In Twenty Years: A Novel by Allison Winn Scotch Page B

Joe’s, the old dive bar where they used to queue up the jukebox to Prince and grind on whomever they were hooking up with for the month (or the night), when she considers that this is the closest to freedom she’s been in ages. That she is irritated and pissed off and claustrophobic, but still, she’s irritated on her own terms.
    She waits for the Don’t Walk sign to change, dipping her toe off the sidewalk, then stepping back quickly as a green Jeep flies by, too close, her thin white T-shirt clinging to her from the draft.
    Colin chases her down the sidewalk.
    “Come on, Linds. Wait up.” He jogs to a halt. “Don’t run off without trying. We’re not so bad.” He grins.
    “I’m not running off. I’m going out for a drink.”
    One drink, she’s decided, won’t matter. She’s played with fate in much more dangerous ways than this before.
    Owen rushes through the shadows, out of breath.
    “Wait, wait, I’m here too!”
    Lindy groans. “So much for enjoying some solitude.”
    “Sorry!” Owen says. “Jesus.”
    “Forget it.” Lindy sighs. “Personal space has never been our forte.”
    “Since when have you ever wanted solitude,” Colin says, more of a statement than a question, so she lets it go.
    The light flips, traffic halting in front of them, and they fall in line with each other like they used to, silent for a bit, Owen’s flip-flops keeping beat against the pavement.
    Owen shoves his hands into the cargo pockets of his shorts. “I think I’ve forgotten how it feels to be twenty. Like, no responsibilities, no worries. Shit, man.”
    “What did we worry about at twenty?” Colin looks befuddled.
    Lindy shrugs. “I didn’t worry about much, don’t worry about much now. What’s the point? Life happens.”
    “Hey.” Owen perks up. “Don’t you have a song called that?”
    A police car flies down the block before she can reply, its siren reverberating around them, its lights bouncing off the neighboring stores. Twenty years ago, police sirens were like background noise, ever present, a part of the fabric of the campus: so too was the nervous apprehension if you walked home solo too late at night or found yourself locked out after dark. It was ironic: the rich kids thrust into the inner city. Of all of them, Annie was the only one who had even come close to understanding the perils that lay in wait behind the shadows.
    Lindy risked it once—she’d broken up with her boyfriend the hour before and then couldn’t convince him to escort her home because, well, she’d been a real bitch when she dumped him, callously, unceremoniously, just after he asked her to a fraternity formal—and she was mugged outside the McDonald’s two blocks from their house, just kitty-corner from where they stood now, though a Jamba Juice had long ago replaced the McDonald’s.
    Lindy tries to remember that guy’s name, the one who stood his ground and refused to accompany her home, but she can’t recall. Greg? Craig? She remembers him being cute but maybe annoying. She isn’t sure. Bea and Annie told her she was a moron to dump him—he was hot and kind and smart and already had a job lined up at Goldman—but Lindy felt suffocated, like maybe he was too into her, more into her than she was comfortable with.
    “I think that sounds pretty wonderful,” Annie had said. They’d been pouring cereal into plastic cups, dinner for the night. “Who wouldn’t want to be loved in that way?”
    “There does need to be a balance,” Bea remarked. She mixed some Cocoa Puffs in with Honeycomb. “But I did once read that it’s better to be the one less in love than the one more so.”
    “So that’s your plan? To always be the one a little less in love?”
    “I have you guys. I don’t need to be in love.” Bea shrugged. “I need an occasional warm body and tequila.”
    “Not the worst plan,” Lindy concurred. Though she watched Annie spoon her own Cocoa Puffs and wondered what it would take to convince her