The year I turned 21, Jane and I would go into the Casablanca bar and flirt just enough to get someone, a businessman-type slumming it in Harvard Square, to buy us drinks.

Inevitably, they would indicate they wanted to join us at our table. That was my cue. “Oh, Anastasia!” (what Jane called herself in those days), I’d say with alarm, looking at my watch. “Mom said to be home by 10 and we’ll be in trouble for sure!” as we waved kisses toward the, by now, open-mouthed man we had conned, and laughed ourselves silly running all the way to the bus stop.

Dotty LeMieux

writes both poetry and poetic memoir. She has five chapbooks published, including two during the pandemic: Viruses, Guns and War (Main Street Rag, 2023) and Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune (Finishing Line Press, 2021). Her writing has appeared in numerous print and online journals such as Gyroscope, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Poeming Pigeon, Poets Reading the News, Rise Up Review, and Writers Resist, among others.

MacQueen’s Quinterly nominated her CNF Spring Trip to Mazatlán for Best of the Net 2024.