You First

by Cari Simmons

  “No,” Finn replied in a small, quiet voice. “I guess it doesn’t.”

  Finn plopped down on the shaggy rug. Then she gestured for Gigi to sit too. Gigi ignored this and remained standing.

  “It’s just that you’ve been acting so jealous,” Finn said. “It’s really—”

  “Annoying,” Gigi interjected, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know. You told me that last week, remember?”

  Finley tucked her legs up under her chin and rested her head on her knees. “I guess I don’t understand why me being friends with Lauren Avila is such a big deal to you.”

  “It’s a big deal because you made it one,” Gigi said. “Like that messed-up trip to the mall. You invited me, remember? And then you couldn’t even be bothered to talk to me. I spent the entire time chatting up Lauren’s mother.”

  Finn opened her mouth to protest, but Gigi threw up her hand in the universal sign for STOP.

  “It’s true, Finley,” Gigi insisted. “You asked me to come. You said you wanted me to get to know Lauren better. And then you did everything you could to make me feel like I wasn’t even there. Plus, what about all that stuff you said to Katie?”

  “I already apologized for that!”

  Gigi snorted. “Well, it didn’t stop you from dissing me in homeroom and at lunch.”

  “Gee, I’m sorry you feel like, I don’t know, like I don’t like you anymore or something. But it’s not true. It’s not! And the way you’re acting, it’s a little . . .” She trailed off.

  “A little what?” Gigi challenged. “Go ahead, say it!”

  Before Finley could respond, the doorbell rang below. A quick glance at the clock revealed that it was just after five thirty. “She’s early,” Gigi said aloud.

  “Who’s early?” Finley asked.

  “Miranda.”

  “Who?”

  “Miranda,” Gigi repeated. “From cooking class.”

  “Weird Girl?”

  “I told you,” Gigi said. “She’s my friend.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since why do you even care? She’s my friend, and she’s coming over to spend the night, and you—you’re not invited.”

  The harsh words seemed to startle Gigi even as they came out of her own mouth.

  “Fine!” Finley said, springing to her feet. “I don’t want to be invited to your stupid weird sleepover anyway. And guess what? I don’t want to share my birthday with you either.”

  Gigi stepped backwards as if Finn had slapped her across the face. It all started to make sense. No wonder it had been so hard for them to pin down a theme in the first place. Finley must’ve been trying to stall until she could figure a way to wiggle out of the party altogether.

  One hot tear slid down Gigi’s cheek. She wiped it away quickly and said, “Okay, then. It’s decided. No more double birthday parties. And definitely no more best friendship.”

  Finn nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  “You can leave now,” Gigi said. “Dude.”

  Gigi watched Finn stomp out of the room, her blond hair streaking behind her in a golden blur. She couldn’t catch her breath.

  Did that really just happen?

  “Finley, wait!” she called after her (former?) best friend, and started to run after her. Only it was too late—Finn was gone, and Gigi had run smack into Miranda.

  Their foreheads collided with a dull thunk, and Gigi bounced backwards.

  “Ow!” Miranda said, rubbing her right eyebrow. “What was that all about?”

  Gigi couldn’t speak. She pressed the heels of her hands over her eyes and fought the urge to howl.

  “Whoa,” Miranda said. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Gigi replied, even though she was anything but. “Just been a long day.” She dropped her arms to her sides and forced herself to smile.

  “Don’t do that,” Miranda said. “First of all, that smile is wicked creepy. Fact: most fake smiles are. But also, it is one hundred percent A-okay for you to say, ‘No, Miranda, I am not okay. In fact, I am the very opposite of okay.’ Because clearly you are so not okay.”

  Miranda’s directness was one of the things that had made Gigi think she was sort of weird to begin with. Now, she realized, it was one of the things she liked best about her.

  So they talked. Once again, Gigi marveled at how easy it was to tell Miranda anything. She wasn’t judgey, like Kendall could sometimes be, and she wasn’t neutrally detached, like Katie almost always was. Miranda listened, plain and simple. She asked questions too, but they weren’t like Maggie’s attempts to shift the conversation to another topic entirely.

  When she finished, Miranda said, “So let’s recap. On the one hand, you kicked butt at soccer practice and got props from your coach, your mom apologized to you for making you feel bad, your dad’s coming home tomorrow after being gone forever, and your supercool new friend is at your house, ready to throw down with you in the kitchen. All good, yes?”

  Gigi nodded.

  “On the other hand, we have the whole girls-abandoning-you-at-lunch thing and the blowup you just had with Blondie. That’s the not-so-good.”

  Gigi nodded again.

  “I’m not going to lie,” Miranda said. “The not-so-good stuff is pretty awful. But the good stuff is pretty amazing. And there is definitely a lot more of the good going on right now, you know? Plus, I have to say, I don’t think you and Finley are really Donesville. I mean, just look at your room.” Miranda extended one hand and gestured to the Wall like a game-show hostess. “Seriously. It’s like something out of a movie.”

  But Gigi didn’t want to look at the Wall right now. She didn’t want to be reminded of how different things had become.

  “There’s no time for looking,” Gigi said. “Now, we must bake.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Well, what do we have here?” Chef Angela asked, examining the two cupcakes Gigi and Miranda had put before her.

  Cupcake Number One was the zeppole-inspired one that Miranda had dreamed up. Vanilla, filled with a simple but oh-so-rich Italian pastry cream and topped with a tall swirl of whipped cream frosting and a miniature zeppole.

  It wasn’t as splashy looking as Cupcake Number Two, which was a revamped version of the cannoli cupcake Gigi had started with. Miranda’s mastery of baking ratios had taken the thing from the batter disaster and turned it into something truly special: a light ricotta cupcake filled with a mini-chocolate-chip-speckled cannoli cream. It used the same whipped cream frosting as the zeppole cupcake, only instead of a little doughnut, it was topped with chopped pistachios and half of a mini cannoli shell.

  Chef Angela took a bite of the zeppole cupcake first and chewed thoughtfully. “This is OMG good,” she said. “You girls are major-league impressive.”

  Gigi beamed. “Now try the other one.”

  They watched Chef Angela lift the cannoli cupcake to her nose, breathing in its creamy, nutty scent. Slowly she turned the cupcake in her hand, as if she was looking for the perfect place to take the first bite. Then she peeled down a section of the wrapper, exposing some of the cake, and bit in.

  Chef Angela’s eyes closed almost immediately, and before she said a single word, she went back in for a second bite.

  They held their collective breath as Chef Angela leaned in for a third bite. Before she sank her teeth in again, she turned to the girls and said, “Y’all know this confection is perfection, right?”

  Miranda and Gigi grinned at each other while Chef Angela ate the rest of the cupcake. When she was finished, she said, “Tell me. What made you turn a cannoli into a cupcake?”

  “It was Gigi’s idea,” Miranda said. “Her dad’s been in Italy on business. She made the first version all by herself.”

  “But it was awful,” Gigi added quickly. “Miranda totally fixed the cupcake part. She’s, like, a baking wizard.”

  Miranda shook her head. “The flavor is what makes it, though, and that’s all Gigi.”

  “Sound
s like this was a true team effort,” Chef Angela cut in. “Bravo, girls. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Gigi and Miranda went outside to tell their moms the good news, and to offer Miranda’s mom a cupcake, since she hadn’t gotten to taste one yet. Her mom took a dainty, birdlike nibble and said, “Mmm, that is good!” She took a much larger second bite.

  “My mom’s not crazy about sugar,” Miranda explained. “But two bites means she really likes it.”

  The girls said their good-byes, as Gigi and her mother were off to the airport to pick up Gigi’s dad.

  “Good luck tomorrow,” Miranda said. “Call me after the game?”

  “Definitely.”

  Gigi felt squirmy on the ride to the airport. She’d worn a denim mini over sparkly black leggings, but the leggings were too warm for this particular spring day and the sparkly threads were making her skin itch. She kept checking the small cooler she’d stocked with extra cannoli cupcakes to make sure they were okay, but her constant fussing irritated her mother, who kept saying, “Every time you open it, you let the cold air out and the warm air in!” When they hit a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in a construction zone seven miles from their exit, Gigi thought the frustration might make her head literally explode.

  Finally—finally!—they reached the Philadelphia International Airport. Between the flight’s slight delay and the unexpected snarl of traffic, Gigi and her mother managed to arrive just after her dad cleared customs. Not five minutes later, he emerged from the sliding doors with a cart of luggage and a face-splitting grin.

  Gigi bolted from the car and took a running jump into her father’s arms. He wrapped her up in a big bear hug and spun her around a little. “How’s my girl?” he asked after planting a kiss on the top of her head. Then he set Gigi down gently and turned to her mom. “How’s my other girl?”

  A big mama-jama smooch came next; Gigi averted her eyes accordingly. After all, no one likes seeing their parents make out at all, let alone in public.

  They loaded her dad’s luggage into the trunk and started on the half-hour ride home. He told them about the flight, which would’ve been uneventful if the guy seated next to him hadn’t started buzz-saw snoring halfway home.

  “I have to tell you, Gee, it was so loud, even my earplugs didn’t block it out,” he said. “Wait! I recorded some on my phone.”

  He played the sound clip. Sure enough, every three seconds an enormous, guttural snore erupted, each one making Gigi giggle that much harder.

  She opened the cooler and extracted one of the cannoli cupcakes. Then she handed it to her dad in the front seat. “You have to try these, Daddy. Chef Angela said it was ‘confection perfection.’”

  Gigi’s dad took a sloppy bite. “Aww, man,” he said. “That is one heck of a cupcake.”

  “Does it taste like a real Italian cannoli?” Gigi asked.

  “The realest.”

  Gigi peppered her dad with all of the questions she hadn’t gotten answered during their far-too-infrequent Skype calls. She wanted to know about the restaurants, the shops, and the fun things her father did while he was there.

  He snorted. “Fun? What exactly do you think I do on these work trips, Gee?”

  “Come on, Daddy,” she said. “You must have had some fun. You were gone for weeks!”

  “Well, I had a lot of fun picking out presents for you and your mom,” he said. “Does that count?”

  “Absolutely!”

  Back at the house, Gigi’s dad flopped into his favorite oversized, overstuffed easy chair and put his feet up on the ottoman. “It’s so good to be home,” he said. “But you know what’s missing? A dog. In the movies, when a man comes home from a long business trip, he is almost always greeted by a big, fluffy dog.”

  “Are we getting a dog?” Gigi asked.

  “No,” her mother said. “We’re not. George, stop giving her crazy ideas!”

  “Having a family dog isn’t so crazy,” her dad said, giving Gigi a wink. “I hear they’re great for teaching kids how to be responsible.”

  “Okay, fine,” her mother said. “Gigi, if I gave you a choice between a dog and a cell phone, what—”

  “Cell phone,” Gigi interjected. “Hands down.”

  Gigi’s mother gave her father a pointed look, which made him laugh.

  “You’re killing me, kiddo,” he said. “We could have had a dog! Can you hand me that gray duffel?”

  Gigi dragged the heavy duffel bag over to her dad. It was the one that folded up into a flat square for the trip over, then got stuffed with the presents he brought back from his travels.

  The magical gray bag held all sorts of goodies: Lebkuchen gingerbread, carved wood Christmas ornaments, and shiny blue pottery with white polka dots from Germany; Karlovy Vary wafer cookies, a wooden marionette, and matching garnet rings from Prague; fancy balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and tons of dried spices from Italy. But that wasn’t all Gigi’s father brought back; there were also leather gloves for her mother, millefiori earrings for Gigi, and Baci chocolates for both of them.

  When Gigi had asked her dad to bring home a couple of things for an Italy-themed birthday party, she had no idea he’d go so over-the-top crazy. There were miniature flags, key chains, and patches. There were bags of Labello lip balms, Pocket Coffee chocolates, and an olivewood cheese board. There were pennants for Italian football teams (“That’s what they call soccer, you know,” he informed her), a blue ball emblazoned with ITALIA, and a sky blue jersey with the number twelve on the back.

  “I thought you could give this to Finn to wear to the party,” her dad said.

  “Wow,” Gigi said. “This is . . . really nice of you.”

  “You don’t like the jersey?”

  “It’s not that!” Gigi said. “I just . . . Finn and I . . . I don’t even know if there’s going to be a party.”

  “That bad?” he said.

  Gigi nodded.

  “Is it something that can’t be fixed? Something you don’t want to fix?”

  “I think I would want to fix it,” Gigi said, “if I could figure out how. I don’t really know when it got so bad in the first place.”

  Her father scratched at the five-o’clock shadow on his chin. “Want to walk me through it?”

  Gigi told him everything, even the parts that made her look bad, like when she wouldn’t accept Finn’s apology. When she was finished, her dad said, “Have you tried hitting the reset button?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The reset button. Clear everything out. Forget everything that came before and start fresh.”

  Gigi cocked her head to one side. “Really? That’s your big advice?”

  “Okay, if you don’t think that would work, then what will?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. It was a fair question.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe nothing.”

  Her dad disagreed. “I don’t buy it,” he said. “You can resolve most interpersonal conflicts with increased communication. Have you increased your communication, Gigi?”

  She wanted to say yes but couldn’t. The truth was, she and Finn had been talking less and less—until they stopped talking altogether.

  Her father said, “Well then, there you have it. Try increasing your communication, see what happens.”

  “But what if the other person doesn’t want to be communicated with?” Gigi asked.

  “Then it’s not real communication,” he said. “The kind I’m talking about requires both parties to listen as well as talk, to ask as well as answer. And if you can’t get the other party to engage, then you’re either not using the right communication technique, or they’re uninterested in resolving the conflict to begin with. And if that’s the case . . . well, honey, there really isn’t much that you can do. But something tells me that’s not the problem you’re having with Finn.”

  Gigi nodded. Then she said, “Is this the kind of stuff you did when you were in Italy?”

  �
��Sometimes.”

  “Then no wonder you didn’t have any fun.”

  Gigi couldn’t stop thinking about what her dad had said. How was she supposed to increase communication with someone who had outright told her that she didn’t want to be her friend anymore? Of course, both of them had said things out of anger, and hurt.

  For some reason, an image of Madame Fournier popped into her head. She kept thinking about how frustrated Madame got when Gigi couldn’t understand that one sentence. She’d tried so hard to get her message across, but Gigi—and the rest of the club, for that matter—didn’t know all of the words.

  Maybe that’s what I need, Gigi thought. Maybe I just have to learn how to speak Finn.

  She looked around her room, her eyes first combing the massive collage that spanned the Wall. Evidence that she and Finn both had spoken the same language once. Then she looked down at the treasures her father had brought from Italy. She’d never gotten the chance to even tell Finn about her party idea, which was truly half her and half Gigi. Would it have made a difference?

  Gigi had to find out. She picked up the phone and dialed Finn’s number, but no one answered. She left a quick voice mail—“Hey, Eff, it’s Gee. Can we talk? Call me . . . please.”—and formulated her plan.

  CHAPTER 19

  The temperature plummeted nineteen degrees between Saturday and Sunday, which meant that most of the people watching the Sterling Middle School Songbirds play their first match were wearing coats and drinking hot chocolate that the band was selling for a dollar a cup.

  “Smart kids,” said Gigi’s dad when they arrived and saw the long line snaking around the stand. “They’re going to make boatloads of money today. Nance, you want a cocoa?”

  Gigi joined her team, half of whom had already arrived and were jogging in place. Coach liked a good twenty-minute warm-up—knee raises, stretches, the whole nine. Gigi was jealous of the cocoa-fueled warming-up her parents were doing in the stands.

  For the season opener, the Songbirds were set to play the Bunting Bumblebees. Gigi knew a couple of the girls from her time in the intramural league, and there was friendly waving. It seemed funny to Gigi how little real sports resembled the stuff you saw in the movies, where there seemed to be a lot of nail-biting and last-minute scoring to win the big game. Her soccer games tended to be way more boring.