“I couldn’t help it! My mom said we could have the house, but if I can’t give her a definite answer by today, she’s going to use it herself.”
“The nerve,” Hennessy said, drawing the word out to three syllables.
“I know,” Townsend agreed, clearly oblivious to the sarcasm. “Will you go? I know you have the same time off that I do, I know you’re not going home, and I know you miss me.”
Hennessy lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, a slow, sly grin stealing over her features. “And just how do you know that?”
“Because I know you love me, and you have to miss people you love.”
“Hmm…I guess that’s true. I miss my daddy and my granddaddy and my gramma somethin’ fierce.”
“You miss me, too,” Townsend said in the low, sexy voice that turned Hennessy’s usually steady knees to rubber.
Clearing her suddenly raspy throat, Hennessy said, “I guess I do at that. It would be awfully nice to see you. I mean, I see you nearly every night…but my dreams are nowhere near as good as reality.”
“You want to kiss me again, don’t you?”
“No. I want you to kiss me. Just like last time—only longer.”
“Oh, I’ll kiss you. I’ll kiss you on every inch of skin I can uncover.” After a lengthy silence, Townsend asked, “Are you still there?”
“Barely. My mind wandered, but my body’s still here.”
“Can I tell Mom we’ll take the house? Please?”
Hennessy forced herself to spend one last minute thinking. Townsend had been going to her meetings religiously. She’d also been working harder in therapy. And she hadn’t even tried to visit Cambridge. As long as Hennessy kept her guard up, this could be a short test—like a pop quiz—before Townsend reached her one-year anniversary in June.
“Yes. Yes, you can. I can’t wait to see you, and I’m really looking forward to spending some time getting to know your mother.”
“What?”
“Face facts, June Bug. You’ve just reminded me of how much we need a chaperone. Since your mother wants to use the house that week, there’s no reason we shouldn’t all share it.”
“But—”
“No buts. It’s not a good idea for us to be alone.”
“You can’t possibly be holding on to that ridiculous idea of not sleeping together until I’ve been sober for a year!”
With her voice taking on a very solemn tone, Hennessy said, “I’ve never been more serious about anything. It’s two against one now,” she said, trying to inject some teasing into the serious topic. “My sponsor’s even more of a hardliner than I am. She doesn’t think we should ever be alone.”
There was a pause that was far longer than Hennessy was comfortable with. Townsend cleared her throat and asked in a very quiet voice, “And you’re going to listen to her? What if I take a hard line? Spend time alone with me or we’re through.”
The question caught Hennessy by surprise, and for just a moment, she felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. This was exactly the kind of pressure she always felt from her mother. Give in or get lost. But she examined her heart for a few moments, thought about all she’d learned in Al-Anon and told the truth. “There are two sides to that question. If I let myself be talked into things I know are wrong, I must not love you as much as I think I do. And if you try to make me do things I’m not ready for, you must not love me much at all.”
Townsend sighed heavily. “Don’t you ever get tired of saying no?”
“Of course I do. I get tired of it every day. So why don’t you tell me how saying yes to things you know aren’t right works out. Yes is no picnic either, Townsend.”
“But I’m going to a meeting every day. Twice on the days I have to sit through Substance Mastery. I hear a lot of stories, and lots of people get into relationships after they’ve only been sober for months or even weeks.”
“What does your sponsor say?”
Waiting a beat, Townsend said quietly, “Uhm…I don’t have a sponsor right now.”
“What? Where’s Sharon?”
“Sharon fell off the wagon this past weekend. It was only one day, and she’s back in the program, but she has to concentrate on herself right now.”
“Oh, shit. What happened?”
“She caught her boyfriend cheating on her. She lost it. It…scared the shit out of me.”
“I bet it did,” Hennessy sympathized. “It’s so damned hard to stay sober. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, and it deserves your full attention.”
“But half of my attention is on you.”
“I know that. I wish it wasn’t, but I know it is.”
“Having you in my life helps keep me sober. I swear it does.”
Blowing out a breath, Hennessy said, “God knows, I hope that’s true. I don’t know what I’d do if I felt like you started drinking again because of me.”
“I won’t,” Townsend rushed to say. “I go to my meetings, and I read The Big Book every night. I say those affirmations you sent me, too. They’re so earnest they make me barf, but I say ’em.”
Chuckling softly at Townsend’s disarming honesty, Hennessy said, “It’s obvious that you’re working hard, but you’re not nearly out of the woods.”
“I know that.” There was a pause that immediately set off warning signals in Hennessy’s brain. She’d been hearing those pregnant pauses her whole life, and found she had an exquisite sensitivity to them. Like her brain had been wired to go on alert status from the slightest pause in conversation.
“What happened?” she asked sharply.
“Nothing too bad. I, uhm…had a little slip, but it wasn’t with alcohol.”
Hennessy’s blood ran cold. Fuck! The list of things Townsend could have taken was a mile long. “What did you take?” she demanded, exerting iron control to keep her voice low and even.
“Nicotine,” Townsend mumbled. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I was so depressed about Sharon…”
“It’s okay.” Her hands were shaking, but she forced herself to sound calm and most of all, nonjudgmental. Cigarettes were a heck of a lot better than the pills she’d imagined sliding down Townsend’s throat. “Tell me what happened.”
“We were supposed to get together for coffee on Saturday afternoon, before the meeting. She didn’t show up, so I called her house and she answered…drunk.”
“Oh, damn, that must have been so hard for you to hear.”
“It was. It really was. I know I shouldn’t have, but I went to a convenience store and bought some cigarettes.” Her voice starting to wobble and crack, she added, “I, uhm…stared at the beer for so long that the owner came over and asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t buy any. I didn’t.”
She was sobbing softly, and Hennessy wanted so badly to be there to hold her and comfort her, but all she could offer was her gentle voice and soothing words. “You had a tough time, but you didn’t drink. That’s what counts.”
Hennessy got up and went to her favorite seat, the wide window ledge in their common room. It was a nice day. Sunny and warm enough to ditch your gloves. Looking down at the people walking along with an extra bounce in their step, she wondered how many of them had problems that gnawed at them like addiction did her. Probably an awful damned lot of them. She craved a quick chat with Angela, but that had to wait. Townsend came first.
A thought bubbled to the surface. “You know, you might be trying to do too much at once. Maybe you should hold off on trying to stop smoking for a while. That might lessen the pressure.”
“But you don’t like it when I smell like smoke,” Townsend whimpered.
“No, I don’t. But that’s not what matters. You need to find another sponsor as soon as possible and talk about this with him or her. Maybe you need to wait a little to work on your smoking.”
“You won’t want to kiss me,” Townsend murmured. “Your kisses are all I think about.”
“I’d kiss you if you had a big, nasty plug of t
obacco in your mouth,” Hennessy teased.
“Maybe. But you wouldn’t like it.”
Hennessy took a minute to focus, then asked the question she thought about every time she went to a meeting. “Do you ever feel like you’re getting sober just for me?”
“Just for you?”
“Yeah. I need to know.” Hennessy’s blood pressure climbed as each second ticked away. A group of guys gathered in the grass and started to toss a football around. They looked like they were having so much fun. Carefree. Literally. Free of care. What must that be like?
It took Townsend forever to respond, each passing moment adding to the knot in Hennessy’s gut. Finally, she spoke, her voice surprisingly reflective, “At first, it was all because of you. But not now. Now, I feel like I’m doing this for me and for you and for us. I’d have been dead before I was thirty if I’d kept going at the rate I was. Sharon always said, if you’ve gotta stop sometime, it might as well be now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course I’m sure.”
Hennessy let out a huge sigh, feeling some of the crushing weight lift from her shoulders. “You have to focus on the things that make you want to stay sober. Not the fact that I want you to. This isn’t going to work if it’s all because of me. This has to be something that’s important to you—for you.”
“It is. I swear it is. I want to live. I’ll admit that one of my main reasons for living is to be with you, but that’s not the only reason.”
“Tell me the other reasons. I need to know.”
“Okay.” Townsend took a moment, then said, “I’ve started to enjoy life. For the first time in a long time, I’m happy to wake up in the morning. You’re going to laugh,” she said, “but I’ve started to become a nature freak. Just like you.”
Hennessy laughed, a real, lighthearted, genuine laugh that made her feel really close to her own age. “A nature freak, huh? How did that come about?”
“Well, Sharon’s been urging me to get up early and go for a walk in the morning. She said it’s a nice way to clear my head and plan my day. I think about what I have to do and try to think of any situations I might end up in that could tempt me. For the first few weeks, I didn’t even pay attention to where I was. I was just pissed off that it was seven a.m. and I was out stomping around in the snow.”
“Now that sounds like my girl.”
“Nope. That was the old Townsend. The new, improved Townsend has discovered that Vermont is fucking beautiful!”
“Do tell?” Hennessy prodded.
“Yeah, it’s really pretty here. Maybe you could come see me before the year’s up, huh? I think you’d really like it.”
“I hope I can, too. Now, tell me what you like about your morning walk. My curiosity’s really piqued.”
“I guess one thing I like is that it feels so good to be able to walk without being out of breath. My lungs don’t hurt anymore, and I don’t have that nasty cough that used to bother me in the morning. My sense of smell’s better, too. I can tell if it’s going to snow just from the way the air smells.”
“Mmm…that makes me so happy,” Hennessy murmured. “I know just what you mean. I can tell you how hot it’s going to be and when it’s going to rain just from smelling the air in the morning. It’s nice to get your senses back, isn’t it?”
“It is. I got some snowshoes and on the weekends I go for long walks in the woods and think of you.”
“I think of you much more than I should,” Hennessy admitted. “Every short story I write has an adorable blonde in it. My creative writing teacher actually made a comment about it the other day. We were supposed to write a story about Pre-Columbian America and Professor Ring said, ‘You’ve got your work cut out for you, Hennessy. I don’t think there were many attractive, young, blonde women in North America during this time period.’”
Townsend laughed helplessly. “Oh, damn, you must have been embarrassed!”
“I don’t care if all of Harvard University knows I’m hopelessly in love with you. As long as I’m more than five hundred miles from home, I’m a real rainbow-flag waver.”
“You’ll get comfortable with it at some point. Don’t stress about it.”
“That’s how I feel about your smoking. I’ll admit I hate smoking. It reminds me too much of my mother, and thoughts about her sometimes intrude when I’m around someone who smokes. But I don’t want you to feel you have to quit because I’ve told you to. This relationship can’t work if I’m the adult and you’re only trying to please me.”
“Oh, but I want to please you,” Townsend said in that incredibly sexy voice. “I want to please you so much that every nerve will beg for mercy.”
“Uhm…I could be wrong, but I think I was talking about smoking, and you were talking about something completely different.”
“Oh, I can make you smoke,” Townsend giggled. “But don’t worry about me. I think I’ll be all right. I smoked about ten cigarettes in a row and made myself so sick I threw up right into a snow bank. Do you know how nasty vomit looks on snow?”
“In South Carolina we throw up in the ocean, like self-respecting people.”
“Do you still love me? Even when I’m weak and give into temptation?”
“I do. More than ever. I love you, and I respect you for trying so hard to conquer your demons.”
“You were teasing about having my mother come with us, weren’t you?”
That snapped Hennessy right back into supervisor mode. She looked longingly at the guys running around on the lawn, wishing she could change places with them—just for a single day. But she was stuck. Always the adult. Always keeping track of how much booze was left in the bottle. “I will never tease about your sobriety. I’ll only come if your mother is there. And I swear, if I get there and find out you’re alone, I’ll leave. I’m not kidding.”
“I know,” she said glumly. “You never tease when I want you to.”
Two weeks later, on a bright, cool Saturday morning, Hennessy sat at a bus stop, her posture growing erect when a good-sized grey car pulled up. Before it came to complete stop, Townsend jumped out, threw her arms around Hennessy, and murmured, “God, I’ve missed you. Three months without touching you is an eternity.”
Every sense was suffused with Townsend. The feel of her slightly sturdier body, its warmth and softness making Hennessy’s head spin, her scent, always sweet and clean. The brief view Hennessy had gotten of her revealed a bright-eyed girl with a gleaming smile that could dazzle an army. But they were not going to carry on like this in public. And never, ever in front of Townsend’s mother!
The most Hennessy could offer was a quick kiss to the top of Townsend’s head. “Let’s get shaking. I don’t want to keep your mother waiting.”
“Great,” Townsend grumbled, stooping to pick up Hennessy’s bag. The smile was gone, replaced with a sour look that made Hennessy’s doubts about the trip start to bloom. But it was too late to back out now.
“Good morning Mrs. Bartley,” Hennessy said when she entered the car.
“Hello, Hennessy. How have you been?”
“Very well, thanks. I’m glad winter’s just about over, though. This is the first time I’ve ever been in truly cold weather, and my thin Southern blood could use a good shot of anti-freeze.”
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll be much happier on Martha’s Vineyard. We get a very brisk breeze at this time of year.”
“I’ll keep you warm,” Townsend said, adding a lascivious wink.
Hennessy’s cheeks flamed. Damn it! You didn’t do that kind of thing around your mother. It wasn’t proper. “I brought long underwear and a wool sweater. I’m good.” When their eyes met, Hennessy tried to convey her discomfort, but Townsend was intentionally or inadvertently ignoring the look. She took Hennessy’s hand and pointedly put it on her leg. Fighting the urge to reclaim it, Hennessy let this one go. It was going to be a very long week if they had these kinds of power struggles every two minutes.
&n
bsp; Thankfully, the drive was a lovely one, once they got out of Boston, and Hennessy found her attention divided between listening to the Bartley women and watching the scenery. “Have you been to the shore before, Hennessy?” Mrs. Bartley asked.
“No, ma’am. Actually, I don’t leave Cambridge very often, but one of my roommates is from Brookline, and I’ve been to her home several times.”
“Well, this should be quite a change for you. I think you’ll love the sea.”
“I’m very familiar with the ocean, but the Atlantic is fairly tame where I’m from.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re from…the South.”
“South Carolina, ma’am.”
“How forgetful of me. Now, what line of work is your father in?”
“You’ve already asked her that, Mom.” Townsend said, a definite edge to her voice. Just hearing that tone made Hennessy twitch, but Mrs. Bartley seemed very used to it.
Turning to her daughter, Miranda said, “When was that?”
Dang. It had only been three months since they’d had this conversation. Was her memory that bad? Or did she just not pay attention?
“When you took us to the airport for Christmas break.”
“That’s right,” Miranda said, a smooth smile nearly charming the memory right out of Hennessy’s head. That was a classic alcoholic trick. One her mother used to be able to pull off when she still had a lick of charm left. But Miranda didn’t have any of the other telltale signs of alcoholism, and Townsend had never indicated they shared the disease… “You’re from Charleston, right?”
“No, ma’am. Beaufort.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’ve been to Beaufort many, many times. I set one of my novels there, you know.”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t know that. I wish I had time to read for pleasure, but I’m afraid that’ll have to wait until summer.”
“Maybe you’ll have a little time this week. I have copies of all of my books at the beach house.”
Townsend was sitting in the middle seat, and she’d begun to fidget. As soon as Miranda finished her sentence, Hennessy knew an explosion was brewing. Knew it as clearly as a seismograph registered an earthquake before the shaking started. “Goddamn it, Hennessy doesn’t want to read your books. She’s just being polite!”
The Right Time Page 21