Holiday Spirit

It is early afternoon in Center City, a few days after Christmas. Shoppers mill about, looking to redeem missed and unwanted presents.

Inside a tiny, dim boutique on South 17th Street, the owner rings up the only customer in the store, a small, attractive, 30-something woman with long, dark hair, dressed casually in jeans, a cashmere coat and trendy flats. Her daughter stands at her side, wide eyed with soft brown curls. They just got their nails done. It’s mother-daughter day, and mom's buying pajamas.

“Did you see these?” mom asks the owner. She’s holds her hair back, flashing the flawless diamonds adorning her ears.

“Wow,” says the owner.

“I got these for Christmas,” she says, her smile shining wide. “And I got a Birkin,” – a bag that has a waiting list of more than two years and a price tag starting at $7,500.

“Did he get you that?”

“Yep,” she says, nodding her head victoriously.

“Did he do that by himself?”

“Noooo,” she says. “It would be nice to be surprised, but if I didn’t tell him, he wouldn’t have a clue.”

She tucks her receipt in her wallet and takes her bag, decorated in a dark ribbon. As she heads for the door, she promises to return next week.

Minutes later, a block away, a young boy steps in front of a blind woman’s cane. His wide eyes appear hurried and lost. Several paces back his mother is being harassed by a security guard.

“I ain’t got nothin’,” she tells the guard, a thin, gray-haired man old enough to be her father. Her two small daughters stand at her side, looking up, pleading.

“Lift up the back of your shirt,” he orders her, as they walk down the street, in an odd little dance of him accusing her and her denying.

She lifts up her sweatshirt, revealing nothing but rolls of brown skin.

But he's undeterred. Their dance continues around the corner.

And her son, dressed in a fuzzy hat and worn coat, stares ahead, unable to defend her or leave.

(Photo credit: shopamericantours.com)