
In her lonely heart, thinking
If there's nothing missing in my life
Then why do these tears come at night\\