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

dick.
    “Fame isn’t everything.” She shrugs. She’s used to feeding this line to journalists, particularly lately, when she’s on a junket for Rock N Roll Dreammakers. It’s about passing on your knowledge, breaking open doors for others! She’ll sometimes say, Fame is just a label other people put on you.
    Lindy doesn’t believe a word of her own drivel. Because fame? Yeah, she does fucking love it.
    Owen drills her with questions, apparently the only one who has really kept up with her career (“I have a lot of time on my hands,” he shrugs apologetically, as if there’s something wrong with being well versed in the life of Lindy Armstrong), and Lindy’s irritated that Annie hasn’t shown more of an interest, even though Annie has made it clear her interest level is hovering right around rage-hate. After graduation, when they lived in that hovel in the West Village that was, like, four hundred square feet between them, and Lindy would play some shitty show for drunk NYU students who would catcall about her boobs, Annie always showed an interest. It was Annie’s interest that gave Lindy hope. She would sell approximately four CDs, and drag herself home after, and Annie would wake up, even though she had to work the next morning, just to ask her if she got discovered that night.
    It’s been thirteen years, Lindy thinks. When is she going to grow the fuck up?
    “I don’t know how you almost failed that class,” Owen is saying. “The stuff you write now is amazing.”
    “Thanks!” Lindy says too cheerfully, failing to mention that virtually none of her radio-worthy songs have been her own. “And now I have this TV show,” she adds. TV! She’d rather be playing gigs in dive bars across the Southeast, but gigs in dive bars don’t pay $4 million. And Lindy isn’t dumb enough to pretend that she doesn’t love all the stuff accompanying that cash. Still, Annie sits stone-faced. Lindy narrows her eyes. “Seriously, Col, I know lots of hot girls. You’ll see.”
    Annie jabs something on her phone, then crosses her legs in those stupid leather pants, which Lindy actually adores and would probably wear, but which do not suit Annie at all.
    “Nice pants,” Lindy says. “I think I own the same pair.”
    “Mason and I are watching!” Owen interrupts. “I love that girl you chose for your team from, where was it, like, some small town in Wisconsin?”
    “Kansas.” She doesn’t ask who Mason is, because she has a vague sense that she should know that he’s Catherine and Owen’s son, but she can’t for the life of her remember how old he is or if their other child is a boy or a girl.
    “I’m never home,” Catherine says. Then, as if she realizes it’s time to bury the hatchet for causing a scene at the wedding, adds, “Or I’m sure I would.”
    Lindy raises her eyebrows. Catherine didn’t give her much of a chance to explain after Annie fled the brunch, and then Bea chased after her, and Colin nursed three Bloody Marys. She marched over to the buffet line, where Lindy was eyeing the scrambled eggs and debating the bacon, and seethed, “How could you?”
    “How could I what?”
    “You know what you did, Lindy. Stop being so goddamn unaccountable. You knew how she felt. You knew what she wanted.”
    “It didn’t mean anything.” Lindy tried to feign innocence, but Catherine was never anyone’s fool.
    “Which makes it all the worse. And at our wedding. You did this at our wedding. You were my bridesmaids!”
    “She’s a big girl,” Lindy said. “Everyone should grow up.”
    Catherine scoffed, her bright eyes turning gray. “You should grow up, Lindy.” Then, “She’s your friend! I’m your friend. And you just made this weekend about you. Which, if I’m being honest, isn’t particularly surprising.”
    Lindy thought she was being a little overdramatic, and Catherine had been a bit of a bridezilla, what with her insistence on those ridiculous plum-colored bridesmaid’s dresses