Fireworks, anyone?

The evening started - and ended - with a bang.

We show up with sparklers and fireworks, ready to catch up with old friends over charred meat and drunken strawberry Jello.

Ginger needs help, so we arrive early to hoist bags of melting ice; toss the cold, crisp broccoli salad; artfully carve a watermelon; and manifest an outdoor, mosquito-netted harem room which serves more as a love nest for mosquitoes than it does for party goers.

Bill arrives early, inquires whether or not we had brought the pictures of his naked ass from New Years Eve, and then leaves again to retrieve Kelly Commander - our resident party girl and flasher-of-the-boobies. Later, it doesn't take long for the entire party to weigh in on an over/under bet on when she would peek first. (Before midnight, after 10; SCORE!)

Ginger and I suck down a Jello shot, then two more. As I'm slurping the third, there's a knock at the door. I throw it open. The Three Wiseasses appear bearing gifts of beer, sarcasm, and stories of years I've long forgotten.

"Hey, Roxy! Last time I saw you, you were drunk on a bar at Awful Arthurs downtown!" McLeary bellows. "That was the first time I sang karaoke too - I sucked."

I laugh. "Didn't you also flash us your penis?"

"Yep! If you're lucky, you'll see it again tonight." McLeary takes the cooler to the kitchen, making way for the Second Coming.

"Oh, shit folks, she's back. Long time no see."

"Hey Scotty-karate. Been in Arizona for three years - that's why."

"Been that long? Damn."

I move away from the door, not recognizing the guy bringing up the rear.

"Hey!"

I turn around. Oh shit.

"I haven't seen you in forever, Roxy! I never thought... well, you know... um, I'd see you again. You back? For good now?" His face lights up like an exploding firework. I know what he's thinking.

"Hey, T. Yeah."

I see my husband come in from the porch as T moves in. "T, this is my husband. Husband, this is T."

T eyes me, eyes my husband. After a quick hesitation, T pulls it together and shakes Kevin's outstretched hand.

I think about the last time I saw T - two nights before I moved to Arizona, illegally skinny dipping in the pool after hours. I blush with what I remember.

Ginger laughs, hands me another Jello shot. The awkwardness is over.

We spend the rest of the evening languishing in the retreat of the usually humid East Coast July - wholly succumbed to the cool summer night. The hours pass- wrapping us in the rich smells of citronella, barbeque sauce, and roasting marshmallows.

I see people I haven't seen in months, years. My brother and future sister-in-law are there too - and they know most everyone from their bar. We laugh and talk, mingle from group to group, everyone switching locations and people as if performing an elaborate ballroom dance. My husband hears stories that I had forgotten. He laughs at the end of one and says he knew what he was getting into when he married me, and that life will never be boring.

We eat ice cream cake and light homegrown fireworks in the backyard. Flashes of green and silver ignite the evening. Sparklers pop and sizzle in our outstretched hands. I pause to look around at the illuminated faces.

It is so damn good to feel like I'm home.