Katie Simpson and Myrna McGuire strolled down the boardwalk, each with one hand in the back jeans pocket of the other.  Rap music filtered out an apartment window into the hot summer air.  Scents from hot dog and pretzel stands mingled with those of passing autos and Japanese maple trees. 

As the two twenty-somethings arrived at the corner of Fifth & Edmund, Myrna pulled away from her friend.  She looked across the street, tossed her pretty hair, then gave Katie a sideways glance. 

“How about some iced cappucinos?”

“Uh, we just downed some….”  

“I know, but I want another one.  I can’t help it.  Caffeine does that to me.”

Katie gave a Myrna a very curious look.  Her girlfriend was acting a little peculiar. “You’ve been kind of jumpy this morning.  Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.  Let’s go.”

Katie turned to cross the street…but not to the sidewalk Myrna was eyeing.  She wanted to cross over to Fairwell; there was an antique shop there.  She hoped they could find some items to personalize her–well, now their–apartment.

But Myrna tugged gently at Katie’s baggy shirtsleeve.  “Uh, Miriam’s got a new girl working the register.  Want to go down and guess how long she’ll last?”  The pretty dark-haired fashion maven tried to lead Katie the other way.

Puzzled by her friend’s persistence, Katie stood still in her beaten-up sandals.  She gazed at her friend with a bit of curiosity showing in her soft green eyes.  “You sure you’re okay?  We usually wait till lunch time to go there.”

“Yeah, but I’m famished.  Aren’t you? We’ve been looking for something to do in this neighborhood for a whole hour now.”

“Okay.  Let’s go.”  Katie reached for Myrna’s hand, but fell short of the grasping as Myrna rushed into the street, jaywalking.  Disappointed, Katie put her hand down and followed.  Come to think of it, they had been walking all over the neighborhood for a whole hour, which was strange, since they had seen a few vans with camera equipment at the parking lot of their apartment building, and had passed a couple camera wielders several times during their walk to nowhere.  Myrna kept forgetting what she wanted to go see, and pulling her into various shops to look at this, that, the other.