The Perfect Gift

"What? What? I'm sorry, I can't hear you, you're going to have to speak up."

"I can't speak up, she'll hear."

"What?"

I tried to mime it, but all that happened was that the girl at the counter and the others in line started to guffaw. Not easy to mime 'I don't wear underwire bras' while trying not to look gross. Just turns out funny.

Anyway, what I had feared happened.

Verna heard the laughter and came over, smiling broadly. "Hallo! Yeah, you're looking good. I can see you've started using my gift already!" She winked.

I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or not. I mean, I do take her help with choosing my clothes, but I hadn't meant it to get quite that personal. Made me squirm a bit to think she was looking to see whether I was using an underwire bra or not. However ... one small voice in my head said ... if she thought I was using them, it meant that the shirt I was wearing was a really good fit.

"Come to return something? That's always the case, this time of year. It's crazy the gifts people give other people. You know, someone gifted a fifty year old lady an epilator, for her facial hair. Imagine that! See, epilators don't work on white hair, they need pigment to get to the root."

I gave a feeble smile.

It was a this point that something sank in. I had held up the queue this long, while chatting with Verna, but nobody was hustling me. Not the girl at the counter, not the others in line. Were they enjoying my predicament? Were they looking to see if I was using the gift? But they hadn't yet understood what the gift was, or had they?

"Verna!" She started at the shout from her floor supervisor, waved at me and ran off. Phew.

"Listen," came a voice behind me.

I turned. There was a curly-haird girl there, exactly my height, looking me straight in the eye. "I sort of overheard, and uh -- oversaw," she grinned. I found myself grinning back. "You got underwire bras there, that you don't want?"

"Yes," I breathed. I took a furtive glance round, but Verna was now out of earshot.

"You look about my size. What say we do a trade? I got a sweater here that I don't want. I'm not much of a reader.'

"A reader?" I asked.

She was pulling out the thing she had come to return, from her bag.

It was ... a red sweater. A red sweater with a quote from Harry Potter on it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!