LITMIR.BIZ

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’cause you’re not going to hear any of that crap tonight,” Dannie said. “It’s all oldies but goodies here.”

      As if to punctuate Dannie’s words, a song by Roseanna’s all-time favorite band, the Aching Loins, blasted out over the dance floor. The three women screamed.

      The hot waiter materialized with Cecilia’s club soda.

      “No way, Spartacus. Take that back,” Dannie said. “And bring us a round of Gladiators.”

      In a couple of minutes he returned with a trayful of pretty pink drinks.

      Cecilia removed the pineapple wedge and took a sip. “Why do they call this a Gladiator?”

      Dannie gave her an evil grin. “Because it’s gonna kick your ass.”

      The Gladiator, did, indeed, live up to its name, and by the second round, the girls were making some noise.

      They tore up the dance floor to “Love Shack” by the B52s, “You Spin Me Right Round” by Dead or Alive, and “Head to Toe” by Lisa Lisa, and had returned to the table when Roseanna pointed to someone who’d just come in the door. “Look.”

      A tall woman in a red silk jacket scanned the crowd. She looked familiar.

      “OH. MY. GOD. It’s Grace Poleiski,” Dannie said.

      “I saw her at Beruglia’s when I went there for lunch today,” Roseanna said, grinning. “I didn’t think you guys would mind if I invited her.”

      “Are you kidding!” Cecilia laughed. “It’s gonna be just like old times.”

      AFTER THE USUAL NICETIES about who’d lost weight (Cecilia and Roseanna), who’d lost a husband (Grace, Cecilia and Dannie) and who’d lost the ability to party all night and still function in the morning (all of them), the waiter appeared with a tray of pale-orange shots.

      He set one in front of each of them, pulled a pack of matches out of the folds of his toga and lit the shots. Low blue flames danced on the surface of the liquor.

      “Don’t forget to blow ’em out before you drink ’em,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of mishaps.”

      Roseanna smiled. “Remember when Dannie accidentally lit her hair on fire while she was smoking a cigarette in the girls’ bathroom?”

      “What did she expect?” said Cecilia. “She used so much hairspray, her hair wouldn’t have moved in a hurricane.”

      “Come on.” Dannie laughed. “My hair wasn’t any worse than anyone else’s. In fact, I remember Grace getting hers tangled in the volleyball net in gym class. That hairdo had to be at least a foot high.”

      They all cracked up.

      The waiter walked away, his tight little butt all but peeking out from under the toga.

      Dannie propped her chin up on her hand. “Those look like my sheets he’s wearing.”

      “You wish,” Cecilia said.

      Grace pulled a bunch of pictures out of her purse and passed them around.

      “Oh, God. I remember this skirt,” Roseanna said. “I couldn’t get one thigh in there, now.”

      “Sure you could,” Dannie said. “It would be a little tight, though.”

      “Ha, ha.” Roseanna passed the pictures to Cecilia. “Hey, remember when we used to play Truth or Dare in study hall?”

      “Yeah. I think Mr. Montrose almost had a heart attack,” said Cecilia. “You’d always dare me to lean over his desk to ask him a question.”

      “He couldn’t stand up for the rest of the class,” Dannie said.

      “In his defense, you did have some pretty nice boobs,” said Roseanna.

      “To Mr. Montrose.” Grace raised the shot the waiter had just delivered. They all toasted Mr. Montrose and blew out their Flaming Togas.

      “Let’s play,” said Roseanna.

      “Play what?”

      “Truth or Dare.”

      “Here?” Grace said. “You’re crazy.”

      “It’ll be fun,” said Dannie.

      “Why not?” said Cecilia.

      Music thumped in the background. Motley Crüe belted out, “Girls, Girls, Girls.”

      “What the hell,” Grace said.

      “Who’s going first?” Dannie asked.

      “I will.” Cecilia had been first in lots of things. She’d been the first to get a bra, the first to get her period, and the first to wear gauchos to school.

      She was the first girl on the debate team (she never lost a debate), the first freshman to go to the senior prom (with Kyle Farber, the captain of the debate team), and the first one to let a boy see her underwear (Kyle Farber, the night of the prom).

      So it only followed that she’d go first. At least, this was the logic after three Gladiators and a Flaming Toga.

      “Okay, Truth or Dare?” Grace said.

      “Dare,” said Cecilia.

      Dannie rubbed her hands together. “Great. Here’s one. Get our waiter to bring us a round of shots on the house. By whatever means possible.”

      “Nah, that’s too easy,” Grace interrupted. “How about she has to get the waiter’s phone number?”

      “Oh, that’s good.” Dannie laughed.

      “Are you kidding me? Shots? Phone numbers? That’s lame.” Roseanna closed one eye and tipped her glass toward Cecilia. “Here’s a dare. You have to get the waiter to give you…a lap dance.”

      The three other women hooted and clinked glasses.

      “A lap dance?” Cecilia shook her head. “Are you insane? I can’t get that guy to give me a lap dance. I can barely get him to give me a straw with my drink.”

      Roseanna snickered.

      Dannie shrugged. “Hey. You picked Dare, and that’s the dare. Take it or leave it. But if you leave it, you know what happens.”

      The Alternate Dare.

      “In the case of forfeit of an Official Dare,” Cecilia intoned, “the daree shall be forced to perform the Alternate Dare, which shall consist of phoning her current crush, and confessing all feelings she might have for such crush.”

      Cecilia imagined how that phone conversation might go:

      “Hello, Jake? This is your boss, Cecilia. I’m calling to tell you I think you’re really, really sexy. You smell great, and I love the dimples on your earlobes. I want you to know that even though you are my assistant and I’m just about old enough to be your mother, I have smoky sex dreams about you almost every night.”

      A wave of queasiness washed over her.

      “No copping out,” Roseanna warned. “We swore on our posters of Jon Bon Jovi.”

      “I remember. Jeez. Did I say I wasn’t going to do the dare? I never said I wasn’t going to do the dare.” Cecilia sucked down the rest of her drink and ran her fingers through her hair. “Just…get him over here.”

      Dannie waved to the waiter, who stood near the drink station at the bar, as still as a Roman statue and twice as gorgeous.

      Cecilia’s heart sped up to Moderately Dangerous on the heart attack scale. As the waiter neared, he morphed for a moment into Jake.

      Cecilia blinked and Jake was gone, but the stud-boy who now stood before her was only a slightly less fantasy-inducing alternative.

      She forced herself

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