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The Phone Call

  "Christa, are you sure about this?" I asked while stuffing my butt into a pair of skinny jeans my best friend Christa had picked out for me.
  "Positive." She replied. "They would look so cute with that crop top!" She screeched and ran over to pick up a white short sleeved crop top with palm trees.
  "While that IS, the cutest shirt I've ever seen, are you sure I can afford all of this?" I asked Christa. Christa tends to ignore prices and just "buy whatever looks cute." I, however, have more common sense than her. I always have.
  "Loren, you're playing a lead role on Broadway! Can't you afford- like -everything now?" She asked. I giggled.
  "No, Christa, sadly that's not how it works. I can afford this white cami though." I said. Christa groaned.
  "Whatever. I just think that maybe-" my phone rang. I glanced at my screen. It was Kathy, my best friend since Kindergarten.
"Hold on." I said to Christa. "Hello?" I answered the phone.
  "Hey, Loren." Kathy whispered into the phone.
"Um, Kathy, what's wrong?" I asked, suddenly feeling worried.
"No, no, no. Nothing's wrong. I'm just tired. It's hard being a pediatric surgeon, you know." She laughed.
"So what's up? You're interrupting my shopping trip with Christa, you know." I said glancing at Christa, who was looking at the sportswear section. Christa is a photographer, so we live in a small apartment together, but she's also a backup dancer in some of my plays. I act in major Broadway productions and she gets some photography and dance in. It just all works out. She uses the pictures for a website that I launched that gives Broadway fans sneak peaks to our next musicals! We make a lot of money with it, but not enough. I don't think there will ever be enough money.
"Oh, sorry." Kathy said. "Tell Christa I said hi by the way." She said. I mouthed it to Christa and she smiled.
"I'm glad you guys don't hate each other anymore." I said. "It's nice." Kathy and Christa hated each other up until the 7th grade. But now they got along fine, which was probably good because they were my best friends.
"Yea," Kathy said. "Speaking of which, I have a surprise for you two."
"Really? Oh my god! Spill!" I screamed enthusiastically. I love surprises. Well, most surprises. Like the surprise when my parents got me a professional camera for my 14th birthday. Not the kind of surprises like when I found out my Dad was sick.
"Well, I may have bought you two plane tickets to North Carolina!" She screamed. I dropped my phone in excitement and screamed. Everyone in the store looked at me weird, but I didn't care.
"You didn't!" I screamed into my phone.
"I did!" Kathy screamed back. As she explained the details, I walked over to Christa to tell her the good news. We both hugged each other and thanked Kathy multiple times.
"I can't believe I'm going to see Evan and Enid!" I screeched. "And Sam and Mick and Mariah and Walter!" I was so overwhelmed with excitement.
North Carolina was the town I grew up in. In fact, I lived there for 16 years. Once I turned 18, I went to an arts school in New York and Christa followed me there a year after, since she's a year younger. We then rented an apartment together with the little money we had and we'd been living there since. Because of our shortage of money, we couldn't afford to buy plane tickets more than once a year, and even then we only stayed for about 4 days. I would get to visit my parents, who were very rich, but refused to give me too much money because they wanted to teach me how to make a living from almost nothing, like they had to do when they were younger. After I started making a good solid amount of cash, they would agree to give me some money. My dad was sick, though, and my mom took care of him most of the time. My little brother lived in California and was a video game designer. He was working his way up to the top, just like me. I quickly texted him, telling him about my last minute trip, and he soon replied, saying that he would try to purchase some tickets for him and his girlfriend. I was so happy, I wanted to reach through my phone and hug Kathy as tight as possible without squeezing her to death. I couldn't believe I was going back to North Carolina. And this time, I was staying for a full month.