Nancy was waiting for Alisha at the parking lot of the college. She knew she would arrive late like usual but she still waited for her every day.
"So the Queen Victoria is finally here, eh?" Nancy went to her as soon as Alisha arrived.
"Don't worry love. I have got the perfect gift for you to cheer up." Alisha hugged Nancy from behind, hovering over her.
"Really?" Nancy's eyes shined bright thinking of receiving a gift.
"Yo, girl."
"Well, that depends on what you have got." Nancy didn't really mind her cheeky behavior. She had gotten used to it in two years. "Show me, show me! Quick!"
"Surprise!" Alisha patted her bag. "I will show it to you during the break. Let's go now. Ain't you running late anymore, you greedy girl?" She pulled Nancy ignoring her pleas for revealing the gift.
"At least tell me what is it," Nancy asked with an annoyed tone as soon as they got seated in the lecture hall for their economics lecture.
"Nope." Alisha brought her right hand in the corner of her shut lips and while bringing her thumb and index finger together moved her hand from one corner of her lips to the other, creating the gesture of zipping her lips.
"Screw you!" Nancy mumbled and then started rummaging through her bag to find her book. Alisha couldn't help laughing at her action and she continued laughing until the professor entered the lecture hall, turning down the gossips of the class into a pin drop silence.
The girls had no other lecture after the break, so they were in no hurry to leave the canteen. Sipping on their tea along with a plate of piping hot samosa[1], they continued talking.
After creating enough suspense since morning, Alisha finally undid the zip of the last compartment of her bag to pull out a small paper bag. "Tada! Your surprise."
Nancy curiously opened the bag to find out two very beautiful blouses, one from Vero Moda and the other from Madame. Her mouth gaped open when she saw the price tags. Both of them in total were at least six thousand bucks, which Nancy knew was a lot of money for Alisha to spend on a random gift without any occasion.
"Why are you giving me these? They are expensive clothes. Not that it was expensive for Nancy, but she knew it was for her friend. "Plus who gives gifts with price tags intact?"
Nancy and Alisha had met on the first day of their college. Even though coming from two very different backgrounds, they still grew to become best friends. Nancy came from a well to do family of government officials and being the only child of her parents, her family never thought twice before spending money to fulfill all her wishes. From the latest model of iPhone to the latest collection from the elite brands of clothing, she never lacked anything. All she had to do was open her mouth and her demands would get fulfilled the next moment.
Alisha, on the other hand, didn't have a very prosperous family. Her mother had died when she was twelve and her father was a small businessman that worked hard to educate his two daughters. Her stepmother Rekha had always been nice to her and her half-sister Karishma always looked at her as her inspiration.
When the two girls met, Nancy instantly started liking Alisha because of her happy-to go nature. But the thing that she liked the most in her was that Alisha never clung on to her like her other friends to take advantage of her family background or to leech off of her money.
"I had a weird encounter after I was going back home from your place." With that, Alisha narrated the entire incident to Nancy without skipping anything. "So I saved the two best clothes for you from all that I got."
Nancy's mouth dropped open to the floor when she heard this incident. She couldn't believe how stupid this girl could be. She was blackmailed at gunpoint and all she cared about was... clothes?
"Have you fed your brains to the pigs?" She asked because she strongly believed that she had.
"What?" Alisha made the face as if she had been greatly wronged.
"The guy pointed a f*ckung gun at you and you are rejoicing over clothes?"
"Well, he didn't harm me in the end. And I didn't really have a choice at that time, Did I?" Sipping her tea, she continued, "Well you re not allowed to tell this to anyone, I haven't told anyone about the gun incident and neither can you, okay?"
"Yeah, fine."
[1] Samosa is an Indian snack, tortillas for which are made with all-purpose flour, stuffed with mashed potatoes and are then deep-fried.