Part 2: Glitter
It is the beginning of autumn when Ellie first arrives in Hollywood. She gets off the plane with a glossy smile and devil may care attitude, following a friend, ready to adopt a new life. Her friend wants to be a star and Ellie has decided to tag along. She figures she has nowhere better to be.
Ellie doesn't like to take things slowly; she's all about the now and how much fun it can be. She doesn't slow down and never stops. She was born in Jersey, grew up in Jersey, and got the hell out of Jersey as soon as she could. She's been running since then and hasn't stopped yet.
Los Angeles is sunshine, short skirts, and backdoor deals. It's cold, hard cash and fallen stars and runaways. It's nothing like Jersey. It's nothing like Vegas either.
It's not long before Ellie finds herself kneeling on the floor, remnants of white powder on the table in front of her. It's just one hit, she reasons, one hit to get through one night. It's only one night. Then, Ellie is standing on a street corner next to her friend who wants to be a star, both of them a picture perfect cliché.
One night turns into two, three, four, five…
Ellie gets a job waiting tables at a posh restaurant. Her friend who wants to be a star doesn't get a call back again. A few nights a week they'll wander to their corner, careful not to intrude on anyone's space. Ellie is a natural, she knows she is. It's not arrogance, as a number of people have told her that very thing. It's not glamorous or romantic, but Ellie makes sure it is as fun. The pills and the powder accompany her on those nighttime rendezvous and keep that come-hither-smile on her face and the cringe off.
Everything is fine. Ellie doesn't regret anything she has done. She's exactly where she wants to be. Ellie reminds herself of these things every morning when she forces her eyes to open to the stained ceiling of her bedroom. When she looks into the mirror that night with bloodshot eyes, staring at the girl before her, she almost lets herself think the things she shouldn't- nothing is fine, she regrets everything, she wants to be gone, gone, gone. Almost.
One night, Ellie returns home with a black eye, a sprained wrist, and a lesson learned. Life is a little bit less of a game now. That night, when she stares at the girl in the mirror, she allows herself to think for the first time how much she truly hates this. It doesn't matter though. This job, this city, this life- all of this is just temporary. This job is just for some quick cash. This city is just a quick stop on the road to fuck-knows-where. She will be leaving soon, so it doesn't really matter how much she hates it now.
The next time Ellie goes out, back to that little corner, a week later, she sways her hips when she walks and smiles at the shadows inside cars. When she stands, bare, in front of the mirror that night and sees the marks on boney hips, she knows it doesn't matter because she will be out of here by winter.
It's winter now. Ellie misses snow. She misses snowball fights and snow angels- all those things she hasn't done since she was a kid- and she even misses cursing the slush every morning when it inevitably dirties her jeans. Winter used to be Ellie's favorite season. Winter in Los Angeles means rain and cold. There is no sparkling ice or snowflakes decorating the streets, but it is wet and cold enough for her to be freezing as she stands under the ledge of a building, shivering in too-thin clothing.
Ellie walks home that night with a handful of bills in her purse. She knows her worth- no matter what her father thinks- and it happens to be enough to pay for her apartment. There is a needle and a spoon placed haphazardly on the floor by her couch when she gets home. Ellie rolls her eyes; they know she hates it when they leave needles on the floor; she's going to end up impaling her foot one day. Her friend who wants to be a star has been crashing at her apartment for a few weeks and has brought a new friend along.
Ellie likes the new friend. She has a rare charm, a quality that just can't be faked. She embodies the feeling of Old Hollywood, which may be why she has so many repeat clients- it's hard to let something like that go once you have a hold of it. Ellie likes to call her Glamour and the new friend doesn't mind, so she never stops.
In fact, Glamour is the one who helps Ellie get over her fear of needles.
"It's just mind over matter, sweetheart." Glamour coos and kisses the blonde on the cheek. "Just a little pain for a lot of pleasure. Trust me."
Ellie isn't an angel and hasn't been innocent for a very long time. She has been doing drugs since she was twelve. She started with a little weed when she was hanging out with her friends. When she was fifteen she decided ecstasy was actually pretty nice and could make a wild party even wilder. She began taking stronger stuff when she moved to Vegas with Keith. By the time she is wrapped up in the golden webs of Hollywood, she is enjoying powders and pills of every sort. The needles are but the next step up the ladder. Sometimes, she doesn't even know what she's taking. She'll be handed something to sniff or swallow of inject, and she will. Her father would be so proud.
Ellie and her friend who wants to be a star are still independent, but Glamour has someone. Glamour calls him protection. The friend who wants to be a star calls him management. Ellie calls him a pimp.
It's two weeks until Christmas when Glamour turns up at the apartment with broken bones and budding bruises. She wanted to leave, she explains, but he wouldn't let her. Glamour doesn't want to be here anymore and decides enough is enough.
"I didn't come out here to be a star," she explains to Ellie. "I came out here to see what there was to see. Well," a sad smile is cast before she continues, "I've seen it. My mama, she's real nice, and I miss her. I'm going to go home."
Ellie hasn't felt so betrayed since her father packed up and walked out the door all those years ago.
Christmas is lonely. The friend who wants to be a star isn't around much anymore, always trying to cozy up to a producer or a director or a writer. Ellie lost her job at the posh restaurant a week ago for showing up high.
On Christmas Eve, Ellie wraps her coat around herself and shuffles out into the night-caressed streets. She wanders up and down sidewalks, by stores decorated in dangling lights, and comes to stop outside a church.
Ellie's mother was a Catholic and Ellie's father was an atheist. Her mother used to take her to mass every Sunday until she turned thirteen and decided God didn't exist and if he did, he sure as hell didn't like her. Why should she waste her time on some ancient notion of a greater being?
A family rushes up the steps and through the large, wooden doors, minutes before Midnight Mass will start. Light and warmth pour from inside the building when the doors are opened, disappearing once again when they shut behind the family. Ellie suddenly thinks it's much colder and much darker than it was a moment before. Faint notes of a Christmas carol slip through the closed doors and brick walls. The blonde stands in her spot for a few moments longer before she carefully walks up the steps, opens the heavy doors, and enter the church.
On Christmas Eve, Ellie goes to church for the first time in nine years.
A week later, the friend who wants to be a star stumbles through Ellie's apartment door and crumbles to the floor is a mess of makeup and tears. She's shaking and babbling incoherently.
"It's not working." she cries. Ellie determines she must have lost another part. "This was it. This was going to be it."
Ellie pulls her friend into her arms, sitting on the floor next to her. The apartment is cold, winter creeping in through the cracks, and the floor is close to freezing, but neither care.
"You're gonna make it. You're gonna be a star, remember? It's just gonna take a bit longer." Ellie soothes.
The friend who wants to be a star has dilated eyes and is shivering, her fingernails beginning to draw lines of blood up and down her arms.
"Hey, stop that." The young woman takes hold of her friend's wrists. It is obvious she is coming crashing down from the highest high.
Ellie sits with the friend who wants to be a star for what seems like eternities upon forevers. 'I can't take much more of this,' the young blonde thinks with every cry that escapes the friend in her lap. When she finally gets her temporary roommate settled into her bed for the night, she stares down at the girl she has known since she was a teenager. Her friend has drying tear tracks and smudged makeup covering her face. There are dark circles under her eyes from too many sleepless nights, sunken cheeks from too many skipped meals, and track marks on her arms from too many lost dreams. 'She's gone,' Ellie decides. This isn't her friend anymore. Ellie won't stick around to watch the remaining pieces of her friend fall away. She won't watch her own life fall apart any more than it already has. She'll be gone by spring.
Spring rolls in without warning, forcing the cold away. Girls stop covering tank tops with coats or sweaters and sandals begin to reappear. For the first time Ellie notices how many blondes are in California. She dyes her hair black.
The friend who wants to be a star is long gone. She made her way to the San Fernando Valley a few weeks ago. 'Maybe she will be a star.' Ellie thinks bitterly.
Ellie hasn't spoken to her mother since she arrived in Hollywood with the friend who wants to be a star. Her mother would flip if she saw her hair. Her mom had always taken pride in her own golden locks and never allowed Ellie to dye her hair. Secretly, as a child, Ellie had always wished she had dark hair like her father. Then again, she wanted to be just like her father in almost every way when she was young. She idolized him. Her daddy was a cop. He caught bad guys. She had been so proud. Ellie always tried so hard to live up to any expectations she thought he might have of her. When Ellie was a teenager, she began to notice how her father would look at her- like she was a disappointment. The thing is, he wasn't around enough to be disappointed in anything she did, so she didn't really know what the look was.
Ellie sits on her thin mattress looking at the few pictures she had brought with her from Jersey. In one of them, she is sat on her father's shoulders, tiny hands grabbing onto his hair as he laughed through a wince of pain. A smile makes its way onto the young woman's lips before she can stop it, but she is quick to banish it away. He doesn't get her smiles anymore. She continues to stare at the figures in the photo, long gone and sorely missed.
"Things change." she murmurs to herself.
She looks at a picture of her ten-year-old self holding an "artist's award" and an award for academic achievement. When she was young, Ellie thought she was going to write and illustrate children's books, and be a famous singer with her own television show on the side. Somewhere along the way, straight A's turned into barely passes. She fell in with the "wrong group" of kids. Reality reared its ugly head and dreams seemed to slip away one by one. Everyone has potential when they're young, she wasn't special. Sometimes that potential can be reached, most of the time it just crumbles away. She's the result.
She leans against a brick wall, scowling at a middle-aged couple who are staring at her in distaste. Yeah, like she's the one infecting this beautiful, pure city. She rolls her eyes in exasperation and takes a drag on her cigarette. The older woman casts one last disdainful glance at her.
"Supply and demand, sweetheart." Ellie mumbles.
The man also throws a glance back at her, but his is anything but disdainful.
"Lovely." Ellie thinks maybe she should feel smug, but she just feels slightly sickened.
The days are brighter and warmer, marking the nearing of summer. It has been too hot today, Ellie decides, much too hot. Though, the temperatures today haven't been any higher than those yesterday.
The sun has just set, the sky a dusty blue, when a police car comes to a stop in front of Ellie and her group of friends. Baggies are quickly and oh so subtly stuffed into purses as two officers make their way of the patrol car. The next thing Ellie knows, she's being handcuffed and read her rights. Wonderful.
Ellie has done a lot of things that push the boundaries of being legal in California. She's done similarly unsound things in Jersey and Nevada too. Even so, Ellie has never been arrested. Sure, she was questioned in Vegas with that whole murder thing, but never, ever arrested. She won't admit it to herself, but she is pretty completely terrified.
Ellie really wishes she were high right now.
Everything seems to rush by in a blur, even without the drugs in her system. She's being charged with solicitation and drug possession. They ask for her dealer, offer her an easy way out; she takes it.
When she gets home a bright globe is beginning to peak up from beyond the horizon. Warm colors leak from the sun, replacing the cold blues of night.
Ellie doesn't turn on any lights in her apartment, just sits down on her ratty, old couch. She sits in silence. Hush, hush, hush. When the silence becomes too loud, she moves, stumbling to her phone, which sits in its charger on the floor.
She dials. Waits.
"Hello?" That's her mother's voice. "Hello?" Ellie presses the 'talk' button, effectively ending the call.
Ellie stares at the phone that's cradled in her hands and wonders if it's all worth it. She shakes her head as if to clear away her thoughts. It doesn't matter, she'll be gone soon, away from everything Hollywood. For now, she just needs some money to get her back on her feet. Once she has that, she'll stop tricking, and then she won't need the drugs anymore. Everything will be fine. She'll be out of here by the summer.
A Californian summer is tans and sweat and bikinis. Ellie has pale skin and can't tan, just burn, so she is constantly lathering unscented sunscreen all over her bare limbs.
A little ice-cream shop opens two blocks from her apartment and she gets a job working the cash register there Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Saturdays she works at a little video rental that is not too far from the ice-cream place.
It's a humid Friday night. Ellie cringes as she feels the few clothes she is wearing stick to her. It's been a miserable night. No one seems to be interested tonight and she hasn't had a hit in much too long. The raven-haired woman lets out a delicate grunt of frustration as she searches her purse for cigarettes with shaky fingers. She finally relents with a hopeless sigh.
"Hey." Ellie looks up at the call. Another girl dressed in similar clothing with a similarly bleak smile holds out a cigarette. Ellie quickly grabs it.
"Thanks." A flame. Inhale. Relax. "Jersey."
The other girl gives a toothy smile. "Dakota."
Dakota reminds Ellie of herself in a lot of ways. She doesn't talk about where she came from, just where she's going. She likes things now. She likes fun. It's not long before Dakota is Ellie's new roommate. Ellie has never been fond of living by herself. She always has someone there, it has never mattered who.
Dakota doesn't like to be called Sasha. One evening, when both are lying on Ellie's bed, staring up at nothing, Ellie asks her why.
"I'm not Sasha anymore. I'm Dakota now. They're not the same person." Ellie understands.
Later, when Ellie looks back, she thinks that is the moment she stopped being Ellie and fully became Jersey.
Every night is a risk. Every car, every alley, every guy is a risk. Ellie doesn't consider herself an adrenalin junkie, but sometimes, she needs that thrill. Sometimes the mere knowledge that it is a risk, makes it so good.
She thinks maybe that's why she had loved being with Keith. Their relationship was fast, passionate, and wrong. Her father disapproved, so did her mother. Keith was not a nice person. Keith was perfect for her.
Ellie met Keith when she was 20. He was dating her friend. They flirted (that's what Ellie calls it, anyway) for months before "officially" becoming a couple when his girlfriend caught them in bed together. One night, Ellie came over to his apartment to find him packing his bag. He was moving to Las Vegas in a week, he explained, and does she want to go with him?
"My dad's in Vegas." she said.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you didn't talk to him anymore." Keith closed up a suitcase.
"I don't." He raised an eyebrow.
"So? You wanna go?"
"Sure."
That's when she really started running. Before, running had meant new boys, new drugs, new ways to make her mother yell or cry. Running had meant ignoring her father when he did bother to call. Now, running meant the world, meant no limitations, meant going somewhere.
Ellie lies, sprawled, on her bed atop thin sheets. Her head lolls to the side, eyes catching the tiny card that permanently rests on her bedside table. "Dream Harbor, Rehabilitation Facility" is scrawled across the little rectangle in fancy, curved letters- a parting gift from her father. She never threw it out; she had meant to.
It's cold tonight. Stars dusted across black, glittering. Ellie's looking up, counting stars, ignoring the girls and boys leaning into cars and going into alleys. She ignores the feel of sun-warmed bricks pressing against her, already partially cooled from the night air.
It's her birthday.
Dakota nudges her before walking over to some snazzy black car and getting in. Ellie nods a "see you soon".
There's a boy across the street. He looks young, Ellie thinks. The light from a streetlamp is reflected off his shirt. Her vision is obstructed when a car pulls up in front of him. When it leaves, he's gone, disappeared like the wisps of her cigarette smoke into the night sky. Fluorescent lights glow, accenting store names and open signs.
Ellie breathes in deeply, breathes in Hollywood. Everything here is covered in glitter.
Ellie's not used to being referred to by her given name anymore. She's used to 'Jersey' now. At some point, pulling tricks changed from being a quick way to make cash to being a career. At some point, the stretch on Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Vine became hers. At some point, this became her life. It doesn't matter though. After all, she'll be gone by the autumn.