The girl had a fuse about as long as a gnat’s whisker. Her cheeks flushed immediately, eyes sparking in outrage. She sat all the way up, almost touching Hennessy’s face with her own. “Come on! You have to kick me out. I broke into the camp director’s office.” She all but begged to leave. But some tiny bit of her didn’t want to go. Hennessy had gotten good at reading people, and for all her bluster, this kid was ambivalent about taking off. Maybe she knew she’d be returning to an actual babysitter.
“Uh-huh, you sure did. You should have seen her face when she mixed herself a nice big water and tomato juice.” Hennessy tried hard to make the smile on her face appear gentle and warm.
But Townsend wasn’t having any of it. Hennessy couldn’t read her well yet, but her expression seemed to waver between her usual defiance and suspicion. Like she was used to being toyed with. “Is my birth mother paying extra to keep me here? What in the fuck is going on?”
“We agreed to teach you a few things this summer, and we fully intend to do that. You’ll be going home—in August, with everyone else.”
Now Townsend started to heat up. There was every chance she was going to lash out. Maybe even physically. That little bit of ambivalence was long gone. “Why are you torturing me? I don’t want to be here!”
Just to reduce the chance of Townsend giving her a good lick, Hennessy stood, then looked down at her. It wasn’t possible to stay calm, but Hennessy tried hard to let the compassion she felt for the kid come through in her voice. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem like the kind of girl who doesn’t want to be anywhere. That’s why you remind me a little bit of my mom.”
Townsend collapsed back onto her bed. It was amazing how quickly she could go from rage to an almost inert state. Like her anger was very wide, but not deep. “Lucky you.”
“I wish I meant that as a compliment.”
A sharp gaze almost burned Hennessy. The girl could skin a cat with that look. “I truly hate to see someone your age who’s so unhappy. At least my mom’s thirty-two.”
A frown flitted by when she forgot she wasn’t supposed to engage. “You mean forty-two.”
“Nope. My mother’s thirty-two. Just past her fifteenth birthday when she gave birth to me.”
“Fuck,” Townsend mumbled. “Why didn’t she get an abortion?”
That one stung. Hennessy had to turn away to hide the hurt she knew would show on her face. She held the water bottle up to the light, like she had to check it out. “Thanks,” she said dryly. “It’s nice to know you’re so pleased with my presence on the planet.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I don’t know how things are around here, but where I come from no one would let their fifteen-year-old daughter have a baby.”
“I’m sure the judge was thinking she was a little immature when the state severed her parental rights,” Hennessy said. “Of course, they had a good reason. The house caught on fire when she was passed out dead drunk on the sofa.”
“What…?” She wanted to know more. You could see the questions in her eyes. But she stopped herself from seeming too eager. “You were in the house?”
Hennessy didn’t have a wisp of a memory of the incident, but she’d heard it recounted so many times she had some visuals. Images that made her voice shake no matter how hard she tried to play it cool. “Yeah. Her cigarette had dropped onto the floor and started a smoldering fire. Good thing the carpet was threadbare so it didn’t go up as fast as it should have. I’m here today because the firemen ran back into the house when the neighbors said there was a baby inside.”
“Jesus, fuck! How old were you?” Now she was all-in. Her cool veneer had disappeared.
“I think I was a month old, maybe a little less. I’m glad she didn’t breastfeed me. I can’t imagine it’s fun for infants to have a hangover.”
“Damn, Hennessy! Where were her parents?”
“At their house, I guess. My parents were married when I was born. They had a little place on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks. ’Course, that burned down. My daddy and I moved into his parents’ home. My grandparents raised me.”
“That’s insane,” Townsend murmured. “Don’t they have some minimum age for getting married down here?”
Goddamn it! She couldn’t go two seconds without sticking a knife into your gut. “Yes, Townsend, even down here there’s an age of consent, but it’s only fourteen when the parents sign off. My gramma wouldn’t stand for having her grandbaby be illegitimate. So they got married.” Summoning all of the compassion she could retain, Hennessy gentled her voice. “What’s your situation? You refer to your birth mother but I can’t figure out what that means.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “I just call my mother that to jerk her around.”
“Why?” Hennessy truly didn’t understand the motivation.
“She gave birth to me, but that’s about all she’s done since. She delivers a couple of books a year, and I’m pretty sure each of them is more precious to her than I am.”
“That can’t be true. I’d give an awful lot to have my mother care enough to find a camp like this for me.” She felt herself start to tear up, so she clamped down hard on her emotions. Townsend was the sort who would laugh at her softness, and she wouldn’t allow that. “Heck, I’d give a lot to have her remember my birthday.”
Townsend looked contrite for a moment. But even a moment felt like a point on Hennessy’s score sheet. “Do you ever see her?”
“Oh, sure. She heard I was leaving for camp and she came to see me and say goodbye. ’Course, she tried to wheedle ten bucks off me. Said it was for food, but the only food she ever buys is eighty proof.”
“Goddamn. You must hate her.”
Hennessy’s eyes opened wide. “I most certainly do not! She’s my mamma, and I’ll always love her. I just can’t save her from herself.”
“How can you love someone who treats you that way? Jesus, she almost killed you!”
“She has a disease,” Hennessy said, briefly thinking of how many times she’d had to remind herself of that fact before she’d truly accepted it. “She’s so far gone in her illness that I’m sure it’ll kill her—probably before she’s forty.” She took pains to gentle her voice. “How can you hate someone who already hates herself so badly? Yes, she breaks my heart. Yes, I’d give anything to have had a real mother when I was growing up. Yes, I wish she hadn’t come to my grade school, blind drunk, begging me for my milk money in front of the other kids. Yes, there have been times when I wished she’d never been born. But she was, and I was, and we have to make the best out of it. I swear to God I’ll miss her like the dickens when she’s gone.”
Townsend was quiet for a while, looking everywhere but into Hennessy’s eyes. “Why do I remind you of her?”
Reaching out with a trembling hand, Hennessy touched Townsend’s chin and lifted it until they looked into each other’s eyes. “Because she was your age when she drank herself into a coma. I figure you must be bedeviled by the same kind of pain.”
Townsend flinched, obviously reminded of her own recent hospitalization.
Hennessy took the liter of vodka and held it over Townsend’s head, where it loomed like the blade of a guillotine. “It’s not too late. You’re right on the cusp. It’s a hell of a lot easier to turn back now than it will be later. Don’t go down that path.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of her mamma. If someone had stuck with her when she was a girl, had somehow let her know she mattered… Looking down at Townsend, she added just one word, spoken in a hoarse whisper: “Please.”
Chapter Three
The next morning, Townsend surprised the heck out of Hennessy when she showed up right on time for her feedback session. Hennessy had gone to the small, private office in the writing program bungalow right after breakfast, certain Townsend would be a no-show. But the girl stood in the doorway, a quizzical look on her face.
There were twenty different ways to start, but Hennessy co
uldn’t decide which was right. It was like facing down a polecat: it might just skitter by you, but it could also take a swipe that’d leave a lasting scar. Townsend made the decision for her, reducing a potentially charged opening to a completely practical one.
“Is there any coffee around here?” A trembling hand shot through her disordered hair, with the bright sun enhancing the pasty white color of her skin. Townsend dropped into the chair, slumping down like a freshly-punished child.
Something about Townsend’s affect brought out the well of compassion that Hennessy always had access to. No matter how much the alcoholics in her life screwed up, she could never stay angry. Gently, she reached over and took the pale hand in her own. “It’s not easy, is it?” She examined it carefully, rubbing her thumb across the faint yellow stains that marred the skin between the second and third fingers. “Giving up booze and cigarettes in the space of two days must be killing you.”
“Whose fault is that?”
It was frankly amazing to see, once again, how quickly Townsend went from inert to furious. She looked like she’d just as soon strangle Hennessy as take her next breath.
“Mine, I guess. How long have you been smoking?”
She shrugged, but answered. “Three…four years.”
“Would you like me to buy some nicotine patches for you? I hate to see you suffer like this.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she stared, clearly torn between puzzlement and fury. “Why are you so fucking nice to me one second and torturing me the next? Why not just let me have my cigarettes?” She stood up and leaned against the door, her thin, almost willowy body not coming close to blocking it. “Why do you fucking care?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Hennessy admitted quietly. “But I do. Not just because it’s my job to enforce the rules, either. I genuinely care about you, and I’m not going to let your nasty temper stop me.”
Townsend flopped back down in the chair and stared at her. Then a flicker of life showed in her eyes. “There has to be a house leader who can’t stand one of her little monsters. Can we switch?”
Hennessy had to laugh at her tenaciousness. “Do you honestly think anyone else would take you? I haven’t talked about you with the other house leaders, but word is spreading like wildfire. You’re persona non grata, and you’re my cross to bear until August.”
“I should live so long.”
“You will if I have anything to say about it. Now, let’s talk about your paper.”
She stuck her index finger out and twirled it in a lazy circle, showing utter boredom. “Spare me the lecture.”
“This is my job, Townsend. I’ll go get you some coffee, but we’re going to talk about this.” She stood and asked, “Black, I suppose?”
“How’d you know?”
“It’s harsher that way. Seems like your style.” When Hennessy returned, she handed over a cup of coffee and kept a mug of tea for herself. “Now, let’s make one thing clear. I don’t expect you to be a carbon copy of your mother. I promise I’ll try to never compare you to her, okay?”
“You’ll be the first teacher I’ve ever had who didn’t, but I’ll give you a fair try.”
“Great.” Hennessy beamed a smile, surprised when Townsend returned it with lesser brilliance. “That being said, I’ll admit to being disappointed with this effort.”
Her lips turned down at the corners, the harsh expression so at odds with her fine, rich-kid features. Why did so many wealthy people have such lovely, delicate attributes? Did money just wash away anything rough or coarse?
“No kidding? Fisting isn’t your cup of tea?”
She wasn’t going to engage her sarcastic comments, mostly because she knew she’d lose the battle. “I’m not talking about the content. I’m talking about the style. I specifically asked you to write about something that moved you, but you didn’t capture any emotion at all in this piece. This reads more like a technical manual.”
“Wait just a fucking minute,” Townsend managed, scrambling to sit up and inhabit her chair the way most vertebrates did. “You don’t care that I wrote about being fisted…you only care that you couldn’t feel my pain?”
“Pain, excitement, fear, trepidation, desire, longing. I have no idea which of those emotions you felt while that woman was…fisting you.” It was hard to spit that word out, but she wasn’t going to show how it turned her stomach to think of the act—one she hadn’t known existed until the day before. “What did it feel like when she first asked you to go to her apartment? What did you expect? Did you have second thoughts while you were walking over there? Set the stage! What was the night like? Cool, damp, warm, hot? Let me feel how your emotions matched or conflicted with the weather. Tell me something to let the excitement build while you’re walking over there.”
“You’re serious,” Townsend said, staring blankly.
“Of course I’m serious. The piece needs to build. If you’re going to do this in chronological order, it’s important to let the reader start to worry or get excited—let us feel what you felt.”
The dubious look she gave Hennessy didn’t belong on a kid her age. You should have had to be at least thirty to look that jaded. “You want to know if my pussy was getting wet while we walked?”
She wouldn’t let her see the flinch. Once Townsend knew she could get to her with that kind of talk, it was over. “If that’s how you feel emotion, yes.” Hennessy took a breath and made herself think of the descriptions in the piece. “Tell me how you felt when you realized she was going to put her whole hand into you. Didn’t you have even a moment when you were afraid she might tear something? It didn’t sound like you were very excited when she began. What was going on in your mind? Tell me what causes a girl to let a strange woman try to…do that…when she’s not even sexually excited.”
“I live to serve,” she sneered. Despite the nasty expression, Hennessy could see something hiding behind it. She only hoped it was shame.
“I’m not looking for romance. It was obvious that you didn’t care for each other, so go the other way and talk about how desolate you must feel to let a complete stranger violate your body that way. Hell, in my county a person would get life imprisonment for doing that against a woman’s will.”
The anger roared back, so close to the surface it might have shown on her skin. Townsend’s cheeks reddened and her green eyes turned into chips of stone. “It wasn’t against my will. I’m not a victim!”
“Fine. Then talk about how empty your soul has to be to give your body over to an unknown woman who might, intentionally or unintentionally, injure you. Maybe this is just me, but I’d prefer never to have to have my vagina stitched up. What’s it like to not even care?”
Dismissively, Townsend said, “She knew what she was doing. Didn’t you hear the part about the lube?”
“Sure. But what I’m asking is for you to strip away the veneer. I don’t want to know the technical details. It doesn’t matter if the reader doesn’t know how to fist someone after they read your piece. What does matter is that they know what mindset you have to have to let a stranger do whatever she wanted. Let the reader feel what drives you to be so reckless with your health and your safety. That’s what’s interesting.”
Townsend’s eyes narrowed and she spat, “So that’s your thing? You get off on reading about danger? Rough sex? Rape?”
“No.” Hennessy stood and walked over to the window, needing a moment to guard against the revulsion showing on her face. “I’ve never read anything that aroused me less.” She moved across the room to stand beside Townsend and gently squeeze her shoulder. “You’ve got so much pain inside you. Let your writing help get some of those toxic feelings out. Use your words to explore how you feel—then maybe you won’t have to spend the night in the hospital with some intern practicing his surgical technique on your vulva.”
“Thanks. That’s an image I’m gonna erase from my memory as soon as I get my magic potion back.”
Hennessy ignored that com
ment. “I want you to pick one of the pieces we work on this summer and really polish it. It doesn’t have to be this one. Pick one that interests you, and apply the things you learn to it. By the end of the summer I want to see at least one piece that reflects the fire I see in your eyes. You can do this, Townsend. I can feel the talent you have—just waiting for an outlet.”
“Unrealized potential,” she drawled, showing a wan smile. “I’ve been hearing that since first grade.”
Hennessy put all of her efforts into making her smile as dazzling as possible. Her good humor seemed to annoy Townsend more than anything else, and she planned on using it constantly. “Then it’s about time to start realizing it, isn’t it?”
Hennessy was sitting with her cabin mates at lunch on Friday when she saw Mary Ann walk through the dining room, full tray in hand. When Mary Ann caught her eye, Hennessy jumped up and went to meet her.
“How goes it with your special case?” Mary Ann asked quietly.
“Well, I thought I’d outsmarted her. On Wednesday, I assigned them the task of writing about the most interesting museum they’d ever been to. Did you have any idea there was an antique vibrator and dildo museum in San Francisco?”
Mary Ann let out a bark that made a few of the nearby kids look up. “Good Lord, Hennessy,” she said, lowering her voice even further. “I think you might have met your match. This girl sounds like she’s got enough spunk to take on the whole camp.”
“Or burn it down,” Hennessy agreed, only partially kidding.
There were no classes on the weekends, but there were enough games and activities to keep the campers busy every minute. Unfortunately, most of Hennessy’s charges were such overachievers that they’d prefer to stay in the cabin and write or draw. She hated to require them to socialize if they didn’t want to, but she thought it best to organize walks and bike rides just to lure them out and get their blood flowing.
The Right Time Page 5