Subj: COLLINWOOD 2001 Year One, part two
Date: 2/12/01 5:00:34 PM Central Standard Time
From: N.E. Collins

"I don't know, Julia," spoke Dr. Dave Woodard cautiously. "Do you REALLY think that Collinsport, Maine is ready for a...a..."

Julia intercepted the ball of conversation from her colleague adroitly with her usually flair and wit that cut right through the bull. "A drag bar?" She openly chuckled at Dave's embarrassment of her poignant commentary. "Really Dave, it IS the new millenium! And we ARE both grown-up, responsible, law-abiding citizens of what was, the last time I checked, still a free country."

Dave turned aside and harumphed. "I was GOING to say a cabaret, Dr. Hoffman."

Julia arched her right eyebrow. "Oh, so, I'm doctor, am I? You know, you ONLY ever refer to me as Doctor Hoffman in a conversation when you don't like the direction in which it is going. Did you know that?"

"Oh, Julia, please. Do stop trying to analyze me. Save it for your patients." The two old friends both had a chuckle at each other's expense. Julia rechecked her evening's schedule on her Microsoft Works calendar program. Her sister, Pepe, or Penelope as Julia still persisted in calling her, was having her club's grand opening tonight, and Julia was expected to at least make an appearance for the festive occassion.

The two sisters were identical, but they could not have been less alike in personality. Julia was a staunch conservative in her appearance and her dress. She wore clothing that was not very flattering to her fine female form and even her hairstyle was always just not right, one would say. Whether she wore it up or cut it short, if she moussed it or let it fly free, it still looked like a bad hair day for the esteemed doctor. On the other hand, Penelope wore her hair up in a stylish bubble cut that was reminescent of the 60's style. She wore big earrings and high heels and tight fitting gold lame capri pants just to go to the corner drugstore.

They were as different as night is to day, but they shared a great deal of common ground one with the other. They got along remarkably well considering their very different differences. They hardly ever fought nor did they get very angry with each other when they were quarreling. As day turns into night and forms shadows these two women were the living proof of that indisputable little fact of nature. Light and dark, hot and cold. There were the two sides of the same coin and they shared that special psychic bond that is so evident in most identical twins.

Carolyn Stoddard streched her arms wide over her head and let them sway lazily to her sides as she rose from the sandy gritty blanket where she and Joe Haskell had made love earlier in the late afternoon. They had both fallen peacefully asleep afterwards and Joe was still in dreamland. Carolyn quietly stole down to the open beach and methodically searched for seashells and pretty rocks and things. A gull's plantive cry broke the silence, and the sudden cacophony startled the young girl causing her to gasp out loud! She laughed at herself for being so silly and then HICCUP! and HICCUP! again. She hated the hiccups and she seemed to get them all the damn time. She took a deep breath of air in and held it determined that she was NOT going to hiccup one more HICCUP!...time... She sighed and resigned herself to the continual hiccuping torture.

Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis Production.