You First (11 page)

During Friday's morning announcements, Gigi's drama teacher, Mrs. Dempsey, came over the PA system. Gigi sat up rigidly. This was the moment she'd been waiting for the entire school year.

“Each spring, Sterling Middle School mounts a musical,” Mrs. Dempsey said. “This year, after much deliberation, the show that's been selected is—drum roll, please!”

There was a light click, and then a tinny, garbled drum roll rumbled from the classroom's speakers—most likely a sound effect from someone's iPod. Then, the dramatic reveal:
“The Wizard of Oz.”

Gigi jumped in her seat, knocking her backpack off the attached desk. She didn't care; she could barely contain her excitement.
The Wizard of Oz!
How many times had she and Finley watched the movie, belted out “Over the Rainbow,” dressed up like their childhood
hero, Dorothy Gale? Instinctively, Gigi looked towards Finn's assigned seat, two rows over. But Finn's head was bent over a book, and Gigi couldn't even catch her eye.

“Auditions will be held this Tuesday in the auditorium,” Mrs. Dempsey said over the speaker. “Be prepared to read lines and sing a song of your choice—anything
but
‘Over the Rainbow,' please.”

Gigi barely heard this part of the announcement. All she could think was that the old Eff and Gee would've been squealing
together
, no matter how many seats separated them physically. The fact that Gigi couldn't share her absolute delight with her (former?) BFF deflated her joy like a popped balloon.

And yet . . . Gigi wondered if the middle school musical could be the thing that reunited Eff and Gee.
The Wizard of Oz
—what were the odds? Of course, they couldn't
both
play Dorothy, but seeing that they were only in sixth grade, it was highly unlikely either of them would be cast in the role anyway. With her long red curls, Gigi was way more likely to nab the part of Glinda the Good Witch. Was Lauren Avila into theater? Maybe she could be the Wicked Witch of the East, and get a house dropped on her in Act One.

Gigi instantly felt ashamed. She didn't actually dislike Lauren Avila, and she certainly didn't want anything
bad to happen to her—she just really missed her friend. It was high time she stopped blaming Lauren for what happened between her and Finley, Gigi thought. After all, she knew it wasn't Lauren's fault. Lauren was simply a supercool soccer star who had a lot in common with Gigi's BFF. It's not like she had
forced
Finn to bail on Gigi over and over again. No, those were decisions Finn made for
herself
.

For the rest of homeroom, Gigi kept stealing glances in Finn's direction, but she never once looked up from her book. She refused to make eye contact with Gigi at lunch too. They still sat at the same table, but they'd barely spoken to each other all week.

Today was the worst, though. Today Finn wolfed down her PB&J in four bites, bit into a big, juicy apple, and excused herself to go work on some extra-credit assignment in the library. Their entire circle was dumbfounded.

“What is this nonsense?” Kendall practically hissed the minute Finn was out of earshot. “You told me the two of you were okay.”

“Well, I guess I lied!” Gigi snapped. “You didn't help, you know. Why did you have to tell me that Finn was talking about me to Katie anyway?”

“You did what?” Katie said, her head whipping in Kendall's direction. “You promised me you wouldn't say anything!”

“GUYS!” Maggie yelled, hitting the table with the heel of her hand. “Enough! We are all girlfriends—emphasis on the
friends
part. We do not act like this to each other. Katie, you shouldn't have been gossiping.”

Kendall stuck her tongue out in Katie's direction.

“And
you
,” Maggie said to Kendall, “shouldn't have been trying to start a fire.”

“Thank you,” Gigi said with a toss of her hair.

Maggie's eyes narrowed slightly. “Don't think you're off the hook, Gigi.”

“What did
I
do?”

“Whatever this thing is between you and Finley, it has to stop,” she said. “Look what it's doing to us!” Her voice lowered until it was barely above a whisper. “We're starting to act like . . . like the mean girls.”

“We are nothing like the mean girls,” Gigi protested. “We're just girls, dealing with some stuff.”

“Then deal with it,” Maggie said firmly. “Don't pretend like nothing's wrong. Clearly things are wrong. And the longer you and Finn avoid dealing with them, the harder it's going to be on the rest of us.

“Frankly,” she continued, “I think the two of you are being a little selfish. And I, for one, don't want any part of your drama.”

Maggie stood up from the table, stuffing the rest of her lunch back into its bag.

“Where are you going?” Katie asked.

She shrugged. “I don't know. But I can't stay here. I've lost my appetite.”

“Talk about drama,” Gigi muttered as Maggie stomped away from the table.

Kendall shook her head. “Nice, Gigi. Real nice.” Then she too packed up her things and headed for the door. Katie mouthed “I'm sorry” to Gigi, then grabbed her stuff and followed after Kendall, leaving Gigi all alone at their end of the lunch table.

Gigi was floored. What had just happened?
How
had it happened? She was pretty sure people had started to stare.

Her first instinct was to fake an upset stomach and go for the early dismissal. But if Gigi did that, she couldn't practice with the varsity team after school, and then Coach would never let her play in Sunday's game. Plus, if she went home sick, there was no way her mom would let Miranda spend the night.

No, Gigi would have to stick it out, no matter how
embarrassed she was. At least for now. She opened her backpack, pulled out a loose-leaf sheet of paper, and wrote the words
I refuse to be a sad mopey
over and over again while she finished up her lunch.

After the final bell, Gigi decided to skip the locker room and change in the second-floor girls' bathroom instead. It was going to be weird enough that a sure-to-be-benched-on-Sunday sixth grader from the JV team would be practicing with the older girls; she didn't want to deal with the pre-practice locker room awkwardness to boot.

She went back downstairs to her locker and shoved her backpack and duffle bag into the tiny metal space. Then she headed out to the field, feeling even more self-conscious than she had at lunch.

Let's just get this over with,
she thought.

“Hey, Coach,” Gigi said almost shyly.

“Prince, you made it!” Coach bellowed when she saw her. “I wasn't sure you would.”

“I said I was coming. So here I am.”

Coach Wedderburn nodded. “Varsity practice is a little different from what you're used to,” she said. “Be prepared to run. A lot.”

Girls spilled out onto the field, but Gigi kept her focus
on her feet. Until, that is, she heard a familiar voice.

Finley?

Gigi's head popped up. Sure enough, Finn was standing ten feet away, chatting with Lauren Avila and a few other eighth graders. She was wearing her normal practice gear; clearly she wasn't here only to hang out with her friends. Gigi's cheeks began to burn. When had Finn started practicing with the varsity team? And why hadn't she said anything to Gigi about it?

Their eyes met briefly. Finley's face scrunched up in confusion.

Gigi shrugged and mouthed, “Long story.”

Finn closed her eyes and shook her head, much like she did when Logan was annoying her and she pretended she could blink him away.

Was this what it had come to? Had Finn started to regard her in the same way she did her hyperbratty little brother?

As for the running: Coach Wedderburn wasn't kidding. They did the same number of laps as the JV team, but Coach had them alternate between three-quarter pace running, jogging, sprinting, and walking. Every time Coach blew her whistle, they moved to the next phase of the sequence, hitting all four in a single lap. Before she started, Gigi thought that having
walking breaks would make it easier, but going from fast to medium to superfast to superslow and then back up to fast again caused Gigi's legs to ache in a way she never knew was possible.

When the laps were completed, Coach gave them a five-minute water break, and then it was on to drills. In some ways, the drills the varsity girls did were way more basic than the ones Coach had the JV team run. But, as Gigi soon realized, the reason for this was because Coach demanded precision.

“It's all about control, ladies,” Coach barked. “I want to see controlled passing, controlled turns, controlled shooting. Remember,
you
need to have command over the ball—you can't let that ball control you.”

Drills lasted for half an hour, after which Coach gave them another five-minute water break. Then she declared it was time for one-on-ones and started pairing off the girls.

Oh no,
Gigi thought.

But,
oh yes
, Coach put the two JV girls together. Finn didn't protest, but she didn't look happy about it either. Gigi wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

The first game they played was Shadow. Gigi groaned inwardly. She hated this game, in which one
player had to copy the other player's moves until the first player could completely fake the second player out. Then they switched roles, with the follower becoming the leader.

“You want to start?” Finley asked.

“Whatever,” Gigi said. “I'll go get the ball.”

“No ball,” Finn said. “Just us.”

Coach blew her whistle, and Gigi pretended to drive a ball down the length of the field. Finn anticipated her every move. Of course she did. They used to share the same brain.

As a final attempt to fake Finn out, Gigi launched into a scissors move. Only she overshot the imaginary ball completely, lost control of her legs, and landed hard smack on her tailbone.

“Ouch,” Finn said, extending a hand. “You okay?”

“Like you care,” Gigi muttered. She struggled to her feet on her own, as if Finn wasn't offering the assist.

Finley's jaw dropped slightly, and she stared at Gigi in mild disbelief. Then she snapped her mouth shut until her lips were a tight line of anger.

“Are we practicing or what?” Gigi asked.

“Fine,” Finn said. “My turn.”

Regardless of how she was feeling about Finley, Gigi couldn't help but admire her footwork on the field.
She'd often thought Finn didn't play soccer so much as she danced through it. Her feet were fast and never stopped moving, yet there was nothing haphazard about anything she did. It was all about precision. Gigi, of course, couldn't keep up, but she never stopped trying.

The next game involved five girls working together, one on each corner of a large square demarcated by mini orange cones, with the fifth standing in the middle. Each of the corner girls had a ball, and they'd drive it towards the center girl, who would run up and try to defend. They weren't actually supposed to stop or steal the ball, just close up the space. After they met, the monkey in the middle would move to the next girl, while the one with the ball dribbled it back to the corner. Every forty-five seconds or so, Coach would blow the whistle, and the middle girl would switch out for a corner post.

Of course, Gigi
would
end up in a group with Finn and Lauren Avila. She tried not to resent the fact that, even during a punishing practice like this, Lauren looked like a model from a
Seventeen
photo shoot.

What's worse was that it was so clear to Gigi that Finn fit in Lauren's world now. She was a polished, confident athlete—quite a contrast to the hot mess
that Gigi often felt like inside.

When practice was over, Gigi skipped the last five-minute water break. She wanted to get off the field as fast as possible. Miranda would be coming over around six, and she needed to shower and clean her room. Plus, she thought if she was quick enough, she and her mom would avoid running into Ms. Marian in the parking lot. That would only lead to questions about why they hadn't worked out a carpool, and Gigi didn't feel like explaining to either of them that she and Finn didn't know they'd be at the same practice.

She hadn't gotten far when Coach called her over. For a second, Gigi thought she was going to be told that she still couldn't play in Sunday's game. Instead, Coach actually
complimented
her.

“You did good out there,” she said with a smile. “I saw you keeping pace. Not easy with these girls. I'm proud of you, Prince.”

Gigi's face split in a grin she couldn't hide even if she'd wanted to. “Thanks, Coach. Does this mean I can play?”

“I'll see you Sunday.”

Gigi sprinted for her locker, the sweetness of success temporarily melting away her muscle fatigue. Then she darted for the parking lot. Everything came
to a screeching halt when she saw Ms. Marian and her mother leaning against the side of Ms. Marian's Jeep, talking and laughing like everything was business as usual.

“I didn't know you were practicing with the varsity team too!” Ms. Marian said. “I would've offered you a ride.”

“It was just this once,” Gigi explained. “To make up for a practice I missed earlier in the week.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Well, we have to get going,” Gigi's mom said. “I need to a run a couple of errands, and Gigi's friend from cooking class is coming over tonight.” She hugged Ms. Marian and said they needed to plan a scrapbooking date soon.

“I should have you all over for dinner next week,” Ms. Marian said. “Gigi, maybe you and Finn could whip up dessert together.”

Without thinking, Gigi rolled her eyes.

“Hey,” her mother said sharply. “Not nice.”