She went out of her way to hear it over and over again. “So the new hillbilly dogcatcher stepped forward and said, ‘The reason I ain’t caught no dogs yet, is cuz I don’t know what I’m ’posed to catch ’em at.’” Sydney articulated in her best hillbilly dialect. Tom’s laugh, low and rumbling, filled the elevator with cozy good cheer and did queer things to Sydney’s pulse. She got the distinct feeling that he was laughing more at the way she told the joke than the joke itself, but it didn’t really matter. Jerry’s prediction that there would be plenty of air to breathe in the elevator seemed to be true. Actually, it had been some time since she’d given it any thought. And if she pretended very hard that she could open the doors anytime she wished, she found the sight of their firmly closed surface almost tolerable. But between the hot air they were blowing at one another and the fact that the air-conditioning was somehow involved with the elevator malfunction, the small enclosed box had become an oven.
