Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This being Thursday, we’re headed over to Six Sentence-ville. Denise invites everyone to take the week’s prompt word and craft a Six Sentence Story.

Cool thing is, anything goes. Any era, setting or context.

…speaking of context. Remember Starr Diamond? She appeared in one of the first of the Six Sentence Stories. Starr has done ‘walk-ons’ in a couple of my ‘WIP-Six Sentence Stories’. (I’m thinking, ‘Home and Heart’ A Sister Margaret Ryan Story and ‘The Mystery of the Missing Starr’ An Ian Devereaux Noir.)

In any event, this week we catch a glimpse of our Miz Starr, just as she’s leaving a small coastal town by the name of Hobbomock.

The prompt word:

Classics

“If I may be direct,” the real estate broker fiddled with the litter of nearly-useful items on his desk while, looking past the young blonde woman out to the town square, staring at the autumn-starved trees, “now that the summer rental season has ended, there is little to keep an administrative assistant busy in such a small office as mine,” seeing a dimming in the brightness in her remarkably blue eyes, he continued, “there is a gift shop over on the far side of the square called, ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’, they have a niche market in estate and antique jewelry that keeps them busy right through the Christmas season?”

Glancing at the framed photo on his desk, he laughed to himself and, seeing the young woman lean slightly forward, said, “Forgive me, I was thinking of my wife, how she used to say, ‘the world will take your enthusiasm and throw it like confetti into the air'”, with a sudden flare of self-assurance, he added, “you would’ve liked her.”

Starr Diamond, tall with the physique of a ballet dancer (who might have also enjoyed rock-climbing), stood and extended her hand over the cluttered desk; through some manner of feminine alchemy, rather than looming over the seated man, she projected a confident and easy joy, impervious to the second thoughts that so often attended the parting of company.

Walking to the door, the man reached into his pocket, “Years in the business makes me need to give you my card, not that I doubt you’d find me if you needed.”

Folding his fingers back over the business card, the young woman smiled, “Not to be mysterious, but the less information I carry about the places I’ve been and the people who’ve been kind to me, the better.”

With the opening of the door, the antique brass bell shivered a melody that lit the man’s thoughts with his deceased wife’s laughter, ‘Nothing like the classics, right?’ she’d said with a confidence when they first opened their real estate office; on this particular October afternoon, the bell seemed muted and regretful.