Fic: The Group Throws a Birthday-vention (2/?)
Chapter 2: The Script
Annie turned left into the living room off the main entryway to shouts of “Happy Birthday, Annie” from the group. She felt Jeff come up behind her. He stopped short of being in her personal space, but she could still smell his aftershave as traitorous goose bumps sprang up across her arms.
“Hey guys! Um… Why did you want Jeff and me to arrive at different times? My invitation said to arrive an hour later than his,” suddenly realizing what that exactly meant, she crossed her arms and frowned. “You made me late to my own party? That’s mean you guys! You’ve all been having fun without me!”
“Don’t worry, Annie,” Pierce said in a reassuring voice, jerking a thumb over in Britta’s direction. “Captain Buzzkill over here’s made sure none of us have had any fun. In fact, just the opposite,” he dusted his hands of imaginary dirt and smiled at Annie like the problem was fixed.
Britta whipped her head around, pursing her lips and staring daggers at the old man. Pierce, oblivious to her anger, simply smiled, gave her a nod of acknowledgement and a cordial “Sourface.”
Annie just stood there, arms crossed, toes tapping, and waited for a proper explanation for the discrepancy in the invitation arrival times and so Troy, without thinking, jumped in with a hasty explanation. “We all got here early to discuss the plan to-ooph!” Shirley elbowed him in the ribs, hard, and Troy doubled-over in pain, “decorate and … things,” he finished, coughing out the words in the direction of his feet because he was still bent over, cradling his side.
“Mmhmm. That’s right. We came early to decorate,” Shirley added in her sugary-sweet voice, smiling at Annie like she hadn’t just cracked two of Troy’s ribs.
“Then why aren’t there any decorations?” Jeff accused, slipping easily into default lawyer mode and finally moving from behind Annie. He gestured around the room at the lack of streamers and balloons, ignoring the life-size portrait of Pierce that hung above the fireplace mantle, mounted on a horse and dressed like Napoleon. He wasn’t gonna touch that one.
“Ummmm….”
Britta, Pierce, Troy and Shirley all looked at Abed for help. Annie and Jeff followed suit and surveyed to the so-far silent member of their study group.
Abed pursed his lips and calmly turned his gaze to each of them, walked away from the corner where he had positioned himself, and stopped in front of Annie and Jeff in the center of the room. “It wasn’t a mistake. Don’t worry, Annie. We didn’t tell you to arrive later to be mean,” he said in a reassuring voice as he placed a hand on her shoulder. Annie untensed ever-so-slightly and let out a slow, calming breath. Jeff narrowed his eyes and his fists involuntarily clenched at the contact between the two. Only Abed noticed Jeff’s reaction. “I wrote out your invitation to arrive at nine and Jeff’s at eight, knowing each of you would arrive at exactly the same time,” he pulled out a gold pocket watch from his pocket, “and you did. Just as I knew you would.”
“How did you know we would arrive at exactly the same time,” Jeff asked, eyeing the younger man skeptically.
Abed’s hand slipped from Annie’s shoulder as he turned slightly to answer his friend. “Well, Jeff. Being an observer of human nature, I knew Annie would arrive exactly when the invitation designated-nine o’ clock on the dot. That’s her type-A, anal retentive personality-to be punctual to a fault,” he gave Annie a quick, closed mouth smile before addressing Jeff again. “And I knew you would arrive an hour late because of your unfailing character trait to be the “cool guy.” And although it’s a trope and cliché that’s been done to death, “cool guys” always arrive fashionably late. I’ve been tracking your arrival time to parties over the last two years and averaged it out to arriving 58 minutes, 45 seconds after a party is slated to start. But, on your invitation, I rounded it out to the hour. It would have been weird and highly suspicious if I’d written 8:58:45 p.m. on your invitation.”
“Yeaaahhh…” Shirley drawled, glancing at Britta, who looked just as perturbed and creeped out as the rest of them at Abed’s confession. “That would have been weird.”
“Dude, what else are you keeping track of?” Troy asked with unabashed, childish curiosity. “Are you recording the number of times Leonard passes gas in the biology lab? Or how many times Garret brings live goldfish to school? Cause that’s the kinda stuff that’s need to know!”
Jeff sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache prickling behind his eyes. He remembered that the girls had forced Abed to swear on his copy of “Kickpuncher” that he’d stop monitoring their menstrual cycles, but apparently he’d not been able to kick his creepy, borderline stalking habit cold turkey. Jeff was going to have to have a serious conversation with the younger man about invasion of privacy and the definition of stalking when this was all over. It’s times like these he wishes NBC hadn’t canceled “The Cape.” Abed wouldn’t have time for stupid crap like this if he still had that damn show to obsess over.
Annie shifted her eyes warily from Abed to Jeff, then back to Abed. “OK, so you’ve explained how you knew we would both arrive at the same time, but my biggest question is why. What’s all this about? What’s going on exactly? I feel like there’s something that Jeff and I aren’t a part of.”
“An-nie, Jeffrey,” Shirley began, taking a small step toward them. “First we want you both to know that we love and support you.”
Annie and Jeff glanced at each other confused. “OK?” they both answered hesitantly.
Britta was next to step forward. “That’s right. No one’s on trial here. We’re not judging you or anything. It’s important you know that.”
“Guys, you’re really starting to freak me out,” Annie stated with no lack of panic in her voice. She turned toward Jeff for reassurance but he just gave her a bemused look and shrugged, hands in his pockets. Clearly he had no idea what was going on either.
Pierce stepped out from behind the bar and settled a little too closely next to Shirley. She discreetly shifted to her left toward Britta and continued to smile sweetly at Annie and Jeff. “We brought you two here to discuss something that’s been bothering the group for a while now. Over the past, well… almost two years now… ummm… for two years it’s been apparent that … uuhhhh… aw crap. LINE!” he shouted, startling everyone. He turned to look at Abed and gestured expectantly. Abed’s eyes went wide as he looked at everyone now looking at him.
“Dude! Pierce you can’t just yell out “line.” Now the illusion is broken. Now they’re gonna know this is scripted-”
“Wait! What?” Annie and Jeff both cried out. Annie turned accusing eyes toward Abed who looked like he wanted to melt into the walls. This is what happened when working with the untrained, or in Pierce’s case, the untrainable.
"Cut! OK, everyone. That's a rap," Abed said to his cast as he stepped forward. "This isn't working. We're going off script." He turned to Annie and Jeff. "This isn't just a birthday party. Well, it's not even a birthday part at all, sorry Annie. We just used the timing of your birthday as an excuse to get us all together away from school. This..." he paused for dramatic effect, "is an intervention."
TBC...