On the car ride over to the track, I looked over the Riley Mae photo shoot schedule. Why hadn’t I paid attention to that before? I never thought I would have to give up softball. My dad was right, though — most of the Saturdays in March, April, and May were full, and that’s when softball games were scheduled.
“TJ’s gonna kill me. And then she’ll never talk to me again.”
“Well, if you’re dead,” Brady said, “then you won’t care if she’s not talking to you.”
Dad looked back at me through the rearview mirror. “She’ll understand, honey.”
“No, she won’t. I know my best friend.” Correction — soon-to-be ex-best friend.
Just then a text came through on my phone.
Don’t forget signups
1 – 3 today
C U soon
From TJ. I slammed the phone down on the seat. Not going to answer that. Maybe she would think my phone was dead.
“Dad, don’t you think Swiftriver would want me to play softball, since I’m modeling softball cleats? Can’t we just call Bob Hansen and ask — ”
“Oh no, young lady.” Mom turned to look at me and wagged her finger. “You SAID you were going to do this, so you’re GONNA.”
Dad pulled the car over to the side of the road.
“Brady, stay here. Ladies, join me outside.”
Oh no, another family meeting.
Dad walked with me and Mom up and down the street for a minute, and he rubbed his stressed-out neck all the way. Then he bent down and looked me in the eyes. “Riley, when we signed the shoe contract, we agreed that for two years you would do photo shoots, magazine ads and commercials and appear at special events to help sell shoes.” He pointed to my feet. “Riley Mae shoes. That’s you. So you have to do this. We gave you all this information in advance, and you agreed to it all, or believe me, we wouldn’t have decided to do this.”
“I know, it’s just that I didn’t think I’d have to give up softball.”
Mom took a deep breath. “Riley, we’re sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. Maybe next year we can ask Bob to make some room in the schedule.”
Just then, Brady jumped out of the car. He was messing with my phone.
“Put that down!”
“It’s okay,” he said. “TJ texted you again. I took care of it.”
“What? That’s MY phone. Gimme that! What did you write?”
I pulled up the sent messages. There it was. It was all over now.
Can’t play softball.
Going to shoe shoot.
Fresno Bee-loved.
“BRADY!” I was going to say (okay, yell) more, but I noticed ten new text messages arriving in my inbox. They were all from TJ. They each had only one word:
U
R
SO
PLAYING
GIT
OVER
HERE
NOW
SHOE
GIRL
This was going to get ugly.