Street Smarts

"You know what? That's it." Gabby leant forward and put her mug down on the coffee table with a decisive thunk. "I'm done."

After dinner, the guys had gone on to The Lounge for another drink, but Sharpay had reluctantly declined pleading "extreme pregnancy and the constant need to pee", and had invited the rest of the girls to accompany her home, make coffee and see if Zeke had any cookies stashed somewhere in the kitchen. Much as she loved the buzzy atmosphere and awesome live music at The Lounge, Gabby had been only too glad to accept; it had been another long, hard day. Venting via the medium of email had done her some good, as had lunch and ranting with Sharpay. The de-brief back at the Studios had been an exercise in almost maniacal optimism on Elliot's part, strange smugness on the part of Troy Bolton, and barely restrained pessimism on the part of everyone who, as Jon said later, had actually been watching the show. At the de-brief of the de-brief half an hour later at Starbucks, Gabby, Mia and Jon, in a rare Bing Crosby 'Count Your Blessings' moment had sat down with a legal pad and a pen to made a list of all the good things about the show and its new co-anchor.

The wind farm actually turned on first time

Gabby: "I was sort of hoping that it wouldn't. Is that wrong?"

Jon: "Yes. Yes it is."

The environmental supporters and the council members didn't get into a fist fight like that time at the funfair

Mia: "Was that the time when the clown chased the protestor with the massive mallet?"

Jon: "You know of any other brawls I've directed at fair grounds, Mia?"

There were no kids or animals on the show

Jon: "Having said that, that monkey from the show we did at the zoo in the summer, what was his name?"

Gabby: "Mojo."

Jon: "Mojo. Right. He'd have livened things up…"

Gabby: "And by livened up, you mean…"

Jon: "He might have sat on your head and played your face like a bongo again."

Mia: "Oh that was good…"

Troy is good at making guests on the show feel welcome

Gabby: "I'll say, that woman from the environmental group was practically sitting in his lap…"

Jon: "Ahem."

Gabby: "Oh. Right. Positive. Yes, he certainly has a way with the camera."

He has a very nice suede jacket

Gabby: "That's true, Mia, he really does! Why didn't he WEAR IT?"

Jon: "Because he wants the people of Albuquerque to trust him?"

Gabby: "Shut up."

No one appears to have noticed how badly the show sucked

Jon: "…which is good."

Gabby: "Yes, except no one will have appreciated what a tour de force performance I gave today. My acting coach…"

Mia: "You have an acting coach?"

Gabby: "I took classes at college. My acting coach always said I failed to give my performances emotional grounding. She said that I didn't convey the essence of what it was to be alive in the moment. Well almost all the residents of Albuquerque seem to think I actually like Bolton. Ha! Take that, Madame de la Fontaine!"

Mia: "She was called wha…never mind. Go on."

As seemingly pointless as the exercise had been, it had been good to laugh after the morning they had shared. It was also nice, she had thought as she made her way back to her office, to realise that she wasn't alone in feeling apprehensive about the coming weeks. Troy was obviously an accomplished TV presenter, and GMA was in no immediate danger of being irrevocably screwed, it was just hard to imagine how she was going to come up with five show's worth of believable witty banter every week. Now, however, in the peace and quiet of the Baylors' family room, with some of her favourite people around her, Gabriella made a decision. Her pronouncement, accompanied by the emphatic putting down of her coffee cup, caused Sharpay to look up in alarm, almost spilling her decaf soy cappuccino.

"Done? You're going to quit?"

"What?" Taylor put her head round the door from the kitchen, where she had located a tin of cookies and was arranging them on a plate, "You're going to what?"

Gabby looked horrified. "Quit? Of course not, I love my job! Apart from anything else, I wouldn't give Bolton the satisfaction of getting rid of me. No, I was just sitting here thinking that while I'm whinging about my job, you guys all have stuff going on, and I haven't caught up in ages. When I said I was done, I just meant that I was done with feeling sorry for myself, I am done with complaining about Troy Bolton, and I am done being so self-centred. So," she sat up straighter and tucked her legs under her, "Tell me. What's going on with you guys? How's your class, Kels? Do you have a Christmas play planned this year?"

Kelsi smiled. "They're lovely, and yes we do have a play. The kindergarten is joining forces with the first and second grades this year, and one of the girls in the second grade has a professional writer for a Mom, so she has very kindly agreed to write us a play if I'll write a few songs for it."

"And you're clearly pretty upset by that," teased Gabby, knowing that being left in front of a piano with a pencil and a manuscript pad was just about her friend's dream scenario.

"Oh yeah, I'm so mad," grinned Kelsi, "Although I have to say, Jase is getting pretty sick of me trying out various songs on the chord progression of Ding Dong! Merrily On High."

"Surely you're good as long as you steer away from Suzy Snowflake?" Taylor brought a plate of chocolate peanut butter cookies through, and took a seat next to Gabby on the sofa. "I seem remember him on the subject of that song last year, can't remember why though…"

Kelsi rolled her eyes. "We got stuck in a traffic jam going to see his parents, and the CD I had helpfully brought with me to get us in the Christmas spirit got stuck playing the same two songs over an over again for two hours until he pulled over at a garage and wouldn't leave until they had prised the CD out. So unless you want to see my husband get a crazed look in his eyes, don't mention either Suzy Snowflake or Baby's First Christmas."

"Oh I kind of like that song," Sharpay leant forward to take a cookie, and sat back, her hand going unconsciously to her now quite large bump, "I mean, I know it's pretty schmaltzy, but it's a nice idea. I guess I'm just kind of looking forward to next year, when this little one will have made his or her appearance."

"Are you going to find out what you're expecting?" asked Taylor.

Sharpay shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I wouldn't mind knowing, you know, if the nurse accidentally slipped up while doing my ultrasound, but Zeke really wants a surprise."

"Do you have a preference?" asked Gabby. "Even the tiniest of preferences?"

Sharpay laughed. "You know, before I got pregnant, I think I might have been leaning towards preferring a girl, but now, as long as my baby is healthy, I honestly don't mind. I just can't believe seven months has gone so fast, and in eight weeks, I could be sitting here with a baby." She shook her head and reached for her cappuccino. "It's a bit scary, really…"

There was silence for a moment, as the girls tried to adjust their mental image of the Sharpay they knew and loved to include a baby. It was surprisingly easy.

"You're going to be a terrific Mom, Shar," Taylor leant forward and patted her friend's foot, the only part of her she could reach without falling off the sofa, "I just know it. And with Zeke for a Dad, this kid is going to be the best fed child in Albuquerque!"

"How about you, hon?" said Sharpay, turning her attention away from the prospect of childbirth looming ever more present on the horizon. "You're working on a pretty big case at the moment, aren't you? Are things getting stressful?"

Taylor nodded, "Yeah, it's a pretty big case, but it's not stressful yet so much as heavy on the paperwork. It just seems that for every two hour meeting we have, we seem to spend another four hours writing it up."

"Chad's on the same case, isn't he?" asked Kelsi.

"Yes, he's heading one of the other teams, but we're both working on the same thing, and we get to lead meetings together, which is nice." She paused. "But it's kind of odd seeing the guy who is normally so funny and laidback being so…lawyerly. It's almost as if he has developed this alter ego who's this sharp-talking lawyer, while Chad Danforth is the regular guy who makes great spaghetti and meatballs and has seen every Steven Segal movie ever made. I was sitting in on one of the meetings he was having with his team this afternoon, and I swear I thought I'd fallen into an episode of The West Wing. He used the word 'prescient'. In a joke. And everyone laughed! It was so strange…"

Gabby laughed. "I guess if you've never really seen him in action, it was bound to be a bit of a shock. I mean, you knew he was great at his job, right? It's just the serious image that doesn't quite match up with the guy we've known these last few years."

"I guess in a way, that's kind of what happened on GMA today, Gabs," said Sharpay thoughtfully. "Not the part about having known Troy for years, but after Saturday, I think we were all thinking that maybe if the guy we had dinner with turned up to present the show with you, it might not be so bad."

"Whereas his uptight, pompous, corporate twin turned up instead." Gabby finished her coffee and stretched her legs out with a yawn, which turned into a sigh. "I meant it, you know, guys. I can't spend every day feeling like I did this morning, it's too exhausting. I just have to be as professional as I can and hope for the best, it's all I can do."

Gabby's resolve lasted almost the whole week. Tuesday saw them presenting the show from the newly renovated Public Library, where Troy had practically every female in the building swooning at his, in Gabriella' opinion, wildly over-sentimental reading of Goodnight Moon to a group of pre-schoolers. Wednesday's show came from the University of New Mexico, where the performing arts students who had managed to get up in time treated them to highlights of the early rehearsals for Oklahoma! and Troy demonstrated, as he had in the Baylors' living room, precisely the right way to sing the opening line of the title song. Ryan, standing behind the camera with Jon, caught Gabby's eye and had to leave the room. On Thursday, the show had a western theme to coincide with the 150th birthday of one of the oldest ranches in New Mexico. Gabby thought she had done her research, but that was nothing compared with the sheer volume of information Troy seemed to have absorbed in a few short days. It was when he led the entire workforce of the ranch in a rousing chorus of Little Joe, The Wrangler, that Gabby considered admitting defeat.

On Friday, she snapped. The show was coming from the Rio Grande Botanic Garden which, in less than a week would be transformed into a Christmas fairyland with thousands of twinkling lights. As if to remind everyone that Christmas was coming, the weather had suddenly taken a turn, and though the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the wind felt icy. In preparation for this event, having got into the habit of studying the weather forecast online the night before, Gabby arrived at work in her thickest dark wool trousers, with as many thin layers as she could fit underneath her green velvet jacket, a dark blue scarf and matching wrist warmers. Troy was, as usual, in a suit. A beautiful suit, she had to admit, with a tie not unlike the one she had ruined at the cocktail party. As she arrived on set from her trailer, where she and Mia had been hiding and drinking espresso to try to warm up, he was standing on the jetty from which they would be doing their opening link, peering over the edge into the shallow water.

"Now there's a guy who knows how to dress for an occasion," muttered Gabby, as she finished helping Mia distributing coffees among the crew, before going to join her co-anchor, "Morning Troy, how's it going?"

Troy looked up and smiled, or rather, he smiled through the chattering of his teeth. "Good morning, Gabriella. I'm doing well, thank you, despite this cold snap. I thought New Mexico was supposed to be warm all the time?"

"It's not that cold, really, and anyway, I thought you came from New York. Isn't it freezing there in the winter?"

Troy nodded. "Yeah, it can get pretty cold. I guess I didn't do much in the way of outdoor reporting in New York."

"I can tell."

"Sorry?" He cupped a hand next to his ear, "Sorry, I missed that."

Gabby narrowed her eyes. "I meant that you're hardly dressed for this kind of weather."

"I think we've been through this before," Troy tucked his running schedule under his arm and slid his hands into his pockets. "I want to present a trustworthy image at this time, when I'm still new in people's minds. Maybe when I've been here a while, I'll be able to let it all go and dress down." He coughed, and glanced at Gabby's wristwarmers pointedly.

Gabby stepped backwards, almost overbalancing into the lake, and swallowed as she felt her resolve slip away. "Dress down? Troy, that's it! I can't take it any more! You've got to lose the suit! You look ridiculous!"

"I look ridiculous?" Irritation flitted across Troy's face for the first time Gabby could remember. "You're the one who looks like she turned up for a day at the fair!"

"I thought that was part of my folksy charm."

Troy was, by now, looking seriously annoyed. "Well you look like a college graduate."

Gabby took a step towards him. "And you look like a bank manager."

The next moment was a little blurry to Gabby. All she remembered later was that he had tried to leave the jetty, and she was in his way. In that second, all professionalism left her, and he was just that boy who was annoying her, and she knew how to deal with annoying boys. Dealt a sudden elbow to the ribs, Troy staggered, tripped on the edge of the jetty and fell into the lake with an enormous splash.

"What…how…you…"

When Gabby looked over the edge, he was standing up to his waist in what had to be icy water, a look of absolute shock on his face. Pushing aside the thought that she had done the second most unprofessional thing since attempting to dance with Kevin Bacon, she gave him a winning smile.

"Mmmm, folksy, and yet…" she paused for emphasis, "Street smarts."

Troy glared at her, and had opened his mouth to say something when they were interrupted.

"Guys? You're on in five…oh you have GOT to be kidding me." They both turned to see Jon standing on the bank. "Bolton, what in the name of all that is…never mind…will someone just get him out of there? Troy, I know your thoughts on going suitless, but I think you'll just have to wear street clothes like the rest of us today. Just this once."

Troy winced, and took the offered hands to clamber up the steep bank. Once he was standing on solid ground, he turned to Jon. "I…er…I came in my suit today."

Jon closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You came in your suit. So what you mean is that you have no dry clothes." He sighed. "Will someone find Troy something to wear? Something that'll make him look presentable and trustworthy if at all possible."

Five minutes later, standing next to Gabby on the jetty, wearing borrowed clothes and with wet hair, Troy received his cue, and smiled broadly at the camera.

"We're at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden, home to the largest cottonwood gallery forest in the world. It's…" He shot his cuff to check the time, and finding his watch still showing the time at which he had experienced his plunge into the lake, turned to Gabby with a glare.

Gabby didn't miss a beat. "It's 8:02, I'm Gabriella Montez…"

"…and I'm Troy Bolton."

For the first time, they had found a rhythm.

"Good morning Albuquerque!"

"So. Anyone care to tell me what was going on there?" The show had been a success, Troy's unscheduled dip aside. Jon left his place behind the camera as the crew began packing up, and went to join his two presenters. Gabby, who had been laughing with Mia, felt a sudden panic rise in the back of her throat. It had been an accident of sorts, it was certainly true that she had never intended him to fall in the lake, but there was no doubt at all that she had been arguing with him, and had elbowed him in the ribs. It was possible that in a few hours, Jon might be able to laugh about this, but as he marched towards her, Gabby knew that she had better come up with a really good excuse if she didn't want to seriously plummet in her director and friend's estimation.

"Well? Anyone?" Jon was now standing in front of her, his eyebrows raised.

"Um, you know, I might just…" Mia gestured to an indeterminate spot on the other side of the set with her thumb and made a hasty exit.

Gabby met Jon's eye, and was preparing to tell him what had happened, when Troy, who was standing behind Jon, spoke up. "Jon, I'm so sorry, I don't know exactly what happened. I think I must have been standing too close to the edge while Gabriella and I were talking, and I think I tripped on the edge of the jetty, you know, that little raised part round the edge? Anyway, I tripped on that and fell in. I'm really very sorry, I'll try not to…fall in any more lakes in future."

Jon, who had turned round to hear this speech, turned back to Gabby, a look of disbelief on his face that almost matched hers. "Gabs?"

Gabby stared over his shoulder, and made eye contact with Troy, the guy who she'd pushed in a lake only hours previously, the guy who had just saved her from a really embarrassing conversation with her director. Hearing no reply to the contrary, Jon shrugged and shook his head. "All right, fine. I'm going back to the studio now, I'll see you both at the de-brief?"

Gabby nodded. "Um, yes."

"See you later, Gabriella?" Troy had started walking to where they parked their cars, but turned on his heel so that he walked backwards for a couple of steps.

Finding that the power of sensible speech had temporarily abandoned her, Gabby nodded. "Um…yes?"

Troy smiled. "OK then."

"OK."

"Bye then."

"Bye."