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Kimber gets exactly three stories into building her personal, perfect, Starlight Mansion of her dreams before the feminine urge to cause problems on purpose takes hold and she starts clicking the button that removes the ladder from the swimming pool and puts wooden chairs in front of every fireplace.
Naturally, Jerrica picks the exact moment the first Sim sets alight to walk into her room.
“I know this looks bad,” Kimber peers over her shoulder, pulling the hood up on her zebra print snuggie. “But this is a huge turning point for the story of the Benson-Montagues.”
Jerrica stares for a moment, watching the flames spread around the mansion on Kimber’s computer monitor and more and more of the little virtual people catch fire.
“...I wasn’t weirded out until you told me there was world-building attached.” Jerrica says, finally. “Kimber. Band meeting.”
“Aja’s in Amsterdam with Craig.”
“Yes.”
“Shana’s in Milan.”
“Yep.”
“You said you were going to clean the house from top to bottom while they were gone.”
“I finished.”
“And you had that huge pile of paperwork to do to get our masters back from the label.”
“I did that in a morning.”
“And you wanted to book all those venues for our tour next year.”
“It’s all set. Hotels and travel, too.”
“So you’re gonna call a band meeting.”
“I’m calling a band meeting.”
Kimber flops along the length of the couch as Jerrica drops a stack of papers on the coffee table.
“So, I didn’t want to spend the whole week doing nothing, so I thought that you and I could lay some of the groundwork for our next alb—”
Kimber jolts upright, suddenly remembering something.
“Kimber, what’s wrong?”
“I told you about the New York trip, right?”
“The Misfits are breaking up!”
Stormer puts a hand on both of Pizzazz’s shoulders and quickly ushers her away from the other Misfits.
“That’s… a little excessive, Pizzazz.” Stormer says, as conciliatory as she can possibly be when Pizzazz is in one of her intensely unreasonable moods.
“Oh come on, Storm. You’re all going on vacation at the same time and I’m supposed to believe you didn’t all plan this to be a whole thing?!” She pauses, holding the costumes for the next video aloft. “You could’ve just told me you didn’t like the whole shark attack theme.”
“I love the shark attack theme, Pizzazz. It’s just that I’m in New York the next three days. For a book signing.” Stormer says. “Look, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Mad bougie though, innit?” Jetta shrugs. “You taking Kimber with you?”
“It… may have been her idea.” Stormer purses her lips.
“The Holograms are breaking up my band!” Pizzazz thrashes, and Stormer has to hold her back from taking her anger out on the couch.
“And we would be here,” Roxy shrugs, too, puffing her curly bangs out of her eyes. “It’s just Jetta’s first pro fight got moved to Ohio 'cause she's banned from fighting in this state after beat up that guy from the Athletic Commission.”
“And wasteman had it coming for disrespecting Blaze when he thought I wasn’t listening.” Jetta scowls, folding her arms. “Promise you, P. I’d rather be here than Cinci.”
“Okay, okay. No band for a week.” Pizzazz taps her chin, thinking of how to stay productive. “I guess Eric and I can spend the weekend going through the band’s financials, or—”
“I’m on a yachting trip with my husband.” Eric offers, unhelpfully, staring up from a mass of paperwork untangling the legal and PR nightmare of ‘The Misfits steal experimental laser technology and repurpose it as a lighting rig’. “I have four days of Paid Time Off written into my contract, Pizzazz, you can’t expect me not to use them.”
“Clash?!” Pizzazz screams.
Clash shrinks as a wild-eyed Pizzazz bears down on her.
“Tell me you’re here after tomorrow.”
“Me-and-Blaze-are-leaving-for-Australia-that-day-but-I-can-call-the-airline-to-cancel-if-its-important.”
“Good, I need—”
“Absolutely not!” Stormer shouts, pulling Pizzazz away from Clash. “Clash, get out of here!”
Clash continues to look hurt.
“I mean, get out of here so you can have a wonderful time with your girlfriend.” Stormer turns, realizing how she sounded. “Sorry, high stress environment.”
Clash scurries out of the house. And then scurries back in because she left her bag by the couch. Stormer pauses, looking Pizzazz deep in the eyes.
“I’m back Sunday night. Roxy and Jetta are back on Tuesday. We’re all gonna have our phones on us the entire time. Text me if you need to talk, alright?”
Pizzazz pauses for a moment.
“You’re still traitors.” Pizzazz scowls. “And I want to see all of you in the studio on Wednesday.”
Pizzazz starts frantically pacing before they leave her living room.
Friday starts with Pizzazz going incognito to a coffee place in Santa Monica, because with Clash in another hemisphere she needs to get her own coffee. That’s a lie: Friday starts with Pizzazz logging into her My-Friends-All-Abandoned-Me game of choice and finding out that her entire guild managed to have Finals this week, and “going outside” was the only way to get the specific kind of cat treats Mads likes. She’s getting coffee on the way home, where she plans to have a long and productive day of staring up at the ceiling and feeling sorry for herself.
Naturally, the first person she recognizes: hates her, is dating a reporter, and is the person she least wants to see in the world right now.
They also have a truce, but it’s not totally permanent.
Pizzazz orders coffee, hoping that Jerrica doesn’t notice her. Her phone buzzes. Roxy’s sending the group chat pictures of Jetta training for her big debut fight.
PIZZAZZ: You show that bag who’s boss, Jetta.
STORMER: Plane delayed lol
STORMER: You okay over there, Pizzazz?
Pizzazz stares at the message for an unreasonably long time, opting to send the group chat a selfie of her holding up her cardboard coffee cup, onto which the barista had mislabeled the name ‘PHIL ICE’, and frowning.
Her phone keeps buzzing as she slides it back into her pocket, and she doesn’t need to check it to know that Jetta, Roxy, and Stormer would all be making ice puns for the next hour. She looks up, and Jerrica is staring at her. Pizzazz adjusts her sunglasses. She’s been crying, her eyes are all red and puffy. She doesn’t want Jerrica to know she’s been crying.
“You’re…” Jerrica can tell how puffy her eyes are, Pizzazz realizes, and is trying to be polite about it. She glances down, awkwardly eyeing the bag in Pizzazz’s other hand. “Shopping for cat food.”
“Don’t you have a benefit concert for an orphanage for blind puppies to drive your band to?”
“That’s on Tuesday.” Jerrica replies, so dryly that Pizzazz genuinely can’t tell whether she’s joking.
They stare at each other for a moment. The barista calls for a ‘Jessica,’ and Jerrica gives her a distinct done-with-the-world look as she accepts the caramel latte.
“Do you know there’s a theory on Reddit that your sister got replaced by some princess while you were on tour in Europe and nobody noticed?”
Jerrica blinks. “...I’m not that online.”
“You guys get all the fun rumors.” Pizzazz pours four sachets of sugar into her coffee. “I’m getting out of here before some rat snaps a picture of us and runs a story that you’re trying to re-sign me to 5x5. Tell your boyfriend to print that I threw a Frappucino over you and caused a scene or something.”
“He’s not my—” Jerrica starts. She lowers her voice, in case anyone is listening. “Pizzazz. Are you, like, actually okay?”
“They’re gonna use me as the example in the textbook.” Pizzazz says, and stomps her way out of the coffee shop.
Back at her annoyingly empty and alarmingly quiet mansion, Pizzazz rattles off song lyrics to pass the time as she watches the sun set from her lounger in between the seven minute intervals that Mads wants anything to do with her.
Alone and empty, hallowed halls
Waiting here, I choke and fade away again--
Pizzazz crumples that notepad page up and lets the ocean take it.
Three days, they said. It’ll fly by, they said.
“There’s someone… pink, at the door for you, Miss Gabor.” calls the cleaning lady.
Pizzazz thinks for a moment.
“Is she tall and disgustingly perfect?”
“...Yes, Miss Gabor.”
“Release the hounds.”
“For the last time, Miss Gabor, your father’s dogs are not attack hounds. Secondly, he took them with him when he left for Lake Tahoe.”
“Argh!” Pizzazz screams, getting off the sun lounger and stomping over to the front door. “I gotta do everything myself—”
She pulls the door open. Jem is on her doorstep, and for a second Pizzazz is so bewildered that someone would dress up in full stage costume, with makeup, for a house call that she forgets to be angry with her.
“What do you want?”
“I spoke with Jerrica Benton after she bumped into you earlier.” Jem says, hands on her hips, and her usual uncannily cheerful smile on her face. What a creep. “She mentioned—”
“Tell her to mind her own business.” Pizzazz moves to shut the door, but Jem holds up a hand.
“Pizzazz, wait—” Jem says, and for the briefest moment Pizzazz sees something other than the cold, superficially-perfect embodiment of every single one of her insecurities behind her eyes. Something that almost seems genuine. “Your band is out of town all week. My band is out of town all week. While we’re both cooped up and miserable, I figured we could just… jam?”
Maybe there’s a person under there after all.
“No cameras. No bands. No spectacle, for a change. Just… us. Playing music together.” Jem pauses. “While we still have a truce.”
“I am not miserable—” Pizzazz says, lying unconvincingly.
Pizzazz stares at her for what feels like a solid minute, hamster wheels turning behind her eyes.
“If you try to make me play slow ballads that aren’t about being buried alive or monsters eating people, I’m going to scream so loud it’ll end up on the news.” Pizzazz says. “Lousy band didn’t even realize the whole point was getting the video done in time for Shark Week.”
Jem waits to be invited before entering her house, like the bubblegum pink emotional vampire she is.
