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Love And Other Drugs

Manic Makeover

All four girls stood there in that small practice room, stupidly silent and staring as Lucinda sang with everything she had. It was a slow Blondie song that her mom used to sing when she was really little and Lucinda knew it was showing her voice and her ability off. Penelope had her mouth open as she watched Lucinda and Charlotte was looking at the little southern girl with amazement in her eyes. They hadn't expected such power or as much soul to come out from a girl this size, but all four of them knew as they looked back at one another that Lucinda was their singer.

The girls had vaguely known one another before Alex got them together-Charlotte had known of Madeline as they had run in some of the same circles and Penelope and Talula had worked together at a local club. Charlotte had been the one to make the phone calls and three days later the girls were practicing in a small space in the Interscope offices. Alex liked their sound and their look, but Charlotte as the singer just didn't work. The purple haired vixen could sing, but her voice was too high pitched and didn't have the soul that they needed. Their sound was a mixture between Heart, Joan Jett, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson, but they still needed that powerhouse voice.

So Alex had gone out East after auditioning girls for over a week and while they'd come across a few that fit, they were either too stuck up or had their own projects going on. The Dolls wanted someone who could be dedicated to them and the projects they wanted to work on, so off Alex went and here he was, smiling at them like a fucking idiot. Charlotte liked Lucinda-she was a little bit of a cream puff and looked like she would be devastated by the first hater, but she had a voice and she had an attitude to her. Charlotte clapped as soon as Lucinda stopped singing and Talula and Penelope quickly joined in. Madeline continued to stand there, unmoved and unamused.


"Well ladies?" Alex said as he stepped forward, hope gleaming in his eyes. Charlotte looked at Penelope and Talula-they were both smiling identical Cheshire grins and Charlotte knew that they wanted Lucinda. Madeline only rolled her eyes, shrugged her shoulders and moved to grab her water. Well that was that.

"You got some soul girl...it's just what we need." Charlotte smiled wide as she went up to Lucinda and hugged the small girl. Her reaction wasn't what Charlotte expected and as she pulled away and locked eyes with Lucinda, the older girl could tell that the singer had a past and not a loving one.

"Welcome Luxe!" Penelope giggled as she tossed her tattooed arms around Lucinda's neck and hugged her tightly. Lucinda felt shocked-a nickname? She'd never had one before, but as Penelope pulled away and smiled at her, Lucinda decided that she liked it.

"Lucinda? What do you think?" Alex asked as he watched Talula hug the singer and then the blonde girl turned to him and smiled. He knew, he could sense it-she was the final piece to this puzzle.

"I'm in!" She laughed as three of the four girls embraced her in a huge hug. Lucinda had never felt this much love before and at first she didn't know what to make of it-she'd never had a family before, but now it seemed like she might.

"Awesome! Well I'm going to leave you girls to it-teach her everything you know Char." Alex smirked as he clapped the purple haired guitarist on the back and then left the room with Joan following swiftly behind.


The girls spent the following hours just jamming together-trying to get a feel for one another and how they moved around on stage. Penelope loved to jump around and swing her guitar around, while Talula was the opposite and tended to stand in one spot. Charlotte had a presence and it was evident as she and Lucinda were singing along to a Heart song that the two of them would work well on stage together. Madeline was stationary behind the drums, but one look behind her and Lucinda could see that the girl liked to bang her head up and down to the music as she hit the drums. The girls all seemed to get along, although Madeline was still being a sour puss and after a few hours they decided to head back to Charlotte's place.

Lucinda sat in the back of the car, a notebook that Alex had handed her before departing, sitting in her lap and she scribbled down some words that kept coming to her mind. The girls hadn't written much as they were waiting for their singer-for her-and so tomorrow that would be their first priority. Charlotte was driving the loaner car that the label gave them, with Madeline in the front seat while Talula, Penelope and Lucinda all sat in the back. Lucinda quickly learned that each girl had a nickname and she smiled as she realized that when Penelope, or Pixie, gave her the name Luxe...it was her way of welcoming the girl in to the band.

Lulu, Pixie, Char, Mads and now Luxe had come together to form The Hollywood Dolls-a name that the record label had given them and all of them liked it well enough. Charlotte lived in a pretty decent area of LA, although Pixie joked that they wouldn't be caught dead walking around at night alone. Lucinda only laughed as she followed the girls inside and noticed that Charlotte's fashion sense didn't just stop at her clothes. She had a very dark pallet, with dark faux leather furniture, black wooden tables, bookshelves and television stand and there were spooky pictures and things hanging all over the walls.


"Well girls-makeover time!" Charlotte laughed as all four girls turned around and faced Lucinda. The sweet southern blonde looked dumbstruck and Penelope only nodded her head and disappeared towards the back hallway.

"You mean me?" Lucinda asked as she sat down on the couch and watched as Madeline only scoffed and walked off to the kitchen. Charlotte only smiled as she pulled something out of her pocket and handed it over to Lucinda. A thick wade of cash.

"Yep-Alex gave me that to take you clothes shopping, but I think tonight we'll just focus on the makeup, hair and piercings." Charlotte stated and Lucinda gulped. Makeup and hair she was expecting, but piercings?

"Alright girlie! What's your favorite color?" Penelope was back in the room, her arms full of dye bottles all with different colored caps. Lucinda thought about it for a moment and couldn't decide if she liked blue or green more.

"Teal I guess." She said as she shrugged her shoulders-it was a mixture of both colors. Penelope only smiled, nodding her head as she disappeared back in to the bathroom to finish mixing her concoction.

"Alright-now for piercings. I think you would look super cute with a lip ring like Lulu's, but it's up to you." Charlotte said as she moved to squat near the bottom of the couch and pulled out a small kit.

"Um-I kind of always liked nose piercings..." Lucinda said and Charlotte smirked and nodded her head as she walked towards where the small girl was seated. Lucinda held her breath as she watched Charlotte fiddle around with the box on her lap and soon realized what it was.

A piercer's kit.

"Okay, well we can do that and see if you like it-maybe do the lip another day. How's your pain tolerance?" Charlotte asked as she pulled a pair of gloves on and unwrapped a very long and slightly hooked needle.

"Um-fine I guess." Lucinda said quietly and looked around. Madeline was standing in the doorway, Lulu was sitting beside her and took Lucinda's hand as Pixie was walking back into the room with a pot of teal cream in her hands.

"Good. Don't move." Charlotte said as she came towards Lucinda and the southern girl just held her breath.


The girls worked on the southern belle for over two hours-Penelope tipped her hair in a light teal color, but left the blonde on top alone. The needle had pierced the tender skin of her nose, making her eyes water but Lucinda was happy to see that it didn't hurt nearly as much as she thought it would. She now had a delicate hoop through her right nostril, her nails had been painted a matte black color and Lulu was applying a lot of heavy eyeliner to her left eye. Lucinda and Charlotte made plans to meet up out front of Luxe's hotel the next morning before practice so that they could go shopping for new clothes.

Finally the girls were done with her and as Penelope walked behind Luxe with her hands over the girl's eyes, Lucinda felt like her heart was beating a mile a minute. She could tell they were in the bathroom and as Lucinda opened her eyes and looked in the mirror, she couldn't help but let out a gasp. She looked like a completely different person-her blonde hair was straight with a new side bang style and the back of it was teased just enough to give her some height. Her eyes were heavily lined, smokey and seductive and her lips were painted in a dark red lipstick. She looked at herself and shockingly didn't hate what she saw. It wasn't who she used to be, but deep down Lucinda knew she had to put that country girl in the past.


"You clean up nice Luxe." Charlotte said from behind her and Lucinda only smiled and turned around to face her bandmates.

"Thank you guys so much...I never had a lot of friends in high school who would do this for me." Lucinda felt the tears come to her eyes and she smiled as Lulu rested her black and orange head on Luxe's shoulder and hugged her tightly.

"Well we're your friends now." Pixie said as she tossed an arm around Luxe's shoulders and the three girls walked out of the bathroom. Charlotte stayed behind to clean up the mess, smiling to herself as she thought about the future of their band.


Charlotte Rouse was a native of LA and knew the streets better than anyone, but she also knew the crushed dreams that happened daily. LA was the kind of place that would chew you up, spit you out and turn right back around and do it to another poor girl with dreams of making it big. Charlotte had always loved music-it had given her strength through her parent's divorce and it was always there for her when she was between jobs and didn't have much else going for her in life. She had taught her self how to play the guitar by the age of fourteen and since then Char had always been in one band or another. She had been serving Alex at the bar for over a year and while they had a flirtatious relationship, Charlotte knew the music producer was bad news.

She had been shocked when he had called her, offering her first dibs on a leading guitar spot in a new band he was tasked with putting together and Charlotte had some thinking to do. All of the bands she had been in had always failed miserably, but this time the band was already technically signed to a label. They were skipping a lot of steps, but soon enough Char found herself calling a girl who she knew could smack the drums, Madeline, who then called Talula who in turn got Penelope involved. They had come together as The Hollywood Dolls, jamming and having a good time while they waited for a singer to pop up like a daisy.


"What do you think of her?" Char asked as she finished in the bathroom and noticed that Madeline was standing in the doorway, all grump and crossed arms.

"She's a puff, but she's got a set of lungs on her. I'll suck it up." The girl with the black and red hair said and Charlotte only smirked as she tossed an arm around her friend's shoulders and the two girls walked back out in to the living room.


This could be it for them and Charlotte was determined to make sure that things worked out in their favor.

Notes

The boys will be showing up shortly, but things may go faster if I get some reviews <3

Comments

@Giacobra

I'm so glad you found this little gem. Sadly this was my last full story, but I do have a few other serial stories on this site which are different from this one, but just as well written. You can find all of them in my profile<3

Broken Wing Broken Wing
4/16/16

So I can honestly say I didn't discover this story until recently. When I first started reading it I knew it would be one of my favorites from this site. I saw the sad ending coming but dear god I was still not prepared in any way. You wrote everything so genuinely and in a way that showed an amazing range of real and raw emotions. I may or may not have been crying profusely through the last chapters. This was a beautiful, bittersweet, and amazing story and I look forward to anything else you may ever decide to write. Thank you

Giacobra Giacobra
4/15/16

I've been reading this story for so long and now it has come to an end. It ended so beautifully. Thank you for the hard work you put into this. This was a great story <3

This was probably the first stories I read here. Every chapter was amazing, and you just as an amazing writer. Thank you for making such an amazing story. It felt so real to be part of the life of Luxe and the Dolls!!

RisenDemon RisenDemon
3/31/16

I'm pretty sure I've done nothing but cry while reading these last few chapters. You do a wonderful job getting the reader emotionally involved in this story, and I'm really glad that I was able to read this wonderfully written piece. Thank you for all of the time and hard work that went into this story. It is definitely one of the best that I have read in a really long time.

LostInTheMusic LostInTheMusic
3/31/16