Chapter 48: Chapter 46. [Bonus!]

"I'm in front of the theatre right now, where are you at?" Isabella Skeldon asked her beloved boyfriend for the third time after she came out of her house.

-Give me two minutes, Bella. I'm in the parking lot. The movie won't even start for like fifteen minutes more, calm your horses already.

Oliver's voice was slightly annoyed which made Isabella pout in sadness but something she didn't know was how busy the parking lot seemed to be.

"Hm, I'm waiting right in the front," She said and waited for him to arrive.

Isabella and Oliver have been dating for almost three years now, and they knew each other like the back of their hands. But this morning, even though Isabella wanted to watch the first show of La La Land, Oliver had plans with the 'boys' so he said that they would go to the evening show.

Oliver is a tall, tanned, handsome man but with a poor choice of movies. Basically, musicals never made it to his list and if you ask him they never will. On the other hand, Isabella adored every genre when it comes to movies. Her favorite dates are movie dates. Ever since she saw the trailer, she had been wanting to watch La La Land, the movie.

"Bella, my Bella," Oliver walked towards her and kissed her sweet lips as a gesture of welcome as they always did. It was their 'thing'.

"Let's go?" Isabella asked and smiled. Oliver nodded and they both went in to buy popcorn, snacks and of course, to watch the talk of the town, La La Land.

[..] The movie started an hour ago and Oliver's fingers were already wrapped around Isabella's forearm. She was enjoying every second, and his eyes were also locked on the screen.

"Aww.." Isabella cooed at a scene where they danced while enjoying it to the maximum by shaking her head from side to side for the music.

"You love tap dancing, don't you?" Oliver whispered in her ear and she nodded with a huge smile yet still not taking her eyes from the screen.

"You can let them, but you refuse to. Your skill is incredible," Sebastian said to Mia on the screen. "You know the whole world from your bedroom,"

"What else do they want? Who's doing that?"

"I'm doing that. You're doing that." Sebastian was persistent.

"Who was that guy at the Lighthouse? The guy that offered you the gig?" Mia questioned him while still being in his arms.

[..] Time passed and the movie was in its last minutes. It was at the scene where Mia goes to the coffee shop she used to work at, yet the positions, reputation, and where she always had dreamt to be in, now she had achieved it all. Yet there were things that she couldn't achieve. Her love life.

The screen portrayed how all the eyes inside suddenly looked the woman's way. She reached the counter -- and finally, her face was visible.

"Hi, Iced coffee, please," Mia said.

Mia looked different. A different haircut, a different way of handling herself -- and, more than that, she looked slightly older. There was an ease and confidence in the way she moved and talked. Something about her voice and her gestures.

The barista was visibly nervous and hurried to get Mia's order. A man who appeared to be the new manager gave Mia the coffee--

"On us." He said with a slight smile.

"No, no, I insist." Mia handed over a few dollar bills. Then dropped another bill into the tip jar. The Barista smiled.

The scene was perfectly portrayed and everyone's faces lifted with a smile including Oliver's and Isabella's.

[..] The screen was now showing the final bits of the movie. Many hearts were already broken and some were even refusing to watch the end. Some others were looking at it with a sorrowful expression. The sensitive soul, Isabella had tears in her eyes. It was the moment when the edits of Sebastian and Mia's story were shown. The edits of the whole life recap of Mia and Sebastian.

[From the interior of the movie which is being screened currently~]

You are reading story Hollywood King at novel35.com

Mia and Sebastian walk together outside -- but now that they're outside it's obvious this isn't the real L.A. they're moving through, This, in fact, is an L.A. that doesn't exist at all.

A painted backdrop of L.A., just like the one Mia passed by when in the parking lot. The old orange groves and the gabled rooftops and the moss-covered bungalows and the ivy-decked lamps, the jacaranda trees and the giant hills and Griffith and the Santa Monica Pier -- all painted, all props, all figments of a studio-backdrop imagination, They've entered a fully fantastical realm, the realm of the old Hollywood ballets of the 40s and 50s,

The casting director corners Mia -- no dialogue, just movements -- and seems to beckon her to audition, from there, they find themselves in the audition room-- that is, a studio-soundstage version of it. The director is there, and Mia performs. No words can be heard, but the music takes on the melody of her song, sweeping them away to Paris.

The journey is charted through old maps and dissolves, the old-Hollywood-movie way, Finally, they find themselves in the City of Lights -- that is to say, the painted backdrop version of the City of Lights, The Sacré-Cœur and the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower are etched in bright colors, the ornate lamp posts and the cobblestones stretching before Mia and Sebastian as they move… The music carries them through a movie shoot.

Mia is surrounded by lights and cranes, decked in the movie-magic glow, a jam session at a crypt-like jazz club, A sign up above "Caveau de la Huchette", Sebastian plays 94, and a few older musicians approach, gathering around him, nodding. This is an old-school kind of club, and these are old-school jazzmen. Finally, to culminate this passage, in big swaths of color and against a backdrop of the nighttime Parisian skyline, Mia and Sebastian dance. This is the last time the audience will ever see them dance, and they seem to recognize that, so graceful and poised are their movements, Remember -- this is a romance more perfect than a real romance could ever be. It dissolves again -- to a series of black-and-white photographs, as the orchestra simmers down and the piano takes over, there are shots of Mia dolled up like an old-school movie star, and of Sebastian as what he always wanted to be -- a true jazz genius, record covers bearing his name and featuring his own music, photos of him in New York, in Tokyo, in Berlin, playing with the greats.

These are photos like the ones of jazz legends that first appeared decorating his apartment: full of grain, dripping with shadow, Soon enough, the music picks back up, and its moves from photos back to moving imagery, In quick succession, the following moments pass in brief, vivid glimpses:

Their wedding

Their honeymoon

Their first home

Mia's pregnancy

The birth of their child

The child's first birthday, second birthday, and third birthday.

Everything here glows with the warmth of old 16mm home movies, These are memories, fluttering by, grabbed at random -- and yet all concocted, dreamed up out of nothing.

The score continues to build and take them right up. Sebastian and Mia, husband and wife, father and mother, hire a babysitter because they've decided to go out for a night at the movies,

The look here is unaffected, just every day, The music quiets slightly, everything goes more natural, as this happily married couple hit the road, then find themselves blocked by a traffic jam, then take a side route, winding up in another part of L.A, then walk down a street, then hear music -- a makeshift quartet playing somewhere, and step into a place that looks just like Sebastian's music shop, They sit down to listen.

And then -- and this is how the imagined montage-musical number ends -- the quartet's pianist, who of course is not Sebastian, launches into Mia and Sebastian's melody, 94.  and Mia and Sebastian look at each other, recognizing it. The music goes full-circle, back to where it started, as Mia and Sebastian look into each other's eyes, lean in, and, softly, but with all the love in the world, kiss.

Gently, we come back down to reality: Sebastian has just finished his piece on the piano. There's some mild clapping. Mia looks at Sebastian then looks away. A moment passes.

[...] THE END

Everyone felt as if their hopes took a huge roller coaster ride and was feeling sad yet wholesome. Isabella was still watching the six letters on the screen.

"Let's get you home, love," Oliver said and patted her on the back.

"I can't believe it just ended like that!" She whispered and stood up. She had understood the reality of how Hollywood works with the movie. Her eyes were teary and her heart was heavy. But she wholeheartedly would name it the best movie she had ever watched.

"It was almost as if the director took our hopes with him on top of a mountain and dropped them deep down," She said while walking out of the theatre with him.

||__A word from me__||

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