Chapter Text
"I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world,” Alice starts, beginning her lecture. She puts down her newspaper, adjusts the tortoiseshell glasses that have slid a millimeter down her nose. “Elizabeth, do you really suppose that when Henry Luce wrote that he was talking about rock journalism?”
Betty puts a miraculous amount of effort into not openly rolling her eyes. “Shockingly, I’m not overly concerned with what Henry Luce would think of me, mom,” she replies, taking a sip of her orange juice. “Considering he died in 1967.”
“I’m just saying, Elizabeth!” Alice continues, undeterred. “There is a perfectly good opening for you at the Register taking over the local sports column. I just want to see you putting your college education to use.”
“By taking your nepotism?” she shoots back before she can stop herself, slight waver betraying her exhaustion at the tired argument. “I want to make it on my own, not ride off of you and dad for the rest of my life.”
Alice sighs, an age-old, disappointed gesture, the one Betty’s been on the receiving end of for as long as she can remember. “Just remember what happened with your sister-”
“Polly’s a flight attendant, not dead.”
Her mother waves a hand like the distinction is unimportant. “Just remember that there are countless girls who would be grateful to be in your position, dear.”
Betty succumbs to the drawn-out temptation and sinks her nails into her palm, four clean, sharp points of pain. The shot of adrenaline it draws out is stabilizing, refocuses the small luxuries of their middle class kitchen, bowl of apples on the table and lace drapes. She exhales slow and places her glass in the sink, wiping away the four tiny smudges of red with her thumb.
“I can’t have this argument again,” she says after a moment, a proverbial white flag. “I’m going to be late to the show. I’m writing a story for Creem.” And it’s a big fucking deal she wants to add, but doesn’t. Alice doesn’t understand the miracle this assignment is, the sliding chain of favors she called in to even get it. An assignment like this could be the launchpad for a real career as a music journalist. She wants it so badly she can feel it echoing in her teeth, thrilling and sickening all at once.
“Be back before eleven,” Alice says as Betty slings on her denim jacket, thrifted and covered in patches that her mother finds distasteful. She grabs her messenger bag and slides on a pair of beat-up white Vans like she’s slipping into disguise. No longer Betty Cooper: Riverdale’s Finest, but something different; some girl with dirty sneakers and a jean jacket advertising riot grrrl music. Someone tougher, someone’s who’s really seen the world. Really lived through things, not just read about them in the pages of a small town newspaper.
“The show starts at 10:30,” she reminds her mother diligently.
“And don’t do drugs!” Alice adds, either not noticing or not caring that Betty has spoken. Betty gives herself one last up and down in the hall mirror and then steps out the door to inhale the California evening air.
The club is within walking distance, only half an hour from Riverdale, a tiny suburb just barely on the outskirts of San Diego. The sun is just sinking into the far horizon and Betty feels the thrill of anticipation as she makes her way past well-manicured streets and into the grit of downtown, skyscrapers glittery with lights and everything coming to life. She hums a little to herself, a song from the band she’s covering tonight, The Archies. Up and comers, more pop than rock, and with a lead singer with the sort of face begging to be plastered on tween girls’ bedroom walls all across America.
She got the job from Kevin’s dad, who had a friend who knew a guy who turned out to be Lester Bangs, the single most important rock journalist of the day and her personal hero. It had taken her some serious begging to Mr. Keller, four letters, and an article about Siouxsie and the Banshees for her to get into his office, and even more persuading from there for Bangs to give her a chance.
“You know, you’re a real pain in the ass,” he had informed her the second time she had convinced his secretary to schedule her an appointment, drawing on his cigarette and flicking through the stacks and stacks of records lining of the walls of his cramped office.
“So I’ve been told,” she had replied, folded primly from her seat.
He had thrown an album to her, Betty nearly dropping it in her surprise. Joni Mitchell, Blue.
“Well, as long as you know,” he had said, and then gave her the assignment: attend the show, find out if The Archies are the real deal or hacks with good hair, and then write it all down.
Be honest and unmerciful she mouths to herself, holds the advice inside her brain like a directional and spitballs adjectives, turns of phrase that could alchemize the peculiar magic of music and turn it into words, neatly stacked lines of text in a newspaper. Honest and unmerciful. The thought alone is like breathing water for a child who grew up in the Cooper household.
The club is called The Paradise, the name spelled out in the seedy blue neon lights that curl over the marquee sign. Betty observes the crowd trailing out the door, miniskirt clad girls and scraggly haired boys, all exhaling smoke from their cigarettes and and talking with an anxious, adolescent excitement. She tightens the smooth knot of her ponytail and takes a deep breath, skirts around the bouncers and crowd of waiting concert-goers to find the back entrance, where they let the band in.
She slips quickly under the chain link fence blocking it off, and then she’s alone in a ghoulish expanse of parking lot, empty under the abandoned flicker of streetlights. Betty keeps her pace casually brisk as she circles the building, satisfaction sparking in her in her chest when she spies the nondescript black door.
She raps her knuckles three times on the cold metal, straight to the point. It wheezes open after a moment, and the bouncer lobs her an apathetic glance. “Pass?”
Betty smiles her best I was a straight A student smile, dialing up the Cooper charm to the maximum degree. “Hi,” she begins, “I’m Betty Cooper, and I’m here from Creem Magazine to interview The Archies.”
“Can I see your pass?”
She exhales. “That’s the thing,” she says carefully, “I’m on freelance, and-”
The door slams in her face without warning, blowing the baby hair back from her face. Betty tenses her jaw and knocks again, clicking into a mode of one track mind, the kind that stops at nothing.
“If you want, I can call my editor, and he can explain-”
“No pass, no entrance,” the bouncer repeats, bored. “Go wait on top of the ramp with the other girls,” he instructs, and then slams the door again in her face. Betty screws up her face up in aggravation, blows out an irritated breath. “Fuck,” she swears under her breath.
She decides to do as instructed for once, and wait at the top of the ramp while she brainstorms a new plan to get in backstage. The metal stairs are unsteady under her feet as she jogs up, and she steps out into the ramp in question, the high up air whipping at her face. There’s a throng of slender girls already up there, all hugging and chattering madly, shrill and obscene laughter bubbling into the night air.
“Who are you with?” asks a voice, and Betty starts. She turns and faces the girl who’s spoken, a little apart from the rest of the group. She has hair a startling shade of red, glossy like blood and spilling down around her elbows, held back by a satin band printed with cherry blossoms. The air is chilly so high up but she doesn’t appear to notice, dressed in a red silk robe cinched tightly around her waist.
“Sorry?” Betty asks, not getting the question.
The girl rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Who are you with?” she repeats, petulant. “What band?”
“Oh,” Betty says. “I’m here to review The Archies. I’m a journalist. I’m not a-” she cuts herself off abruptly, silently cursing her lack of forethought. “Not a- you know.”
If possible, the girl’s eyebrow arches even more. She looks poised with an acid rejoinder, but another girl drifts into their conversation before she can say anything, walking slowly up to examine Betty.
“Not a what?” she asks, dryly amused. She removes her clear lavender sunglasses slowly, like a movie star, and Betty examines the ostentatious fur trim on the mysterious girl’s jacket, something that would look ridiculous on anyone else but she carries off as glamorous.
“Not a groupie,” Betty says, embarrassment pricking at her, and both girls groan in aggravation.
“Sorry,” Betty adds quickly, digging her nails into her hand. Shame wells like the tiny pools of blood in her palm.
“This is Veronica Lodge,” says the redhead grandly, like Betty is supposed to recognize the name. The girl in question steps closer to Betty, throwing all her focus onto her.
“Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous,” intones Veronica, somber like a well-practiced speech. “We’re here because of the music. We are Band Aids.”
“She used to run a school for Band Aids,” Cheryl adds on, equal parts disinterested and condescending, like a particularly bitchy babysitter.
“We don’t sleep with the band members,” Veronica continues. “We support the music. We inspire the music. We’re here because of the music.” She pauses, gives Betty another long look. “It’s really not so different from what you’re here for.”
Feeling thoroughly chastised, Betty nods and ducks her head, twists her scuffed sneaker into the ground. She feels awkward and ungainly standing next to this crowd of elaborately made up girls, all wearing platform heels and bright lipstick, long necked like swans.
“Anyways,” Veronica says, picking her monologue backup from the silence like its a forgotten thread. “I’m retired now. I’m just back visiting some old friends.” She has an elegant, disaffected manner about her, like an old movie star, and Betty wants to capture it in print, the cinematic glow of the moonlight on her dark hair.
“It’s all happening!” chimes a voice, and then another girl saunters up onto the platform, teetering in her rocket-high heels.
“Josie,” greets the redhead, sharp gaze softened by what seems to be genuine affection. “You made it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the girl breathes in response, tugging at the taut, rubbery material of her absurdly tiny miniskirt. “An album in production isn’t enough to stop me from a reunion with my best girls.”
“Josie, meet our journalist friend,” Veronica says, gesturing to Betty. “Journalist friend, meet Cheryl Blossom and Josie McCoy. And you are…”
“Betty,” she says, thrusting out a hand to shake. It rings flat against the exotic glamour of names like Blossom. “Betty Cooper.”
Josie takes her hand to be polite, shakes once, bony and soft-skinned. Betty prays that there’s no visible blood from the inside of her palm.
The door bangs open once more, and another girl appears. “It’s all happening!” she screeches, and Betty marks the repeated use, some sort of catchphrase or inside joke so old that it doesn’t even ring odd to them. Josie and Cheryl bounce down the stairs, heels like staccato gunshots against the metal, and Veronica grabs Betty’s wrist, tugs her after them.
The new girl slaps passes on their arms, half empty bottle of champagne clutched in one manicured hand. She hands one to Betty without even seeming to notice that she’s a stranger. Bingo, Betty thinks to herself, giddy with relief.
She slides in with the crowd of girls, trying to be nondescript, but a hand circles her bicep before she can get in the door.
“Oh no,” says the bouncer, “Not this one.” He slides the door jamb out, preventing her from getting inside.
Veronica flashes a glossy smile. “She’s with us,” she explains, grabbing Betty’s hand and attempting to pull her through the door. The bouncer grimaces, muscles Betty back out the door. “She wasn’t with you before,” he says, voice unamused.
“Are you going to turn this into a thing?” Cheryl asks, sounding bored by the concept, and Betty flinches, manners prickling at the thought of inconveniencing them.
“All of you can wait outside!” the bouncer snaps, done with the discussion, and Betty pulls her arm back from where she’s been keeping the door open.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” she explains, well-bred Cooper charm shining through. “I’ll wait.”
“I’ll take care of this,” Veronica promises, eyes dark and serious as the door slams shut. “If I can!”
Betty doesn’t slam her palm into the metal of the door, but it’s a near thing. She sighs and runs her fingers through the soft waves of her hair, yanks it all back up into a tight ponytail. New plan, Cooper she thinks to herself, trying to puzzle out the feasibility of getting in through the fire escape. Everything she wants is on the other side of that door.
An engine revs then, and Betty pivots on one heel to see a tour bus pulling up at the top of the ramp, spilling out four scraggly, dark-haired boys and a girl, muscling their instruments out of the storage and laughing. The Serpents Tour 73 reads their tour bus, and the pieces click together in her brain. The opening band. She digs through her memory until she can remember their names, gleaned from some small write-up in a local newspaper. There had hardly been anything- just a logo, a snake tangled up with a crown, dark and menacing. A strange opening pick for the clean rock that The Archies sell so well.
The five of them look weary and a little unkempt, all beat up leather jackets and hair that is less artfully tousled and more put through a natural disaster. Still, under the single lightbulb they’re a live action album cover, standing in formation like it’s second nature. The girl, absurdly tiny compared to the four boys, is talking loudly about something- “We would have been on time if Jones hadn’t insisted on rewriting the bridge for the third fucking time in as many days.”
The tallest boy presses the buzzer on the door with the nose of his guitar case. It goes unanswered, and an older man steps forward, bangs harshly on the door. “Let us in, we’re the Serpents!” he hollers. “We’re on the show!” Manager, Betty thinks, taking in the frown lines and well aged contempt.
This is her moment to strike. “Hi,” she says, injecting her voice with the sort of breathless naivety that always seems to work on boys in the band. “I’m a journalist, I write for Creem Magazine.”
“The enemy!” says the tallest boy, sneering. A tattoo of a snake curls up his neck, fangs catching under the choked light. “A rock writer.”
“I’d like to interview you, or someone from your band,” Betty continues, undeterred.
“I’m sorry but could you please fuck off?” the girl says, weaving past Betty to slam her tiny fist against the door. “We kind of have bigger concerns right now.”
The lead singer- Sweet Pea , she thinks his name is- steps forward, wound up now. “You guys never even fucking listen to our records,” he begins. “Do you even know what your magazine said about us? So caught up in its own deceit that it stops being clever!”
Betty is unable to help herself. “Actually, it was Rolling Stone that said that,” she says.
“Yeah, okay. Fuck off anyways,” he says, turning back.
“We play for the fans, not the critics,” adds someone, and Betty turns to see the drummer straighten up from where he’s slouched against the doorway. He’s more slender than the other two, and prettier too, angular and elegant like a Modigliani painting. She notes the drumstick he’s twirling between his long, narrow fingers, a nervous tic. There’s a dark electricity about him, something emanating off the edges of his sharp silhouette.
“Why can’t someone be both?” she asks, stubborn. The drummer rolls his eyes, doesn’t reply. Betty takes a deep breath, tries to come up with one last play.
“Sweet Pea. Toni. Fangs. Jughead,” she says, praying she’s remembering the names correctly. “I love your band. I think the latest album is a big step forward for your sound. Producing it yourselves was definitely the right move. Good luck with the show.”
She turns and starts to walk away, teeth sunk hard into her lower lip, making her way up the ramp. There’s one, two, three beats of silence.
“Well, don’t stop there!” Sweet Pea yells, good natured, and Betty pauses, turns back to the band.
“Yeah, come back here,” Toni adds, appraising Betty with a new gaze. They wave her back, and she obliges, smiling. The door opens, finally, and a redheaded boy sticks his head out, instantly charming, all-American. Archie Andrews, frontman of The Archies.
“Hey, guys,” he says, and he and Jughead clap hands, throw their arms around one another in a way that suggests deep history, old lore. “Ready for the show?”
“Always, Andrews,” drawls Sweet Pea. He turns to Betty. “Archie, this is the enemy. Enemy, this is Andrews.”
“Betty Cooper,” she corrects, extending a hand, and Archie shakes it. “A journalist?” he asks, and she nods.
“Very cool,” he says, sounding entirely genuine. “Alright, well, we should get in.”
Betty braces herself for round three. The band herds her in with them and the bouncer immediately spots her, squares off for a confrontation. “Not this one,” he says.
Archie claps the guy on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, she’s with us,” he says easily.
“She’s not with you,” the bouncer exclaims. “She’s not with you, she’s not with them, she’s not coming in.”
Sweet Pea, craving confrontation, moves closer to the bouncer, intimidates him with the sheer force of his height. He cracks his knuckles, adorned with thick silver rings.
The bouncer glances at Betty one last time. “Enjoy San Diego,” he says, sour, and Betty grins hard as she finally, finally gets inside.
Backstage is tumultous with lights, sound, smoke floating up from the different machines. Betty can feel her heartbeat quicken in her chest, taking in the various crowds of people, the music that seems to rile people up. There’s something kindling, an anticipation she can feel building up, something that makes the hair on the back of her neck prickle.
She hustles to keep up with the band, walking briskly as they careen down the hallway, catching up with the various roadies and band geeks cluttering the hallways. The Serpents sweep into a small dressing room, and Betty somehow finds herself inside, caught in the riptide of their minor celebrity.
She perches on the dressing room table, sticky with old hairspray and hot under the vanity lights, and clicks on her recorder, the telltalle hum kicking in.
“Why rock and roll?” she asks, aiming the question as Sweet Pea but leaving the question open to the room. He takes a palm of shaving cream and rubs it into his mess of hair, some sort of makeshift mousse.
He shrugs. “Angry kid, wrong side of the tracks,” he explains, leader singer confidence almost covering his discomfort. “Rock was an escape.”
“That’s how it was for all of us,” Toni adds, taking a swig of the bottle of Jack Daniels dangling between her fingers. “We met in detention in high school, believe it or not.”
“And now?” Betty prods. Fangs tunes his guitar, ripping through unamplified guitar licks.
“It’s not what you put in it,” Jughead says, breaking his silence. He’s sitting backwards in the cheap metal chair in the middle of the room, drumsticks still in hand, tapping a quiet, frenetic beat onto the dressing table. “It’s not what you put in, it’s what you leave out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rock is a declaration of who you are,” he says, a little showy but so genuine that Betty can see it shining in his face. “It’s like- listen to Marvin Gaye. A song like What’s Going On. That single woo at the end of the second verse. You know?”
Betty smiles, amused. “I know the woo,” she says, warmed despite herself. Jughead’s face is rapturous, devout, the face of a true believer.
“That’s what you remember,” he says. “There’s only one, and it makes the song. That’s what makes it great. That’s rock and roll.” He takes a drag off the cigarette smoldering in an ashtray and blows smoke, looking pensive. Betty holds the microphone steady, tries not to focus on the artful curve of his neck, the hungry gleam in his expression.
Sweet Pea looks impressed. “Man, we used to talk about this stuff more,” he says.
Toni flicks a look at her. “This is the most honest we’ve ever been in an interview,” she says, suspicious. “You’re the first press guy we’ve ever made friends with. And you’re supposed to be the enemy” It’s not a compliment, but Betty is flattered regardless, trying to mentally take down every detail in the room.
The older man from outside appears again, and in better lighting Betty can see that he’s clearly related to Jughead- same dark hair, same moody eyes, same uneasy, restless posture. His walkie talkie crackles at his side, and he takes a swig of beer.
“Ten minutes till showtime,” he calls, voice authoritative. “Anyone who isn’t the band needs to get out.”
Betty clicks off the recorder and slides from her perch on the table, swept out in the chaos of a pre-show ritual. “Thanks again!” she calls, and Sweet Pea points at her while someone tries to dab at his face with makeup.
“Find us after the show!” he calls, and Betty nods, thrilled.
She wanders until she finds the backstage steps, out of the way but with a good vantage point, and sits down there. She drops her messenger bag and digs the notepad out of her pocket, starts to scribble frantic notes down before she can forget.
“I got you a pass,” says a voice, and then Veronica drops onto the stair next to her, backstage pass held in one hand.
“Thanks,” Betty says quickly, distracted with finishing a sentence. “I got in with the opener.”
Another band is tuning up onstage, and Veronica tips her head back to listen, eyes falling shut. “How did you get started in all this?” Betty asks, curious despite herself.
Veronica smirks at her, velvet smooth and. “It’s a long story,” she says, and slides her purple sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “How did you get started in all of this?”
Betty pauses the franic scratching of her pencil. “It’s a long story,” she says, wry, and Veronica laughs. The brunette sits up and leans into where Betty is sitting, reading her cursive messy notes.
“Ah, The Serpents,” she says, her smile knowing. “They’re always more fun on the way up.” Betty is about to ask her what she means, but she’s cut off before she can say anything.
“The enemy!” calls a voice, delighted, and Betty twists and sees Archie, guitar slung across his torso and grin lighting up a face, all high school quarterback and kid on Christmas morning.
“Hey, Archie,” she says, and Veronica turns to dig through her little beaded purse, fumbling with a pack of Parliaments. “This is Veronica Lodge,” she introduces, sweeping a hand. Veronica’s shoulders tense, but she turns, something guilty lingering around the edges of her smile.
They look at one another, Betty in between them like a barricade, and the air changes, seems to hum with something strange, threaded with a common history. Oh, Betty thinks, watching as Veronica elegantly slides back up in her chair, offering a well-manicured hand.
“Pleasure,” she says, sly, and Archie looks a little dumbstruck as he reaches out to take her hand. “Veronica Lodge,” he says, teasing, “Like the real estate magnate?”
“Have we met?” she counters back, breathless. Their hands are still loosely linked in the space between their bodies, and Archie takes his other hand and uses it to tuck a lock of ink dark hair behind her ear.
Veronica places a hand over her face, fingers splayed, and for a moment Betty thinks there are tears shining in her eyes. But she laughs instead, and Archie smiles at her, fondness and something like pride folded up in his expression. They pull their hands back at the same time, finally, and Veronica brushes at her face, smudging the glitter on her cheekbone.
Betty feels invisible in the wake of such a moment, undone by the longing in a singular glance, and it’s the best feeling, the journalistic kind, like melting into the surroundings and still being aware, watching the story as it unfolds in front of you. She bites the tip of her pencil, clocking the flush of Archie’s neck, the way Veronica drops her gaze and smiles at the floor, the nearest to earnest Betty’s even seen her.
“Archie!” calls Dilton, their bassist, from across the backstage, voice terse and wheedling. “We’re doing soundcheck!”
“Yeah, just a minute!” Archie calls, not looking, gaze fixed on Veronica. He swallows hard. “Will I see you after the show?”
Veronica grins, and suddenly she is back in control, mask screwed on so tightly Betty can hardly remember the temporary lapse. “I’ll see what I can do,” she teases, coy, and finally takes a drag off her cigarette, burned down nearly to the filter. Archie nods, and then jogs over to where the rest of his band is, all with well-coiffed hair and pretty boy smirks, well polished like plastic.
“Come on,” Veronica says, standing suddenly, a little off balance. “You’re going to want to watch The Serpents up close. They’re something else.”
“Really?” Betty asks, nose scrunching as she follows Veronica’s silverquick threading through the rowdy clumps of people.
“Ladies and gentleman,” calls a loud, gruff voice from the stage. It’s the manager, the one related to Jughead, looking younger under the boiling lights of the stage. “Please help me in welcoming The Serpents to the Paradise!”
Betty can feel her breath high and tight in her chest, pulse thrumming quick in her wrist with a dizzying sort of anticipation. She watches from backstage as the band tunes up their instruments- Fangs and Sweet Pea tossing guitar picks at one another and talking shit, Toni swigging from a bottle of whiskey. There’s something building in the anxious stirring of the audience, like thunder from a distant storm, and Betty has her pencil pressed to her notepad hard enough to leave an indent, ready to scribble frantic notes.
The music starts like the first crack of lightning, like a giant turning in its sleep, and the blistering throb of it knocks the air clean out of Betty’s lungs, shock running through her fingers.
Slow nights so long howls Sweet Pea into the microphone, his teeth flashing sharp and white under the sticky pink neon and smoke, microphone curled in one hand in drink in the other, close up to his face. But it’s Jughead Betty watches, tapping the pedal constantly like an unerring heartbeat. A shiver works its way down her spine.
“I told you they were something else,” says a cool, amused voice in her ear, and Betty startles out of her reverie, glances over to where Veronica is standing next to her. She exhales a lungful of smoke, smiles her Cheshire Cat grin, the one that promises something illicit.
“That’s one way to put it,” Betty agrees absently, gaze still fixed on Jughead, his dark hair and white t-shirt, body curled over the drumkit like the audience isn’t even there. He glances suddenly up and catches her stare, meets her eyes like tipping back the barrel of a gun.
Betty swallows hard and he winks at her, dark eyed and sly, never missing a beat as the band slashes through the final, brutal chords of the song. She can taste ozone between her teeth. Something wicked this way comes she thinks to herself, and it’s a promise.