"A wise girl kisses but does not love, listens but does not believe, and leaves before she's left."
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Tori Vega is one day away from being twenty when she moves into a little apartment close to Hollywood. There are only a couple of rooms, and a tiny bathroom with only a shower and a toilet, and it blows almost all of the money in her back account, but she can see the Hollywood sign from her bedroom window, and she thinks that it's the best place in the whole entire world.
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In her first week at Hollywood, she manages to find an agent and get two thick scripts mailed to her door. She stares at the little black print until it's blurred into her brain and tries to make it come to life in front of her bathroom mirror, the words only seeming to reverberate off the shiny glass (but when she sings the walls embrace the notes and she sounds ohsogood).
She goes to the audition, and everybody stares at her short glittery dress and high heels and her pretty lipstick, and her voice is strong as she speaks, and she hopes that they can see her eyes from behind the mascara. Afterwards, they smile at her and promise to call her and tell her how she went, and she walks out with a smile on her face and sore feet from the high heels.
She doesn't get a call back – but she's close, and they say that she looked very, very pretty.
The next audition she goes to is similar, but it's for a musical. This time, she sings and everybody claps and the casting director winks at her and pats her on the back, and this time he promises her a call back and she believes him.
(In the movie, she's one of the main characters and the lights shine around her and the piano plays beautiful music while she walks off into the music, her voice still ringing around the stage.)
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It takes two and a half months to film to movie, and it's in the middle of summer and her make-up keeps on running with her sweat, leaving black tracks down her face. And now that she's sung her songs, the words don't mean as much when she mouths them, focusing too hard on her facial expressions and messing them up.
The co-stars aren't particularly nice, but they aren't hostile either, and there's no one else to be with. Even in the heat they still smoke cigarettes at the back of the sound stage and even though they're not famous and their pictures aren't on the magazine covers, their faces still seem familiar (despair in Hollywood – this is news?).
The premiere of her movie isn't too small or too big, and she still gets to wear a blue dress, even if it isn't on a blog or in a magazine the next day. At least her name is finally known.
Tori Vega.
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After her first movie, nothing really happens for a whole month. Nothing happens to her.
But Beck Oliver becomes famous.
He strikes it big with one big movie, and soon she's seeing him everywhere – the news, posters, blogs, magazine, TV, the Red Carpet, everywhere. She searches through her contact list one night, and calls up the suddenly unfamiliar number (she tries to count how many days it's been since they last spoke as the phone rings).
He picks up, and her full name, Miss Tori Vega, slides off easily from his lips. She's gushing with her congratulations for him, and over her own voice she can faintly hear him chuckling, imagining the grin she remembers oh so well and his trademark shake of the head. After he's finally made stopped her compliments, he asks her if she wants to go out for a coffee.
She says yes (and what did you expect?).
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Beck picks her up the following Thursday on his motorbike (and she stares and smirks when she sees it, but he just hands her a helmet and smiles). They drive to the coffee shop, her holding on as tightly as she can to his waist as the city breezes past her. She later realises that they end up talking for almost two hours, getting through two cups of black coffee and mocha each.
Two days, she's on the front of three magazines, but her name isn't shown, and her face is hidden behind Beck's helmet and her sunglasses.
BECK OLIVER'S MYSTERY GIRLFRIEND?
She doesn't really care, but Beck does and they don't go out again from another month, and he's too busy for hour-long phone calls or webcam chats.
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Her next three movies all go straight to DVD – and she wasn't even in the main cast.
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It's late one night, almost twelve thirty, but she's still talking to Beck. This time, they're in her little apartment. He just stopped by with a tub of ice cream and a movie they didn't end up watching after he'd finished filming his latest movie for the day. And even though it was late and she was tired, and the blurry words from scripts and plays and songs were swimming in her head, she let him in.
"Beck," she says, looking up at him making coffee. "How do you become famous, stay famous? How do you make sure people never forget you?" Beck's small smile fades a little. He takes a sip of his coffee, and then puts it down on the bench, and then he looks at her – really looks at her in a way she's never seen before.
Now, the Beck standing in front of her isn't the one that smiles directly at her, and wears flannel shirts, who shrugs his shoulders and digs his hands into worn blue jeans. Instead, it's the Beck on the red carpet, who looks completely at ease with the flashing cameras around him and wears a mysterious smirk on his face, who has a hickey poking out from under his white dress shirt and slightly loosened tie.
"You die young," he says finally.
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She gives up acting, and tells her manager that instead, she wants to be a singer, because that's what she's always liked doing and that's how she got into Hollywood Arts in the first place. Her manager listens to her sing over the phone, the static crinkling over her voice, and tells her that he'll try and find someone that can help her.
(She doesn't meet André, and she curses herself for being that cliché and that silly.)
Within the next month, she records and even writes some of her own songs, and puts them all on a demo tape. And the producer and her manager sit side by side in the recording booth, giving her thumbs up every now and then nodding their heads to the beat. Sometimes, they even clap for her, and she thinks that she's never felt more overjoyed the whole time she's been in Hollywood.
But not one single label takes her in, and by the end of the month she tells her manager she wants to be an actress again.
.
She's not sure how it happens, but Beck comes over with a small bottle of champagne because he hears about the music catastrophe, and he's her friend and he wants to help her.
She didn't know that helping meant having sex with her, but she doesn't care as he slides down the zip of her jeans while sucking a hickey into her neck, and she definitely doesn't care when his hand skirts along the edge of her panties.
She doesn't care when the week after that he comes around to her apartment again and kisses her, or when the same thing happens the week after that, because it's Beck and she's Tori and it's Hollywood and it will work itself out.
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Her manager sends her another script, and this time she throws it in the bin without looking at it and hurries to Beck's place (it's in Beverly Hills, and the Hollywood sign is so close that you think that you can touch it from his balcony).
He takes her for a ride in his new silver convertible.
.
Her head is on his chest, moving slightly every time he breathes in and out. His face is peaceful, his eyes lightly closed and his lips are pressed together lightly. She turns on her side, moving her head off his chest and onto a pillow, wondering how long it will be before he wakes up and leaves, a hurried excuse on his lips.
She looks down at the arm still wrapped around her waist, his fingers spread out against her stomach. She puts her hand over his, sighing when she feels the warmth. She twists the mood ring on his middle finger, some part of her hoping that it will turn pink or red, but it's been stuck on the same colour as the midnight sky since they were seventeen, and it's not going to change.
He wakes up five minutes later and chastely presses a kiss to her cheek before hurrying out of bed and getting dressed. She too gets dressed, but it's slower and more regretful, and she's only just put her shirt on when his eyes fly to the clock, and he grabs his jacket and heads out the door without another word.
All he leaves her with is the slam of a door, a hickey the colour of her lipstick on her neck, and stained white sheets.
.
Sometimes, she thinks that she could be Marilyn Monroe with an unfulfilled promise, and that he could be James Dean his leather jacket and sunglasses.
She wonders if they'll be that tragic.
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She auditions for another movie, and to her surprise, finds Beck there as well. He smiles when he sees her and immediately comes over, and she almost thinks that he's about to kiss her, but instead he gives her a one-armed hug and just says hello (and everyone stares&glares&shedoesn'tthinkshecares).
They're both auditioning for the lead characters, and halfway through her audition they call Beck back and ask them to act together, smiling secretly the whole time. Afterwards, Beck smiles at her and whispers,
"I think I just got you your first big lead."
(And she wants to tell him that she has been in a movie, and that she was a lead, but all she does is nod her head and smile back at him.)
He takes her home in his car.
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Tori goes to her first big, big, Hollywood premiere with Beck's arm lightly placed on her waist. She smiles when he smiles and looks at him when he's smiling for another camera, and her face flushes a light pink when she finally finds her image reflected in the lens of a camera (and she doesn't think she's ever looked prettier).
The lights are shining all around her, and the red carpet is soft under her feet, and her necklace and high heels are glinting and sparkling just like her. Inside the premiere, it's exactly the same, with lights and champagne glasses, and her lips are still turned up in a smile.
Almost everybody crowds around her and Beck (it's just Beck, dear, not you), some of the guests even getting out paper or napkins for him to sign. She smiles at everybody and stares in awe at it all, this is Hollywood Hollywood Hollywood. But twenty minutes in and Hollywood wears off, because Beck is still being surrounded and she's in a corner with a glass of fast-emptying champagne.
She goes home without saying goodbye.
.
She calls him at eleven o'clock and he knocks at her apartment at twelve thirty, a rugged smile on his face, and a tie still hung loosely around his neck from the Premiere that only ended half an hour ago. She can still smell the cheap champagne on his lips when she lets him in.
As soon as he walks in, he takes off his tie and drops his jacket on the floor, signing in relief and leaning against the table. She's about to open her mouth to say something, but suddenly, she can't help but look at him – really look at him – and take all of him in. His sparkling eyes and his worn smile and the hands in his pockets, and all of the city lights sparkling behind.
"What can I do for you?" He says to her finally.
She steps closer to him, and suddenly, she can feel all the tiredness and the work and the stress weigh her down, sink her to the floor. She looks down at her red high heels until they meet his dress shoes, and then she finally looks him in the eye.
"How do you stay famous?" She asks, her voice quiet and tired. She's suddenly very aware of how they must look together, her still in her red dress and he still in his dress shirt and tuxedo pants; like two broken, starry-eyed lovers about to take on Hollywood together (but then she remembers his silver car, as shiny as a limo, and the crushed train ticket still in her purse, and she wonders if the fairy tale is coming to an end). She looks back down at her shoes again.
"Hey," Beck whispers, taking her hands in his gently and making her look up at him. He kisses her and she can taste the champagne on his lips, but she doesn't really mind as he begins to slide the zip of her dress down, the straps starting to fall off her shoulders. He presses his mouth to her neck and she gasps, and she can feel him chuckling against her skin.
"Beautiful," he says. "You have no idea just how beautiful you are."
She kisses him and tries not to cry when she sees a lipstick stain on his shirt.
.
She goes to Las Vegas with Beck later that month. They stay in the same hotel, the bright rainbow coloured lights reflected in both of their wine glasses.
Beck takes her out to see it all; the white sign, the palm trees, walks her along the strip. She can barely see past her high heels with all the fluorescent lights. She thinks it's like the best of Hollywood all in one place – the lights and the clothes and the colours all swirling together without a shade of grey within.
He takes her to a casino last, telling her that it's necessary because it's fucking Vegas, no matter how much she protests (she's a goodgirlgoodgirlgoodgirl). She walks into a world of flashing lights and sounds that blind and deafen and intrigue her all at once. Yellow&Red&Green&White&FlashesofSilver.
Beck leads her and himself over to an almost full poker table, winking at the dealer dressed in a corset and barely-there underwear (she ignores that the girl winks back). She watches as the dealer flashes a smile and starts to shuffle the cards, her hands blurring at the speed (and she thinks she sees an ace).
The patterned back of the cards looks so out of place on the green felt. She watches Beck play, his fingers tapping against the table as he sneaks a glance over the top of his cards, a glimpse of an undefinable smirk occasionally on his face (he was always the best).
She leaves halfway through the game, intent on getting out of the casino all together – but she gets distracted by the twirl of a roulette wheel (she thinks she hears a bangbangbang). She barely knows what happens after that, but she's lost in a swirl of coloured chips, and money eyes, and silver coins, and her chances just keep on rising&rising&rising.
(She thinks that she's finally fallen down the rabbit hole this time – and Beck won't dig her out.)
Viva Las Vegas.
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They leave Las Vegas, and go right back to the same city lights and white signs and people who hide behind dresses and make-up – and she's never felt so bitter to be one of them. She hides behind sunglasses and Beck and lipstick and money.
Her acting career is better now; she's getting more work and more money and her name is known almost everywhere she goes. She's already filming another movie, where she's the lead and it should all just go perfect – hopefully. Now, when she goes to premieres, the people recognise her face, and now they talk to her (and somewhere in her head she's going, I'm one of them I'm one of them).
She moves into a new apartment that isn't nearly so crowded, and has a nice view of Hollywood from her window, even if she now can't quite see the gleaming white sign that seduced her into the business in the first place.
She also stops having sex with Beck – doesn't pick up the phone when it rings at ten o'clock at night, doesn't invite him into her apartment if it's night time, and tries to save the dresses and the make-up for the premieres and special events (but she doesn't really know how long she can keep it up for).
They're at his apartment one time, and she knows that it's getting a little too late for her comfort, but he's practising his lines and she doesn't really want to leave (because it would be rude and his voice sounds nice). She claps as he finishes his script, laughing when he takes a bow.
"So, I should go," she says.
"Ugh, really?" He asks. "It's not that late."
"Well, I've got filming tomorrow, and you know me, I have to get my beauty sleep," she replies. She looks him in the eye, and all he does is sigh, drop his script onto the lounge, and run a hand through his hair.
"Would you like to tell me what exactly I've done to piss you off?" He asks.
She wants to slap him.
"What? You haven't pissed me off," she says, hearing her voice hitch at the end slightly. Without another word, he comes over and bows his head so that they're almost face to face, grabbing onto her wrist slightly so she can't move.
"Then why won't you answer my calls?"
"Answering your booty calls doesn't mean that you've pissed me off," she answers quietly. "Just get a call girl." His eyes widen in shock at her words, and his hand slacks on her wrist, before tightening again just as quickly.
"That not what I think," he says.
"So, what?" She says, the words flooding out of her mouth before she can stop them. "Your life is really that stressful? It's that hard?"
"Hey, I don't see you staying little Miss Perfect in Hollywood," he bites back.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What, like you don't spend all your money on gambling? Sorry to tell you this, Tori, but I don't think your luck is going to change," he says – and it stings, and it hurts, and she's silent for a while, too long, before she answers.
"Fuck you," she says, and slams the door behind her.
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They don't talk for a whole month, but the magazines are still filled with glossed, photo-shopped pages of them smiling, and nobody suspects a thing except each other and their (imaginary) friends (and she has to remind herself that she's an actress and he's an actor, and that they're liars – the best liars).
On the night of her movie premiere, she wears a purple dress and red high heels and her hair up, and everybody tells her that she's just so fucking gorgeous, and she can't help but smile and wave more than usual, her lipstick fading after only half an hour.
Inside, the people congratulate her on her recent success, and smile and talk, and she somehow can't help thinking about her first big premiere (oh forget, please forget). She doesn't really know why, but as she stares into her cheap champagne, that she's only been in seven movies. Five real movies, and only two, soon to be three, that people really care about.
(And her third is only in cinemas for three and a half weeks before going straight to box office.)
She calls her manager as soon as she gets home, tells him that she just needsneedsneeds more movies, and for God's sake, make them good and successful. She hangs up before she gets a proper reply.
She ends up getting the parts for too many movies, and all the scripts make her head spin and her smile fade, and her mascara run until she's on the verge of a mental breakdown and her manager is practically begging her to stop, to just take a break and relax. She doesn't listen.
(She just needs to be remembered. She just needs to be remembered. She just needs to be remembered.)
Oh God, please remember her.
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She dies, and she thinks it's too perfect and too cliché to be anything but fate.
(She was born to be remembered.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Victorious. I also don't own the quote at the beginning, which belongs to Marilyn Monroe, or the description quote, which belongs to W. Clement Stone. Inspired by Stupid Girl (Only in Hollywood) - Saving Abel (go have a listen).
Review/PM if there was anything that you didn't understand/hated/liked etc.