Barbie: Beyond the Trip

Holiday Hassle

"Wait, are you quitting?!"

Barbie exhaled heavily, tears coming to her eyes, "N-no, I'm not quitting, it's just–"

"I know you said you had second thoughts about performing, but seriously girl, we are on fire!"

It was becoming too much... Barbie wasn't sure what she was going to do... The lights swirled around her, sounds became muffled, but the only voices hitting her brain were the hurt accusations from her singing partner and manager.

"Chica, if you were having second thoughts, how come I did not know about this? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Malibu...", Brooklyn laid it all out, as serious as ever, "Are you in for the Barbies... or not?"

Barbie looked back and forth between her two best friends and watched the look of frustration cross their brows. Hurt frustration, worry, anxious tension... She gaped, her mouth opening and closing, unsure of how to begin. Her heart was racing and she felt like she was having a panic attack... Breathing heavily in quick pants, she tried to respond through her hyper alert brain fog.

"I... I..."

****

FLASHBACK TO DAY ONE OF CHRISTMAS BREAK

"Finally! I'm officially a Sophomore!"

Ken laughed and winked at his girlfriend, elbowing her gently, "Welcome to the club! Maybe over the summer you can take some classes, too, if you want to get ahead"

Barbie shrugged, walking beside her boyfriend to his vehicle, "Possibly. It's definitely not out of the question. I'll have to see how the Spring semester goes and what Brooklyn and I have to do as far as starting up a record label. Rafa's supposed to be contacting us to give us some numbers on how much this is going to cost"

Wincing sympathetically, Ken whistled at the idea of how much money his girlfriend would have to save up for this dream.

"Yyyyyyyyeaaaaaah... something's tellin' me this isn't going to be cheap..."

Barbie sighed, glancing down towards the sidewalk, "I know...", but then took the bright side of things, looking back up at him, "But I think we can make it work. I mean honestly, how much money could this possibly take?"

****

"Fifty ThOuSaNd DOLLARS!?!?!"

Rafa flinched back from the outburst, rubbing at his sore ears. An exasperated exhale escaped his lips as he nodded to the utterly flabbergasted girls on the phone.

"Yes... $50,000... Give or take"

Brooklyn huffed into her phone on the three-way call, "Give or take? Rafa, what the heck does that mean?"

"You mean it could be more?!", Barbie squealed, pacing nervously around her bedroom back in Malibu.

Rafa nodded, "Technically, yes... Depending on whether or not we can get equipment and a recording space for free and whether or not any employees we decide to hire would work for free..."

Brooklyn rolled her eyes, not pleased with that unappreciated number-crunching, "Oh, is that all?"

"Yep"

Barbie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose tightly. She scrunched her eyes shut and held the phone slightly out of view of her frustrated expression. The right words to describe how absurd that amount was escaped her momentarily.

Seriously.... $50,000?

"But, I have a plan to get this money. All we need to do is–"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah... side jobs...", Brooklyn deadpanned, thinking back to their time at students in Handler trying to make ends meet with all the weird gigs they took on, "What do you have lined up for us, O' Illustrious Leader, Mister King of the Deals?"