OOC: Happy Birthday Christina!
Who: Linus, Rusty, and Doris. (You'll see.)
What: Shopping for Faith's birthday
Where: Tiffany & Co., during a trip to NYC.
When: Around Faith's birthday? Duh. Probably like a month before. Linus is not a last minute boy.
Why: Because Christina deserves some Linus!Love
Word Count: 1,780
“Is this the one?” Linus looks to Rusty for his opinion, the pad of his thumb running over the pave diamonds of the circular pendant. At $12,500 its much less than what Linus was planning on spending, but he’s having a hard enough time trying to buy Faith diamonds as it is. She doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry, and when she does, she tends to keep it simple.
Still, Rusty insisted this was a safe gift, so Linus is ignoring his own instincts for the moment and going with his friend’s. And honestly, he’s only doing it because he can’t think of anything better. Linus Caldwell, although a generous gift giver, is not known for being a very good one. His relatives have received everything from $300 socks (which he swiped out of Neiman Marcus back in the day) to a Japanese arm wrestling machine that tore a ligament in Uncle Leroy’s wrist when it malfunctioned. (Apparently the technology wasn’t as sophisticated as the developer insisted.)
“You tell me, does it feel like the one?” Rusty glances casually at the pendant and then down at his watch. Having been at Tiffany & Company for the past hour and forty-seven minutes, he’s not all that optimistic that this will finally be the necklace that ends the debate. In fact, he’s relatively sure that as soon as Linus finds one he likes, he’ll notice another one that he’s just as comfortable with and tack on another hour debating between the two.
For agreeing to come along and do this, Rusty considers himself a saint. No, he’s not going to heaven, but the unsung heroes never see their day. That’s the whole point. To be the man behind the man. The guy telling the guy what his hot and alarmingly tough girlfriend wants for her birthday. And even though he’s pointed out five-no, the gold heart made it six, pendants that he’s sure any woman would love, he’s not pressuring Linus to make a decision. If anything, he’s quietly amused that Linus believes Faith is that much different than your ordinary woman, because he’s met her, and he’s pretty sure that she’d like something with a rock in it as much as the next person.
“No, it doesn’t feel like the one,” Linus says finally, setting the necklace down on the case. When he looks up at the sales assistant he keeps his eyes just under hers, embarrassed by how long this is taking. He wants to get it right. No one seems to understand that a birthday is a very important thing to him. The gift shouldn’t be generic, especially not for Faith, and there’s something uncomfortably ordinary about diamonds in a circle, or a heart, or even a teardrop. He’s not sure whether she’ll go for diamonds at all, because every scenario he can play out in his head ends with her losing the necklace when she goes out slaying.
The next thing he knows, the woman is pushing a pear-shaped drop pendant at him, and he’s shaking his head before he can even pick it up. “Its nice,” he insists. They’re always nice. “But it’s not something I’d want to get for Faith.”
Oh, she’s not happy with that. Not happy at all. She tucks a piece of graying hair behind her ear and clears her throat, looking down in the case for another pendant. Knowing that the woman is frustrated, all Linus can do is look to Rusty and hope he’ll smooth things over. Its one of the reasons why he asked him to come along.
“His girlfriend believes in understated elegance. Do you have anything...simpler?” Rusty asks, aware that in the jewelry business, simple is code for ‘plain’ and plain tends to be priced lower than the star pendant she’s going for. He can see the point of wanting to make a decent sale out of this, but if she shoots for glory they’re going to be there all day.
The next pendant she takes out is an improvement. Marquis diamonds resting on a blue sapphire in a platinum setting. Rusty’s lips curl up into a half smile when he sees it, and he can feel the slight throbbing at his temples finally starting to ease up.
“She won’t like that.” Linus sighs, and this time Rusty folds his arms on the counter and puts his head down. This has to end at some point, but having that beacon of hope immediately smashed is a swift blow to his patience. He needs a minute to recover, maybe an aspirin or two, possibly a BLT…he’s at least going to take his minute to recover.
“Linus, you know I support you in your desire to get Faith a great gift but…you’re killing me here, man.” Rusty stares through the case, not paying any attention to the pendants inside of it. He’d like to see Linus find something today, otherwise it’s all in vain, and he has pointlessly spent a day in Hell. Why couldn’t Faith be easy like Isabel?
“Sorry.” Linus nods, bowing his head apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to take your advice. Its good, I know that. I trust your word, I do. I always do. And giving it a lot of thought and serious consideration…you really think she’ll be good with diamonds?” He’s still questioning it, because there’s something off about this. He can’t put his finger on what it is, but the feeling is there. Its been with him the entire time, nagging at the back of his mind every time Doris-that’s her name-pulls out something similar to what they’ve been describing.
“I really do. Besides, even if she isn’t, they say it’s the thought that counts. Two hours of thought should do it for her,” Rusty points out, suddenly noticing a necklace in front of him. He’s not going to bother pointing this one out to Linus though, he’d rather stare and silently wonder if it’s supposed to look a lima bean or if he’s been doing this for too long. Given most of what they’ve seen today, it’s hard to tell.
“Yeah, but what if I’m thinking the wrong thing?” Linus didn’t mean any disrespect to Rusty or Doris, but having been with Faith for over a year, he thought maybe he was having a difficult time with this for a reason. And this wasn’t a thought that he could ignore in front of Rusty, the person who more often than not told him to go with his gut. It had been a long hour and…was it fifty-eight minutes now? His watch was three minutes slow. Anyway, he was thinking he’d spent long enough going against the very thing that Rusty was telling him to trust. And Doris, he was sure, hated him enough not to be all that upset to get rid of him.
“Then we’ll find her something else. She doesn’t strike me as a bracelet type, and you should only be looking at rings if you’re ready to make the leap. That’s a little heavy for this birthday, right?” Rusty straightened up, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn’t going to discourage Linus if he was ready to go on that, but he did have $7,000 on 2008 as the year. He wasn’t looking forward to losing that simply because Linus couldn’t think of a better gift. He also didn’t want to give Turk the satisfaction of being right.
The guy knew nothing about how to keep a woman.
“R-right.” Linus agreed, watching Doris start to put away the pendants he’d decided against. “I think I’m going to find something else, if that’s alright with you.” He rubbed his hand nervously against his mouth and stepped away from the case.
“Hey, its your girlfriend. You do what you have to do.” Rusty smirked, glad to finally be getting out of there because he was starving. “Thank you for your time, Doris. I’ll be seeing you when Isabel turns…oh, I’m not allowed to tell. Let’s just say she’s not looking forward to it.” He gave her his most charming grin and tapped Linus on the shoulder, nudging him out of the store. "Let's go."
Linus shoved his hands into his pockets as they hit the street again, his brow furrowed in concentration. He kept thinking about Faith’s interests. What she laughed at, things she talked about, it was hard to zero in on what really made happy. Faith wasn’t, as far as he was concerned, very hard to please. She appreciated that he tried, and to Linus, that was all the more reason to try until he found something he was sure she would like.
“So I’m out of ideas.” Rusty told him, immediately beginning to walk in the direction of a hot dog cart. “What about you? We know what you don’t want to get her. Any other ideas?”
Linus was quiet at first, letting Rusty order his hot dog and pile everything on it. Then, finally, he nodded.
“Yeah.” He gave another nod to approve of this idea for himself, and brightened considerably. “Yeah, I have an idea. I can handle it on my own from here on out.” Now he had it.
“Alright. Listen, I’m going to head back to the hotel, see if Danny wants to get a drink. We’ll be at Bemelmans if you want to meet up.” Rusty pushed almost half of the hotdog into his mouth in one bite, turning back the way they had come. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Linus replied. “I really, you know, I appreciate it.” He took out his cell phone, dialing his father’s number. He needed the phone number of an old friend of his family’s, and he was sure his father had it. While the phone rang, Linus let out a sigh of relief, happy to have figured out something that he was comfortable with.
So what did Linus get Faith for her birthday?
Well, it doesn’t have diamonds in it, but it does have rubies. It’s a Scottish dirk, complete with stag horn grip and ram head sheath throat. Accented in a few small rubies and 14k gold, it’s older than Linus’ Great Aunt Hannah and twice as pretty. He likes that you have to be paying attention to notice that its expensive, because he’s fairly sure Faith could take something’s head off with it before anyone ever picked up on its value.
Plus, if she doesn’t like it, he can always take it back and get her a sword. Or so Big Louie says. And in spite of all those tattoos, Linus is much more comfortable with Big Louie than he was with Doris, because unlike his ‘friend’ at Tiffany’s, Big Louie gets it.
Rusty sure as hell doesn’t, but whatever keeps them on track for 2008 is fine by him.
What: Shopping for Faith's birthday
Where: Tiffany & Co., during a trip to NYC.
When: Around Faith's birthday? Duh. Probably like a month before. Linus is not a last minute boy.
Why: Because Christina deserves some Linus!Love
Word Count: 1,780
“Is this the one?” Linus looks to Rusty for his opinion, the pad of his thumb running over the pave diamonds of the circular pendant. At $12,500 its much less than what Linus was planning on spending, but he’s having a hard enough time trying to buy Faith diamonds as it is. She doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry, and when she does, she tends to keep it simple.
Still, Rusty insisted this was a safe gift, so Linus is ignoring his own instincts for the moment and going with his friend’s. And honestly, he’s only doing it because he can’t think of anything better. Linus Caldwell, although a generous gift giver, is not known for being a very good one. His relatives have received everything from $300 socks (which he swiped out of Neiman Marcus back in the day) to a Japanese arm wrestling machine that tore a ligament in Uncle Leroy’s wrist when it malfunctioned. (Apparently the technology wasn’t as sophisticated as the developer insisted.)
“You tell me, does it feel like the one?” Rusty glances casually at the pendant and then down at his watch. Having been at Tiffany & Company for the past hour and forty-seven minutes, he’s not all that optimistic that this will finally be the necklace that ends the debate. In fact, he’s relatively sure that as soon as Linus finds one he likes, he’ll notice another one that he’s just as comfortable with and tack on another hour debating between the two.
For agreeing to come along and do this, Rusty considers himself a saint. No, he’s not going to heaven, but the unsung heroes never see their day. That’s the whole point. To be the man behind the man. The guy telling the guy what his hot and alarmingly tough girlfriend wants for her birthday. And even though he’s pointed out five-no, the gold heart made it six, pendants that he’s sure any woman would love, he’s not pressuring Linus to make a decision. If anything, he’s quietly amused that Linus believes Faith is that much different than your ordinary woman, because he’s met her, and he’s pretty sure that she’d like something with a rock in it as much as the next person.
“No, it doesn’t feel like the one,” Linus says finally, setting the necklace down on the case. When he looks up at the sales assistant he keeps his eyes just under hers, embarrassed by how long this is taking. He wants to get it right. No one seems to understand that a birthday is a very important thing to him. The gift shouldn’t be generic, especially not for Faith, and there’s something uncomfortably ordinary about diamonds in a circle, or a heart, or even a teardrop. He’s not sure whether she’ll go for diamonds at all, because every scenario he can play out in his head ends with her losing the necklace when she goes out slaying.
The next thing he knows, the woman is pushing a pear-shaped drop pendant at him, and he’s shaking his head before he can even pick it up. “Its nice,” he insists. They’re always nice. “But it’s not something I’d want to get for Faith.”
Oh, she’s not happy with that. Not happy at all. She tucks a piece of graying hair behind her ear and clears her throat, looking down in the case for another pendant. Knowing that the woman is frustrated, all Linus can do is look to Rusty and hope he’ll smooth things over. Its one of the reasons why he asked him to come along.
“His girlfriend believes in understated elegance. Do you have anything...simpler?” Rusty asks, aware that in the jewelry business, simple is code for ‘plain’ and plain tends to be priced lower than the star pendant she’s going for. He can see the point of wanting to make a decent sale out of this, but if she shoots for glory they’re going to be there all day.
The next pendant she takes out is an improvement. Marquis diamonds resting on a blue sapphire in a platinum setting. Rusty’s lips curl up into a half smile when he sees it, and he can feel the slight throbbing at his temples finally starting to ease up.
“She won’t like that.” Linus sighs, and this time Rusty folds his arms on the counter and puts his head down. This has to end at some point, but having that beacon of hope immediately smashed is a swift blow to his patience. He needs a minute to recover, maybe an aspirin or two, possibly a BLT…he’s at least going to take his minute to recover.
“Linus, you know I support you in your desire to get Faith a great gift but…you’re killing me here, man.” Rusty stares through the case, not paying any attention to the pendants inside of it. He’d like to see Linus find something today, otherwise it’s all in vain, and he has pointlessly spent a day in Hell. Why couldn’t Faith be easy like Isabel?
“Sorry.” Linus nods, bowing his head apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to take your advice. Its good, I know that. I trust your word, I do. I always do. And giving it a lot of thought and serious consideration…you really think she’ll be good with diamonds?” He’s still questioning it, because there’s something off about this. He can’t put his finger on what it is, but the feeling is there. Its been with him the entire time, nagging at the back of his mind every time Doris-that’s her name-pulls out something similar to what they’ve been describing.
“I really do. Besides, even if she isn’t, they say it’s the thought that counts. Two hours of thought should do it for her,” Rusty points out, suddenly noticing a necklace in front of him. He’s not going to bother pointing this one out to Linus though, he’d rather stare and silently wonder if it’s supposed to look a lima bean or if he’s been doing this for too long. Given most of what they’ve seen today, it’s hard to tell.
“Yeah, but what if I’m thinking the wrong thing?” Linus didn’t mean any disrespect to Rusty or Doris, but having been with Faith for over a year, he thought maybe he was having a difficult time with this for a reason. And this wasn’t a thought that he could ignore in front of Rusty, the person who more often than not told him to go with his gut. It had been a long hour and…was it fifty-eight minutes now? His watch was three minutes slow. Anyway, he was thinking he’d spent long enough going against the very thing that Rusty was telling him to trust. And Doris, he was sure, hated him enough not to be all that upset to get rid of him.
“Then we’ll find her something else. She doesn’t strike me as a bracelet type, and you should only be looking at rings if you’re ready to make the leap. That’s a little heavy for this birthday, right?” Rusty straightened up, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn’t going to discourage Linus if he was ready to go on that, but he did have $7,000 on 2008 as the year. He wasn’t looking forward to losing that simply because Linus couldn’t think of a better gift. He also didn’t want to give Turk the satisfaction of being right.
The guy knew nothing about how to keep a woman.
“R-right.” Linus agreed, watching Doris start to put away the pendants he’d decided against. “I think I’m going to find something else, if that’s alright with you.” He rubbed his hand nervously against his mouth and stepped away from the case.
“Hey, its your girlfriend. You do what you have to do.” Rusty smirked, glad to finally be getting out of there because he was starving. “Thank you for your time, Doris. I’ll be seeing you when Isabel turns…oh, I’m not allowed to tell. Let’s just say she’s not looking forward to it.” He gave her his most charming grin and tapped Linus on the shoulder, nudging him out of the store. "Let's go."
Linus shoved his hands into his pockets as they hit the street again, his brow furrowed in concentration. He kept thinking about Faith’s interests. What she laughed at, things she talked about, it was hard to zero in on what really made happy. Faith wasn’t, as far as he was concerned, very hard to please. She appreciated that he tried, and to Linus, that was all the more reason to try until he found something he was sure she would like.
“So I’m out of ideas.” Rusty told him, immediately beginning to walk in the direction of a hot dog cart. “What about you? We know what you don’t want to get her. Any other ideas?”
Linus was quiet at first, letting Rusty order his hot dog and pile everything on it. Then, finally, he nodded.
“Yeah.” He gave another nod to approve of this idea for himself, and brightened considerably. “Yeah, I have an idea. I can handle it on my own from here on out.” Now he had it.
“Alright. Listen, I’m going to head back to the hotel, see if Danny wants to get a drink. We’ll be at Bemelmans if you want to meet up.” Rusty pushed almost half of the hotdog into his mouth in one bite, turning back the way they had come. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Linus replied. “I really, you know, I appreciate it.” He took out his cell phone, dialing his father’s number. He needed the phone number of an old friend of his family’s, and he was sure his father had it. While the phone rang, Linus let out a sigh of relief, happy to have figured out something that he was comfortable with.
So what did Linus get Faith for her birthday?
Well, it doesn’t have diamonds in it, but it does have rubies. It’s a Scottish dirk, complete with stag horn grip and ram head sheath throat. Accented in a few small rubies and 14k gold, it’s older than Linus’ Great Aunt Hannah and twice as pretty. He likes that you have to be paying attention to notice that its expensive, because he’s fairly sure Faith could take something’s head off with it before anyone ever picked up on its value.
Plus, if she doesn’t like it, he can always take it back and get her a sword. Or so Big Louie says. And in spite of all those tattoos, Linus is much more comfortable with Big Louie than he was with Doris, because unlike his ‘friend’ at Tiffany’s, Big Louie gets it.
Rusty sure as hell doesn’t, but whatever keeps them on track for 2008 is fine by him.