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Her first Riverdale party had been a smashing success, Veronica thought to herself as she slipped on her morning pearls and emerged from her bedroom in the Pembrooke. Absolutely, one-hundred-percent, smashing.
Literally smashing, the early-morning light of around eleven o'clock revealed, as there were a number of broken champagne flutes in the kitchen. But that’s why you keep the finer china in the locked cabinets when the bourgeoisie come out to play.
A Lodge never disappoints at throwing a party. For her New Year’s Eve party, Veronica had invited everyone worth knowing at Riverdale High, plus a few people who weren’t (ahem, Cheryl Blossom). Her party had been a hit by every metric: party games, alcohol indiscreetly disposed of, two overly-dramatic breakups (one particularly heinous), one possible threesome (unconfirmed, but she had noticed Kevin leaving a bedroom with both Moose and Midge and could not wait to get the gossip on that), and several new couples kissing as the ball dropped. Veronica counted all of these happenings as the natural consequences of her excellent hostessing. Even Jughead Jones had doffed his ridiculous head covering for the night -- though it was likely dear Betty had been the reason for that.
All in all, her very first Riverdale party had been small and tame compared to the legendary New York City parties she had thrown in the past, but not so bad for all of that. And now, the apartment was full of reminders of her excellent party-planning skills. Every out-of-place piece of furniture, every partially-filled red Solo cup, every overflowing wastebasket, every...
Huh.
There was, to be honest, quite a bit of mess. This was not part of Veronica’s usual post-party routine: usually, the housekeeping staff would be engaged to clean up in the wee morning hours (between eight and ten), and Veronica would wake up to a pristine space again.
But the housekeeping staff was back in NYC with all the other luxuries of her previous life, her mother was still out of town, and Smithers had a bad back and wasn't allowed to lift anything.
Veronica’s expertly-groomed eyebrows furrowed.
Oh.
So this was something she would have to do, then.
Well. A Lodge was never intimidated by the task at hand.
Veronica pulled out her phone, searching for “how to clean up after a party” and “cleaning listicles.”
Apparently, everything involving cleaning would involve bags, so Veronica went to the closet and grabbed some Lord & Taylor bags from the last time they’d been in the city. She couldn’t find a broom, or a mop, but she did find something her tia Valencia had dropped off as a moving-day gift called a swiffer.
Huh. Well, this ought to be pretty intuitive.
But it wasn’t -- nothing happened when she ran it over the floor.
Well, Tia Valencia wouldn’t have bought it unless there was a celebrity endorsement.
Veronica googled “swiffer celebrity endorsement” and studied the results. That led to searches for “abby elliot”, “abby elliot husband”, “abby elliott bill kennedy”, “is abby elliot related to JFK”, “single kennedys”, “hottest kennedys”, and “classic jackie o styles”. She was so deep in an article about who wore it best, Katie Holmes or Natalie Portman, that it took a loud crash in the kitchen for her to realize that she was not alone.
Yes indeed, there was an intruder in her home.
An intruder who was nearly six feet tall, possessing bright red hair and an amazing 8-pack, and squatting on her kitchen floor.
“Archiekins?” Veronica asked incredulously. “What are you doing here?”
"Hi Ronnie," Archie said, giving her that sunshine smile he was known for, the one that made ice melt. "I thought I'd help clean up." His face clouded. "I might have just added to the mess so far..."
"You came to clean?" Veronica asked. "But...you were up until, like, 2 last night." (He had been among the last to leave -- along with Betty and Jughead -- Jughead being the designated driver for the three of them and full of sarcastic quips about a quick yet very enjoyable tête-à-tête that Veronica and Archie had shared before he’d been ready to leave.)
"So what?" Archie shrugged.
It was this kind of earnestness, this ginger retriever-esque quality about him, that Veronica just couldn't understand. In the world Veronica knew, a successful party meant that you did not return to the scene the morning after -- not unless you had stayed the night and were trying to wait until your clothing wouldn't mark you as being on a walk of shame. In Veronica's world, no one cleaned up after themselves, unless they were trying to hide the evidence of a minor crime (usually drugs, never murder -- Riverdale really was a different world than the Upper West Side).
But here was Archie, his hands as willing to help as his heart was open, and Veronica felt like songbirds had just emerged from the window to help her clean. Somehow, Archie made her feel like more of a princess than any piece of jewelry she'd ever worn.
As Archie showed her how to attach something called a wet jet pad to the Swiffer (WTF, Abby Elliot, you couldn't have explained that was necessary?) and demonstrated how to pick up all the broken glass (he said you could pick up glass shards using a slice of bread, but Veronica and Hermione had cut carbs out of their diet a long time ago, so Archie had to use a makeup sponge to do it), the same reality-defying sensation persisted.
The thing was, Archie was good , as wholesome as he was handsome, like a fairy-tale prince or Ted Danson. And at some inchoate level, Veronica knew that the kind of radiant goodness that Archie exuded as easily as breathing was a virtue that a Lodge did not deserve.
How could a guy like him even exist in the real world, much less be here next to her, in the least glamorous thing any guy -- anyone -- had ever done for her?
Surely it couldn’t be a problem to keep hold of him for a little while, at least? Like a catch and release program? Or would she inevitably taint him, the way that everything her family was part of became corroded?
It was almost fun to be a grunt, to gather up trash and put it in bags under his direction. It was fun just to listen to what he was saying, and be under Archie’s command and let him make the choices for her. Veronica felt like she was under a spell of his protection.
This meant that when the bubble finally burst, it was particularly unpleasant.
“I’m surprised you’re not good at cleaning,” Archie said casually, head bent over the floor as he scrubbed at a particularly stubborn stain. Veronica’s head snapped up, her heart racing.
When she spoke, her voice was ice. “Why would you assume that? Because I’m Latina?”
Archie looked up in -- genuine horror, Veronica judged. “No! Oh my God! I didn’t -- I’m so sorry! I would never think anything like that.”
Veronica paused a long moment, judging his sincerity and her temper (but what if it was what he thought?). “I know, Archie.”
“I guess you wouldn’t have much experience cleaning, if you had a staff and all,” Archie said in a cautious tone, like he was stepping around land mines. Veronica didn’t mind that: if he was only just discovering his ciswhite male privilege right now, it was about time.
It was the internal shame, the maternal shame she was protecting.
She thought about confessing to him, “my grandmother was a maid.” It was something she’d never said out loud before.
Her mother would only talk about her mother when she was several glasses of wine in an evening binge. “Your grandmother scrubbed toilets so that you and I would never have to.”
It was the kind of thing you’d tell to someone you loved.
“I had to clean my room when I was little,” Veronica said instead. ”Until I made a pitch to my parents that I shouldn’t have to, and they accepted it.”
“A pitch? Like, a baseball pitch?”
“No, like...like a Don Draper pitch. A business plan. The maids were being paid to clean, so if I was cleaning my room, then I was actually cutting into their bottom line. But continuing to pay them would be costing my parents extra money. So they agreed I could spend the time I would have been spending more profitably elsewhere.”
Archie stared at her for a moment, then barked a laugh. “That’s crazy.”
“It was how my parents made all their decisions,” she said evenly, as she crossed the room and started rearranging the furniture back to its pristine order. Including their choice of partners.
Even when Archie upset her, it was because he was too good to understand the consequences of what he said or did. And her life needed to be about managing consequences.
And he was clearly a loose end, and prone to sticking his foot in his mouth, and there were so many people her father knew who you had to know not to offend and what to say and when, and this was clearly a mistake, and why did the thought of saying goodbye to him make her throat tighten and her breath seize up?
Archie cleared his throat, still kneeling across the room. “Ronnie?”
“Yes, Archiekins?” she responded automatically, unsure if he heard the brittleness in her tone.
“I’m sorry I offended you. I just meant, you’re good at everything.”
“Not everything,” she said distantly. Not this.
“Honestly, I'd rather spend New Year's cleaning up with you than anywhere else.”
This was the moment where a Lodge would run. Veronica should feint with a bon mot now, parrying away Archie's sincerity, then get out, hook up with Reggie Mantle or that hot pink-haired chick she’d seen at Pop's, rack up massive credit card debt at Alice + Olivia, utterly slay at karaoke, inherit massive amounts of wealth and a seat on a corporate board.
A Lodge was not supposed to fall in love. Not with the wrong person, not even with the right person. Heartbreak was not something you could fit onto a financial ledger. There were important things at stake -- people’s lives rose and fell with their businesses. There were consequences to every dalliance.
The world she was raised for -- the family business she was the heiress to -- was a world that someone as good and true and sincere as Archie Andrews could never, ever fit into or understand. They were floating together on borrowed time and he could never understand the multiple levels to her internal monologue.
Veronica Lodge knew she should bat him away.
But instead, she turned towards him and smiled girlishly, saying only, “I love it when you call me Ronnie.”