Francis Filmore was never late for work. He made sure to get there by five to nine each morning, without fail. It was important to him. Today however, was different. Today he was going to be late for work, but he had something more important to do. He had to find a gift for Emily Wang. Today was not only her birthday, it was also the day Francis intended to ask her out.
Fresh out of college, he'd landed a job at the offices of Get Out Magazine, the best selling holiday magazine in the whole state of Michigan. He'd wanted to get into journalism since he was a boy, in particular he'd always wanted to work for a computer game magazine. But he wasn't too single-minded to realize Get Out was a pretty good start in journalism. In the bakc of his mind, he'd always planned to move on once he'd earned a bit of experience and use a reference from his reputable editor, Felix Stockard, to get him onto any publication he wanted. But then, on the second day of work, he met Emily Wang.
Emily was just over a year older than Francis and like him, had found herself work at Get Out immediately after leaving college. She was stunningly beautiful, her hair was shoulder length, dark and sleek and her smile was legendary throughout the office. She was quite tall, with long legs and a pert bust. As her name suggested, Emily Wang was obviously Asian in appearance. She was born in California to Chinese parents, then went to college in Detroit. Francis had fallen for her the second they met, and they hit it off right away.
That was four months ago. Now Francis had little intention to move to another mag, not when such a beauty worked right next to him. Now Emily was the reason he got to work on time every morning. In fact, she was the reason he'd never missed a day of work in his career. Over the last few months, he'd pondered the possibility of dating Emily. He knew she was single, but he was a little worried about his appearence. While he wasn't ugly, he wasn't in shape either and compared to Emily's gorgeousness he wasn't anything at all. His abdomen was on the flabby side, a throwback to the notoriously unhealthy eating habits he'd picked up while in college. In short, he considered Emily out of his league. If he didn't get along so well with her, he wouldn't even consider trying to do what he was planning to do today.
For thirty minutes, he'd been prowling the mall for a store that would sell something interesting or unique, eye-catching or funny, cute or as beautiful as Emily. He was about to give up when he noticed the store he was currently window shopping at. Maryanne's Bizarre Boutique was its name, and it suited it. The place looked most untidy, full of old junk, furniture, books, collectables, jewellery, toiletries, even a rack of fancy dress costumes as well. Clearly the owner of this shop sold anything he or she could get their hands on. Francis felt confident he could find what he wanted in here...
