"Hi, I'm Brittany."
Anna was cursed. She was sure of it. Not once, not fucking once had she ever left town without something going awry. Whether it be a screaming anti-christ of a child, or having continuous diarrhea on an eight hour flight, she was cursed. Sometimes she liked to sit and imagine a pimply, greasy hag of a witch, thrusting her Anna voodoo doll all over the place, screaming in its face and turning around the airplane voodoo doll due to weather. Because that was the only explanation. Voodoo. Witch-craft. There was no way that this was all a coincidence. No way. Someone was screwing her over. That or she attracted bad luck like light attracts bugs.
On this particular flight, it started before she even boarded the plane. Anna slept through her alarm, and arrived at her gate exactly three minutes before they started boarding. It seemed like a miracle, arriving just in time to get on her flight. But Anna knew better. Somehow, the God of travel had heard about her plan to buy snacks from the gift shop instead of eating, and made her late. Made her late so she would have to wait until they served food. Fucking hell.
As she dashed through the tunnel leading to the plane, she raised her middle finger up. She knew for a fact that her mother would disapprove, probably even suggest a confession session, but she didn't care. She knew that if God existed, she'd probably be punished later for it. Maybe struck by lightning? Fingers crossed.
Anna walked onto to the plane, unable to locate an open seat. It was free seating, which seemed like it could only result in positives, right? Wrong. She should have known. Nothing ever turned out for her, ever. She was a cursed traveler.
When her eyes landed on the only available seat, she understood why it was available. Well, kind of available.
It was a middle seat. Of course it was. All the victims in airplane horror movies have the middle seat.
In the aisle seat, she saw a very, to put it politely, morbidly obese man, half of his supersize hanging over into her soon to be (whoopie!) seat.
In the window seat, she saw a thin, boney blonde woman, her hair bound into a bun almost as tightly to her head as her skin to her body. She looked all business. Business and neglecting her children.
"Excuse me." Anna said, the side of her thigh pushing into Mr. Gordo's belly fat. "Sorry!" she exclaimed, a girlish giggle escaping from her lips. When she'd passed the fat man, she basically threw herself into her seat, letting out a huff of air. Unfortunately, the relief was short lived. She felt her hips pressing into Mr. Gordo's oozing fat. At first glance, the prospect of having someone else's belly fat in her seat had seemed uncomfortable only for spacial issues. But now, feeling his warm blubber getting personal with her hip bone, she realized it wasn't just a lack of space that made this uncomfortable.
She pulled her carry on up into her lap, and pulled out a piece of gum. Her ears were sensitive to changes in pressure, and she needed gum to help pop them. Not that gum helped much. She was a cursed traveler, remember.
Unwrapping her gum, she turned her gaze to look out the window. She wanted to take off. The sooner they took off, the sooner she would be landing in Louisiana.
"Hi, I'm Anna." she turned to the frosty blonde to her right. She was engrossed in some stupid Nora Jones book, but Anna figured it'd only be polite to introduce herself.
"Catherine." she replied shortly, her voice thick and condescending.
"Hi Catherine. What are you, uh . . . what's the word . . ." Anna's stomach groaned, loud and clear. Her cheeks burned. Catherine raised an eyebrow.
"Reading?"
"Yeah. That."
The woman rolled her eyes. "Read the cover. Are you retarded?"
Anna was a little taken a back by her response. "I . . . no? I'm not?"
"Was that a question or a statement?"
"Uh-"
"Please, I'm trying to read." The woman turned her body so that she was facing the window, back turned to Anna.
Bitch.
About thirty minutes into the flight, the flight attendant came around with the food cart.
"Would you like anything, sir?" the flight attendant asked flatly.
"Sir?" Anna laughed. She knew she looked twelve, but sir?
"I'm sorry, miss, I wasn't talking to you." she smiled sweetly, her lipstick only showcasing her cracked mouth.
"No thank you." Mr. Gordo replied. Probably for the best. Anna thought.
"And for you, miss?" the flight attendant turned her attention to Anna.
"Yeah. Can I get . . . a cheeseburger?" she had no idea what they served on flights, so cheeseburger seemed like a pretty safe option.
The woman plunged her hand into her cart of wonders, pulling out a hamburger-colored rock wrapped in paper, and handed it to Anna.
She had the temptation to smack it on her tray, to see if it was as hard as it looked.
"And for you?" the flight attendant turned to Panties-Up-Her-Butt.
"No." she replied coldly, not even looking up from her book.
"No . . .?"
"Nothing for me, thank you."
The next 45 minutes consisted of Anna blowing on her half-thawed cheeseburger, occasionally whacking her stomach to get it to stop complaining.
When Anna felt the urge to pee, she knew she was doomed. Mr. Gordo had taken it upon himself to fall asleep, heavily at that. She'd shaken him a few times, but he wouldn't move.
Anna cursed under breath. With her luck, he was probably dead.
Another hour into the flight, Anna was quite positive she would pee her pants, and her cheeseburger had thawed into a soggy mess. They'd announced that they were "beginning departure" about ten minutes ago, so there was only about another fifteen minutes of the flight.
She stared up where she had a hunch God was laughing at her.
"I'm sorry, okay?!" she muttered, digging her finger nails into her moist cheeseburger.
When the flight finally landed, Mr. Gorgo was still sleeping.
"Hey." Anna tapped him lightly. She had the urge to check his pulse, even though he was clearly still breathing.
She attempted to wake him again, this time shoving him. He gurgled sleepily, but did not wake.
"Is he dead?" Panties-Up-Her-Butt asked her, clearly agitated.
"I'm not sure."
Sure enough, after another firm shove, he was awake.
"Flight landed." Anna said coolly. Why did he have to wait until the last fucking second to wake up?
Because she was a cursed traveler. Of course.
After she'd exited the plane, she stopped by the bathroom. She wasn't sure how there was anything in her bladder, considering she hadn't eaten or drank anything in decades.
When she pulled down her pants, she could've sworn the top of her head flew off.
"Oh. My fucking. God." she hissed, looking down at her blood-stained underwear. She lifted them up to find that the blood had soaked into her shorts. Anna couldn't help but laugh.
She kept her head completely down until she reached her taxi. Didn't need any paparazzi photos of this little shenanigan.
When she was safely in her airport taxi, she let her head rest against the window, secretly hoping they'd crash.
Anna was tired, exhausted even, when she finally got to the set of her training for Pitch Perfect. Which is why, over all the commotion, it was music to her ears when she first heard the words "Hi, I'm Brittany."
She had such a pretty voice. It was soothing, gentle, feminine. It was the kind of voice you'd want whispering in your ear, assurances that everything will be okay. Brittany Snow was a caring person. Anna knew that much about the girl before turning around to actually look at her.
When she finally did look at the girl, she had to stop herself from laughing. Her blonde hair was braided to the side, tied with a flower hair band. She had on a top from Urban Outfitters, the same top Anna and her brother had been making fun of just weeks earlier. She had on a pair of jean shorts, spotted with intentional bleach stains. Anna had always hated jeans with bleach spots. Since when was it fashionable to be trashy? The girl finished her outfit with a pair of sandals. A pair of sandals, Anna guessed, that cost more than all of the clothes in her suitcase. She was surprised the blonde wasn't wearing a cross.
All in all, Brittany Snow was cliché as hell.
Never-the-less, she smiled. A forced, awkward smile, yes. But a smile all the same. "Anna."
She wasn't sure if Brittany was the type of star that would go for a hand shake, so she kept her hands down by her side. Luckily, the blonde did the same.
"I'm really excited to be doing this project." she gushed. " I think the script it genius, don't you?
If Brittany was a Catchphrase category, "Blonde as hell" would be a pretty accurate description of the word.
"Yeah." she laughed uncomfortably. "Kay Cannon is a genius. She rights for 30 Rock."
The blonde titled her head to the side. "30 Rock?"
Anna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Never mind."
For a minute, neither of them said anything.
Anna cleared her throat. "Hey dude, do you have a tampon I could use? I didn't have money for one at the airport, so I used toilet paper. But that's getting pretty mushy if you know what I mean." Anna silently cursed as the words left her mouth. She didn't know why she cared that she'd said something so grotesque, she did it all the time. It wasn't as if the blonde deserved anything more than she gave other people.
Brittany grimaced, digging into her purse. She pulled out a tampon.
"Uh, here you go."
"Thanks." she grabbed the wrapped good and walked off towards the bathroom.
As she closed the bathroom door behind her, she sighed. She doubted her and Brittany would be friends. Anyone who didn't know what 30 Rock was, wasn't for her.