Life Of The Party

As soon as Irene's front door slammed with a shudder, it was like a kick to the head. 

All that static buzzing, all that dead air hanging, clearing up instantly like whacking one of those old CRTs… and it began to slowly dawn on me that maybe leaving the most whimsical and reckless of us three out on their own to do some last-minute grocery shopping wasn't such a good idea.

But there's a reason hindsight was called hindsight… otherwise, I wouldn't be still sitting stupidly, watching as Irene's window blinds briefly blaze orange and rattle with a gust of soaring wings, far too late to do much of anything. 

"She'll behave," Irene assured, walking forward and parting close the narrow peeking gap in her blinds. "And in the worst case: Anybody looking will come to their senses soon enough and just see a firework that just happened to blast off too early."