Forever Read Free Page A

Martens’ New Year’s Eve party in ’75 and Scott shared the first kiss of the new year with her. But she met new friends and was moving in another direction.
    But there was that one night.
     
     
    ****
     
     
    CHAPTER 3
    The second week after Thanksgiving ’76, as Scott’s life was in free-fall, there was a party on his floor on a Thursday night. This was traditionally the last party weekend before finals, and this was a particularly good party. But for Scott, it was a shit day. He went to all of his classes, but also found out that even if he aced finals in two classes, he was going to flunk both of them. He was dropped from another because he quit coming (because he forgot about it). He knew he’d have three Fs, but an A in Football Theory. His roommate, and kick holder, Danny Joe, was pretty much living at his girlfriend’s now, so he had the room to himself. The day of the party, Scott came back from class, smoked some hash Rick gave him, and slept almost all the way through supper.
    He managed to wake up in time to grab something to eat before food service closed, but by the time he went back upstairs, the girls were already arriving for the party. He slipped across the hall to the bathroom to shower quickly. A few people hooted and whistled as he came back out trying to balance his shampoo, soap and room key while holding his towel around him. He managed to hang onto the towel but dropped everything else. As he reached down to try and fish out his key, he heard a familiar voice.
    “Nice outfit. Is that what you’re wearing to the party?”
    He turned to see Roni standing above him. She was wearing jeans and a burgundy sweater with the collar of a white shirt sticking out the top.
    “No,” he said, his face turning red.
    “Good,” she said. “Get your ass dressed and come find me. I want to hear about things.”
    “Things?” Scott thought. What did she know?
    By the time Scott dressed and headed down the hall, the party was in full swing. Roni and couple of girls he didn’t know were talking to Craig Bowen, the floor art geek. The two girls he didn’t know were arguing with Craig about expressionism or abstractism or some kind of –ism, while Roni stood there listening and drinking her wine.
    They made small talk for awhile, and had a couple of more drinks. All of a sudden, one of Roni’s friends came for her. “Emily is puking her head off in the bathroom,” the other girl said, almost hysterically.
    Roni looked at Scott and her shoulders drooped. “I’m den mother sometimes,” she said. “I’ll find you somewhere.”
    That was around 9:30. By 11, Scott started to wonder what was going on. He saw Kevin Towers in the hall; he’d been in a couple of classes with Roni and he was the one who invited her house to the party. “Did you see Roni and those guys?” Scott asked him.
    “That Emily girl was sicker than shit,” Kevin said. “Sloe gin, I think. Anyway, I think Roni helped take her home.”
    Well, Scott thought, the perfect end to the perfect day. Some chick named Emily boots all over the bathroom and the best conversation he’d had with someone in months was shot to hell.
    As he walked back toward his room, he heard his phone ringing. He ran to the door opened it and grabbed the receiver on the fourth ring. “Roni?” he said.
    “Roni?” a female voice answered. “It’s me.”
    It was Maggie. He loved talking to her, but she wasn’t his first choice tonight. “Hi Mags,” he said.
    “You guys have a party tonight?” Maggie asked.
    “Yeah,” Scott said. “Kind of breaking up now.”
    “Is Rick there?” she asked. Shit, Scott thought, that dumb ass is out banging that freshman swimmer from Grand Junction he’d been talking about.
    “I haven’t seen him, Mags,” Scott said, not lying. “Did he tell you he was coming over?”
    “No, but I called over there earlier,” she said, “and Rathbun (Rick’s roommate) said he thought Rick was with you.”
    Scott hated the