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Cathryn was grateful for the brief puff of coolness that carried the
thin curtain straining against unforgiving curtain rods into the darkening
parlor, watched as the tattered edges rose silently then fell back
against the sill, waiting for a new breath of evening comfort to thicken
the condensation on a half-empty mint julep glass. The Victrola labored
with a soft grinding sound from hours and hours of use as Ruth
Etting wafted out of a varnished wooden sound horn.

"Button up your overcoat,
When the wind is free,
Take good care of yourself,
You belong to me."

[Over to you.]

As she sat in quiet contemplation of the heat that enveloped the entire room, nay, her entire world, she slowly ran her finger around in the dust of the never polished oak desk at which she sat. As she did, the music and the words that she wrote formed a simple sort of medley that ran rampant in her head. The musty smell of the aging parlor only added to the feeling of timelessness that was seeping into her bones.

[Back to you.]

Dog-ass tired, Dexter flops onto the sofa automatically reaching for the remote and grateful for the cool breeze coming through the windows... It had been a long day, part of a long week in what was promising to be another long, hot summer. He notices out of the corner of his eye that Cathy's remodelling of the adjoining den along victorian/roaring 'Twenties motif was a bit too garish for him - his private nickname for it was "Capone-Lite", but hey! - he didn't really care since she was such a sweet woman and besides, those mint-thingy whatevers that she loved to serve when wearing that lovely, lacey thing He'd bought her last weekend went down the pipe pretty smoothly, especially when liberally laced with a shot of Bombay.

He switches to ESPN; news of the NBA draft was blending into another Tyson-bashing remark on his most recent run-in. A sound wafts ("wafts???", he thinks... that's the kind of word Cathy would say...) from the Capone-Lite room... was Cathy calling him?

(back to you...)