How do I display excerpts for links on pages?

Hi all. I’m trying to figure out how to create a collapse-able or toggle-able excerpt functionality for links on pages on my site. I’m not a web genius, but I used WordPress to create a fairly simple site for my writing portfolio. Nothing fancy.

I had initially set up an “Articles” page like this…
http://jimkellywriter.com/?page_id=47

…As you see, each entry has a “teaser” intro/excerpt, and links to view the entire article.

Then I started to think that it was a bit convoluted, and maybe a cleaner design would be better. So I’ve put together this alternate page (Articles2)…
http://jimkellywriter.com/?page_id=683

I like that the excerpt gives a taste of the article, but I also like what the “clean” 2nd version has to offer: having more entries “above the fold” and allowing the visitor to see more stuff without having to go back to the menu tab. More compact.

I wonder if there’s some way in WP – maybe a plugin – that would give me the best of both approaches. The page would list the links to the articles (like the 2nd version), then visitors could click on the link, or hover the cursor, and it unfolds to reveal the excerpt, with a “Read More” button, so they can then continue on to read the full article. Or maybe a link/button that simply toggles between “link view” and “Excerpt view”.

I’ve looked at some of the “excerpts” plugins here, but I can’t tell if these would provide the functionality I’m after. I’m not sure how excerpts work in the context of WP – seems like more of a blogging function? Like I said, I’m not a web page designer at all, so maybe there’s a simple solution.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

p.s. I’m using WP 2.9.2.