Welcome to HelL.A
After a month in town - and no call backs, Cordelia had reluctantly had to move out of her nice hotel. It was just too expensive if she wasn't going to be topping up her dwindling trust fund with acting cash. She had moved away from Hollywood Boulevard as well, she couldn't afford to be that central - and had gone to Boyle Heights.
Her new home was a motel, similar to the Sunlodge motor inn. The bed was hard, the sheets were thin, the air con didn't work and once again she was subject to the leers and gropings of men she met on the way to the ice machines.
But it was all character building, she told herself. And it was just until her inevitable stardom took effect. And that would be any day now - she was sure of it. She'd gone to a few auditions, she was getting a lot of opportunities, she told herself. She had rung up her agent, to let him know her change of address and phone number, and didn't let herself feel doubt when he wasn't sure who she was. He had a lot of girls to deal with, she was sure of it, he couldn't know everyone off the top of his head. She was still getting auditions, wasn't she?
Auditions, sure, but not parts. She wasn't working. She'd long since stopped treating herself to the occasional mocha, she lived almost exclusively off cereal - but that was fine, she wasn't too hungry. And besides - it kept her thin, for all those roles she was inevitably going to get. It's not like she could afford a gym membership, she needed to watch what she ate.
But then, after another month, and when she lost out on being the hands in the liquigel commercial and had no auditions lined up, she realised she could no longer afford her motel - she needed to economise even further.
Apartment hunting was brutal. She could afford so little and what was out there was … even the buildings made her heart sink, the insides were even worse. But she needed out of the motel, asap.
Sitting on the bus, travelling to look at yet another place, she watched the shops flash past outside the windows and - just for a moment - she considered getting off the bus and walking into the first store she saw and applying for a job.
She had experience. She had a recommendation from her old boss. She could get a little job in a store - a nice store, like April Fools - and then she could live somewhere better. But then she sighed. That's exactly what it would be - a little job. And she could tell herself that it was just for now and that she was still an actress and her big break was just over the horizon … but it wouldn't be true. If she went to work in a shop then she'd be tied down to a schedule, they wouldn't let her leave to attend auditions - even if she tried to go in her lunch hour, she could only travel within a certain radius of work and she'd only have the hour. So many of the times she had gone in to read, she had been left sitting in the waiting room all day. She couldn't possibly audition on her breaks. So she'd have the chance to attend less and less auditions. And that would decrease her chances of ever getting her break.
If she went to work in a shop, then that would be the end of her being an actress. She would just be a shop girl. Forever. And she wasn't going to give up until she was down to her very last cent… If only she could find a job that paid the bills and kept the wolf from the door but where the boss would be totally understanding of her need to disappear for half the afternoon. That way she could both work to earn a living and work towards her dream.
Once she might have thought such a thing was possible. Now, bitter experience had taught her that she was asking for a miracle.
She got off at the stop closest to the apartment she was here to look at. She had all her belongings with her, few as they were - even her cereal, if she decided she would take this place then she could move right in and not go back to the motel - save the bus fare.
The place, when the landlord opened the door, was grim. There was one room plus bathroom. There was a little kitchenette in the corner, and a curtain pulled across a rail, which acted as a wardrobe. 'There's no bed,' she said, wrinkling her nose.
'Sofa pulls right out,' the landlord told her.
'Right.'
'Got a T.V, plus an extra armchair. We're gonna get the fumigators in soon - so no need to worry on that account.'
'Right.'
'You gonna take it?'
She sighed. It was the best she had seen. With what little money she had, there wasn't going to be better. But this was just for now, she told herself. 'I'll take it.'
After she had signed forms, and taken the key - the landlord left her, closing the door behind him. She sank down on the sofa - her bed now, as well - and stared around at the room. The wallpaper was hanging from the walls in some places.
So this was it. This was home. This was where Cordelia Chase, Queen of Sunnydale High, had ended up. This was her lot in life. If anyone could see her now … she shuddered, glad that her misery, and loneliness and poverty was well hidden from the prying eyes of all she had gone to school with - all she had ruled over.
Maybe that was why this was happening. Because she had had everything, thought she could get away with anything, hurt so many people in her quest to be at the very pinnacle of her little place in the world. But it turned out she couldn't get away with it. She had had to pay. It was very hard, to sit here on this ratty old sofa, and look at how little she had, think about all she had lost - not just her possessions, but her future and her family - and not draw the conclusion that she was definitely being punished.
Still, she couldn't sit here moping. Her agent would no doubt call with another audition - commercials were made every day, she wasn't going to run out of opportunities - she just needed to grab them all and do her best. And in a couple of days time she had that party to go to - there would be movers and shakers, managers and producers and directors - and she was going and she would work that room, charm them all, make them all see that there was no one in Hollywood quite like Cordelia Chase. No, she couldn't sit here moping. Negativity helped no one. That party was going to change her life, she was determined. She would meet someone there who would change the whole course of her destiny… or, at the very least, there would be something there for her to eat. She might even be able to snaffle some snacks into her purse for later.
