You First (4 page)

Monday morning, when Gigi got on the bus, she was both relieved and nervous to see Finley sitting in their usual seat. She took a deep breath, walked to the back of the bus, and sat down beside her best friend.

“Hey,” Finn said.

“Hey,” Gigi said back.

Silence.

After a few minutes, Finn said quietly, “You must be really mad at me, huh?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you never called me back.”

“Actually, I was planning on returning your call tomorrow,” Gigi said smoothly. “Since, you know, that's how long it took you to call me to begin with.”

Finley sighed. “So you
are
mad.”

Duh,
Gigi wanted to say. But she didn't.

Instead she said, “I was just kidding. It's fine. Everything's fine.”
She punctuated that last sentence with a smile, waiting for Finley to call shenanigans.

Only . . . she didn't. Gigi had just bald-faced lied to her best friend in the entire world, and her best friend didn't even notice. Worse, she looked
relieved
.

“I was hoping you'd say that,” Finn said. “And I'm sorry I didn't call you back right away. Everything just happened so fast.” She proceeded to spend the rest of the bus ride talking about how fabulous the soccer boot camp was and how afterwards, Lauren invited a couple of girls to spend the night. “It was kind of cool, you know? Being the only sixth grader she included.”

As much as Gigi hated to admit it, she could sort of understand why Finn did what she did. If the situation had been reversed—if Gigi had been the one invited to an eighth-grade sleepover—she might have made the same choice.

“So, um, I made a new friend too,” Gigi said. “This girl at class. The one with lunchbox purse? Her name is Miranda.”

“
Weird Girl?
The one with the pigtails?”

“Yes,” Gigi said, feeling annoyed. “The one with the pigtails. She's awesome.”

Finn smiled, but it didn't feel like a happy smile. It felt more like an uncomfortable one.

“Anyway,” Gigi continued, “you missed a lot in class.”
She filled her in on the marshmallow fondant and the cupcake bake-off. Then she said, “The best part is that Chef Angela said we could work as a team, as long as we agreed to split the prizes. I'm thinking you can have the free classes, and I'll take the tool kit.”

Finley's eyebrows furrowed, and she immediately began nibbling on her thumb's cuticle.
Uh-oh,
Gigi thought.

“You could have the tool kit instead,” she said hurriedly. “Whatever you want.”

“It's not that,” Finn said. “It's just—”

“What?”

Finn shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

But Gigi knew it wasn't nothing. If Finley chewed on that cuticle any harder, she was going to draw blood.

“Something's bothering you,” Gigi said. “Spill.”

Finn blinked at her a few times, then said, “That boot camp I went to? It was sort of a tryout for this intense workshop. Coach said I could join, if I wanted to. But that would mean—”

“Giving up your Saturdays,” Gigi finished for her. “For how long?”

“The whole spring. Probably summer too.”

“Oh.”

“But I haven't decided if I'm doing it yet,” Finley blurted out. “I'm just . . . thinking about it.”

“Oh,” Gigi said again.

Finn cut her eyes down to the backpack resting in her lap. “The thing is, it's a really good opportunity. I mean, the sessions are hard—Lauren calls them ‘punishing.' But this is her fourth year, and she swears the workshop is the only reason she made varsity as a sixth grader. Dude, that almost
never
happens.”

“Wow.”

Finn started up a steady stream of nervous chatter. But as she spoke, Gigi could feel the divide between them getting wider and wider. And the more Finn went on and on about Lauren—She was so athletic! And smart! And funny!—the more Gigi's brain got carried away with itself.

Lauren, Lauren, Lauren,
said a mean little voice inside her.
What's the big deal about her?

But Gigi knew what the big deal was. Lauren was an eighth grader, and super,
super
popular. There wasn't a kid in school who wouldn't want to hang out with her.

In homeroom, Gigi kept conversation to a minimum. She told Finn she needed to finish up some homework before French. Another lie. Instead she pulled the
purple composition book out of her bag and opened it to her list. She added:

Find a new best friend?

Gigi stared at the words, trying to fight the hot tears that pricked up in her eyes.

No!
She refused to cry. Because it couldn't be true. There was no,
no
way Finn could be looking to trade her in.

Even if it was for someone cooler. And older. And on the varsity team.

She turned to a fresh page and wrote:

I refuse to be a sad mopey.

Gigi forced the corners of her lips up into a smile, hoping her mouth could trick the rest of her into feeling happier.

At lunch, Finn plopped her tray down on the table she and Gigi shared with their friends Katie, Kendall, and Maggie.

Gigi tried to be lighthearted. “Oh! You're not having lunch with Lauren?” she joked.

“Don't be silly,” Finn said.

Gigi was about to laugh when Finn added, “She's got B lunch.”

Gigi swallowed a gulp of water.

“Who's Lauren?”
Kendall asked, licking yogurt from a plastic spoon.

“Just this girl on the soccer team,” Finn replied with a shrug. “We hung out last weekend.”

Maggie said, “Isn't she in eighth grade?”

Finn nodded.

“Ooh! If you're hanging out with eighth graders, does that mean we'll start getting invited to eighth-grade parties?” Maggie asked.

Finley rolled her eyes. “In our dreams. Speaking of parties,” she said, “Gigi and I are having a hard time coming up with a theme for ours. Any ideas?”

“That's right!” Katie cheered. “We're due for another Eff and Gee blowout!”

The girls spent the rest of the lunch period making a list of potential themes. Kendall suggested a Hawaiian luau. “But that's what we did for
your
birthday party,” Gigi said.

Kendall shrugged. “So? You had fun, didn't you?”

Eff and Gee's eyes met.
Typical Kendall.
If it was great once, it would be great a hundred times. Like last summer, when she wore out her iPod playing that one Katy Perry song over and over and
over
.

“Ooh, I know!” Maggie said. “You should have one
of those murder mystery parties. Then you'll have to invite some boys.”

The girls shook their heads no.

“Seriously?” Maggie said. “No boys?”

“Nope,” Finn said.

“And no costumes.” Gee followed a second later.

Maggie's jaw dropped. “No
costumes
? You've got to be kidding me!”

“Calm down, Mags,” Gigi said. “Costumes are considered—”

“Optional,” Finn finished for her.

“Optional.” Maggie raised one eyebrow. “You guys are acting totally weird. You know that, right?”

Gigi broke the awkward silence that followed by handing out her vanilla almond cupcakes with anise-flavored fondant to her friends.

Kendall sniffed at the top suspiciously. “This smells like black jelly beans,” she said.

“Just try it,” Gigi said.

With her face screwed up like she'd already tasted something nasty, Kendall flicked out her tongue and ran it over the corner of the fondant.

“Are these . . . gray?” Katie asked.

“Dudes, don't be rude,” Finn admonished them.
“Gigi baked for us!” She peeled the paper wrapper from the cupcake's base and, as if in defiance, crammed the entire thing into her mouth. “Mmm,” she mumbled as she chewed. “Thish ish ood. Nice job, Gee.”

“Thanks,” Gigi said, smiling. There was the Finn she knew—always on her team.

Finley washed the rest of her cupcake down with a long swig of milk, then said, “We still don't have a party theme.” She turned to Katie. “What about you? Any ideas?”

“Yes,” Katie said, nibbling daintily on her dessert. “Purple.”

“Purple?” Finn echoed.

“Purple,” Katie said firmly.

“Purple is not a theme!” Gigi laughed. “Purple is a
color
.” The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. As the cafeteria started to empty out, Finn tugged on Gigi's sleeve.

“I was thinking,” she said. “Let's get together at your place Saturday afternoon to work on party stuff. We'll figure out this theme thing once and for all.”

“Really?” Gigi asked. “Are you sure you won't have . . .
plans?”

“It was
one
sleepover, Gee,” Finn said, gently
nudging her with her elbow. “Don't make such a big deal out of it, okay?”

As she headed to her next class, Gigi thought about what Finn said.

Maybe she
had
been making a big deal out of nothing. After all, she and Finn had nearly twelve years of friendship between them. Lauren Avila? Didn't even have twelve days.

For the first time all day, Gigi didn't have to force herself to smile.

Six laps. Coach made them run six laps. As a warm-up.

Despite the cool weather, Gigi's face was damp with sweat as she completed the final circle around the field.

“Pick up the pace, Princess!” Coach called out to her.

Gigi glared at her as she jogged a little bit faster. She was pretty sure that Coach Wedderburn didn't like her very much. Finn said that was just Coach's personality—that she was all business and no fluff. But Gigi knew better. The first day of tryouts, when Gigi showed up in her new hot-pink cleats, Coach called her out.

“Pink, huh?” she said. “
Pretty
. Like a princess.”

It might have been meant as a compliment. Except it didn't sound like one to Gigi. Every other girl at tryouts had opted for plain black cleats. What was wrong with having a little style?

“It's the uniforms,” Finley explained afterwards. “They're red and black. Pink cleats . . .”

“Totally clash.” Gigi finished for her. “I am an idiot.”

“You are unique,” Finn said. “Besides, if anyone could pull off that color combo, it's you, dude.”

“Hustle, Gigi!” Coach said. “We're all waiting for you.”

Why did I pick this?
she thought as she pounded out the last hundred yards.
Why am I torturing myself?

Coach blew her whistle, even though the entire team was already standing in front of her. “All right, Songbirds. Today we're going to work on team building. How many of you have done bounce bounce pass drills?”

Only one hand shot up: Finley's.

“Stewart, front and center.” Coach tossed her clipboard on the ground, near Gigi's pink cleats, and traded it out for a slightly muddied soccer ball. “The way the bounce bounce pass works is that you bounce the ball to yourself twice, like this.” She dropped the ball, catching it on her right ankle. After balancing it, she popped the ball back up and caught it on her left. “After you've bounced to each ankle,” she continued, “you're going to pass the ball to your partner.” Coach shot the ball in Finn's direction.

Finn expertly bounced the ball onto one ankle, then the other, before cleanly kicking the ball back to Coach.

“Nice work, Stewart,” Coach said with clear admiration. “Where'd you learn that?”

“Coach Campbell. I'm taking her weekend workshop.”

Coach nodded. “I approve.”

Next, Coach split the team into partners. There were other girls on JV who, like Gigi, were nowhere near Finley in terms of skill. But for some reason, Coach paired Gigi with Kionna, a strong, sturdy girl who had at least six inches on her. Gigi knew Ki, as she liked to be called, was good—way better than Gigi could ever hope to be.

“You don't need to look so scared,” Ki said. “I'll go easy on you.”

Ki went first. Her bounces weren't as clean as Finn's or Coach's, but she could do them. When
she passed the ball to Gigi, she did so with such force that it sailed over Gigi's head and landed a hundred feet down the pitch.

Gigi turned to look at the ball. Ki started cracking up.

“I'm just messing with you,” she said as she jogged past Gigi to retrieve the ball and dribble it back. Then she passed the ball to Gigi. “Your turn,” she said.

Gigi swallowed hard. She tried to repeat the move. Her first bounce, on the right ankle, was a success. The second? Not so much.

They continued to take turns, Ki nailing the move and Gigi floundering through several unsuccessful attempts. Eventually Gigi completed her bounce bounce pass.

“I did it!” she said. “I actually did it!”

Gigi didn't have any time to savor the victory, though, because Ki was so quick, the ball was already headed back her way.

This time Gigi executed the move more fluidly. The girls spent the next few minutes passing the ball back and forth between them. Gigi was so hyperfocused on the drill that she didn't notice when Coach approached them.

“Good job, Johnson,” Coach declared as Ki sent the ball Gigi's way. Coach's gravelly voice startled her so much that Gigi let the ball sail right by her.

With her eyes still trained on Gigi, Coach lifted her whistle and gave it a short, hard blow. “All right, team!” she said. “Time to get back to basics. We're going to spend the rest of today's practice working on dribbling
and turning. Stay with your partners, ladies—but make sure one of you grabs a pinny.”

“Not it!” Ki called out, touching two fingers to her nose. She grinned at Gigi and pointed to the mesh bag that held the scrimmage vests.

Gigi trudged over to the bag and fished one out. Finn jogged up and joined her. “Hand me one?” she asked.

Gigi held the pinny up to her nose and breathed in. “Is it me, or do these smell like twenty-year-old sweat?”

“Nah,” Sunny Nguyen, a seventh grader, said, pulling hers on over her head. “Coach washes them weekly.”

The pinnies were a particularly disgusting shade of mustard yellow, and no matter what Sunny said, they had a distinctive smell. Oddly enough, it reminded Gigi of hot dogs.

She turned to say as much to Finley, but she was already gone.

For the last fifteen minutes of practice, Coach divided the girls into two teams of seven: pinnies versus non-pinnies. At least she and Finn were on the same team.

Not surprisingly, Coach made Finley the left
forward. Finley always played forward. She was fast, she was fierce, and she scored points.

Then Coach went ahead and made Gigi the
right
forward.

Gigi was stunned. She had never been a forward before. Her other coaches had always buried her somewhere less important.

“You sure about that, Coach?” Finn called out. “Princess usually plays midfield.”

Gigi's cheeks burned. Finn of all people knew how much the Princess nickname bothered her. Did her
supposed
best friend really just call her that? In front of everyone?

“I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't sure,” Coach shot back.

Finn apologized, Coach finished calling positions, and Gigi thought,
Oh, it's
on
.

The whistle blew.

Gigi went straight for the ball, but Finley reached it first. Of course she did. As the defensive line closed in on Finn, Gigi waited for the pass.

It never came.

Instead, when she couldn't get any farther down the pitch, Finn took a strong but long-shot kick to the goal.
The lanky sixth grader playing goalie caught it so easily, she looked completely startled. Coach blew the whistle.

“What was that, Stewart?” she yelled. “I know Coach Campbell didn't teach you to be a ball hog. You should've passed to Princess.”

Princess
. Gigi fumed. She was nobody's Princess. She was Gigi Prince, and she was about to throw down.

Gigi's eyes stayed trained on the ball. When Kionna attempted to pass to a particularly spacey teammate, Gigi intercepted. She'd already dribbled the ball halfway to the goal before anyone even realized she had it. She had two options for passing: Finley or Sunny. She chose Sunny.

The two girls moved closer to the goal, but Gigi had the better shot, so Sunny passed the ball back to her. With one strong kick, Gigi scored her very first goal.

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. So did Finley's.

“Nice work!” Coach called out. “See, Stewart? Now
that's
how it's done.”

Play continued, and while Eff and Gee were technically on the same team, to anyone watching, the scrimmage looked like it was full-on Princess versus Stewart. And, for once in their soccer careers, it was Gigi who was dominating.

“Princess, you are on
fire
!” Coach hollered.

“Then stop calling me Princess!” she shot back.

Coach chuckled.

The two-minute warning was issued. Gigi thought how sweet it would be to score one last goal. She ran down the pitch, determined to do just that. From the corner of her eye, she saw Finley horn in on her path. Gigi let out a weird, guttural sound, like she was suddenly an extra in some movie with gladiators, and pushed her pace even faster.

And then her heel struck a mushy patch of grass, and she went flying backwards.

Rrrrrrippppp.

Gigi landed on her butt with a dull thud. Her tailbone screamed in pain. When she slipped her hands under her to rub it, she realized that her cute Nike Pro shorts had ripped straight up the back seam.

Coach jogged over to her. “You okay, Prince?” she asked.

Gigi smiled despite the pain and future humiliation of having to cross the field with her undies showing. “You didn't call me Princess!”

“You're fine,” Coach declared. “All right, team. See you next practice. Work on your dribbling before Wednesday.”

Gigi didn't move.

Kionna appeared, thrusting a hand in Gigi's direction. “Take it,” she commanded.

“Um, thanks, but I think I need a few minutes.”

Ki shook her head. “Whatevs.”

Gigi stayed as still as possible, hoping no one else would offer to help. Her plan was to wait out the team before heading in to change. That way she could (theoretically) minimize the undie peeping.

No such luck.

Finn stood over her, hands on her hips. “You ripped your shorts, didn't you?”

“Why do you care?” Gigi shot back.

“Seriously?” Finn asked. “Dude, you're my best friend—even when you act like a brat.”

Gigi sprung to her feet, ignoring the burning pain in her backside. “First of all,” she said, “stop calling everyone dude. It's annoying. We're girls, remember? And don't you ever—EVER—refer to me as Princess again, to anyone. It's insulting. And finally, I can't believe you'd say that
I
was acting like a brat. Why is that? Because I dared to score a goal?
You
were the ball hog, remember? I just happened to not suck for one practice.”

With that, she turned on her heel and stormed off
towards the locker rooms. Finley followed her closely. Too closely, actually. Gigi stopped short, and Finn ran right smack into her. She whirled around to face her, but Finn stayed close behind no matter what direction she turned.

“What are you
doing
?” she asked angrily.

“I,” Finn said, “am trying to make sure no one sees your Monday undies.”

In her spurt of sudden rage, Gigi had practically forgotten about the enormous rip in her shorts. “Thanks,” she muttered, feeling far more grateful than she sounded.

After they'd changed out of their practice clothes, Finley said, “I'm sorry about the Princess comment. I was—”

“Showing off?” Gigi finished for her.

Finn's cheeks flushed a hot pinky-red. “Maybe. Not on purpose, though.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“And you don't suck,” Finn added softly.

Gigi didn't respond directly. She didn't know how to feel.

On the one hand, Finley had acted like a first-class jerk. On the other, she'd had Gigi's back, literally, when she was in an embarrassing spot.

When did their friendship get so . . .
complicated
?

Gigi stuffed her cleats in her bag and said, “I think my mom's got carpool today. Meet you out front?”

She walked away before Finn could even respond.