Chapter Text
At 1:35 PM, on the first Friday of every month, Betty Cooper walks into a coffee shop.
She only visits this particular establishment on these Fridays, even though it’s three blocks from her apartment in New Haven. She carries no purse but there’s exact change in her pocket. She buys a bottle of water, leaves two dollar bills in the tip jar.
She exits and finds a spot on one of the benches outside, rain or shine. She drinks the water slowly, avoids eye contact with any passerby.
A sleek black town car arrives precisely at 2:00 PM.
A uniformed man gets out, opens the back door. Betty slides into the backseat. They never speak.
Her strict routine ends the moment the car glides to a stop.
Betty never knows how the next 48 hours are going to play out. She brings no clothes or toiletries - they’re provided. Her phone stays behind as she won’t be needing it.
That’s the agreement Betty’s made with Hiram Lodge. She’s generously compensated for her time.
On paper, it’s a simple transaction. In practice, their arrangement is far more complicated than she’d anticipated.
Does she like the weekends she spends at Hiram’s beck and call? If asked, Betty would spit a vehement denial. Hiram is an awful man, controlling and demanding and far too used to getting his way. Betty hates the things he has done to her family and friends, the havoc he’s wreaked on her town. If they met in public in the streets of Riverdale she’d struggle to be polite.
Removed from all of that, by time and distance, when it’s just the two of them, it’s a little more complicated.
Privately, she’ll admit (if only to herself) that she gets something out of the arrangement, beyond the financial security (and bonus trinkets) it provides.
She thinks too much, pushes herself too hard. Worries, over things big and small, both within her control and beyond it. She’s hardwired to want to show the world perfection, to seem shiny and happy and in control.
Betty’s always had darker urges. Curiosities. Plus occasional issues with impulse control.
Somehow, Hiram Lodge had guessed.
The first weekend of every month has become an escape, one Betty’s come to crave.