Welcome to
The Summer Chronicles of Bella Swan: the Shopaholic Who Must Be Tamed,
or The Summer Chronicles of Bella Swan for short. All notes/explanations/pleas are at the bottom!
Rated M for language.
Summary:
Alice stages an intervention for Bella Swan, a copyeditor and shopaholic, in the form of a bet. Bella must wear clothes she already owns for 39 days and on top of that, she also has to make sure a certain sexy author gets his book out in time…
AU/AH
Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I just tweaked them around a little.
TXTXTXT
Chapter One: A Girl, A Roommate, and Three Full Closets
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
BPOV
Dropping the shopping bags on my hardwood floor, I waltz into my room and make a beeline for my closet, which has its doors wide open, greeting me like an old friend. Lately, my closet has been a bit on the full side, and I've been dreading having to do a transfer. Alice would not be happy.
After shoving hangers around on the metal bar holding all my tops and dresses, I huff and cross my arms across my chest. It's official. I have to do the transfer. There is no space left in my closet for my new purchases.
It's been a long day at work, helping authors tidy up their writing and bitching at them when they don't listen to me. But Aro's impressed with the work I do, so that's all that counts. Well, that and the paycheck I get every now and then.
Thankfully, I bought a cupcake for Alice after shopping today, just in case I had to do this. Our apartment is close to a myriad of locations in Burbank, California, including a pretty decent bakery. Alice is a sucker for icing; her sweet tooth should just be a stump in her mouth due to all the sugar she consumes, and her metabolism has yet to let up. Lucky bitch.
I shove the bags containing my purchases into the closet and tuck my sunglasses into my purse, setting it on my bed.
"Ali-cakes!" I shout into the apartment while making my way into our living room.
"Belly-cakes!" she yells back sarcastically. I giggle to myself.
My best friend and roommate, Alice Brandon, is seated on our leather couch and working on her laptop. Well, more like searching Youtube videos and Facebook stalking. Her work consists of beautifying (or de-beautifying, depending on the movie) actors on movie sets, doing their hair or makeup or whatever. I'm constantly trying to convince her to be a costume designer so she could bring me back free clothes, but she always just laughs at me.
When I sit down next to her on the couch, holding out the cupcake I'd bought for her, she has a knowing look in her eyes. She grabs the cupcake and sets her laptop on the coffee table before talking.
"No, no, no! Isabella Marie Swan, I am not making more space for your shit!" she yells at me. She knows me too well.
"Just one more time? I swear, next time I'll buy storage space! Please, Alice?" I pout at her, pushing my bottom lip out and squeezing my eyebrows together. Hm, my lip gloss tastes really good today. I try to remember where I'd bought it but come up blank.
"No. Absolutely not. You buy the shit, you buy the space for it. I am not moving my stuff to make room for yours! You've already done this to me three times!" she rants, waving her hands around wildly. "The closet that's supposed to hold random crap like old furniture and board games just has all the clothes you only wore once!"
She's right; I don't really care about a shirt or dress after I wear it once. But it's not like I'm Isla Fisher's character from "Confessions of a Shopaholic." I don't max-out my credit cards or anything. I'm blissfully debt-free and my job is good enough to sustain my addiction.
Yeah, I know I have an addiction. I took the first step, right? I admit to having a problem. But none of those 12 steps bullshit or whatever – I have better things to do with my time. Or are there ten steps? Five steps? Now it's just starting to sound like a Sesame Street song. But I'd hope that children shouldn't learn how to deal with addictions, no matter how many steps are required.
Alice huffs next to me and takes big bites out of the cupcake I gave her to butter her up.
"Good?" I ask her.
"Delicious," she retorts with a sour face. "What would make it taste better is you not asking me for more space for your crap," she adds. I pout at her again until she sighs. I can tell she's about to let me have my way, but suddenly, her lips turn up into a wide smile. It actually scares me a little.
"Ali?" I ask her tentatively. The smile on her face reminds me of the time I took her to Disneyland and introduced her to the "Fastpass" ticket that let us go into a faster line for a certain ride. She made me stay until the park closed so she could redeem her Space Mountain Fastpass ticket at midnight.
"Bella, what do you think of a little bet?" she asks me with a devious glint in her eyes that I don't trust.
"What do you have in mind? You know I'm not going to the Santa Anita race track with you again, right?" I ask hesitantly. Apparently I'm a horrible gambler. But of course Alice won a shitload of money from placing bets.
Alice chuckled. "Nope. This is so much better than that," she replied mysteriously. "I bet you can't wear every shirt or dress that's currently in your closet for a second time, while not buying any new clothes." I gaped at her. She had to be kidding. She ingested too much lip gloss. Makeup particles floated into her nostrils and got her high. Is that even possible? It had a higher possibility of happening then me wearing a shirt for the second time.
I'm about to tell her this, but her face is so serious that I doubt she's high or gone loony. So I laugh at her.
"Alice, that's the most preposterous idea I've ever heard. Well, other than the time when you told Jasper to do a cameo in his own movie like Alfred Hitchcock. That was pretty funny," I reminisce. Alice glares at me before she smiles again.
Jasper is a level-headed movie director who also happens to be my best friend's boyfriend. Typical entertainment industry couple.
"Okay, if you say so," she says in a singsong voice. I narrow my eyes at her. "But I was going to say you can have an unlimited amount of space for your clothes if you win the bet. I'll even throw in a hot outfit," she goads. Her offer makes me think about the bet. The prize doesn't sound too bad. But that doesn't mean I can actually wear all those clothes.
"What happens if you win?" I ask. Her eyes roll toward the ceiling as she thinks.
"Then you have to confine all your clothes to your closet for as long as we live here," she states victoriously. I can't believe I'm even considering this.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice is telling me that this will be good for me. What a pain in the ass that voice is. I groan, because I know I'm going to accept the bet. There's no way I can win this. Maybe I can replace all the clothes in my closet with new, unworn ones…
Alice senses a victory and squeals. "Yay! So here are the rules…" I flop back on the couch as she opens a word document on her computer.
Rule number one: No shopping during the "recycling period," as Alice has dubbed it, which is also known as "the dry season," which I think is more fitting.
Rule number two: Alice is going to number each shirt or dress that is on a hanger in my closet (we've established that there are currently thirty-nine; the pants and skirts are in drawers underneath along with shoes), and I have to wear the number that corresponds to the number of days since I've started "recycling." On the fortieth day, I will wear the new outfit that Alice buys me.
Rule number three: Under no circumstances am I allowed to wear a shirt that doesn't have the number of the day I'm supposed to wear it.
Rule number four: I have to wear the shirt or dress all day, which means the moment I leave the apartment for work until the time I change into my PJ's.
Once Alice prints out two copies of the rules for each of us, she excitedly runs off to my bedroom to number each hanger and take pictures to make sure I don't switch the numbers.
Resigned to this torture, I stay on the couch with the TV on and admire the new dresses that I bought today that I won't have a chance to wear until after the dry season. I pet my brown leather belt adoringly and loop it through the new white shorts and hold back a sob as I realize that I can't shop for forty days.
Don't underestimate the relationship between a girl and her clothes… and her credit card. It's a bond that can't be replaced… well, at least until the next few purchases come home.
As soon as I catch sight of the first shirt I have to wear tomorrow, my suspicions are confirmed. This will be the longest summer ever.
TXTXTXT
Here come the story disclaimers!
I do not know anything about the publishing industry. I'm making it all up as I go.
I plan for this story to be pure fluff.
You may be thinking, "That's not possible!" during parts of this story. Again, I will be making up things, and sometimes they wouldn't happen in the "real world." Fluff and fantasy, people! Fluff and fantasy.
I am writing this story despite the fact that I will be pretty busy taking courses this summer. However, my goal is to do an update a day (each chapter is a new day) and if I miss an update, don't kill me. Right now, I think my plan is to only update on weekdays (which means the story will only take place on weekdays). I think. I'm making a list of pros and cons right now!
I will do my best to update when I can. And due to the fact that the chapters will be short and hopefully daily, I won't have the chapters beta'd. All grammatical/spelling errors are on me! Yikes!
If you read my other story, "The Ways of the Rich and Privileged," I must apologize because after being freed from all my obligations, I had extreme writer's block. Then this story popped up (along with my summer schedule), so I have no idea when I can get back to that story. Sorry!
Thank you for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow! Leave a review if you feel so inclined, please!
xoxo
EFB