by Cari Simmons
“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.
CHAPTER 8
Later that night, just as Gigi and her mom sat down to a yummy chopped barbecue chicken salad that was a favorite of Gigi’s dad, the phone rang. The caller ID voice announced Finley’s house line, but Gigi didn’t move.
“Aren’t you going to beg me to get that?” her mom asked.
“No.”
Gigi liked preparing her father’s favorite dishes when he was gone, because it helped her feel like he wasn’t quite so absent. She stabbed the perfect bite of salad—romaine lettuce, grilled chicken, red onion, fresh nectarine, and homemade barbecue dressing—and continued to eat. The phone rang three more times before going to voice mail. Her mother simply stared at her.
When Gigi realized her mom wasn’t going to let this go, she put down her fork and said, “Finn acted like a jerk today at practice. She apologized, but . . .”
“What happened?”
Gigi told her mom all of the humiliating details. But her mother, being her mother, focused on all the wrong things.
“Do you feel like your coach is being too hard on you? Because I can call the school and—”
“No!” Gigi said sharply. “She was just being Coach, okay?”
They ate without speaking. Quiet dinners weren’t the norm in the Prince household. Her mother, a big believer in families eating together, insisted on leisurely meals filled with conversation.
Thankfully, her mother broke through the unnatural silence. “Oh!” she said. “I almost forgot. The Chinese American Community Center offers youth fencing classes. The next session doesn’t start for a few weeks, but they’re holding a sample class this Sunday. I signed you up—hope that’s okay.”
“Seriously?” Gigi said. “That’s so excellent! Mama, you are the best.” She jumped up from the table to give her mom a hug. “So,” Gigi said, after returning to her seat, “did you book any other classes for me?”
“Nope,” her mom said. “After all, it’s your list. You need to put in the work yourself.”
After doing the dinner dishes, Gigi went up to her room and set up shop at her desk. She had some geography homework to tackle, but before she dove into that, she figured she better make some progress on her list.
It didn’t take long for her to find what she needed. A quick Google search revealed that the Brandywine Hundred Library offered Purl Jam, a weekly knitting club, on Thursday nights. She didn’t bother to look any further because between that, soccer practice, cooking class, and the fencing thing, Gigi figured her week was already overloaded. Plus, she still had a cupcake bake-off to prepare for, and tryouts for the spring musical were fast approaching. Gigi was eager to get started on her audition piece, but her drama teacher, Mrs. Dempsey, had yet to announce this year’s show.
Gigi had just cracked open her geography text when there was a knock on the door. It was her mom, offering her the phone. “Someone wants to speak to you,” she said.
Finn. Gigi scowled but took the receiver. “Hey,” she said flatly.
“How’s my favorite girl?” her dad asked, his voice as rich as a double-fudge chocolate brownie.
“Daddy!” she cried. “You have no idea how much I miss you.”
“I think I do,” he said. “But go on and tell me anyway.”
They chatted for the next ten minutes or so. Gigi filled her father in on the good-parts version of her life. She’d gotten to speak to him so infrequently lately that she didn’t want to waste precious minutes dwelling on the not-so-hot stuff. For instance, she told him about making friends with Miranda but decided not to share Coach’s annoying nickname for her.
She tired of talking about herself rather quickly. “Tell me about Italy,” Gigi begged her father. “Don’t leave out a single fabulous detail.”
She grilled him about the food, the fashion, the art. He gave her a play-by-play of his hotel and told her the pasta he’d had so far was “pretty tasty.”
“Seriously?” she said. “That’s all you’re going to give me?”
Her dad chuckled. “You do realize I’m here on business, right?”
Gigi started to protest, but her father let out an enormous yawn. “Sorry, honey,” he said. “It’s a little late here. I’m totes exhausted.” She’d forgotten about the six-hour time difference; a quick glance at the clock revealed that, for her dad, it was almost one in the morning.
“Don’t say ‘totes,’” Gigi said.
“Ah, okay.”
She sighed. “I really do miss you, Daddy. Come home soon, okay?” Then she added, “And for the love of Mario Batali, will you go eat something decent?”
Gigi was still tackling her homework when the doorbell rang. She went to see who it was and had just made it to the top of the steps when her mom opened the door, revealing three fourths of the Stewart family: Finn, Ms. Marian, and Logan.
“Hi, Ms. Nancy,” Finley said to Gigi’s mom. “I tried to call earlier. I think I left my geography book in your car.” She smiled up at Gigi and offered a little wave. Gigi halfheartedly waved back.
“Go take a look.” Gigi’s mom took her keys off the sunflower hook by the door and handed them over to Finn. “Don’t forget to lock it.”
“Sure,” she said, darting over to the side door that led to the garage. “Thanks!”
“She told me as we were leaving ShopRite,” Ms. Marian explained. “With a cart full of dairy and frozen vegetables. Sorry for the hit-and-run.”
Gigi’s mom waved her off. “Not a problem.” Then she looked towards the upstairs landing. “Gee, what are you doing? Come down and say hi.”
Gigi obliged just as Finn emerged from the garage, triumphantly holding her textbook. “Found it!”
“Great. Let’s go, kiddos.”
Even though things were still technically weird with Finn, Gigi piped up, “I’m working on geography too. Do you want to do our homework together?”
Finn looked surprised for a second. Then she nodded vigorously. Both girls flashed puppy-dog eyes at their mothers.
“I can bring her home later,” Gigi’s mom offered.
Ms. Marian nodded. “Be home by eight, okay?”
Finn started for the stairs before Gigi’s mom headed her off. “Dining room,” she said. “Gigi, go get your stuff.”
Eff and Gee rolled their eyes at each other, but Gigi obliged.
They set up camp at the table.
“Hey, Gee?” Finn said.
“Yeah?”
“I feel really awful about what happened at practice.”
“It’s okay,” Gigi said, wanting, very much, to mean it.
“No,” Finley said. “It’s really not okay. And I am really, really sorry.”
Gigi could hear the sincerity in Finn’s words. She smiled at her BFF. “Already forgotten,” she said. “Besides, I know it was Fred’s fault anyway.”
“Fred?”
“Fred the Freckle,” Gigi said. “He always was getting you into trouble.”
Finley burst out into laughter. “I must not be feeding him enough.”
“Well, let’s get on it!”
They grabbed some snacks in the kitchen, then worked side by side on their assignment—drawing and labeling a map of ancient Greece. They finished it in about twenty minutes. This left them plenty of time before Finn needed to be at home.
“What do
you want to do?” Finley asked.
“Party planning?”
“We’re doing that Saturday,” she said. “I need the extra time to percolate.”
“Cupcakes?” Gigi offered.
“Yes!” Finn squealed. “You have to win that bake-off. What kind are you thinking?”
“I want to make one that tastes like a cannoli. Doesn’t that sound yum?”
“I’m drooling just thinking about it,” Finn said. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Gigi’s idea was to adapt her mom’s signature hot-milk cake recipe by swapping in ricotta cheese for the milk and adding some orange zest. She pulled the ingredients from their well-stocked fridge and pantry.
“Wet or dry?” she asked Finn.
“Dry.”
So while Gigi was whisking eggs, ricotta, and vanilla, Finn was measuring out flour, sugar, and baking powder and sifting them into a big bowl. Gigi looked up at her friend, who sported the identical look of steely determination that she did whenever she was driving a ball down the soccer pitch. Her lips were puffed out and everything.
Next, Gigi added the wet ingredients into the dry ones. She stirred. Man, that batter was thick!
“Here, let me,” Finn offered. As she stirred, Gigi could see, for once, a practical benefit to all of Finn’s workouts. “What made you want to make a cannoli cupcake anyway?” Finn asked as she grunted through her task.
“My dad.”
“He likes cannolis?”
“I don’t know,” Gigi said. “I guess I should ask him. He’s in Italy—that’s what made me think of it.”
Finn stopped mixing. “Italy? I thought he was in Germany.”
“That was two countries ago,” Gigi said. “After Munich he went to Prague, and now he’s in Milan.”
“Oh.”
After another minute of mixing, Finn threw up her hands. “I give up!” she said. “Can’t we use the mixer?”
Gigi peered into the bowl. Serious thickness—like wet concrete. It was going to make for cake that was way too dense. “What if we add some liquid to loosen it up? Maybe a tablespoon of vinegar? Chef Angela says that a little acid can lighten a batter.”
“On it.”
Finn grabbed the bottle of white vinegar from under the sink, and Gigi went to retrieve the cupcake liners from the walk-in pantry. While she was trying to decide which ones to use, Finn cried out, “Gigi, come quick!”
She dropped the liners on the pantry floor and raced out just in time to see foaming batter streaming over the sides of the bowl. Finley was trying to squash the foam with paper towels, but it was growing too quickly.
“What happened?” Gigi said.
“I don’t know!” Finn unwound more paper towels from the roll. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”
Just then, Gigi’s mother materialized out of nowhere. “What in the—”
“Mama!” Gigi exclaimed. “Help!”
In a few swift movements, Gigi’s mother scooped up the goopy bowl and deposited it into the sink.
“Smart,” Eff and Gee said in unison. Then they looked at each other and started to laugh.
Gigi’s mother took some fresh paper towels and patted some of the wayward goop from her shirt. “Girls, what did you do?”
“Must’ve been the vinegar,” Finn explained.
“Vinegar?” Gigi’s mother echoed.
“Yeah,” Gigi said. “We added a tablespoon to lighten up the batter.”
“No,” Finn said. “We added a cup.”
Gigi did a double take. “A cup?”
“I thought that’s what you told me!”
“Either way,” Gigi continued, “I don’t understand why it went Vesuvius on us. I mean, vinegar only does that when it’s combined with—”
“Baking soda,” Finn finished for her. “There’s baking soda in the recipe.”
“No,” Gigi said. “There’s baking powder.”
Finn shrugged. “You got baking soda from the pantry, so that’s what I put in.”
Gigi picked up the orange box on the countertop. Yep, baking soda. How could she have made such a rookie mistake?
The three of them stared at the bowl. It was still spewing a little foamy goop over the sides.
“Well then,” Gigi said. “I declare this a certified batter disaster.”
She and Finn broke out into peals of laughter. Gigi’s mother, on the other hand, wasn’t laughing.
“It’s all fun and games until someone has to clean the kitchen,” she said. “Guess what? It’s not going to be me.”
Despite her proclamation, Gigi’s mother helped the girls mop up the remnants of the batter disaster. Three sets of hands made light of the work, and the kitchen was spotless in no time.
“I’m going to get changed,” Gigi’s mom said. “Then I think we need to take Finn home—it’s almost eight o’clock.”
“I’m glad you came over,” Gigi said as Finley gathered up her things.
“Me too,” Finn said. “And even though it ended up a ‘disaster,’ it was fun baking with you. I’m going to miss it.”
It took Gigi a few seconds to register what Finn was saying. “So you are dropping our cooking class. Like, definitely.”
Finn nodded slowly. “Are you mad?”
“More like sad,” Gigi said. “But I guess I kind of knew you’d pick the soccer thing.”
And that you’d pick Lauren, the annoying little voice in her brain added.
“It’s just that it’s—”
“A really great opportunity,” Gigi finished for her. “I know.”
“Don’t be mad,” Finn pleaded.
“I’m not,” Gigi assured her.
And she really wasn’t mad, not like she had been at practice. No, Gigi really was sad. Even though she wouldn’t dream of dropping the cooking class herself, and even though she’d had a great time getting to know Miranda, something about knowing that Finn would never come back with her to Chef Angela’s again felt . . . wrong. Like she and Finn were taking another backwards step away from each other.
Gigi’s mom reentered the kitchen. “You girls ready?”
Nope, Gigi thought. I am not ready for any of this—not at all.
CHAPTER 9
At school, Finn and Gigi had an unspoken agreement—pretend as if nothing weird was happening between them. They were so good at pretending that, within a day, Gigi had practically forgotten that anything had happened.
Until their next soccer practice.
Gigi trudged onto the field with grim determination. She wondered if Finn would get all up in her face again. She wasn’t sure, but she did know this: if the tables had been reversed, and Coach had been giving Finn a hard time, Gigi would have stepped in to defend her BFF.
Gigi steeled herself for a showdown, but it never came. Finn was uncharacteristically passive at practice. There were no showy moves, no great displays of technical skill. No displays of anything, really. Finley kept her head down and her mouth shut.
And Gigi hated every minute of it.
As Coach divided the girls for scrimmage, Gigi pulled Finn aside. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked her.
Finn shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do,” Gigi said. “This? Isn’t you.”
“You don’t like it when I’m me at practice,” Finn said softly.
Gigi rolled her eyes. “That’s not true. I just don’t like it when you make fun of me at practice. I mean, you called me Princess.”
“But . . . so what? I mean, you actually own more than one tiara!” Finn cried.
“That’s different, and you know it.”
Coach blew her whistle. “Stewart! Princess! Quit your gossiping—we’ve got work to do.”
“Hey, Coach,” Finn called out, her eyes still locked with Gigi’s. “Can you maybe not call my best friend Princess? She, like, really hates it.”
“If I promise not to call her Princess,” Coach said, “will she promise to break a sw
eat?”
“Deal!” Gigi called over to her.
Now it was Coach’s turn to roll her eyes. She blew her whistle again and yelled, “Come on, ladies, let’s move those feet!”
Afterwards, as they headed back to the locker room to change, Gigi said, “See? Was that so hard?”
“It was excruciating,” Finn joked. “Almost as bad as cleaning up the big batter disaster.”
And just like that, Gigi felt the seesaw tip in the other direction. Like maybe—just maybe—Eff and Gee were back again.
It was Ms. Marian’s turn to drive the girls home, and the atmosphere in her Jeep was completely different from the one in Gigi’s mom’s car just two days before. The girls chatted over each other, trying to cram two days of real conversation into the six-minute ride. It wasn’t enough time, so Finn called Gigi the minute she hit the house, and they continued talking until Ms. Marian told Finley it was time for dinner.
“I gotta go,” Finn said. “But . . . Gee?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad we’re not fighting anymore.”
“Yeah,” Gigi said. “Me too.”
It was true. Gigi’s heart felt a thousand pounds lighter. It wasn’t like she and Finn had never disagreed before. They’d had their fair share of arguments. After nearly twelve years of best friendship, it would be hard not to.
But this had been the first time that Gigi had wondered if their best friendship was forever.
So many things were changing, and so quickly. Sometimes Gigi wished she could hit the pause button on her life.
Not forever—just long enough that she had time to catch up.
After school the next day, Gigi’s mother took her to the craft store to pick up some tools she’d need for her first Purl Jam at the library. Gigi selected a fat pair of shiny pink knitting needles and a package of yarn (a skein, her mom called it) in dark teal. It was thin and supersoft and had little fluffy bits coming off it.
“You sure this is what you want?” her mom asked. “Because we could ask a salesperson for some advice. . . .”
“That’s okay,” Gigi said. “I’m happy with these.”
That night, Gigi’s mother dropped her off at the library. “I’m heading over to Yoga U,” she told her. “It’s hot yoga night!”