The Right Time (23 page)

“No, what?”

“I’m gonna buy myself a damned bed that’s long enough for my body. My feet have been hanging off the end since I was fourteen.”

“It’s almost too short for me,” Townsend chuckled. “I have a fantastic bed on the Vineyard. Maybe you’ll get to see it…or sleep in it sometime. Like…oh, I don’t know…spring break?”

“You’ve got two weeks worth of good behavior to get through before we discuss that again. Let’s see how things go.”

“How about a tiny, itsy, bitsy goodnight kiss? You gave your gramma and granddaddy one.”

“We’re kin,” Hennessy said, chuckling. “But seeing the smile on Gramma’s face when we cleaned the whole kitchen is worth a lot to me, so I’ll give you a teeny, tiny kiss as a thank you for working hard.” She sat up and placed a quick kiss on the top of Townsend’s head. “Thanks for everything. This has been one of the nicest days I’ve had in months.”

“Me, too.” Townsend smiled, feeling like her happiness was actually overflowing. “And I can hardly smell the fish anymore. It’s been a damned good day.”

She hadn’t told Hennessy this, but she’d been reading Southern novels to prepare for the trip. She hadn’t been able to find many books that were set in the area in the present day, so she’d picked from many eras; William Faulkner, Dorothy Allison, Flannery O’Connor, Pat Conroy and Eudora Welty’s words all rumbled through her head. The books all shared a certain sensibility, one that she didn’t find in Northern writers. A lingering sadness, maybe even a sense of defeat. That was stronger in the people who lived closer to the Civil War era, but even contemporary writing had a very dark, even depressive side.

She lay on the box spring, relishing her discomfort. Giving up creature comforts for Hennessy was no sacrifice at all. It was actually fun to work at being part of such an alien culture. By the end of her vacation, she fully expected to have a Southern accent. The only thing she’d have to avoid was Southern Comfort, but with Hennessy by her side, alcohol wasn’t even on her wish list.

When Townsend opened her
eyes the next morning, it took a while to realize she wasn’t dreaming. Her bed was small and hard, and the strangest smell seemed to infuse everything around her. Her mind cleared, then a smile formed when she rolled onto her side, seeing Hennessy lying on her back, gazing vacantly at the ceiling. “What’s going on in that pretty head?” Townsend asked.

Hennessy blinked, then turned and smiled. “Hi. Sleep well?”

“I must have since I don’t remember a thing. You look a little…something.”

“I’m always a little…something. Today I’m kicking around the idea of going to visit my mamma. It’s Christmas and all.”

“I’d be happy to go with you, if you want.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

The look on her face was so poignantly fragile, Townsend’s protective urges surged. “Of course not.”

A warning tone colored Hennessy’s voice. “It’s never fun. She always tries to get money, and when I refuse, she yells at me. I
always
end up in tears.”

“I’m good at drying tears,” Townsend assured her. “At least, I think I am. Wanna try me out?”

Hennessy gave her a half-smile, and nodded. “Let’s give it a whirl.”

They headed out to the “forgotten part of the county” as Hennessy put it, and Townsend couldn’t begin to dispute her claim. Hennessy’s family was poor but proud, but these people had lost their pride, probably generations before. Townsend thought she’d seen poverty in the rough parts of Boston, but this was a whole new animal. Houses that hadn’t been painted since the day they were built—fifty years ago. Roofs half off, some with blue tarps crudely tacked down to keep the rain out. A couple of broken cinder blocks in place of front steps. More cardboard or plywood than glass in the windows. Kids toys, mostly broken, lying in the front yards. And, saddest of all, the occasional kid, alone, sitting on the barren ground, staring at the car like he’d rarely seen another human soul. If you tried to leave your three-year-old out in the front yard in Boston, the police would be banging down your door before you got back inside. But no one was calling the cops out here. The cops probably crossed this place off their to-do list long ago.

They passed a grocery store that looked like it might be the last one they saw for a while, since the road ahead was barely paved. Townsend said, “Why don’t we stop and buy your mom some food? You say she always asks for money, why not beat her to the punch with a gift?”

Hennessy shot her a quick look, a slight smile on her face. “That’s a good idea. I think I’ve got about fifteen dollars on me. That’ll buy her a decent meal.”

The place called itself a grocery store, but it was closer to what you’d find at a gas station. Junk food, beer, cheap wine, and cigarettes. Hennessy poked around the barely filled shelves, obviously trying to make her limited funds last.

“Is there anything special we could get her? Like a present?” Townsend asked.

It took Hennessy a minute to answer. Her eyes flitted around the items near the checkout counter, then she nodded. “She does love to smoke. I guess I can buy her cigarettes.” She shrugged. “If I bought her a real present, she’d return it and buy liquor. At least she loves cigarettes as much as booze.”

“Let me buy them. A Christmas present from her future daughter-in-law.”

A smile slowly crept across Hennessy’s face. “You really have a way of cheering me up. Thanks for that.”

Townsend was more persuasive than she knew, and Hennessy allowed her to buy not only two cartons of cigarettes, but a canned ham, some cans of tuna, peanut butter, jelly, and a few boxes of crackers. At the checkout counter, Hennessy waited for the bored clerk to look up. “If I decide I don’t want some of these things, can I bring them back?”

“Why on earth would you want to do that?” the woman asked, looking at her suspiciously.

“I don’t know. I might not be in the mood for ham later on.”

“No, honey, you can’t return food unless there’s something wrong with it, and we check.”

“Fine.” Hennessy gave her a warm smile. “That’s just fine.”

The store didn’t carry wrapping paper, but they had a package of slightly discolored tissue paper that Townsend picked up, along with a roll of tape. Then they spent a few minutes wrapping the cigarettes on the trunk of the car. Townsend produced a syrupy, sappy card she’d surreptitiously bought that sang the praises of motherhood. When Hennessy’s eyes widened, Townsend said, “Even though she’ll know it’s not true, it might make her feel better to think that there’s a chance you feel this way about her.”

Wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, Hennessy signed the card with the gold-toned pen that Townsend supplied. “Keep your eyes on your wallet and that pen,” she advised, her mouth set in a grim line. “She’s tried to take my wallet from my pocket while hugging me.”

They got in the car and drove the rest of the way in silence, Townsend unable to think of a comforting rejoinder to Hennessy’s comment.

They stopped at a hint of a road, with some kinds of buildings in the distance, barely visible through the towering pine trees. Townsend thought maybe they’d gotten lost and were going to turn around, but Hennessy said, “Well, here we are. The great trailer burial ground.”

“Why are we stopping this far away?”

“No road. The truck could make it, but with all the broken bottles and other trash lying around, I don’t want to blow a tire.”

They got out and started to walk, with the trailers finally coming into focus. Four of them dotted a small piece of land, each looking like it’d been tossed there by a previous owner.

“Do they have electricity?”

“Yeah. They have hook-ups—when they pay the bill. Half the time my mamma’s place is dark. Thank God there’s a portable toilet over at the edge of the lot. Knowing her, she’d go right in the middle of the rug when the water was turned off.”

“Damn, we should have bought her some bottled water. That’d be handy if her services are shut off.”

Hennessy pulled Townsend to a stop, bent and kissed her forehead tenderly. Then she wrapped her in a hug and held on tight for a surprisingly long time. “I never thought anyone would understand,” she whispered. “I’ve always worried that the person I fell for would run for the hills when they met my family.” She pulled back and gazed at Townsend for a few seconds. “But here you are, one of the wealthiest people I’ve ever met, and your instinct is to make her life better. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Townsend reached up and trailed her fingers across Hennessy’s forehead, trying to ease the stress lines. “Your mom and I are more alike than we are different. I could have ended up in her shoes if a certain blue-eyed girl hadn’t helped me climb out of the hole I was in. You understood me,” she said. “No one ever had.”

Hennessy nodded, then continued to walk, her pace getting faster as they got closer. As she trotted alongside, Townsend asked, “Should we keep our story straight, that we’re friends from Harvard?”

“Doesn’t matter. She won’t ask. Won’t care.”

When Hennessy knocked on the door, a woman answered almost immediately. “Hi, Mamma,” she said, giving her a tight smile. “Just came by to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“Hennessy! Get yourself in here, girl!” They entered the dark, ramshackle trailer, and Townsend now understood what the term “dirt poor” meant. The place was ghastly, and smelled absolutely awful, but Hennessy’s mother was fully dressed and sober, so she counted her blessings.

“Mamma, this is my very good friend, Townsend. Townsend, this is my mother, Maribelle Pikes.”

There was a bit of light coming in through a smoke tinted window. Just enough to get a good look at the woman. Townsend forced herself to offer some kind of greeting, but that was all she could manage.

If she’d been charged with picking out Hennessy’s mother in a lineup, Maribelle would have been her last choice—even if the others were men. There was not one hint, not one iota of resemblance between the women, and Townsend wondered if Hennessy could have been switched at birth.

Maribelle was no more than five foot six, and as Hennessy had warned, dangerously underweight. Her hair was an odd, lackluster, mousy brown, curly in spots, wavy in others, and downright sparse in various places. Her eyes were close in color to her hair, as flat and lifeless as a doll’s. With skin that looked as though it hadn’t been exposed to the sun in years, blue veins were luridly visible, making Townsend a little sick to her stomach. But when Maribelle showed her teeth, breakfast almost came back up. Crooked, yellowed, a few noticeably missing; Maribelle had the look of a woman who’d lived on the streets for years—although, with her pale skin, she’d only come out at night.

“We brought you a few things for the holidays, Mamma. I know times are a little tight right now.”

“Oh, my, they surely are,” she agreed, her accent not only stronger, but with a different character than Hennessy’s sweet, slow cadence. Maribelle’s was fast and grating, the kind of voice you’d be tired of awfully damned quick. “I was just down to the county office this morning. Just got back not a lick before you showed up. I told that man I needed an increase, but they don’t listen. They never listen.”

“I’m sure they don’t. Well, I know you like to have some food in the house, so we bought you some things that’ll last for a bit. Is your power on?” She looked pointedly at a lit candle, which provided the only illumination in the dim trailer.

“Why, of course it is, honey. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, you never know. Anyway, I bought you some things. Since tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, I thought you might like to make a nice dinner for you and…” She pursed her lips, looking uncertain.

“Kenneth, honey. Well, that’s very, very nice of you. I’m sure Kenneth will love a good meal.” She went to the bags and started to paw through them. “Now, if I just had a little holiday cheer, you know, maybe some eggnog…”

“I’m sorry, Mamma,” Hennessy said, actually sounding as though she were. “I didn’t have enough money for anything extra.” She extended the wrapped package and the card. “But we did buy you a present. It’s not much, but…”

The paper was off the package before Hennessy could complete her sentence. “Lord, do I need these,” Maribelle said, genuinely pleased. “Thanks for thinking of your mamma, baby.” Townsend noticed that the woman didn’t even give a thought to opening the card, and she tried to avoid looking into Hennessy’s eyes, unwilling to see the hurt that she knew would be there.

“Well, I guess we’ll be off. We’re gonna go help with lunch at the shack.”

“You can stay and visit for a while if you want,” she said, the invitation decidedly unenthusiastic.

“No, I know you’re busy. I’ll let you go.”

“You stop in and say hello again, all right? I hardly see you at all anymore. Where you been keeping yourself?”

“I’m away at college,” she said softly, and Townsend made the critical error of meeting Hennessy’s eyes. She nearly burst into tears at the pain she saw in them, but she knew she had to be strong for Hennessy, so she clamped down to keep them at bay.

“Oh, that’s right. Where do you go again, baby?”

“Boston.”

“That’s right. You go to Boston.” She started to walk them to the door, cocking her head to ask, “How do you pay for a plane ticket all the way to Boston, baby? If you’ve got the money for that…”

Unable to witness another moment of this torture, Townsend twitched her head in the direction of the car and walked away, trying to give Hennessy some privacy. Unable to resist the urge to peek, she turned and watched the scene, seeing Hennessy’s hands link behind her back as she rocked on her heels. The dark head shook, slowly at first, then more vigorously. Finally, she tossed a hand in the air in a poor attempt at a wave, and stalked away. Maribelle started to come after her, but Hennessy wheeled around and shouted, “Don’t you dare ask her for money!
Don’t you dare!
”

She turned and started to jog, grabbing Townsend’s hand as she got close. They ran until they reached the car, then Hennessy jumped in and peeled out so quickly Townsend almost didn’t get her leg in. After driving just a few minutes, Hennessy turned off the car and leaned against the steering wheel, crying so piteously that Townsend was unable to hold her own emotions in any longer. Eventually, they came together and held each other, their tears landing onto each other’s shoulders.