(Samples: Line Dances, Paper Shufflers, A Cold Indifference)
LINE DANCES
People fleeing the loneliness of singlehood or the hurts of a breakup, looking to find relief in any form, physical, emotional, or both.
SUNDAY IN THE CITY
Two guys on a weekend trip that leads to one probing the other's lifestyle and, along the way through Washington, D.C., launching a critique of the economy, citing the country's auto industry succumbing to Japanese imports.
PAPER SHUFFLERS
A sample of life in Washington bureaucracy, civilian and military combined, right across the Potomac by the Pentagon.
SOLITAIRE (Title Story)
Paul Bennett, early thirties, single, never married, one day suddenly poses the question to himself: What am I in this stage of life--a member of the cast... or an audience?
FRIDAY NIGHT
Venting, asserting, airing out...breathing--at a weekend group seminar.
FROM THE TERRACE
"I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains--but if I have no love, I am nothing." Quoted by a guest speaker from the First Corinthians to a born-again Bible fellowship gathering, among them Dan Turner, a non-believer who enjoys aggravating his proselytizers, so he tells Paul Bennett who says he's a Christian, but only to clarify that he's not a Moslem or a Buddhist or a Jew or an atheist.
IN THE NAVY
Officers, Petty Officers, double-dippers, job-hoppers, sex, death and a wedding.
MR. DEPRIVED
Mike and Laura, Buck and Mary, in the early mid-life process of building a meaningful relationship, stumbling along the way with their social and sexual indiscretions.
A COLD INDIFFERENCE
Civil servant balances the challenges of the work he relishes against the bureaucracy and the political rut in Washington.
STRANGER, COME BACK
Expatriate takes a trip 'back home' after twenty-five years in America and learns a bittersweet truth in the saying -- 'You can't go home again.'
