313. Something Old / Something New
For some reason, Bekki had put off her holiday shopping until the week before - not a wise idea anywhere, but especially not in New York, where the closer it got to Christmas, the more out of towners were milling around the shops, oohing and aahing over things they could get as souvenirs or gifts ("won't so-and-so be so envious, we bought this at Saks Fifth Avenue!!" they exclaim, or "I bet whatshisname will love this, it's from New York after all"). She wasn't immune to the buzz they brought with them, and still did a fair share of oohing and aahing herself over the holiday sights (Rockefeller Center looking awfully pretty, even if she did keep a fair distance from it and wouldn't even consider ice skating there) despite having seen them plenty of times before. So by the time she wound up doing her shopping, she was trying her hardest to politely elbow people out of the way, searching for adequate gifts and wishing to God she’d thought to take advantage of her employee discount and caffeinate heavily before heading into the fray. Coming home with armloads of shiny gifts, her only thought was about wanting to crawl under her old quilt and pass out. Bekki St. James original character 207 words