“You can only score when you’ve got the right of way,” she says.
“A touch on the arm is outside the target zone and doesn’t count,” she says.
The interruptions are annoying from a competitive perspective but also informative, so I can’t complain because that’s what I’m here to do, right? To learn how to get even better at something I might naturally be sort of good at?
The last twenty minutes are spent setting up bouts between classmates. Dede pairs off with Gilda, the senior lady in the fencing jacket. Bob the basketball player partners up with D.J., the high school boy. The two blonde moms—Julie and Jennifer—pick each other. That leaves the brown-haired mom and me. I can tell from personal experience that Heather is annoyed to be the odd one out.
“Well,” she says to me, “I bet this class will look great on your college applications.”
And I’m glad I’m already wearing my helmet so she can’t see the gaggy expression on my face.
I’m twelve! I want to yell at her. Slow your roll, lady.
No surprise, it’s a very disappointing matchup. Heather actually stops three times because she’s afraid she’ll break a nail. And when she isn’t focusing on her manicure, she’s enviously watching Julie and Jennifer giggle their way through their own lazy bout. I wish I could’ve fought against Dede the whole time, but I can’t even imagine how much solo instruction must cost.
We’re putting our borrowed equipment away when Dede approaches me.
“You said your sister signed you up?” she asks. “Lauren Plaza, the soccer player?”
I’m not surprised that Dede knows my sister. I get this a lot. My sister has zero Fotobomb followers but is sort of famous in athletic circles. She was All-State two years in a row, and when she accepted her full college scholarship, it was all over the sports blogs.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s my sister.”
“Well,” Dede says with a smile, “looks like there are two star athletes in the Plaza family.”
And then she tousles my already messy hair and says she looks forward to seeing me next week. I’m not even gone, and I’m practically counting down the minutes until I’m back again.
Sundays are for cleaning the apartment. It used to be the only day of the week I was grateful not to live in a mansion as massive as Morgan’s, until I realized no one with a mansion as massive as Morgan’s actually cleans it themselves. My main responsibilities have always been decluttering (aka putting everything back in its place) and dusting. Since Lauren left for school, Mom and I split up her duties, so now I have to vacuum too. Mom has taken on mopping.
When Lauren, Mom, and I work together, we can get the whole place done in about an hour. I’m terrible with numbers, but since Mom and I split her jobs in half, mathematically it should only take Mom and I, like, thirty minutes more to clean the whole apartment without Lauren, right? But it hasn’t worked out that way. Mom and I are learning that like everything else, Lauren was an overachiever cleaner.
Mom bends down to inspect a scuff mark on the kitchen tile.
“Your sister got this floor cleaner in five minutes than I can in twenty!”
I turn the vacuum back on to avoid hearing another word about Lauren’s efficiency. My first-day-of-school peace-sign tee has been shedding bling all over the apartment since its last run through the washing machine. No matter how aggressively I push the vacuum over the carpet, the same stubborn sequins refuse to get unstuck.
This would make the worst Day in the Life video ever.
Hey, OMGs! So … this is me in my Dragonologist Chronicles T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms because it’s laundry day and I’m all out of cuteness! Vacuuming sucks. Ha ha! Get it? Stick around, and you’ll get to see me use a toilet brush! Jealous much?
Mom taps me on the shoulder. I can’t hear her over the roar of the vacuum. But I don’t have to hear her to understand.
Just pick them up, she pantomimes. If you keep running the vacuum over the same spot we will have nothing to show for our efforts except a hole in the carpet.
Mom is very expressive even without words.
I shut off the vacuum and get down on my hands and knees to pinch the sequins from the carpet fibers. An oldies pop song from Mom’s youth is blasting from the speakers.
“Roam if you want to,” Mom sings along to the stereo. “Roam around the world.”
It’s a bouncy pop song, sung by two women in lively unison that splits into harmony. Mom is smiling as she sings it, which is weird to me because this song makes me think of my Secret Map and how maybe our father might have taken those lyrics a little too much to heart.
I turn the vacuum back on so I don’t have to hear the rest of the song.
My mother is a terrible singer. Her voice lands in this tuneless space between alto and soprano, and if I didn’t already dislike this song, her version isn’t turning it into a fave. On Sundays, Mom always plays music from her youth at a very specific volume: loud enough to sort of sound like a dance party but not so loud that the neighbors complain. When I was younger, I could be tricked into thinking that vogueing to Madonna with my very own feather duster was a fun way to spend a Sunday. When I was younger, a lot of things made me happy because I didn’t know any better.
The vacuum powers down all on its own. I jab the on/off switch a few times before I notice Mom is swinging the unplugged cord in her hand.
“You’re not getting this apartment any cleaner,” she says. “At this rate you’ll never be done.”
“Why rush? It’s not like I’m allowed to go anywhere or do anything fun when I’m done.”
Mom leans on her mop. She’s got bags under her eyes, and her hair is corkscrewing out of control.
“That’s not fair,” she says. “I let you spend a whole Saturday with Morgan Middleton.”
“I wasn’t with her the whole day,” I say. “I had my fencing lesson too …”
Mom has had very little to say about my fencing lessons. I think she’s a little mad at Lauren for signing me up without her permission.
“If Morgan wants to come over here today to help you with your chores,” Mom continues, “she’s welcome anytime.”
Ha! Morgan Middleton has never run a vacuum or touched a feather duster in her life. Unlike me, she doesn’t need to wait for global multiplatform domination to hire a staff to do all her dirty work.
“Morgan has way more important things to do on a Sunday,” I reply. “She’s optimizing all our social media content for maximum engagement …”
Mom twists her lips and turns away to rinse the mop in the kitchen sink.
Mom can barely figure out Facebook—and that’s, like, designed for old people. She doesn’t even know what Fotobomb is. So I get why she doesn’t understand why Morgan & Ella’s growing popularity on the socials is such a big deal, even when I use fancy words like “optimizing.” But why can’t she see how Morgan & Ella’s success will make life better for her too? When we start making major money, I’ll buy Mom a massive mansion and a whole staff to clean it.
I don’t say any of this though.
I surprise her—and myself—by telling her something I hadn’t planned on mentioning at all.
“We ran into Sophie yesterday.”
Mom shuts off the faucet and turns to me. She instantly looks less exhausted than she has all morning.
“Really? How is she? You know she’s always welcome over here anytime. Even after school. Maybe she could help you out with math …”
I can hear the eagerness in her voice. She wants Sophie back in my life so badly, and Mom needs to know that friendship isn’t an option anymore. I give her the only reason that won’t make her lips all twisty.
“Sophie has a new best friend, Mom,” I say. “A really cool girl named Kaytee whose family moved in to the house next door.”
“Ella,” Mom says, tucking a loose curl behind her ear, “just because she’s got a new friend doesn’t mean she doesn’t have room in her life for an old f
riend.”
And before I can stop her, she’s singing that cheesy Girl Scouts song:
Make new friends, but keep the o-old.
One is silver, and the other’s gold.
Mom’s singing voice is the second worst in the world. She’s only outdone by Lauren who—of course, in her weirdly competitive way—has to be the very best at being the very worst singer. I’ve always wanted to know if I inherited my musical talent from our father. I’ve never had the courage to ask.
“I hated Girl Scouts,” I confess. “I only did it because Sophie did it.”
Because we did everything together, says The Best Friend in My Head.
“Girl Scouts taught you about goal setting,” Mom says. “I wish you’d apply those lessons to your schoolwork.”
Mom has no idea what she’s talking about.
Sophie lived for earning badges for her sash. Our sashes. I earned all the same honors as she did—from Junior Activist to Zoologist—but didn’t get excited about them in the same way Sophie did. To get me motivated, she’d even let me pick out the badges that looked most interesting to me—Jeweler, Scribe, or Musician, for example—but I’d always lose interest less than halfway through the checklist. I have to think our troop leaders knew Sophie was doing most of my work, too, even though that was totally against the Girl Scout honor code. The only part I genuinely liked about Girl Scouts was standing up in front of the rest of the troop and harmonizing with Sophie on the “Make New Friends” song. When I was younger, an audience of a dozen Scouts was enough to make me happy. Now I’m not sure how many Fotobomb followers it will take.
A sunbeam shoots through the window and highlights a missed sequin at my feet. I pick it up and show it to my mom.
“Can I be done now?” I ask.
Mom sighs instead of saying yes.
How many Sundays did Sophie come over to help clean the apartment? She was the one who pointed out how the feather duster just kind of moved dirt around and that it would be much more efficient and still environmentally friendly to trap grime with a reusable microfiber cloth. With her obsessive eye for detail, Sophie didn’t make us any quicker, but definitely better.
“Sophie isn’t fast,” Mom would joke. “She’s fastidious.”
Lauren is both.
I’m neither.
But it doesn’t matter. If our brand makes us as rich as Morgan promises it will, we’ll never spend another Sunday pushing vacuums and mops.
Morgan and Maddy burst through the door to the girls’ bathroom on Monday buzzing with news.
“Have you seen the Fotobomb numbers?” asks Maddy.
“Of course she hasn’t,” Morgan says. “She never sees anything.”
Maddy slaps a drumroll against her thighs to hype up the big reveal.
“Morgan got five thousand one hundred and three new fans this week!”
Maddy is doing all the boasting because Morgan is the humblest. I react in a very high-key way, but that’s okay because that’s part of my Goofball charm.
“Wowza! We’re really blowing up!”
“Ummm … Not we.” She ding-dongs her head. “Me.”
“Not you,” Maddy emphasizes. “Morgan.”
Maddy shows me her phone while Morgan casually checks her mascara in the mirrors above the sink. Morgan’s numbers are exploding all over Fotobomb. Less than a week ago, she was two hundred followers behind me, and now she’s pulled ahead by five thousand-ish? And with 15,109 followers, she’s got more alone than Morgan & Ella do together.
“What can I say?” Morgan says with a cute little shrug. “The fans love me.”
I’m still trying to process all this information—5,103 new fans in a week???—when Morgan rattles a plastic shopping bag at me.
“Special delivery!”
Morgan doesn’t bring new outfits for me every day. But it happens often enough that she’s totally stopped telling me white lies like Oh, I thought this would look cute on me but it looks way cuter on you so I’ll feel less awkward about it. It’s clear she’s buying these items specifically for me because I can’t be trusted to shop for myself.
As I undress in the stall, Morgan and Maddy gossip about that girl and her brother we met on Saturday.
“Kaytee already follows Morgan & Ella on all the socials,” Maddy says, “but it’s totally tragic that the Mystery Hottie does not.”
“His name is Alex,” Morgan reminds us. “And he won’t be a mystery to me anymore if I have anything to say about it.”
Morgan says it like someone who always has something to say about everything. This poor boy has absolutely no clue what he’s in for.
“Ella! Come out for inspection! The bell’s gonna ring soon!”
I stuff my comfy jeans and tee into the shopping bag and step out of the stall in a floral jumpsuit that feels too tight in some places and too loose in others and not like me at all. But I shove those thoughts aside like I did with my first outfit of the day. I put on a smile and do a little spin and avoid looking at the price tag because this store’s clearance racks are still way out of my budget.
“Perfection!”
If my best friend wants to share a tiny fraction of her wealth, isn’t it an insult to reject her generosity?
Oh, Lala, there’s always a price to pay …
I don’t correct my frowny face fast enough.
“Awww…” coos Morgan.
“Awww…” coos Maddy.
Morgan puts on a supersympathetic face and pats me on the shoulder.
Maddy steps aside and lets her have this moment all for herself.
“Don’t feel bad. You’ve still got a bunch of fans who are into your aesthetic.”
First, this jumpsuit doesn’t feel like my aesthetic. And second, I don’t feel bad at all. I’m sort of relieved to have proof that Morgan is more popular than I am.
Even if the proof is …
Well …
I don’t want to sound jealous.
Or petty.
Or like I know more about the socials than Morgan and Maddy do. I mean, I’m straight out of the nineties with my phonelessness.
But.
Five thousand one hundred and three new fans in less than a week is …
Suspicious?
“So,” I say, casually applying a fresh coat of lip gloss, “I guess the, um, algorithm worked itself out?”
“Ummm …” Morgan puckers for the mirror. “Obviously!”
“It only makes sense for the Girlboss to have more followers than the Goofball,” Maddy says reassuringly. “Balance is restored.”
“Right,” I say. “But …”
But I thought we were supposed to be equals, I don’t say. And this imbalance just makes us look bad as a brand … ?
“Selfies!” orders Morgan.
The light is perfection and our poses are perfection and our Fotobomb posts are perfection.
clickclickclickclickclick
How can the rest of my day …
Spanish verbs I can’t conjugate
cells I can’t find under the microscope
math problems I can’t solve
… possibly live up to this perfection?
Trying to act normal in front of Morgan and Maddy is exhausting. I’m not the most focused student even on my best day. So I hear very little of what Miss Lee has to say about similes and metaphors. I don’t process much of Mrs. Munson’s PowerPoint about Pangaea. My brain is too preoccupied with a question that won’t appear on any upcoming test.
What if Morgan dumps me for someone with a better aesthetic?
By the time we separate for foreign languages, Morgan & Ella is just about the last thing I want to think or talk about. Unfortunately, our number one OMG has her own burning questions.
“What’s up with your socials lately?” Paisley asks as she slides into the seat next to me in Spanish class.
“I know, right?” I reply. “The numbers are pretty bonkers.”
“Well, yeah,” she says. “B
ut I’m talking about all Morgan’s videos. Where are you?”
“What do you mean?”
Confession: I haven’t voluntarily watched any of our videos since I lost my phone. I won’t look away if Morgan or Maddy shoves a phone in my face, but I haven’t gone out of my way to see myself on-screen. To be honest, I’ve always enjoyed making the videos more than I ever did watching them. I see too many mistakes—wrong notes, wonky tempo—too late to correct. If I ever gave more thought to the foreverness of my fails, I’d never step in front of a camera again.
“She’s posted a bunch of videos that are just about her,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “I was with her all day on Saturday shooting content.”
Paisley shakes her head soberly.
“Well, you’d never know it,” she says. “Like, the only video you were in was the Disney Princess medley, and that’s only because it wouldn’t make any sense without you on the ukulele or the harmonies. And even then the camera was tight on her face, and you were, like, just barely seen over her shoulder …”
“So what’s she doing in all these other videos?”
“She’s, you know, being a Girlboss,” Paisley explains. “Morgan at soccer practice, Morgan on her horse, Morgan in dance class, Morgan …”
Well, that would sort of explain the sudden surge in followers … right? Did Maddy put her up to this? To make sure I. DID. NOT. GET. MORE. POPULAR. THAN. MORGAN?
Paisley is just getting started, but Senora Greenbaum commands us to “abren sus libros,” and we have to wait another forty minutes to finish the conversation because we don’t have the vocabulary to say it in Spanish.
“So you really had no idea she edited you out?” Paisley asks the moment class ends.
“No!”
“The OMGs are not going to stand by and just let this happen!” Paisley starts texting frantically. “We are Team Ella all the way!”
“No! No! No!” I grab her phone out of her hands. “I’m sure that Morgan has an overall strategy. She would never do anything to damage our brand. You should tell the OMGs Hashtag Goalz Girlz is going strong …”
Paisley, who is probably Morgan & Ella’s most devoted fan, isn’t buying it.
True to Your Selfie Page 10
