[Leon + Claire] And the day, the good times like sands slip through our fingers
A normal day.
Of course, any Redfield's definition of "normal" was subject to scrutiny, but Claire preferred to stay on the bright side of things -- normal, usually, just meant no emergencies popping up, no slanted media coverage thrown at Terrasave, nowhere to be an hour from now with the soonest flight out of town tomorrow night, no negative news from the B.S.A.A. (thank God) -- just a day, to herself no less, with no schedule until the aforementioned Terrasave coverage starting tomorrow morning.
She'd been in D.C. before now, so she'd developed a knowledge of and taste for certain strips in the city. At the end of the day, this just meant that she lost less time asking for directions and could spend more of it... being normal.
Which, naturally, just meant kicking back for a while after a morning of traveling. Not so much in the sense of literally lounging around -- Claire was too active for that -- so dressed in her usual casual -- jeans, turtleneck, a thin jacket -- she'd slipped her purse over her shoulder and set out, wandering a popular street before inevitably making her way into the main shopping mall. She wasn't really in a shopping mood, but window shopping always made for a good method of unwinding.
Plus, she was hungry, and just about anything imaginable could be found in even the dinkiest of mall food courts; in one this big, it'd take her half an hour to probably just locate all the different places.
Still, she took her time, just browsing the window displays and not paying attention to much in particular. It was nice, not having to really focus on anything unless she chose to.
'Free time,' I think they call it. Not that Claire could or would really complain; those much higher up on the social food chain had their work cut out for them these days. Still, she figured, that was why people like her were working like they were. There was never really too much effort to put into a good cause -- there was rarely enough.
But that was busy thinking, and Claire let the thought trail off as she brushed through a passing crowd.