By Linda Dyer

She sauntered down the street mid-morning in a navy blue silk bathrobe, her satin mules clicking the sidewalk with two-inch kitten heels. Her right hand clasped a leather leash, her tuxedo-clad Boston terrier named Boots straining at the other end, his nose pushed in, self-confident and spoiled. The same hand that grasped the leash held a cigarette, white as a piece of chalk scribbling out some coded message in a waft of smoke. Her other hand, meanwhile, caressed a bottle of Coca Cola from which she took long languid sips as she and her dog sallied forth. We watched, enthralled. She was everything that we were not, and should not be, or so our mothers told us.