A/N: Hey there!
So, as has become more or less my tradition for the past few years, I'm posting a holiday fic! I hope you guys enjoy it! Read the A/N at the end for our FAQs and Answers.
Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.
"It was a little-known Dickensian-style Christmas carol retold every holiday by the townsfolk of Forks, Washington. But instead of three ghosts in grimy, Victorian England, this modern-day carol took place in an old, local Victorian, where one Christmas Eve, a century earlier, a Prohibition-era bootlegger stashed his loot-"
"Wait, that's how you're beginning it?"
"Why? What's wrong with it?"
"You have to give some of that bootlegger's background, don't you? Offer it as a prologue, at least. That 'bootlegger,' as you say, already sounds like a gangster."
"I mean...well, okay, how would you begin it, then?"
"How would I begin it? Well, if I had to trace it back...
Prologue: Christmas Eve – Seattle 1921
I'd say it began with Jay whistling an off-key Christmas tune, that 'Jingle Bells' one that, well, even in my time, had been around for a while. He paused at some point to make a big show of chattering his teeth and shivering all over like he'd just stepped on a livewire.
Yes, yes, we had livewires back then. We're not talking cave-dwelling days here.
"Cold as an Arctic penguin's balls out there tonight, ain't it, Ed?"
That stupid question pulled my attention away from the nebulous horizon; otherwise, I would've seen it, though the sky was dotted with clouds of flurries flaking thick as milk – cow's milk, not that thin, translucent almond milk I've noted you drink. It cascaded against the dark bowl that was the Puget that night and made for a good Christmas Eve picture, festive and appropriate. But it was highly inconvenient and hazardous to the job at hand.
"It's cold, Jay, yeah, but calling it as cold as an Arctic penguin's balls implies you can make the comparison because you've been to the Arctic, and since you've never ventured further from Washington than the Sound here's open waters..."
"A simple yea or nay would'a answered the posed question sufficiently, Ed. We can't all be war heroes turned smugglers."
Despite his ensuing chuckle, there was bite in his tone, though my aim hadn't been to embarrass him – not really. You see, what you all nowadays refer to as the First World War, to us was still The Great War, the war that was supposed to end all wars, that was supposed to teach us as a planet the insoluble folly of fighting one another. But that's neither here nor there.
Yes, I'd served then returned home to no job and none of that GI Bill business that apparently came later. Which is how I ended up-
I'm getting ahead of myself.
Jay's parents and mine were taken by the first wave of what then was known as the Spanish Influenza, though you've explained to me what happened there and that there was nothing Spanish about the Spanish Flu. Afterward, feeling a bit lost, I enlisted. Jay chose not to. Instead, he remained in Seattle, living the life of an indolent shifter with no actual responsibilities. I didn't begrudge him that; after all, he had no proper responsibilities – no wife, no children. However, my having served in the war for a year before it ended did result in garnering me some respect from our circle of acquaintances, if not from our government. Whether that respect made up for everything I saw while over there-
Again, neither here nor there.
"I'm not trying to be an ass, cuz," I grinned, having noted the edge in his tone.
"Ain't ya?" he muttered.
"Just encouraging you to get out there a bit more. You know, there's a world beyond Seattle's speakeasies."
"Mm," he grunted, still feeling a bit resentful, it seemed, but I was never one to coddle.
"And speaking of getting out there, shouldn't you be out there with the other men patrolling the water?"
"Didn't we just go over how cold it is out there? 'Sides, who all else 'sides you – and thereby us – is crazy enough to be out here in these rough waters tonight, and it being Christmas Eve no less?"
"Who all else?" I echoed with a ponderous nod, shooting him another wry grin as I returned my attention to navigating the vessel. "Well, for one, how about rival runners who might stop and think to themselves, 'Gee, it's Christmas Eve, and there's a snowstorm brewing? Some ingenious individual might realize that it'd be a perfect night for a covert cargo pick-up run.'"
"Lemme guess," he smirked, blowing hot air into his hands, "the genius in this scenario is you."
Have you picked up on it yet? Yes, yes, there was a rivalry that existed between my cousin Jay and me. There always had been, since our births, only six months apart. I was born first, in June of 1896. Jay came along in December of that year. I walked at ten months; Jay walked at twelve. I strung together my first words at one year. It took Jay until his second year to speak in sentences. I was…am six-foot-two-inches, he was six-foot even. I inherited my father's thick copper hair, his green eyes, his angular jaw, and his lean, sinewy build; Jay inherited his father's thin, blond hair, his gray eyes, a rather roundish jawline, and a slight frame that put on neither weight nor muscle no matter what he ate or tried. I was-
Well, you get the picture. A rivalry existed, always a competition to see who would come in first…basically in anything and everything. But it was a friendly rivalry. We were first cousins, after all, and the only kin we had left.
"'Course. But from there, it wouldn't take a genius to realize they could intercept us on our return run," I answered him.
"Cuz, you're the only one who thinks like that," Jay chortled. "Always dreaming up different scenarios and intricacies."
"Someone's got to."
"Yeah. I suppose that's why you're the commander-in-chief of this operation. But you're too brainy for your good – and ours," he chuckled, "freezing us out here tonight on account of overthinking things. Meanwhile, ere'one else on land is busy gettin' drunk and warm on that bathtub gin."
"Like you said, that's why I run this operation, and you're second."
In my periphery, I saw his flaring nostrils.
"For another," I continued, ignoring his hurt feelings because he had to learn. I couldn't be…I wasn't going to be the boss of our operation forever, "how about keeping an eye out for the Coast Guard?"
"Ed, I don't even know how you can focus on any of this shit," he moaned. "Never mind the penguins', my balls are freezin'!" he exclaimed, cupping himself. "And when my balls are freezin', rival rumrunners and bribe-seekin' Coast Guarders are least of my concerns."
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shook my head and sighed. "I always tell you, it's mind over matter. See, you gotta teach your mind," I tapped my temple, "to overpower the physical, to transcend beyond the limits of the flesh."
"Yeah, yeah, transcendence," he muttered. "Watch me transcend!"
Squaring my jaw, I watched as Jay now made a big, overdramatic show of rubbing his hands together furiously as if the friction he created could overpower and dispel the wintry frost.
"I'm suddenly warm! It's a miracle! Mind over matter works! Hallelujah!"
Antics. He was full of them. "Jay, with all that clowning around, you should've been a vaudeville performer."
Instead of discouraging him, he took my ribbing and ran with it, balancing an invisible cane while teeter-tottering on one foot, then the other.
"Look at me! I'm a regular Charlie Chaplin!"
See, even without speaking on screen, Charlie Chaplin was the forerunner to your big-named movie stars nowadays. And that was the problem with Jay Whitlock. He would've made a great celebrity, but what he was, was a laid-back, devil-may-care, inefficient loafer with no true ambition or talent.
Wait, what do you mean Charlie Chaplin went on to make talking films? In the '40s? Did he? Hmph. Will you look at that?
Anyway, neither here nor there.
As for Jay, what he also was, besides a lazy fuck, was kin, which is why I always brought him along as my second in command, regardless. See, we rumrunners and bootleggers on the West Coast had it pretty good during Prohibition, and what kind of cousin would I have been had I not ensured that Jay got a piece of the action?
Here's the crux of my career's creation:
Whoever gave the 'yea' that passed the Volstead Act a couple of years earlier, in 1919, must've been drunk on something themselves because a more badly-thought-out law there never was. Prohibited or not, everyone still wanted their damn booze, and since, as they say, 'Necessity is the mother of invention,' Prohibition sure proved that aphorism true.
The innovative side in many of our fellow Americans awoke overnight. Your basic Tom suddenly became Tom Edison, learning how to make something out of nothing – in this case, moonshine out of household ingredients. You had moms and pops mixing moonshine in the tub they washed little Billy in. You had family physicians prescribing "therapeutic" whiskey for hangnails. Righteous clergymen became downright generous, "saving" their flock with the sacrament of wine-turned-communion. Grapes were now everyone's favorite fruit, harvested in backyards, sold in concentrate form, and marketed with "warning labels" that helpfully provided step-by-step instructions on what not to do to avoid turning grape juice into wine.
So, yeah, even though American distilleries had been forced to shut down operations, liquor was still being consumed in the privacy of one's home or in speakeasy bars, where whispering a password got you throaty jazz and fox-trotting flappers along with the free-flowing liquor. Then, there were our friendly Canadian neighbors up north, more than willing to lend a hand and provide in bulk.
In short, rather than creating a pious, God-fearing, law-abiding, and dry nation, what the Volstead Act created was a business opportunity for those more entrepreneur-minded.
Like me.
When Opportunity first came knocking, I'd been back from the war for about a year. I was working odd jobs because, as I said, respect as a war hero never got anyone anywhere. Aro Volturi owned the local speakeasy down by the waterfront, and I did odd jobs for him, carpentry, unloading deliveries – booze, ice, and such. One morning I arrived for work to his yelling and shouting at a group of his men. It seemed his regular booze connection, a man we only knew as Laurent, had disappeared overnight. This left the speakeasy high and dry, so to speak, as none of Aro's other guys had the balls to figure out what to do. The rest is history.
What do you mean 'Where did you learn that saying?' I learned it from you.
I mean, it was just as our forefathers intended. From the ashes of taxed production, importation, and distribution arose a bootlegging, smuggling, and rum-running business no longer subject to taxation or regulation – and we hadn't even needed a revolt.
Still, there were hefty risks, depending on where on the U.S. map one found themselves, though, in Washington State, we weren't animals like them gangster outfits back in Chicago and such run by the likes of Dennison and Capone. Generally, we didn't take to toting machine guns or dabbling in any of them darker endeavors like gambling rings or prostitution. We stuck to providing liquor.
But that's not to say that the lives we Seattle bootleggers led didn't carry an element of risk. There's always been and always will be danger inherent in being a trailblazer, a pioneer. Because that's what we were. We weren't gangsters; we were entrepreneurs in a new venture. And when competitors saw how well our venture was doing, they wanted a piece of the pie.
So sure, there were your occasional skirmishes between rivals, your runners and bootleggers who got greedy. It wasn't unknown for a bootlegger to suddenly disappear – as Laurent did – or for a vessel out on the Puget to collect its cargo only to have another, larger vessel roll up on it like a shark, in which case yeah, you needed to protect yourself and your cargo. And even though most coppers looked the other way if you greased their palms well enough, some rode us hard just to prove they could.
Then there was the weather. Out on the Sound, the waters were rough and choppy on your best nights. On a night like that evening, with a winter storm added into the mix?
The vessel swayed as if it were drunk on its own cargo, with the threatening blizzard reducing visibility to nothing past my outstretched hand. As I said, tales abounded of more than one rumrunning vessel that'd disappeared in dark waters, either before or after collecting its cargo, as we'd just done.
Yeah, there was inherent danger from more than a few directions, which was why we needed lookouts. Meanwhile, there stood Jay next to me, useless as a dry mop, distractingly discussing an Arctic thousands of miles away in between singing and whistling his tuneless carols.
"Sleep in hatefully pea-eace! Slee-eep in hatefully peace!"
The bastard couldn't even sing the lyrics correctly.
Which brought us to…well, to the moment.
"That's an interesting version of that song there, cuz. But you know what'd be more interesting? If this here boat capsized with a full cargo of rum 'cause we hit something out there that you, as lookout, failed to see 'cause you were too busy blowing hot air out of your ass."
"I'm blowing it into my hands, asshole," he chuckled.
I tried reasoning, assuring him that I could empathize. "Jay, you think I don't feel the cold? But I've got other priorities, heftier concerns that keep me from focusing on my freezing balls. Like I said, mind over matter."
"So what's on your mind that's heftier than this damn cold?"
That was the loaded question right there.
"For one, getting this crew and cargo safely back to land so everyone can go home and enjoy their Christmas with a little extra cash under their belts and a bottle of proper booze for celebrating rather than that bathtub gin." I twisted my lips in a display of disgust.
"Oh, yeah!" Jay snickered, now scrubbing his hands together eagerly. "That does take one's mind off freezing balls!"
"Then I've got to deliver the rest of the cargo to the speakeasy."
"And while you're at it, see your pretty torch singer?"
When I chuckled, he offered me a suggestive sort of grin, which along with his following words, dispelled the moment of shared humor.
"You gonna have her croon a Christmas love song to you while she rides your pecker?"
I shot him a scowl. "Don't be a crude fuck."
Now, I'll be honest here; I didn't snap at him because he spoke a lie. Charlotte Gray, the pretty torch singer at the speakeasy that I supplied, and I were indeed involved in a…situation. And yeah, by then, she and I had been going at it hot and heavy for a bit. Neither will I deny that for a while there, I'd been well pleased. She had a voice that dripped sin and heavy-lidded eyes promising all sorts of decadence. Then there were those beaded flapper dresses and the feathers that felt like silk against my-
Anyway. Neither here nor there.
See, many seem to take it for granted nowadays, but in December of 1921, it'd been just over a year since women were given the right to vote. The nation was only beginning to consider the novel idea that women could be equal to men. In turn, females rebelled against their traditional roles as wives and homemakers, instead seeking jobs, attending college, and such.
Yeah, you laugh at its primitivity now, but it was amazing to witness that women's liberation's first steps.
What fascinated me at first about Charlotte Gray and women like her was how she went steps beyond it. She could out-smoke and out-drink the best of us, wore her hems so far above her kneecaps they were practically to her hips, and her golden hair was defiantly chopped into a bob so short if it weren't for the rest of her, it'd look like a man's head. She sang jazzy tunes and danced the Foxtrot and the Charleston and was unapologetic about it all.
Then there were the men, like Jay, who enjoyed observing the changes but didn't particularly respect the women who undertook them.
"She's just a nightclub singer, Ed," Jay said as if that justified his crudeness.
"Nightclub singer or not, Jay," I spat, "neither you nor I were brought up to talk about women that way."
"Sorry, sorry," he backtracked. "I'm just cold and talking nonsense."
"You sure are." I glared hard at him for a handful of seconds while he, justifiably abashed, dropped his gaze to his boots. "Just go back to singing your off-tune jingle bells and shut the hell up if you ain't gonna be useful."
With that, I returned my attention to the encroaching darkness, trying to make some sense out of our current position. I knew the port lay somewhere beyond the increasing snowfall, but the nature of our business forced us to keep the schooner's lights off to avoid detection. That made the evening's weather all the more dangerous. I was navigating blindly, sailing by rote memory of the shoreline's whereabouts and praying that the stirring blizzard wasn't whipping the schooner around.
"She's pregnant," I blurted.
Jay didn't comment immediately, for once holding his tongue 'til he could formulate a proper response.
"Holy shit, Ed."
"Tonight's my last run."
He met my gaze squarely, frowning in a display of growing bewilderment. "Why?"
"Jay, I've got a kid coming."
"And?" he scoffed.
"And," I echoed, amazed I had to explain, "and I'm getting married."
For one long moment, he stared at me blankly, apparently still having a hard time drawing a correlation between impending fatherhood and leaving behind a life of illegal smuggling. After a minute, I began to wonder if his ears had frozen along with his balls.
"Ed, not to be crude, but you don't love her. I know you don't."
"That's…neither here nor there, Jay. We're having a kid, and I won't bring a kid into this type of life."
"What's wrong with our type of life? Sure makes us good dough."
"At a risk, Jay. Those dangers out there," I pointed toward land – or what I hoped was land, "they may seem trivial in comparison to the shit that goes down in other places, and yeah, they're risks I deemed worth it - 'til the moment I found out I was gonna be a father. Now, they lurk in every dark corner."
He shook his head. "If you're quitting the business, how are you gonna support yourself and the kid?"
I hesitated, but as I said, he was blood. "I've squirreled away a nice egg nest."
His eyes grew wide. "Have you now?"
I nodded. "Back at the house."
His brow furrowed. "The house? You mean the one you been building near the mountains in the middle of Bumfuckville, Nowhere?"
"Yep."
"Holy shit," he expressed again. "Where in the house did you stash this cash?"
"That's neither here nor there. All that matters is that it's more than enough for me to retire on, far from the madness here in town."
Once more, I swept my gaze out onto the darkness, allowing my mind's eye to wander past the vast, black horizon where it roamed beyond the moonless Christmas Eve night. Instead of a Christmas Eve marked by smuggled booze, a wintry storm, and frozen water, I pictured an eve in the future. This one was spent miles from Seattle, warm by a fireplace, with a freshly-cut Christmas tree in the corner…and bouncing a son or daughter atop my leg. That image was followed by one of another Christmas Eve, where I took my kid to the frozen river nearby and taught them to ice fish. In the next one, I read a bedtime story about reindeer and sugarplums.
In that moment…I saw my future spread out. I saw myself, in this house, before this fireplace. And no, it wasn't merely the workings of a vivid imagination. It was as if, amid the snowstorm and in the middle of a midnight-laced Puget, I'd suddenly been granted the gift of foresight…a glimpse into what my life might be…
If I managed to leave all this behind. That continuous loop of Christmas Eves, with an entire life lived in between, was within my grasp.
And there was more.
Somewhere off to the side, beyond what I'd been allowed in that vision, was a faceless woman, her features undefined yet undoubtedly there. Yet, even though by then, my fascination, if not my relationship with Charlotte, had ended, she was the mother of my kid; so, who else could that faceless woman possibly have been, right?
At least, at that moment, that was my thought.
"We're leaving tonight, Charlotte and me, after we're done with this run."
"Leaving for where? The Victorian house?"
"Yes," I hissed.
"The one with just a block of buildings and prairie homesteads in the vicinity to keep it from being encroached by total forestland?"
"That's the one."
"And she's agreed to this? To leave behind the speakeasy? Her singing career? I mean, Aro pays her well to draw a crowd."
"She agreed…once I assured her that we'll have more than enough money for her to live a good life."
When I turned, Jay was already looking my way. "Cuz, not to sound crude yet again, but don't you use condoms?"
I snorted. "Every single time, even those newfangled latex ones that stretch around your pecker? You heard of those?"
What? They were new back then.
"Oh, yeah," he nodded. Then he shook his head. "Haven't tried those yet."
"Guess they're not as effective as those newspaper ads claim." I raised a brow at him. "Let this be a warning to you."
He scoffed. "Strange; between the both of us, you were always thought to be the smart one."
For a moment, I thought I detected a hint of something in his voice…a cynical, spiteful glee that went beyond our friendly rivalry. After all, in a way, he'd finally gotten the upper hand, and he sounded almost…smug about it.
But he was right. Jay was the gambler, the womanizer. If either one of us were gonna end up accidentally getting a torch singer pregnant, bets would've been on him. I'd played with fire but despite the ensuing burn…I was gonna be a father.
"Still…Charlotte doesn't strike me as the motherin' type," he continued.
"Nothing to be done for it now. She's gonna be a momma, and I'm gonna be a pop, even if she's not…all into it. I'll take up the slack." Despite everything, a soft smile spread across my face.
"What about the schooner? And the business? You sellin' it?"
Here, I reached out and patted Jay's shoulder. This…this was why I'd rode him hard all night.
"It's all yours now, cuz. Merry Christmas."
"Mine?" He looked flustered.
"'Course," I grinned.
"You're giving me your schooner…and leaving me in charge of the business?"
"Jay, you're my cousin. Who else would I pick as my successor? You know all the ins and outs of this business. Just…just be careful, all right? Cut down on the gambling, and try to be a bit cautious. Watch who you partner with and who you cross. We ain't gangsters up here in Washington, but neither are we saints. Remember," I tapped my temple, "mind over matter."
"Mind over matter. I'll remember." He appeared dazed, shaking his head slowly and holding my gaze through startled eyes. He swallowed. "And, no. No, we ain't saints, Ed. Ed, I-"
A sudden flash in my periphery snatched my attention away from whatever Jay was about to say. The Sound abruptly alit with what at first resembled a burst of daylight, an eclipse, the sun's rays all inexplicably awakening in the evening and all beaming directly on the schooner. In the background, darkness still ruled.
"What the fu-"
I didn't get to finish my expletive before the men Jay should've been supervising shouted from the stern side of the schooner.
"They got guns!"
It…it made no sense, not that I had time to make sense of things, but as I've said, it wasn't how we in Seattle generally conducted business. We…I was no gangster.
Nevertheless, the last thing I heard was the unmistakable sound of gunfire.
A couple of final thoughts sprang almost concurrently to mind.
Unsurprisingly, my next-to-last thought was of watching myself bounce that faceless, genderless child on my knee, my laughter ringing out heartily as it gurgled gibberish while we sat in front of this same fireplace, right in this house I built here at the foot of the Olympic Mountains. Poor kid would end up fatherless after all. I fervently prayed that Charlotte would rise to the occasion and keep our kid happy and safe.
What was surprising and strange was my actual last thought:
It was of a woman…of a then unfamiliar woman.
A covering of pristine snow blanketed the mountainous landscape visible through the bay window behind her. The snow wrapped around a strange sort of vehicle, no Model T or Rolls Royce nor any car I'd ever seen.
She sat beside me in this house – exactly where you now sit. Instead of Charlotte's features, instead of blue eyes and a short, blond bob, her strikingly dark gaze was framed by long, flowing auburn hair. Rather than a flapper's familiar feathers, beads, and fringe, she wore what resembled a farmer's getup – boots, denim, and checkered flannel; though, it all fit much better than it would fit a farmer.
In this final vision, the woman's eyes weren't on me but rather on the bouncing babe on my lap, laughing and cooing with it, holding its tiny hand and singing it a Christmas song I'd never heard – something about not wanting too much for Christmas. Yet even with all her strangeness, even with so much unknown, she was the prettiest woman I'd ever laid eyes on, that I knew without a doubt. She was the sort of pretty that made one wish…
Well, I didn't have time to wish for anything further.
Then, for a long…long time, there was nothing.
Until now…
A/N: Thoughts?
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Twitter: PattyRosa817
These FAQs were copied from the FAQs I prepared for Summer Haven, with a few changes to fit this story :
Q: How long will the story be?
A: Unless I have the story entirely written out (I don't), I always get burned on this question. I'm hardly ever right! With that (huge) caveat, I will say between 10 – 15 chapters? We'll see.
Q: Will there be angst?
A: This story will not have angst any worse than what you just read, if at all. Certainly, there won't be anywhere near enough angst to label the story 'Angsty.' Maybe just a few "aww" moments here and there. Perhaps a stray tear. A heart clench or two? Seriously, it'll be primarily Christmas-y stuff. :)
Q: Is there a posting schedule?
A: Back in Pre-Covid days, when I thought I didn't have time in my life, but it turns out I had more time than I've ever had since, I used to have exact posting schedules, i.e., Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays; or Tuesdays, Thursdays. Now, the best I can say is that I'll try to post 2 – 3x a week to hopefully have it complete by Christmas (or by the new year, at least!).
Q: What should I do if I encounter a spelling/grammatical/research/factual error while reading your story?
A: Please let me know! Whether you do so in a review or a PM is up to you, but please note that I don't have (nor am I on the lookout for) a beta. Like most of us fanfic writers, I do this for fun and in my spare time. I enjoy the freedom of posting whenever I'm ready to post. Also, like most of my fellow fanfic writers, my spare time is precious as I know it also is for most readers! But what this means for me as a writer is that sometimes, I miss an error here and there in my eagerness to post. If you alert me, I'll do my best to fix the error. Now, if you alert me via insults or while displaying an air of superiority comingled with disbelief that I'd make such a stupid mistake, I might leave the error just to be a petty, contrary bitch. :)
Q: What should I do if I absolutely hate your story?
A: The answer to this question should be straightforward. In fact, it should probably be the easiest to answer in comparison to all here. Unfortunately, in all my time writing fanfiction, I've come to learn that for some inexplicable reason, some people have a hard time figuring this one out. So, here we go. If you're not enjoying the story, hit the 'X' button and close the story down. Get it off your screen. Forget it exists. In fact, depending on your level of hatred of the story and your desire to express such hatred, you may want to forget I exist as well. ;)
Q: Related to the question above, what are your thoughts on negative reviews?
A: While I won't lie and say I cherish them, obviously, requesting "reviews" invites positive and negative expressions. If you'd like to offer your thoughts respectfully, whether they're positive or negative, please don't hesitate to do so. I've started many interesting discussions over the years with reviewers infuriated with my characters or who have respectful critiques to offer me on my writing. Many of them are some of the best character studies and/or growth-through-critiques discussions I've had, and when done respectfully, I relish the discourse.
Q: What do you do when you receive reviews that are just plain old nasty/disrespectful/insulting/threatening?
A: I'm laughing just thinking of the answer to this one. Oh, boy. Okay, so it's pretty easy to tell from just the first few words if/when I'm reading the aforementioned type of review. If the reviewer hasn't shown me the courtesy of signing in to discuss the review, I won't show the courtesy of reading the entire review. I delete it as soon as I see where it's going. It will never see the light of day, and that guest reviewer just wasted their time writing something no one will ever read. I've heard jokes about how nasty guest reviews up the review count as well as do positive reviews, so thanks and eff you, nasty GR. Nope. I won't even keep it around for that. Now, if the reviewer HAS signed in, I can't delete it, and how I deal with it depends on whether I'm pms'ing or not. ;)
Okay, I think that basically covers everything! If I've neglected to address anything, please let me know! And know that I try to get back to as many reviews as possible, but unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day, especially around the holidays! I can't always reply, but please know that I love hearing from you guys, and I greatly appreciate the time you take in reading and reviewing.
"See" you soon!
