you have an 80s party? You weren’t even born yet!”
Rosie was almost doubled over laughing, while Jen squinted at her.
“Look at these balloons bitch,” and Jen started furiously scanning through the camera roll on her phone for a pic.
“No, that’s not it, wait…”
Rosie, somewhat recovered, begged, “Just please don’t have a y2K party. Who does that? Nobody! All that bad fake tan and hipster jeans so low we all practically had our vajayjays hanging out.”
Jen snickered.
Even Mira burst a raspberry through her lips, trying not to spray risotto.
“Ok, I got it!” Jen started shaking her phone in Rosie’s face.
“Oh m’gawd Jen! It looks like a rainbow’s had gastro all over your screen. Here! Look up my bohemian, minimalist 25th on Pinterest for God’s sake,” and Rosie started tapping madly on Jen’s phone.
“You have to come Mir!” Jen lent over and Mira could see bright glints of blue epiphany twinkling across Jen’s eyes, “My cousin’s going to be there!”
“Don’t start on the matchmaking again Jen,” Rosie groaned, then quickly added “But you definitely have to come Mira.” She put her hand on Mira’s wrist like a pawing puppy.
“As long as Dad’s ok,” Mira trailed off.
“Of course! Of course honey!” Jen and Rosie chorused.
Walking back to the office, Sunny put her arm around Mira, slurping the end of her smoothie.
“Hard to get a word in around those two.”
“Are you going to Jen’s party?” Mira sounded so whiny and desperate.
“For sure baby,” and Sunny pretended to chug her empty smoothie cup.
Sunny was a social butterfly, the life of the party. It was like she just couldn’t get enough of people, which often left Mira wondering why Sunny even bothered with her.
It’s not that Mira didn’t like people, she wasn’t antisocial on purpose. Mira was just happier to sit and listen. And that suited most people down to the ground. Mira found more often than not, people just talked at each other about themselves anyway.
At the end of the day Mira was glazing over an email about a work awards presentation night. She wanted to bin it but left it in her inbox just in case. Mira rubbed her burning eyes. She sighed as she closed her laptop, relieved it was the end of the day.
Hackles suddenly shot up the back of Mira’s neck. Mr Reed must have slithered out of his office. She looked over her cubical just in time to see him slink across the room, head craned, licking his lips with a forked tongue - looking for a delicate egg to devour whole.
Mira refused to call that predator, lowlife ‘Chief.’ He was a narcissistic serpent, praying on the desperation of naive young women trying to make it in the competitive publishing industry.
Mira swallowed a little bit of vomit back down her throat.
“Winning today?” Mr Reed hissed as he passed her desk.
“Absolutely Mr Reed,” Mira said flatly.
“Good job boys,” and he patted the side of her cubical.
He said that to her every time.
Editor-in-Chief joke.
But his darting eyes had zoned in on the new intern prey and he slid off.
Mira was glad to be completely off his radar. She shivered with disgust. There were advantages to being a shadow girl.
With no stomach to linger around and bare witness to Mr Reed hypnotise his fresh prey into submission at the water fountain, Mira packed up her desk quickly.
With gusto Mira scooped up her handbag and made for a great escape out the office glass doors.
She still had to get groceries on the way home. Mira briskly walked the two blocks from work to where her car was park, fishing in her handbag on the way for the shopping list Mum had given her earlier that morning. Mira’s hand eventually found it in the abyss of her bag, and she groaned. It was a hefty list.
Although Mira was tired and over the day, there was an upside to Mum giving her a novelette worth of items to pick up.
Mira really, really liked grocery stores. Maybe it was something to do with the intense fluro lights, or all the busy people; but it was the last place she was going to run into a ghost or a sprite or something. The energy just seemed too fast or too low. Spirit needs something to stick to, a magnet-like force of connection. The head on collision of that sterile environment of stacked rows of commodities, coupled with transient energy of people ploughing down isles with trollies, drove parallel lines where the physical and spiritual never quite stuck.
Grocery stores and graveyards - spirit energy zero.
Mira giggled at herself, daydreaming her imaginary dating profile.
I like long strolls along supermarket isles and through cemeteries.
Mira took her time down the isles, picking up and putting down five different shampoos before decided she didn’t need shampoo.
She slipped through the register with ease, making calm small talk about how busy it was and the weather outside with the cashier.
Outside misty rain had started to pitter-patter a haze on the world.
Mira shuffled to the car, wobbling around more bags than she could really carry. She plonked the groceries on the passenger seat and scuttled around to the driver’s side.
“I told you to watch where you put those pickled onions, I don’t like pickled onions.”
Mira jammed her eyes shut, “Really Mr Pickled Onions?”
“And stop calling me that,” the little gargoyle creature scowled up at her, flashing his azure eyes accusingly and rolling wrinkles even further across his face.
“It’s your name isn’t it?” Mira sighed, starting the car.
“You wanna talk kid?”
Mira shrugged.
“I know it feels like you’re being run over five ways by 15 different freight trains - but what’s the worst that can happen?”
Mira giggled a bit hysterically “Probably being run over seven ways by 18 different freight trains.”
“What I mean is, don’t over think it kiddo. Keep it all simple.”
“Oh yeah, and how do I do that?” Mira could feel tears starting to prickle her eyes. She wiped her drippy nose on her sleeve quickly.
“Do the job you set out to do.”
And
