Brascapades
Title: Brascapades (Or, Anna Kendrick Requests Fewer Crazy Friends)
Pairing: None. Just a jumble of ladies doing lady-bro things.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Uh, none. Except, spoiler, this is easily the strangest thing I’ve ever written. Ever. Thank my girlfriend for her prompting.
Summary: The Female Code has no problem whatsoever with enjoying yourself in a mature, healthy fashion. The Female Code does frown heavily upon the leaving of expensive clothing articles where you will never see them again. And when that Code is broken, the Sisterhood will stop at nothing to resolve the problem-before it’s too late.
A/N: Fair warning: I know none of these ladies (obviously), and I therefore have not even tried to aim for accurate characterization. Also, this is sort of a crackfest. It’s the only way I could write RPF.
Certain things are perfectly normal to be ashamed of. Bad 80s movies, for one. Bad 80s hair, for another. Qualifying the use of scrunchies and Bump-Its as legitimate hair-maintenance utensils, for a third. Many, many things are worth face-reddening shame and stuttering attempts to backtrack from. But one-night stands?
You’ll have to excuse her, but Anna believes there are worse things in this world. Far worse things. Things like Yo Gabba Gabba marathons without the presence of a small child to foist it off on. Things like fashion shows with your parents’ puppy, who maybe isn’t as fond of the little Santa hat you bought especially for his floppy-eared head, but who cares, as long as he looks perfectly delightful in it? Things like…
“You left what at his place?” Brittany is staring at her, aghast. Anna rubs at the back of her neck uncomfortably, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling and doing her best to pretend there is a very interesting pattern up there amidst the fan blades.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she protests moodily. Brittany’s hands fly into the air, exasperated.
“How many times have we discussed this, Kendrick? You do not leave valuables with a stranger.”
“He wasn’t a stranger,” Anna mutters, grumpy. “His name was Josh. I’ve known him for three weeks.” She pauses, frowning. “At least, I think it was Josh. Might have been Jim. One of those single-syllable names guys always seem to have nowadays.”
“Nowadays,” Aubrey taunts from the couch, where she has folded herself into an exceedingly uncomfortable-looking position around a book. “As opposed to your native Cretaceous Period?”
Anna groans. “Why do I invite you people over?”
“You don’t,” Aubrey reminds her neatly, tucking a playing card between the pages of her book and smirking in her general direction. “But you’ve got the best food and reasonably-cozy furniture, and you’re absurdly tiny. Easily overpowered.”
“Thank you.”
“Always happy to help.”
“The issue at hand, please!” Brittany chirps, giving them both reproachful looks that make Aubrey grin and Anna’s neck prickle. She gives it another enthusiastic rub with the palm of her hand, glowering.
“Which is?”
“You,” Brittany points out coolly, “have broken the Female Code.”
“There’s a Female Code?” Aubrey and Anna demand in unison. Their heads have tilted to the left like a pair of trained birds. It’s horrifying, Anna thinks. Horrifying, and leaves her absolutely no choice: she’s kicking her uninvited houseguests out the next chance she gets, before any further twinsie behavior finds its way into her system.
Brittany looks supremely huffy, as though she’s thoroughly regretting choosing either of them to be her friend-or, well, in Anna’s case. Aubrey is more of a friend-by-association, and she clearly can’t be held responsible for decisions she never made.
“That’s it,” she decides abruptly, digging the cell phone from her pocket and thumbing the screen with vigor. Anna’s brow pulls taut, her lips pursing.
“Who’re you calling?”
“Reinforcements,” Brittany replies grimly, tapping the screen and holding the iPhone to her ear. After a few seconds, she says, with a soldier’s solemnity, “Hi. We have a problem.”
“Oh Christ,” Anna groans. “It’s not a problem.”
“It is,” Brittany informs her, barely bothering to tilt the phone away from her mouth. “Yes,” she goes on to whoever is on the line. “It’s Kendrick. Yes. She’s done it again. Yes. Right! That’s what I told her!”
She pauses, listening, then holds the phone out toward Anna and gives it an impatient little shake. Eyes rolling, Anna accepts the offering.
“What?”
“You broke the Female Code?” Olivia’s voice shrills, damn near shattering her eardrum. Wincing, Anna yanks the phone away from her ear and holds it at arm's length.
“There is no Female Code!” she shouts toward the receiver. Even from this distance, she can hear Olivia snort derisively.
“The Sisterhood is not pleased, Kendrick. Not pleased at all.”
“The Sisterhood?” she repeats, baffled. “There’s a Sisterhood now, too?”
“There has always been a Sisterhood,” Olivia informs her witheringly, her voice blaring loudly enough to fill the room. Standing at Anna's side with arms crossed, Aubrey shrugs, looking inappropriately amused.
“Even I knew that.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Anna gripes, shifting her grip on the phone. “It is none of your business who I sleep with, or what I leave where. It’s not like I can’t afford to buy a new one!”
“That isn’t the point,” Brittany snaps. Lost somewhere down the phone line, Olivia snorts again.
“Not the point at all.”
“Apparently, you’ve missed the point,” Aubrey chimes in, unhelpfully. Anna resists the very strong temptation to hurl the phone at a wall.
“Enlighten me,” she says testily instead, her grip tight enough to whiten her knuckles. “What is the point?”
“The point,” Olivia says in that same all-knowing tone she is growing to hate so much, “is you have, once again, chosen to leave your holiest of holies at the residence of a completely random dude. And that, Kendrick, is unacceptable.”
She scowls, pressing her free hand to her forehead in a sore effort to ward off the pounding headache that is working its way through her skull. “I didn’t leave my vagina over there.”
“No,” Olivia agrees darkly. “Worse.”
“Worse than leaving my vagina behind?” Anna is skeptical. And a little horrified. And desperately interested in removing all parties from her personal life in this moment so she can pop an aspirin and head off to count all of the ‘holiest of holies’ she still has tucked away in her dresser drawer.
“I think they call them unmentionables,” Aubrey is pointing out, her face frighteningly close as she speaks into the receiver. “Not holy anythings.”
“Call them whatever you want,” Olivia replies impatiently. “We’ve got to get it back.”
“Back?” Blanching, Anna darts a furtive, uneasy look in Brittany’s direction. “No. No. We definitely do not need to do…that.”
“Oh, yes, we do,” Olivia confirms. “I’m coming over. I’m coming over, and I am bringing the cavalry-“
“We have a cavalry?” Anna asks weakly.
“-and Anna Kendrick, we are getting your fucking holy unmentionables back where they belong.”
New friends, she decides when Olivia leaves her hanging with an ominous click and nothing but dead air. New friends are totally a necessity. Because I just might kill all of mine before this evening is over.
Especially if Aubrey keeps grinning like that.
***
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Kristen is inspecting her fingernails, one eyebrow infinitesimally arched to show she is not completely tuning them out. Her hair is a messy shag across her shoulders, her outfit a mismatched combo of plaid shirt and shredded jeans. She looks as though Olivia had stripped her clean away from a 90s-grunge throwback concert, and, consequently, seems to have absolutely zero interest in rescuing Anna’s clothing from Josh-or-Jim’s apartment across town.
Likewise, Jennifer has her arms crossed, her mouth a twitching line that hints at a barely-hidden grin. She’s been here for all of twelve minutes, and already Anna is regretting introducing her to Aubrey, as both of them keep giving her this slightly manic bug-eyed expression of amusement that sets her teeth on edge.
Olivia, for her part, has been striding forcefully from one corner of her living room to the other, gesticulating so wildly, she nearly swipes a lamp, glass, and stack of DVDs to the floor in rapid succession. Olivia is probably the worst part of all of this, aside from the grim way Brittany is surveying her, like everything-career, family relationships, hope of a life outside of surreptitious three-a.m. Taco Bell trips and hoarded pets- has gone to ruin in the blink of a post-one-night-stand decision.
“You didn’t bring either of the Emmas,” Anna points out dryly, leaning against the back of her couch and trying to look as though this whole situation is funny, rather than aggressively annoying. “Or Camp. Or Rebel.”
“Short notice,” Olivia replies, tone clipped. Her eyes are screwed shut now, her fingers snapping repeatedly. “Okay, so-we need a van, a flashlight, a gun-“
“A what?”
“Kidding!” Olivia finishes, so quickly, Anna can’t in good conscience believe her. “But the van and the flashlight are non-negotiable.”
Aubrey holds up an iPhone, flashlight app up and running. “Will this do?”
Snapping her fingers again, Olivia flashes her a delighted smile. Anna pats her pocket reflexively.
“Is that my phone?”
She finds Aubrey’s innocent whistle considerably less than reassuring.
“So,” Olivia goes on, back to ignoring them. Evidently, she has crowned herself Queen Captain Pope of this ill-advised little party, and Anna suspects pointing out-rather reasonably-how all of this is very much none of her business will make no difference whatsoever. Heaving a melodramatic sigh, she settles for burning a glare through the flutter of Olivia’s distractingly-shiny hair and wishing for some Attractive Actress Friend Repellent with which to coat her entire property.
“So, we’re going to have to play this carefully,” Olivia is saying when she hauls herself bodily out of a daydream that involves cops being called and waving from the doorstep until her friends are safely incarcerated, leaving her free to curl up with a Snuggie and an Ingmar Bergman flick. “First things first. We need a getaway driver.”
“I’ll do it,” Kristen offers in a careless monotone, pushing her fingers through her hair and wincing when she hits a snag. Jennifer slides her a sideways frown.
“How come you get to drive?”
“Because you would send us careening off a bridge,” Kristen replies smartly, a crooked grin spreading across her lips. Jennifer scowls at her for a moment, then shrugs.
“Fair.”
“Okay, driver.” Olivia jabs a finger in Kristen’s nonplussed direction. “Good. Now, we need a distraction.”
Anna resists the powerful impulse to groan again. “Couldn’t I just, I don’t know, walk up to the apartment and ask him for-“
“No!” Olivia, Brittany, and Jennifer are three beautiful women you never want yelling in your direction. She bows her head, cowing to their determination with both hands raised for peace.
“Fine, Jesus.”
“So, distraction. I was thinking Brittany could cover that base.” Olivia points. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep Josh-“
“Or Jim,” Anna mutters.
“Or Jim detained outside of his apartment for a protracted period of time while the retrieval squad does its duty. Are you up for it, soldier?”
That Brittany doesn’t snap off a brisk salute is, in Anna’s mind, a stark miracle. She does clap her hands together, aggressive delight burning in her too-blue eyes. Anna just hopes “detain” isn’t a Sisterhood synonym for “truss up and gag in a broom closet.”
“Driver, detainment specialist,” Olivia is ticking off on her fingers, looking thoughtful. “What else…”
“Are we going for alliteration as a necessity, or a super-special bonus?” Anna drawls. She is, predictably, completely ignored.
“Demolitions expert, right here,” Aubrey chimes in, both index fingers pointing down at the top of her own head. When Anna pales and opens her mouth to argue, Brittany calmly steps in.
“I’m not sure demolitions are essential to this particular meeting, Plaza. Maybe next time.”
“What’s next time going to be, assassinating a senator?” Her voice is growing surprisingly shrill. With extreme effort, she reins herself in. Aubrey sticks out her tongue, grinning.
“Careful, Kendrick, you’re going to find your way onto America’s Most Wanted.”
“Right,” Olivia says loudly, apparently not pleased that attention has shifted once more from her Extraordinary Plan-Making. “Here’s the breakdown. Kristen, you’re behind the wheel. Brittany, you get Josh-“
“I really think it might have been Jim,” Anna mumbles.
“-Jim out of the apartment, and keep him out. Aubrey, you’re on official flashlight duty.”
Aubrey helpfully holds up the iPhone again. Anna narrows her eyes.
“And that is my phone.”
“Everyone else, you’re with me,” Olivia announces, and without another word, storms off toward the door. Jennifer catches hold of Kristen’s wrist, yanking her along. Anna heaves a sigh.
“I am never telling you idiots anything again.”
***
“Why do we even need a flashlight?” she hisses. “He’s left all the lights on, look-“
“Shhhh!” Olivia’s glare could cow Stalin. Obedient, though frustrated, Anna clamps a hand over her own mouth and rolls her eyes.
They’re crowded on Josh-or-Jim’s fire escape, which, so far, might be her least favorite part of this insane scheme. Josh-or-Jim happens to live on the fifth floor, so how they even managed to get up here without killing themselves is a mystery to her. Worse, Jennifer keeps humming and doing this strange hopping dance, which Aubrey is punctuating with sporadic flashes of the iPhone’s app, and Anna is starting to get the queasy sensation that this whole rickety platform might at any moment collapse entirely.
She’s never been so jealous of Kristen in her life, who-at last glance-was holed up in the driver’s seat of the van they borrowed from Olivia’s batty uncle. Anna would give anything to be down there right now, jamming out to the radio and swapping eyeliner tips.
But nooooo. She’s here instead, swathed in all black (Olivia had insisted they stop off for fresh burglaring outfits at her place, which was both irritating and semi-insulting; did she honestly believe Anna owned nothing of the burglar variety?), peering through the living room window of some dude she hung out with one time.
Her life has officially morphed into a 90s sitcom, complete with cringe-worthy second-hand embarrassment moments.
Brittany has done a marvelous job of getting Josh-but-probably-Jim out of the place-some convoluted, yet heartwarmingly believable tale about lost puppies or something; sometimes, hanging out with a shit-ton of famed actresses has its benefits-and yet, here they stand. On the fire escape. With Jen humming.
“Will you shut up?” she hisses, because, hey, this chick might have won an Oscar (gimme a break, I was close), but she seems to have flunked out of Stealth 101. And while it isn’t like Anna is on board with this wacky train to the nearest holding cell (breaking and entering is still a felony, right?), if she doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter, she would really like to do this right.
Olivia has her nose pressed to the window, eyes darting this way and that from under her knit ski cap. It makes her look equal parts ridiculous and gorgeous. Anna sort of hates her for that.
“All right,” she stage-whispers, which isn’t quite whispery enough for this whole madhouse thing, “on my mark. One-two-“
On what would be three, she hoists the window up (thank god Jim-but-maybe-it-was-Josh? doesn’t lock his shit at night) and dive-rolls through it. There’s a low, pained-sounding thwack, followed by a curse that could wake the damn dead. Anna’s teeth clamp down on her lip, eyes rolling heavenward.
“Fuuuck this.”
“After you, Kendrick,” Aubrey says cheerfully, and butts her through the window with all the grace of a twice-amputated giraffe. Grunting, she hits the carpet and rolls, slightly more elegant than Olivia had been. At least she avoids smacking her head on a coffee table.
The others pile in after her, considerably more cautious (Jen has stopped humming at last, and is now wearing her Academy Award Winning Actress face-the one that gave the protagonist of Winter’s Bone such depth, and the leading lady of Silver Linings Playbook such uncomfortable lunacy). Aubrey sweeps the stolen iPhone this way and that, eyes fixed, not on the floor, but on ludicrously absurd locations, such as the TV stand, the lamp in the corner, and the ceiling fan.
“What, do you think I sling-shot my undergarments in the throes of fumbling passion?” Anna demands, slightly put-out. Aubrey flashes her a grin rather than answering.
“Come on, we don’t have all day,” Olivia snaps, crawling on her hands and knees to peer beneath the couch. “Top secret Sisterhood missions are speedy!”
Apparently, she gets grumpy in the wake of a minor head injury.
“Idiots,” Anna huffs, jamming her hands in her pockets and steadfastly ignoring the ninja-cool way Jennifer and Aubrey are now slinking around the room, plastering themselves against walls whenever the neighbors on the sixth floor take a creaking step. “We didn’t do it out-oh, fuck, never mind.”
The toes of her sneakers have just broached the hallway when Jim-or-Josh-who-gives-a-fuck’s voice utters from the hall outside. Bug-eyed, she freezes, glancing back. Olivia is making mad go on gestures with both hands, her belly flat against the floor. She bolts.
The bedroom seems much less comforting and much more the scene of my impending arrest tonight, as she darts behind the half-open door and sucks in a breath. She can hear Brittany, speaking far too loudly-apparently, her lost dog cover story includes a slight deafness?-and Jim-or-Josh-or-you-know-what-it-could-have-been-Jeff replying in the awkward tones of a dude who has been hauled from his apartment by a vaguely-familiar, rather pretty, completely insane girl. Their voices seem to be growing closer by the second, which means Snow is so not doing her job, and Olivia is probably army-crawling around the living room, and if Jennifer starts channeling an action star in the next five minutes, they’re all screwed.
For Christ’s sake, she thinks irritably, peering around the room. If they’re about to meet the cops-or even just her one-night-stand’s blank confusion-she might as well get this done before it all falls apart. Have to keep up that fucking Code of whatever the fuck it is. Now. Assuming he isn’t a serial killer who has a stash of stolen women’s underwear somewhere…
Nope-there it is, peeking out from a pile of t-shirts and awful-looking murder mysteries. He had kicked everything away from the bed, she remembers now, the night a bleary mess of vodka and something not quite akin to actual awesomeness.
Stride of pride, she reminds herself, smirking. She catches up the bra-all this for a fucking bra. Like I don’t have plenty. Like it isn’t wire and material and fucking hell, Wilde, you’re killing me-and bunches it into a ball, jamming the whole thing into her hoodie pocket. The fact that it doesn’t exactly stow well is the least of her issues at the moment, because Brittany’s voice now sounds like it’s issuing from the front door, and she can still hear the clattering of her other assorted idiot friends as they struggle around the living room.
We’re fucked, she has time to think, peering around the bedroom door. From here, she has a lovely view of the front hall and the door, which gapes open. Brittany makes uneasy eye contact over whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was-he-wasn’t-very-good-anyway’s shoulder, her face going pale and anxious. He twitches around to follow her eye-line, clearly concerned, and Anna jerks out of sight again.
So much for being friends with actresses.
A few seconds sneak by. She darts another look. There is a window in here, but it’s pretty small, and there’s a five-story drop beneath it. She’s not quite up to Spider-man-ing it out of here, which means she's going to have to make a break for the living room again-soon.
His back is turned again, his attention primarily fixed on the hand Brittany has grasped his forearm with. It’s not much, as distractions go, but it just might give her enough time to slip-
She’d feel bad about treading on a cat’s tail either way, but the fact that this cat yowls fiercely and turns boldly wounded eyes on her just takes the cake. Of course he would have a fucking cat. Of course.
“I hate you,” she mutters to the disgruntled feline, eyes glued to the doorway. She’s kind of torn now, because if he turns now, she will find herself in the most decidedly awkward position since ninth grade gym class. But, if he doesn’t turn around now, he’s certainly the most horrible person she’s ever spent time with, because it would mean he cares all of jack about his pet, and-
He’s turning. Fuck. Maybe if she tries really hard, she can pull off the performance of a lifetime and become one with this hideous floral wallpaper.
“Excuse me, do you have a light?”
Her head snaps up, mouth falling open. There in the apartment entryway stands Kristen, a cigarette dangling from her lips, all leather jacket and shredded jeans and careless attitude. If Brittany looks dumbfounded to see her out of the van-wasn’t the plan, Stan, Wilde is gonna flay her-it’s nothing compared to the strangled sound Josh-Jim-Jeff makes.
Well, fuck me, Freddie. Boy’s got himself a Twilight twofer.
“Kris-ten!” Brittany shrills, too high and too loud to be remotely believable. “What are you doing here?”
“Kris-“ she hears Olivia hiss as she streaks back to the living room, shoulders hunched, feet stumbling. She makes a brutal throat-slitting gesture at her friends for silence, then jerks her thumb at the window. The universal sign for okay, I got the bra, get your talented asses back out that window before Stewart’s charm wears out.
They take the hint. Jen is back on the fire escape and clattering her way down before Anna can blink, Olivia tripping along behind her. Aubrey moves just as fast, but she keeps waving that fucking iPhone around as she goes, and all of a sudden, Anna has learned how difficult it truly is to clamber gracefully out of a window with a strobe light in your eyes.
Her knee thwaps hard against the coffee table that claimed a few of Olivia’s brain cells on the way in, and she hisses out a curse. Three heads swivel her way before she can even begin to fall into the frame of mind of the Invisible Woman, and she groans.
“Anna?” Jim-Josh-Jeff asks, clearly having trouble comprehending the idea that there are now three well-known actresses standing around his apartment this evening. “What-?”
“Hi, uh-“ Don’t know the name, not gonna try. “Hi. This probably looks…funny.” She pastes on her dopiest grin, a cheerleader on speed. “Really funny. Hah. Ha.”
“Did you come in through the window?” Ah, great. Now he’s perceptive. Couldn’t find a damn thing in the dark, but with all the lamps burning-
“Window. Is a strong…word.” She winces. He tips his head, baffled.
“I texted you. You, um. Didn’t really answer. At all. And now you’re in my…living room.”
“Small world!” Brittany chirps, clapping a hand around Kristen’s arm. “All of us, coming to look for things at the same apartment. How kooky!”
Anna fixes her with a glare, mouthing back, Kooky? She shrugs awkwardly.
Kristen seems to have overlooked the gravity of this situation. She mostly just looks bored, puffing at her cigarette. “Can we go? I’ve got a thing.”
“I don’t understand,” Josh-Jim-Jeff protests. “If you wanted to see me, you could have called. Or knocked. I mean, I know we had an amazing night together, but-“
O-kay, cowboy, that’s quite enough of that. “No offense, uh...dude,” Anna tells him as kindly as she can, taking a limping step toward the front door. “But I didn’t come here looking for you, exactly.”
His face takes a drastic turn for the disappointed, his befuddlement going exactly nowhere. “Oh. Then why-“
She digs around in her pocket, withdrawing the jumble of cups and straps and dangling it from one hand. Brittany makes a soft ooh sound.
“It was a nice one.”
“I told you it was worth it!” Olivia has poked her head back through the window, a triumphant smile on her lips. Anna swivels to face her, aghast.
“Seriously?”
Jim-Jeff-Josh looks like his head might well pop off and detonate. “Okay, I am really lost.”
Christ. All right, time for the headshot. “We had fun,” she says firmly, patting him on the shoulder with her free hand. “You’re a lovely guy. But sometimes, once is enough, y’know? Like with White Castle.”
He blinks. Behind him, Kristen makes a wrap-it-up twirling motion with her smoldering cigarette.
“Let’s go, kids. Van’s leavin’.”
“Bye,” Anna finishes, smiling as genially as she’s able while at the same time wishing for a time turner to rewind this whole mess. Grasping Brittany’s elbow firmly in one hand, her bra in the other, she makes the grandest exit possible, managing to avoid tripping over the cat this time.
She waits until they’re outside, where Jennifer and Aubrey are bouncing on the balls of their feet and play-boxing in exhilaration, to snap, “Okay, we are never doing that again.”
Olivia folds her arms over her chest. “The Sisterhood does what it must,” is all she says, in a haughty voice that makes Anna want to smack her in the face with the bra.
“You’re a crazy person, do you know that? Actual loony-bin-level.”
Brittany beams, arm around her shoulders. “But look! You got your bra back.”
Anna casts a long glance at the undergarment in question. “So I did.”
“And we didn’t even have to shoot anyone!” Jennifer adds brightly. Aubrey nods her agreement. Anna sucks in a breath.
“That’s it. Emergency Taco Bell run. On one of you nerds, now.”
She wonders if the Sisterhood has any nice exit packages available.
Pairing: None. Just a jumble of ladies doing lady-bro things.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Uh, none. Except, spoiler, this is easily the strangest thing I’ve ever written. Ever. Thank my girlfriend for her prompting.
Summary: The Female Code has no problem whatsoever with enjoying yourself in a mature, healthy fashion. The Female Code does frown heavily upon the leaving of expensive clothing articles where you will never see them again. And when that Code is broken, the Sisterhood will stop at nothing to resolve the problem-before it’s too late.
A/N: Fair warning: I know none of these ladies (obviously), and I therefore have not even tried to aim for accurate characterization. Also, this is sort of a crackfest. It’s the only way I could write RPF.
Certain things are perfectly normal to be ashamed of. Bad 80s movies, for one. Bad 80s hair, for another. Qualifying the use of scrunchies and Bump-Its as legitimate hair-maintenance utensils, for a third. Many, many things are worth face-reddening shame and stuttering attempts to backtrack from. But one-night stands?
You’ll have to excuse her, but Anna believes there are worse things in this world. Far worse things. Things like Yo Gabba Gabba marathons without the presence of a small child to foist it off on. Things like fashion shows with your parents’ puppy, who maybe isn’t as fond of the little Santa hat you bought especially for his floppy-eared head, but who cares, as long as he looks perfectly delightful in it? Things like…
“You left what at his place?” Brittany is staring at her, aghast. Anna rubs at the back of her neck uncomfortably, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling and doing her best to pretend there is a very interesting pattern up there amidst the fan blades.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she protests moodily. Brittany’s hands fly into the air, exasperated.
“How many times have we discussed this, Kendrick? You do not leave valuables with a stranger.”
“He wasn’t a stranger,” Anna mutters, grumpy. “His name was Josh. I’ve known him for three weeks.” She pauses, frowning. “At least, I think it was Josh. Might have been Jim. One of those single-syllable names guys always seem to have nowadays.”
“Nowadays,” Aubrey taunts from the couch, where she has folded herself into an exceedingly uncomfortable-looking position around a book. “As opposed to your native Cretaceous Period?”
Anna groans. “Why do I invite you people over?”
“You don’t,” Aubrey reminds her neatly, tucking a playing card between the pages of her book and smirking in her general direction. “But you’ve got the best food and reasonably-cozy furniture, and you’re absurdly tiny. Easily overpowered.”
“Thank you.”
“Always happy to help.”
“The issue at hand, please!” Brittany chirps, giving them both reproachful looks that make Aubrey grin and Anna’s neck prickle. She gives it another enthusiastic rub with the palm of her hand, glowering.
“Which is?”
“You,” Brittany points out coolly, “have broken the Female Code.”
“There’s a Female Code?” Aubrey and Anna demand in unison. Their heads have tilted to the left like a pair of trained birds. It’s horrifying, Anna thinks. Horrifying, and leaves her absolutely no choice: she’s kicking her uninvited houseguests out the next chance she gets, before any further twinsie behavior finds its way into her system.
Brittany looks supremely huffy, as though she’s thoroughly regretting choosing either of them to be her friend-or, well, in Anna’s case. Aubrey is more of a friend-by-association, and she clearly can’t be held responsible for decisions she never made.
“That’s it,” she decides abruptly, digging the cell phone from her pocket and thumbing the screen with vigor. Anna’s brow pulls taut, her lips pursing.
“Who’re you calling?”
“Reinforcements,” Brittany replies grimly, tapping the screen and holding the iPhone to her ear. After a few seconds, she says, with a soldier’s solemnity, “Hi. We have a problem.”
“Oh Christ,” Anna groans. “It’s not a problem.”
“It is,” Brittany informs her, barely bothering to tilt the phone away from her mouth. “Yes,” she goes on to whoever is on the line. “It’s Kendrick. Yes. She’s done it again. Yes. Right! That’s what I told her!”
She pauses, listening, then holds the phone out toward Anna and gives it an impatient little shake. Eyes rolling, Anna accepts the offering.
“What?”
“You broke the Female Code?” Olivia’s voice shrills, damn near shattering her eardrum. Wincing, Anna yanks the phone away from her ear and holds it at arm's length.
“There is no Female Code!” she shouts toward the receiver. Even from this distance, she can hear Olivia snort derisively.
“The Sisterhood is not pleased, Kendrick. Not pleased at all.”
“The Sisterhood?” she repeats, baffled. “There’s a Sisterhood now, too?”
“There has always been a Sisterhood,” Olivia informs her witheringly, her voice blaring loudly enough to fill the room. Standing at Anna's side with arms crossed, Aubrey shrugs, looking inappropriately amused.
“Even I knew that.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Anna gripes, shifting her grip on the phone. “It is none of your business who I sleep with, or what I leave where. It’s not like I can’t afford to buy a new one!”
“That isn’t the point,” Brittany snaps. Lost somewhere down the phone line, Olivia snorts again.
“Not the point at all.”
“Apparently, you’ve missed the point,” Aubrey chimes in, unhelpfully. Anna resists the very strong temptation to hurl the phone at a wall.
“Enlighten me,” she says testily instead, her grip tight enough to whiten her knuckles. “What is the point?”
“The point,” Olivia says in that same all-knowing tone she is growing to hate so much, “is you have, once again, chosen to leave your holiest of holies at the residence of a completely random dude. And that, Kendrick, is unacceptable.”
She scowls, pressing her free hand to her forehead in a sore effort to ward off the pounding headache that is working its way through her skull. “I didn’t leave my vagina over there.”
“No,” Olivia agrees darkly. “Worse.”
“Worse than leaving my vagina behind?” Anna is skeptical. And a little horrified. And desperately interested in removing all parties from her personal life in this moment so she can pop an aspirin and head off to count all of the ‘holiest of holies’ she still has tucked away in her dresser drawer.
“I think they call them unmentionables,” Aubrey is pointing out, her face frighteningly close as she speaks into the receiver. “Not holy anythings.”
“Call them whatever you want,” Olivia replies impatiently. “We’ve got to get it back.”
“Back?” Blanching, Anna darts a furtive, uneasy look in Brittany’s direction. “No. No. We definitely do not need to do…that.”
“Oh, yes, we do,” Olivia confirms. “I’m coming over. I’m coming over, and I am bringing the cavalry-“
“We have a cavalry?” Anna asks weakly.
“-and Anna Kendrick, we are getting your fucking holy unmentionables back where they belong.”
New friends, she decides when Olivia leaves her hanging with an ominous click and nothing but dead air. New friends are totally a necessity. Because I just might kill all of mine before this evening is over.
Especially if Aubrey keeps grinning like that.
***
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Kristen is inspecting her fingernails, one eyebrow infinitesimally arched to show she is not completely tuning them out. Her hair is a messy shag across her shoulders, her outfit a mismatched combo of plaid shirt and shredded jeans. She looks as though Olivia had stripped her clean away from a 90s-grunge throwback concert, and, consequently, seems to have absolutely zero interest in rescuing Anna’s clothing from Josh-or-Jim’s apartment across town.
Likewise, Jennifer has her arms crossed, her mouth a twitching line that hints at a barely-hidden grin. She’s been here for all of twelve minutes, and already Anna is regretting introducing her to Aubrey, as both of them keep giving her this slightly manic bug-eyed expression of amusement that sets her teeth on edge.
Olivia, for her part, has been striding forcefully from one corner of her living room to the other, gesticulating so wildly, she nearly swipes a lamp, glass, and stack of DVDs to the floor in rapid succession. Olivia is probably the worst part of all of this, aside from the grim way Brittany is surveying her, like everything-career, family relationships, hope of a life outside of surreptitious three-a.m. Taco Bell trips and hoarded pets- has gone to ruin in the blink of a post-one-night-stand decision.
“You didn’t bring either of the Emmas,” Anna points out dryly, leaning against the back of her couch and trying to look as though this whole situation is funny, rather than aggressively annoying. “Or Camp. Or Rebel.”
“Short notice,” Olivia replies, tone clipped. Her eyes are screwed shut now, her fingers snapping repeatedly. “Okay, so-we need a van, a flashlight, a gun-“
“A what?”
“Kidding!” Olivia finishes, so quickly, Anna can’t in good conscience believe her. “But the van and the flashlight are non-negotiable.”
Aubrey holds up an iPhone, flashlight app up and running. “Will this do?”
Snapping her fingers again, Olivia flashes her a delighted smile. Anna pats her pocket reflexively.
“Is that my phone?”
She finds Aubrey’s innocent whistle considerably less than reassuring.
“So,” Olivia goes on, back to ignoring them. Evidently, she has crowned herself Queen Captain Pope of this ill-advised little party, and Anna suspects pointing out-rather reasonably-how all of this is very much none of her business will make no difference whatsoever. Heaving a melodramatic sigh, she settles for burning a glare through the flutter of Olivia’s distractingly-shiny hair and wishing for some Attractive Actress Friend Repellent with which to coat her entire property.
“So, we’re going to have to play this carefully,” Olivia is saying when she hauls herself bodily out of a daydream that involves cops being called and waving from the doorstep until her friends are safely incarcerated, leaving her free to curl up with a Snuggie and an Ingmar Bergman flick. “First things first. We need a getaway driver.”
“I’ll do it,” Kristen offers in a careless monotone, pushing her fingers through her hair and wincing when she hits a snag. Jennifer slides her a sideways frown.
“How come you get to drive?”
“Because you would send us careening off a bridge,” Kristen replies smartly, a crooked grin spreading across her lips. Jennifer scowls at her for a moment, then shrugs.
“Fair.”
“Okay, driver.” Olivia jabs a finger in Kristen’s nonplussed direction. “Good. Now, we need a distraction.”
Anna resists the powerful impulse to groan again. “Couldn’t I just, I don’t know, walk up to the apartment and ask him for-“
“No!” Olivia, Brittany, and Jennifer are three beautiful women you never want yelling in your direction. She bows her head, cowing to their determination with both hands raised for peace.
“Fine, Jesus.”
“So, distraction. I was thinking Brittany could cover that base.” Olivia points. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep Josh-“
“Or Jim,” Anna mutters.
“Or Jim detained outside of his apartment for a protracted period of time while the retrieval squad does its duty. Are you up for it, soldier?”
That Brittany doesn’t snap off a brisk salute is, in Anna’s mind, a stark miracle. She does clap her hands together, aggressive delight burning in her too-blue eyes. Anna just hopes “detain” isn’t a Sisterhood synonym for “truss up and gag in a broom closet.”
“Driver, detainment specialist,” Olivia is ticking off on her fingers, looking thoughtful. “What else…”
“Are we going for alliteration as a necessity, or a super-special bonus?” Anna drawls. She is, predictably, completely ignored.
“Demolitions expert, right here,” Aubrey chimes in, both index fingers pointing down at the top of her own head. When Anna pales and opens her mouth to argue, Brittany calmly steps in.
“I’m not sure demolitions are essential to this particular meeting, Plaza. Maybe next time.”
“What’s next time going to be, assassinating a senator?” Her voice is growing surprisingly shrill. With extreme effort, she reins herself in. Aubrey sticks out her tongue, grinning.
“Careful, Kendrick, you’re going to find your way onto America’s Most Wanted.”
“Right,” Olivia says loudly, apparently not pleased that attention has shifted once more from her Extraordinary Plan-Making. “Here’s the breakdown. Kristen, you’re behind the wheel. Brittany, you get Josh-“
“I really think it might have been Jim,” Anna mumbles.
“-Jim out of the apartment, and keep him out. Aubrey, you’re on official flashlight duty.”
Aubrey helpfully holds up the iPhone again. Anna narrows her eyes.
“And that is my phone.”
“Everyone else, you’re with me,” Olivia announces, and without another word, storms off toward the door. Jennifer catches hold of Kristen’s wrist, yanking her along. Anna heaves a sigh.
“I am never telling you idiots anything again.”
***
“Why do we even need a flashlight?” she hisses. “He’s left all the lights on, look-“
“Shhhh!” Olivia’s glare could cow Stalin. Obedient, though frustrated, Anna clamps a hand over her own mouth and rolls her eyes.
They’re crowded on Josh-or-Jim’s fire escape, which, so far, might be her least favorite part of this insane scheme. Josh-or-Jim happens to live on the fifth floor, so how they even managed to get up here without killing themselves is a mystery to her. Worse, Jennifer keeps humming and doing this strange hopping dance, which Aubrey is punctuating with sporadic flashes of the iPhone’s app, and Anna is starting to get the queasy sensation that this whole rickety platform might at any moment collapse entirely.
She’s never been so jealous of Kristen in her life, who-at last glance-was holed up in the driver’s seat of the van they borrowed from Olivia’s batty uncle. Anna would give anything to be down there right now, jamming out to the radio and swapping eyeliner tips.
But nooooo. She’s here instead, swathed in all black (Olivia had insisted they stop off for fresh burglaring outfits at her place, which was both irritating and semi-insulting; did she honestly believe Anna owned nothing of the burglar variety?), peering through the living room window of some dude she hung out with one time.
Her life has officially morphed into a 90s sitcom, complete with cringe-worthy second-hand embarrassment moments.
Brittany has done a marvelous job of getting Josh-but-probably-Jim out of the place-some convoluted, yet heartwarmingly believable tale about lost puppies or something; sometimes, hanging out with a shit-ton of famed actresses has its benefits-and yet, here they stand. On the fire escape. With Jen humming.
“Will you shut up?” she hisses, because, hey, this chick might have won an Oscar (gimme a break, I was close), but she seems to have flunked out of Stealth 101. And while it isn’t like Anna is on board with this wacky train to the nearest holding cell (breaking and entering is still a felony, right?), if she doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter, she would really like to do this right.
Olivia has her nose pressed to the window, eyes darting this way and that from under her knit ski cap. It makes her look equal parts ridiculous and gorgeous. Anna sort of hates her for that.
“All right,” she stage-whispers, which isn’t quite whispery enough for this whole madhouse thing, “on my mark. One-two-“
On what would be three, she hoists the window up (thank god Jim-but-maybe-it-was-Josh? doesn’t lock his shit at night) and dive-rolls through it. There’s a low, pained-sounding thwack, followed by a curse that could wake the damn dead. Anna’s teeth clamp down on her lip, eyes rolling heavenward.
“Fuuuck this.”
“After you, Kendrick,” Aubrey says cheerfully, and butts her through the window with all the grace of a twice-amputated giraffe. Grunting, she hits the carpet and rolls, slightly more elegant than Olivia had been. At least she avoids smacking her head on a coffee table.
The others pile in after her, considerably more cautious (Jen has stopped humming at last, and is now wearing her Academy Award Winning Actress face-the one that gave the protagonist of Winter’s Bone such depth, and the leading lady of Silver Linings Playbook such uncomfortable lunacy). Aubrey sweeps the stolen iPhone this way and that, eyes fixed, not on the floor, but on ludicrously absurd locations, such as the TV stand, the lamp in the corner, and the ceiling fan.
“What, do you think I sling-shot my undergarments in the throes of fumbling passion?” Anna demands, slightly put-out. Aubrey flashes her a grin rather than answering.
“Come on, we don’t have all day,” Olivia snaps, crawling on her hands and knees to peer beneath the couch. “Top secret Sisterhood missions are speedy!”
Apparently, she gets grumpy in the wake of a minor head injury.
“Idiots,” Anna huffs, jamming her hands in her pockets and steadfastly ignoring the ninja-cool way Jennifer and Aubrey are now slinking around the room, plastering themselves against walls whenever the neighbors on the sixth floor take a creaking step. “We didn’t do it out-oh, fuck, never mind.”
The toes of her sneakers have just broached the hallway when Jim-or-Josh-who-gives-a-fuck’s voice utters from the hall outside. Bug-eyed, she freezes, glancing back. Olivia is making mad go on gestures with both hands, her belly flat against the floor. She bolts.
The bedroom seems much less comforting and much more the scene of my impending arrest tonight, as she darts behind the half-open door and sucks in a breath. She can hear Brittany, speaking far too loudly-apparently, her lost dog cover story includes a slight deafness?-and Jim-or-Josh-or-you-know-what-it-could-have-been-Jeff replying in the awkward tones of a dude who has been hauled from his apartment by a vaguely-familiar, rather pretty, completely insane girl. Their voices seem to be growing closer by the second, which means Snow is so not doing her job, and Olivia is probably army-crawling around the living room, and if Jennifer starts channeling an action star in the next five minutes, they’re all screwed.
For Christ’s sake, she thinks irritably, peering around the room. If they’re about to meet the cops-or even just her one-night-stand’s blank confusion-she might as well get this done before it all falls apart. Have to keep up that fucking Code of whatever the fuck it is. Now. Assuming he isn’t a serial killer who has a stash of stolen women’s underwear somewhere…
Nope-there it is, peeking out from a pile of t-shirts and awful-looking murder mysteries. He had kicked everything away from the bed, she remembers now, the night a bleary mess of vodka and something not quite akin to actual awesomeness.
Stride of pride, she reminds herself, smirking. She catches up the bra-all this for a fucking bra. Like I don’t have plenty. Like it isn’t wire and material and fucking hell, Wilde, you’re killing me-and bunches it into a ball, jamming the whole thing into her hoodie pocket. The fact that it doesn’t exactly stow well is the least of her issues at the moment, because Brittany’s voice now sounds like it’s issuing from the front door, and she can still hear the clattering of her other assorted idiot friends as they struggle around the living room.
We’re fucked, she has time to think, peering around the bedroom door. From here, she has a lovely view of the front hall and the door, which gapes open. Brittany makes uneasy eye contact over whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was-he-wasn’t-very-good-anyway’s shoulder, her face going pale and anxious. He twitches around to follow her eye-line, clearly concerned, and Anna jerks out of sight again.
So much for being friends with actresses.
A few seconds sneak by. She darts another look. There is a window in here, but it’s pretty small, and there’s a five-story drop beneath it. She’s not quite up to Spider-man-ing it out of here, which means she's going to have to make a break for the living room again-soon.
His back is turned again, his attention primarily fixed on the hand Brittany has grasped his forearm with. It’s not much, as distractions go, but it just might give her enough time to slip-
She’d feel bad about treading on a cat’s tail either way, but the fact that this cat yowls fiercely and turns boldly wounded eyes on her just takes the cake. Of course he would have a fucking cat. Of course.
“I hate you,” she mutters to the disgruntled feline, eyes glued to the doorway. She’s kind of torn now, because if he turns now, she will find herself in the most decidedly awkward position since ninth grade gym class. But, if he doesn’t turn around now, he’s certainly the most horrible person she’s ever spent time with, because it would mean he cares all of jack about his pet, and-
He’s turning. Fuck. Maybe if she tries really hard, she can pull off the performance of a lifetime and become one with this hideous floral wallpaper.
“Excuse me, do you have a light?”
Her head snaps up, mouth falling open. There in the apartment entryway stands Kristen, a cigarette dangling from her lips, all leather jacket and shredded jeans and careless attitude. If Brittany looks dumbfounded to see her out of the van-wasn’t the plan, Stan, Wilde is gonna flay her-it’s nothing compared to the strangled sound Josh-Jim-Jeff makes.
Well, fuck me, Freddie. Boy’s got himself a Twilight twofer.
“Kris-ten!” Brittany shrills, too high and too loud to be remotely believable. “What are you doing here?”
“Kris-“ she hears Olivia hiss as she streaks back to the living room, shoulders hunched, feet stumbling. She makes a brutal throat-slitting gesture at her friends for silence, then jerks her thumb at the window. The universal sign for okay, I got the bra, get your talented asses back out that window before Stewart’s charm wears out.
They take the hint. Jen is back on the fire escape and clattering her way down before Anna can blink, Olivia tripping along behind her. Aubrey moves just as fast, but she keeps waving that fucking iPhone around as she goes, and all of a sudden, Anna has learned how difficult it truly is to clamber gracefully out of a window with a strobe light in your eyes.
Her knee thwaps hard against the coffee table that claimed a few of Olivia’s brain cells on the way in, and she hisses out a curse. Three heads swivel her way before she can even begin to fall into the frame of mind of the Invisible Woman, and she groans.
“Anna?” Jim-Josh-Jeff asks, clearly having trouble comprehending the idea that there are now three well-known actresses standing around his apartment this evening. “What-?”
“Hi, uh-“ Don’t know the name, not gonna try. “Hi. This probably looks…funny.” She pastes on her dopiest grin, a cheerleader on speed. “Really funny. Hah. Ha.”
“Did you come in through the window?” Ah, great. Now he’s perceptive. Couldn’t find a damn thing in the dark, but with all the lamps burning-
“Window. Is a strong…word.” She winces. He tips his head, baffled.
“I texted you. You, um. Didn’t really answer. At all. And now you’re in my…living room.”
“Small world!” Brittany chirps, clapping a hand around Kristen’s arm. “All of us, coming to look for things at the same apartment. How kooky!”
Anna fixes her with a glare, mouthing back, Kooky? She shrugs awkwardly.
Kristen seems to have overlooked the gravity of this situation. She mostly just looks bored, puffing at her cigarette. “Can we go? I’ve got a thing.”
“I don’t understand,” Josh-Jim-Jeff protests. “If you wanted to see me, you could have called. Or knocked. I mean, I know we had an amazing night together, but-“
O-kay, cowboy, that’s quite enough of that. “No offense, uh...dude,” Anna tells him as kindly as she can, taking a limping step toward the front door. “But I didn’t come here looking for you, exactly.”
His face takes a drastic turn for the disappointed, his befuddlement going exactly nowhere. “Oh. Then why-“
She digs around in her pocket, withdrawing the jumble of cups and straps and dangling it from one hand. Brittany makes a soft ooh sound.
“It was a nice one.”
“I told you it was worth it!” Olivia has poked her head back through the window, a triumphant smile on her lips. Anna swivels to face her, aghast.
“Seriously?”
Jim-Jeff-Josh looks like his head might well pop off and detonate. “Okay, I am really lost.”
Christ. All right, time for the headshot. “We had fun,” she says firmly, patting him on the shoulder with her free hand. “You’re a lovely guy. But sometimes, once is enough, y’know? Like with White Castle.”
He blinks. Behind him, Kristen makes a wrap-it-up twirling motion with her smoldering cigarette.
“Let’s go, kids. Van’s leavin’.”
“Bye,” Anna finishes, smiling as genially as she’s able while at the same time wishing for a time turner to rewind this whole mess. Grasping Brittany’s elbow firmly in one hand, her bra in the other, she makes the grandest exit possible, managing to avoid tripping over the cat this time.
She waits until they’re outside, where Jennifer and Aubrey are bouncing on the balls of their feet and play-boxing in exhilaration, to snap, “Okay, we are never doing that again.”
Olivia folds her arms over her chest. “The Sisterhood does what it must,” is all she says, in a haughty voice that makes Anna want to smack her in the face with the bra.
“You’re a crazy person, do you know that? Actual loony-bin-level.”
Brittany beams, arm around her shoulders. “But look! You got your bra back.”
Anna casts a long glance at the undergarment in question. “So I did.”
“And we didn’t even have to shoot anyone!” Jennifer adds brightly. Aubrey nods her agreement. Anna sucks in a breath.
“That’s it. Emergency Taco Bell run. On one of you nerds, now.”
She wonders if the Sisterhood has any nice exit packages available.