The Right Time (17 page)

She looked down at the menu. “We’ll split a few things. The rock crab and corn chowder, the grilled balsamic portobello, and the field greens.” She raised her eyes and winked at Hennessy. “Then the grilled chicken salad, the sauté of summer vegetables and the salmon spinach salad.” Meeting the server’s eyes, she added, “Bring the starters all together, then the entrees. Okay?”

He nodded, then walked away with Hennessy staring after him. Slowly, she turned and met Townsend’s gaze. “This is…different for me.”

“What is?”

Townsend’s head tilted and the sun coming in through the window made the golden strands shimmer. Suddenly, Hennessy couldn’t talk. Couldn’t tell her how uncomfortable she was. She just shrugged. “Everything. Seeing you. Being in Boston. I can’t keep up.”

Boldly reaching across the table to take her hand, Townsend simply smiled. That self-assured, “I’ve been in restaurants like this my whole life and I can afford anything that catches my fancy” smile. The one that only served to underscore the chasm that separated them. “We’re just having lunch. Friends do that, right?”

“I guess they do. But I’ve never…” She sucked in a breath and decided to let it go. She could waste an hour worrying, or just enjoy being with Townsend.

Their server bustled over with their salads. Hennessy looked down, relieved to see only white, fluffy cheese and some weeds that looked like the kinds of things that grew along the roadside back home. How did you charge ten dollars for what looked like dandelion greens? Poking at the salad with her fork, she took a bite, finding the salad peppery and fresh tasting. But ten dollars? She took another bite, relieved she wasn’t trying to get a big mouthful of goat down.

The rest of the meal was more straightforward, with Hennessy recognizing all of the food, and knowing how to eat it. When they finished, she watched in awe and amazement as Townsend plunked down a bunch of twenties to settle the bill. Hennessy followed Townsend outside to stand on the busy sidewalk, having to bob and weave to escape being run down by the fast-moving Northerners. How would she ever get used to the pace?

Townsend grasped her hand and they started back toward campus, but as soon as Hennessy realized Townsend wasn’t holding her hand just to stop her from being run over, she pulled it away. “You might hold hands with people all the time, but I don’t. We’re
friends
.”

“But we might be more.” That sweet, determined smile graced those pretty lips and Hennessy couldn’t dispute her claim.

“
Might
is the operative word. That means in the future and we need to focus on the present.”

Sighing, Townsend shoved her hands into her back pockets. “Let’s cross over here. One of my favorite toy stores is on the next corner.”

“Toys? Really?”

“Uh-huh,” she said as she started to run across the street, expecting cars to just stop for her—which they did. Hennessy walked to the corner and stood in the crosswalk, with Townsend standing on the other side of the street, clucking like a chicken.

Ignoring her jibes, Hennessy followed along as they threaded their way through the crowd. “Did you just get back to Boston today?”

“Yeah. Weeks of nothing but AA meetings on the Vineyard,” Townsend said dismissively. “Did I tell you my mother hired someone to watch me? She called her a sober coach, but all she did was follow me around and stop me from robbing liquor stores.”

Hennessy stopped on a dime. “Did you need—”

“No!” Clearly annoyed, Townsend marched over to the store, peering into the windows packed with what looked like handmade toys and educational games.

“Once your mom sees you can take care of yourself, she won’t be tempted to supervise. But why did you need someone? Isn’t your father home?”

Townsend gave her a funny look. “He might be, but that wouldn’t do me any good.”

“Why?”

“Because he lives in Switzerland.” She cocked her head. “You didn’t know that?”

“No. You haven’t talked about him much.”

Shrugging, she said, “I don’t talk about him much because I don’t see him much. He’s a nice guy, very likable, but…elusive.” Her smile showed a good measure of sadness. “He’s into arbitrage—”

“I don’t know what that is,” Hennessy interrupted.

“Me neither. Something to do with money. Anyway, he moved to Switzerland after they divorced.”

“Oh, shoot, I didn’t know your parents were divorced. I’m sorry.”

Townsend gave her a narrow-eyed gaze. “Why are you sorry?”

Flustered, Hennessy said, “I don’t know. It’s hard to have your parents divorce, isn’t it?”

“I was really young. Three or four. So I don’t have a lot of memories of him being around.” An impish smile covered her face. “I just remember him coming to town and bringing me here. He’d buy me
any
thing.” Her smile grew impossibly wide. “I’d just point and he’d buy it.”

Hennessy stood next to her, looking at the wealth of sturdy, smooth, wooden cars and trains and boats. What must it have been like to go into a toy store and get whatever she wanted? She couldn’t even imagine. Trying to put her thoughts into words, she saw that Townsend’s smile had faded.

Her voice was soft and melancholy when she said, “We’d get home, and he and my mother would argue for an hour. Then he’d take off, with doors slamming and lots of cursing.” A hardness colored her voice, so contrary to her soft, fine features and delicate frame. “He treated me like a high-class hooker. I’d be super nice to him for an hour or two while he threw money at me. But I never got the whole night.”

Hennessy didn’t say a word, mostly because she didn’t have words to show how sorry she felt for that confused little girl. Looking at the desolation in eyes that had been sparkling just a few minutes ago, she took Townsend’s hand and held it tenderly until they were back on campus. They weren’t girlfriends, but she needed to show she cared.

An hour later, Hennessy stood on Mass Av, watching a big, dark car whisk Townsend away.

Things had changed.

Dramatically.

Without the structure of camp, she had no idea where to draw the lines. And God knew they had to be drawn. Hennessy didn’t have the strength to keep running away from those grasping hands all year, especially when she knew it wouldn’t take long for the urge to run to abandon her completely.

Townsend scanned her ID
card and stepped back, waiting for the heavy steel door to open. As she walked down the camera-monitored hall, she held a note pad over her face with, “Go Fuck Yourself” printed neatly in large, colorful letters. The drawing class she’d taken at The Academy was coming in handy. She’d be written up for insubordination for the stunt, but having a couple of perverts sitting in a control room watching every move you made gave her the creeps.

Her “therapist” opened the door to the waiting room right on time. The diploma on the wall said she was a social worker, but Townsend guessed she was on some kind of work release program from a state prison. No one would voluntarily be out in the middle of nowhere, listening to a bunch of fucked up kids whine all day long. And no matter how often Mrs. Markham referred to their “therapeutic relationship,” everybody knew you couldn’t trust someone you were forced to confide in.

“How has your week been?”

Townsend tried to think of ways to describe the therapist. Frumpy, frazzled, distracted, deluded and disconnected were her current favorites. Sometimes, she spent her whole forty-five minute session trying to come up with five perfect adjectives to label her with.

“Fine.” She’d gotten good at pasting on a bland smile. The less said, the better.

Paging through a report, Mrs. Markham stopped and pushed up her heavy glasses. “It says here that you got into a fight? Tell me about that.”

“Nothing to tell,” she said, still smiling. “It wasn’t a fight. Jason Dunbar and I were just playing around. Wrestling.”

When she peered over the tops of her glasses, Mrs. Markham looked positively owlish. “He reported to the infirmary with a bloody nose and a split lip.” Pushing the glasses up again, she assessed Townsend for a few long moments.

“Wrestling,” she insisted. “You know how it is. You start to play around and it can get out of hand.” It would have been kind of fun to tell her the truth. That Jason wanted to keep their old arrangement going—blow jobs for booze and grass. It was her mother’s fault she’d had to make the deal in the first place. She’d decided the way to stop Townsend’s alcoholism was to cut off her cash. For her entire junior year she’d had to charge everything. Supposedly, someone looked through the statements to make sure no liquor stores got in the mix. Jason was happy to step in to keep her supplied, but he was the kind of guy who had a tough time taking no for an answer. Townsend chuckled to herself, recalling the stunned look on his face when he’d tried to push her to the ground and she’d clocked him. She might look weak, but she damned well wasn’t going to be pushed around.

“Uh-huh,” the woman said, using her best therapist voice. “You had a number of friends last year, but the report says you’ve been keeping to yourself. Why’s that?”

“No reason.” She shrugged, the blank smile still firmly in place. No reason other than trying to stay away from people who had more drugs hidden around campus than you’d find in a DEA warehouse.

“You’ve been to your Substance Mastery meetings every day this week.” Her owl-like eyes opened wide as a smile settled onto her face. “Good for you.”

“I keep going back,” she replied, twisting an oft-repeated AA maxim slightly. “It works.”

“Good. Good.” Mrs. Markham scanned her notes, the computer-generated report that showed every room Townsend entered, and how long she stayed. “I am worried about that wrestling though.”

“We’ve agreed to stop that kind of thing.” That wasn’t exactly accurate, but it was close. She told Jason she’d gut him if he touched her again and he seemed to believe her.

“Good. Well…” She put her hands on her lap and gazed blankly ahead. “Anything else you’d like to talk about?”

“Not really. I’m working hard, trying to get my GPA up. I’d like to go to college in Boston.”

“Good for you!” She beamed at her. Damn, it was easy to make a therapist happy. All you had to do was tell them what they wanted to hear.

It was just four when she got sprung. There was a
real
AA meeting in town at five. No little snots from school would be there, and she could actually tell the truth. The only issue, and it was a minor one, was getting there. You couldn’t call a cab, since they monitored the entrance. It was too far to walk, so that only left one choice. As she crossed the campus, Townsend grumbled to herself that she’d get in far less trouble if adults didn’t keep putting up stupid, insubstantial barriers to keep her from doing what she knew was right.

A nice grove of trees looked over a tranquil pond, ducks meandering around, probably looking for a nice place to spend the night. Townsend took off her ID card and tucked it under a rock. The geniuses in security didn’t mind if you were outside for hours at a time. They only monitored buildings.

Making her way over to the maintenance garage, she used her lock picks to open the side door. There wasn’t much to choose from. She picked the smallest truck, one she was pretty sure she could handle, got the overhead door open and took the keys off the board on the wall. It wasn’t hard to start a truck without a key—a guy whose dad owned a car dealership showed her how—but a savvy maintenance guy would have been able to tell the truck had been messed with. Not that they had any savvy maintenance guys. But still, it was just easier to use the damn key.

After pulling the truck out, she closed the overhead door and took off, slumping down in the cab to avoid having anyone recognize her. They monitored regular cars and cabs, but paid no attention to the school’s fleet. They were dumber than fuck.

After she was off property, it was smooth sailing. She had about fifty bucks on her, her mother having forgotten her previous plan to keep cash out of her hands, a couple of credit cards, and a nasty, lecherous, old creep at the liquor store on the edge of town who’d sell her anything she wanted. For just a moment, she let herself think of the icy burn as clear, cold vodka slid down her throat. She shivered from the memory and got what felt awfully close to a sexual charge from it. That was fucked up.

Ignoring the pull, she drove directly to the Baptist church and sat in the parking lot until someone came and opened the door. Only seven people showed up, so she put a twenty in the cup for a donation. She couldn’t afford to have them cancel this meeting. That damned liquor store was calling her fucking name every goddamned day. If the prospect of one day sucking the lips off Hennessy Boudreaux hadn’t been dangling right in front of her eyes, she would have been nursing a bottle of vodka on the way back to school, maybe even selling a few more to the people she once called friends, for extra walking-around money. Being straight wasn’t just boring, it was slamming her profit potential. But those lips…the thought of them made it worth the pain.