The Right Time (16 page)

Hennessy spent the rest of the morning saying goodbye to the girls from her bungalow, and getting them reunited with their parents. Townsend was the last to leave, having decided to stay at an inn in Savannah for the night. It was just the two of them, sitting in the common room, tension escalating in Hennessy’s gut.

“Is there any way I can convince you to come stay with me tonight?” Townsend asked, staring right into her eyes.

Despite her anxiety, Hennessy laughed. You couldn’t say Townsend lacked nerve. “There’s not a chance in the world. Even the question is very, very far out of bounds.”

She’d made progress—good progress. But Townsend still had that lightning-quick temper. Frustration was her mortal enemy. “But you’re not a real teacher, you’re not my house leader anymore, and we’re barely a year apart. There’s no law against a seventeen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old hooking up.”

Hennessy took the time to sort out her thoughts. Slowly, the words came to her. “You’re wrong about that. There’s a very big gap between us. Call it experience, call it maturity—hell, call it sobriety. Whatever you call it, we’re not equals. I care for you, I swear I do, but I can’t be with you like that.”

Frustration quickly gave way to a gentler entreaty. Townsend scooted closer and let her voice drop into a seductive purr. “Then be with me until I get to be your equal. It’ll be a nice project.”

Hennessy stood just to have the space to think clearly. All of a sudden a sweet, enticing scent floated past her on the breeze. Townsend’s scent. Forcefully, she shut her mind to the sensation. She had to think of their reality, not the tempting fantasy. “It was just three months ago that I had to keep both eyes on you to make sure you didn’t walk away from camp with just the clothes on your back. That’s not how equals behave.”

“But I’ve changed! I quit drinking, quit smoking, and I’ve worked like a dog on my writing. I never did anything like that before, Hennessy, and I did it because of your influence.”

“I know that. And I’m really happy about every change you’ve made. But we’re both in the starting blocks here. You’ve got sixty days of sobriety and I’ve got about thirty days of being interested in a real woman, not just an idle fantasy.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “That’s no big deal. We’ll figure this out together.” Getting up to move across the room, she started to approach.

There was a look in her eyes that Hennessy hadn’t seen before, and it frightened the hell out of her. “No,” she said, her voice shaking. “I have to think about things, to really consider what I want and what I can have.”

“You can have me,” Townsend said, smiling seductively.

The whole situation hit Hennessy like a slap to the face. “No, I can’t. We’re not equals, June Bug. We’re just not. And I can’t be in a relationship where there’s a big power imbalance. I can’t.” She started to cry, and soon found herself wrapped in Townsend’s warm embrace.

“Will I ever be your equal?” Townsend asked, her warm voice tickling Hennessy’s ear and making goosebumps roll down her body.

“Yes. You can be.” She pulled away, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “It’ll just take some time.”

“Can we be friends? I…I need to stay in touch,” she said, her voice shaking.

“We can always be friends. I promise.” Hennessy leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on Townsend’s cheek. “You’re my very good friend.”

Townsend’s cell phone chirped and she gave it an annoyed look. “My limo’s here.”

Hennessy picked up the larger of her bags and carried it down the path to the administration bungalow, the same spot they’d met just three months earlier. She hoisted the big bag into the trunk, waited for Townsend to load the smaller bag, then said, “I’ll write to you as soon as I get access to e-mail at school.”

“That’s weeks from now!”

Hennessy held up her hands. “I don’t have e-mail at home, and I won’t have time to go to the library.”

“Everybody has e-mail. Everybody!”

“I don’t.”

“Then text me.”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

Townsend blinked at her, then shook her head. “Can I write to you? Snail mail? I’m…I’m worried about staying sober without you to talk to.”

“Of course you can write to me.” She took the piece of paper that Townsend handed her and wrote down her address. “Write to me every day at the same time. Make it like an appointment. And whenever you feel stressed, go to a meeting. They’ve got them twenty-four hours a day in a big city like Boston. You’ve got to start relying on meetings to get you through this.”

“I know, I know.” She was starting to sound desperate. “Can I call you?”

“Oh, Townsend, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We wouldn’t have any privacy, and my family would want to know what was going on.”

“I don’t think I can do this without you.” Townsend shook with tears.

“I know that you can. I have complete confidence in you.” After placing a gentle kiss to the top of her head, she opened the door and urged her in. When the heavy door closed with a soft thunk, Townsend’s face was right at the glass, like a terrified animal being forcibly taken away. The image struck Hennessy like a blow. In just three short months she’d let a troubled girl get past every defense she’d taken so long to build up. But Townsend was inside—deep inside—and there wasn’t a single part of Hennessy that wanted to let her go.

Townsend checked the name
of the dorm on a slip of paper she’d stuck in the back pocket of her jeans.
Wigglesworth
. Leave it to Hennessy to be in a dorm with a funny name.

There was so much going on in the Yard, with dozens of people trying to maneuver a year’s worth of gear through narrow staircases, that she had to wait for an opening and then dash in, rushing up to the third floor so she didn’t get stuck behind a slow-moving flat-screen TV.

Pausing in front of the door, Townsend checked her breath, ran her fingers through her hair, and fussed with her T-shirt to make sure it was straight. Her hand shook when she raised it to knock, so she added some extra power to make it sound confident.

It must have sounded a little too confident. Hennessy flung the door open, looking like she expected the police to be standing there. “What in the world…” Surprise gave way to the biggest, brightest smile Townsend had ever seen on that pretty face. “I had no idea you were gonna have time to come by!” Hennessy’s arms settled around her shoulders and Townsend could barely resist the urge to snuggle up against her like a kitten.

“I don’t have long. My car’s going to swing by at three. If I’m not on Mass Av on time, I’m going to have to walk to Vermont.” Pulling away from Hennessy’s hug, she flipped her hair back over her shoulder and fixed her shirt again. “My mother loves to make threats she never follows through on.”

“Come on in,” Hennessy said, her voice filled with excitement. “I’ll show you my suite.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Townsend said, not taking her eyes off Hennessy’s face. It had only been a couple of weeks, but somehow she’d gotten prettier.

“Look at the
room
,” Hennessy chided, tugging her inside by the sleeve. “A common room and three bedrooms.
With
a bath,” she added dramatically. They walked into a room with electronics, books, clothes, and partially unpacked suitcases all piled onto one bed, and another that looked like a monk had claimed it.

“Let me guess,” Townsend said. “That one’s yours.”

“Hard to fool you. This is a quad, but we decided to keep the big room as a common room. So Robyn and I are going to double up. But that’s fine with me, because she’s got stuff. Lots of stuff.”

Hennessy’s desk had only a few pens and a thesaurus lying on it, alongside a small, framed, faded photo of a couple.

“Your grandparents?” Townsend asked, picking it up.

“Uh-huh. Their wedding day. Right after my granddaddy came back from Viet Nam.” Chuckling, she added, “They don’t take a lot of pictures.”

“This is really nice,” Townsend said, watching Hennessy neaten the few effects she had. “This place will fit you just fine.”

While her back was turned, Townsend looked her over. Her clothes were all wrong. Dark blue poplin slacks and a white golf shirt. Did she have a job already? Like in a restaurant or something? But then a protective streak raised her hackles. None of these little Ivy League shits had better make fun of her. Townsend wasn’t above knocking the stuffing out of a few future investment bankers.

Moving closer, she put her hands on Hennessy’s hips, turned her, then looked directly into her eyes, seeing them grow wide with alarm. “You know what else would fit?”

“No. What?” She looked a little slow when she spoke. Like her brain wasn’t firing at the right speed. That was a
really
good sign.

“My lips would fit right…here.” Leaning in, she got so close she could feel Hennessy’s breath on her cheek, but before their lips met she was holding onto nothing but air. Somehow, Hennessy was now two feet away from her.

“We don’t do that,” she chided. “We’re friends, remember?”

Undeterred, Townsend moved toward her again. “Friends can kiss. I’ve done a lot more with people I know a lot less.”

“Uh-huh.” Once again, she scampered away, avoiding Townsend’s grasp. “But that’s not what
we
do.”

“Yet,” Townsend corrected. “We don’t do that yet. But we will soon. You told me so at camp. Let’s get going on that.”

Moving around the room like a matador escaping a charging bull, Hennessy was once again just out of reach. But now she looked flustered, also a good sign. “I’m sure I said no such thing. Absolutely positive.”

“Maybe not.” Guessing which direction Hennessy might choose, Townsend trapped her by the bed. They were inches from each other, so close she could smell her, could see the alarm in her eyes. “But you wouldn’t tell me you didn’t have feelings for me. That means you do. Since you do, let’s get going!”

“That’s not going to happen.” The agitation drained from her eyes now that Hennessy was laying down rules. She loved rules more than anyone Townsend had ever met—and she’d had several run-ins with cops, prosecutors, and judges. “We’re
strictly
friends for the time being. I won’t be rushed.”

Hennessy probably didn’t realize it, but getting that “time being” bit added was a point for Townsend’s side. This was going to be like wearing down a rock, but a persistent trickle of water would eventually get the job done. “Fine. I’ll respect your boundary, for the time being. Let’s get out of here and get a decent meal. I know just the place.”

Hennessy blanched. “I get my meals here.”

Shit!
She probably didn’t have money for meals out. Townsend took her arm and pulled her to the door. “I’m buying. It’s a going away present—to myself. The food at my school sucks.”

The restaurant was light years past anything Hennessy had ever enjoyed. It probably wasn’t all that fancy, the servers just wore jeans and white shirts, but something about the place dripped with money, and being around a lot of money made her twitch.

“This chef is into all of the sustainable food crap,” Townsend said dismissively. “But if you can get over knowing where your food grew up, it’s really good.”

“I’ve always eaten food that grew up just outside my door.” Hennessy looked at the menu, seeing that everything was organic and locally sourced and sustainable. She also saw that the starters were ten or eleven dollars and entrees began at thirteen and climbed to twenty-five. For lunch! “Uhm…I’ll just have the native field greens with…chèvre.” Four years of French let her pronounce the word properly, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to choke down goat. But since it was the cheapest thing on the menu, she took the chance. She put the menu down, bristling with unease.

Townsend raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. A perky young man came over to the table. “Hi. Can I get you started with a drink?” He took another look, then amended, “Tea, soda, mineral water?”

“Mineral water,” Townsend said. “We’re ready to order, too.”

“Great. What will you have?”