Wind-Up Dolls and Holiday Hymns

4. First Day (Part 2)

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Chaos; [noun] A state of utter confusion or disorder.

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4. First Day (Part 2)

Upon walking back out into the store, Lily grimaced at the sight of the crowded store. The line at the cash register almost extended halfway across the entire store, and Tiffany had a large pile of boxes piling up behind her. With a slight tug to tighten her ponytail, Lily dashed over behind the counter and picked up the next box. Tiffany gave her a grateful smile and continued to quickly wrap a large stack of puzzles together. 

"Don't panic- it's literally a perfect rectangle. This can't be that hard." Lily told herself, tearing off a piece of festive wrapping paper that was way too big for the small box and messily trying to fold the paper together. She could feel the heat of the customer's glare as she completely ruined his gift, the paper creasing in all of the wrong places, and quickly shoving it into a bag before handing it over to the man nervously. He snatched it from her fingertips and turned to the door, grumbling something into his earpiece. 

The next few gifts didn't go any better- the paper was rarely ever the appropriate size for the gift, and it took her the same amount of time to wrap one barbie doll that it took Tiffany to wrap 15. Her thin, lanky fingers lacked the strength and precision that her coworker did, and Steph's pace only increased as she scanned more and more toys. Suddenly, a rough pair of hands gripped Lily's shoulders and pulled her backward, away from the new stack of toys. 

"Honey, you're going to have to pick up the pace," Nic spoke frankly, cracking her knuckles before grabbing the first box. Lily watched as she expertly measured the perfect size of metallic paper, wrapped it around the back of the box tightly, folded the excess paper inward, and then firmly brought the edge up and taped it down. Then, in an instant, she crushed the paper on the open end down, taping up the smooth fold. Lily gaped in awe at the speed and neatness of Nic's wrapping; She even caught Tiffany looking over with wide eyes. 

Suddenly, Nic's walkie talkie went off in her pocket, and she placed a hand on Lily's shoulder. "They need me out back again- just do exactly as I did, and you'll be fine."

Lily barely whispered an "Okay" before Nic was already disappearing into the store, and Steph added another pile of gifts by her station. Lily took a deep breath before she mimicked Nic's actions to her best ability. Surprisingly enough, her wrapping was almost as neat as her mentor's had been, however, it took her three times longer. Still a vast improvement from before, she was met with pleasant smiles from customers as they accepted their bags, rather than forced grimaces. The whole experience was much more encouraging than it had been a few minutes before, and she enthusiastically tried her best to improve her speed and technique as she went along. 

Everything was going perfectly fine until a young man nonchalantly strolled into the store, sipping on a neon red slushie from the candy store on the eighth floor, and his other hand in the pocket of his dark wash jeans. His short, brown hair had been slightly quiffed upwards, and his strong bone structure was accentuated with every sip he took, his Adam's apple bobbing along with every swallow. He waved over at Steph, who waved back in return, and smiled to himself as he passed the small group of children who were raving to each other about the new plush penguin they had found in one of the barrels. His eyes wandered over to the wrapping stations, passing over Tiffany's and landing directly on Lily's bold ones. He furrowed his brow in confusion, and she blushed in return, averting her eyes and focussing on finishing the gift she had been working on. She could feel his gaze still fixed on her as she tried to devote all of her attention on wrapping the gifts as best she could, but it was pretty difficult to do with the heat of his dark, smoldering eyes on her as she worked.