The fire alarm went off last night around 11:35. We had just finished watching Inspector Lewis so it wasn't a rude awakening - more of a chance to meet the neighbors. (In the absence of hurricanes this year, we've all been pretty asocial.)
I walked down two flights of stairs, through the first-floor corridor - smelling what turned out to be psychosomatic smoke - and out the entrance, finding about a dozen people standing on the macadam.
There was the young couple I'd seen at the pool the other week with their baby girl, who looked quite alert for having just been woken up. (The mother, I learned, is from New Zealand.) There was the couple from the apartment below us, with their twin boys, one of whom took an interest in the half-Kiwi girl.
Patti was there, but without her hurricane guacamole. (Not enough time to prepare.) She was standing under a palm tree with two of her neighbors, one of whom had her chihuahua on a leash. Near them stood a young woman in shorts - pretty much everyone was in shorts - holding one of the largest cats I'd ever seen. She thought it might be a Maine Coon; it had the elongated body but not the large, leonine head.
We stood around chatting as if at an outdoor cocktail party until the alarm stopped ringing and everyone slowly headed back to bed, buoyed by the unexpected late-night communion.
