The Right Time (30 page)

It was so much harder to talk about your alcoholic girlfriend than it was your parents. You
got stuck with
alcoholic parents. You
chose
an alcoholic girlfriend—that was the difference. But she
had
chosen Townsend. Consciously. Thoughtfully. And she was going to keep every promise she’d ever made to her. She would support her, encourage her, and stand by her for the rest of her life. But she couldn’t do any of that without support. She’d been crazy to think she could figure this out for herself.

It was the first of February, her fifth meeting. As she looked around the dingy, plain room, she met Angela’s gaze and nodded. There was something in the woman’s watery blue eyes that resonated with Hennessy. Like Angela had seen some of the same things, had some of the same bumps and bruises that Hennessy had suffered. After they all stood to say the serenity prayer, she ambled over to the older woman and extended her hand. “Hi,” she said, “We met once before. I’m Hennessy.”

“Right. I remember you. Angela,” she said, pointing at her chest. She wore a pale blue shirt with her last name over the breast, navy blue cargo-style pants and thick-soled black shoes. Just the thing for a parking enforcement officer’s aching feet.

“I’ve…” Hennessy collected her thoughts, carefully considering how to approach her. “I’m looking for a sponsor. Do you…?”

“Really?” Her tired smile just made her look more worn out. “You don’t want someone closer to your own age? How old are you, anyway? Seventeen?”

“Eighteen,” Hennessy replied. “Good guess.”

“Nah. I’ve got a girl your age. You look like you’d fit right into her crowd. So why do you want to talk to someone old enough to be your ma?” Hennessy tried not to laugh at her accent. Harvard was a pretty insular place, and she didn’t come into contact with many regular Bostonians. Especially ones from working class backgrounds—where the accent flourished.

“I’ve been paying attention,” she said. “You grew up with an alcoholic father and you married a guy who drank. I thought someone who’s been where I am could give me some perspective.”

“What college are you going to?”

“Harvard. Why?”

Angela let out a wry laugh. “Just wanted confirmation that you don’t have to be dumb to do dumb things.” She put her arm around Hennessy’s shoulders in a very maternal fashion. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee. Maybe I can talk you into breaking up with your girlfriend.”

Hennessy started, staring at her with wide eyes. “I’m not looking to do that, Angela.”

“I know,” she agreed, still chuckling. “But I want to go on record giving you fair warning.” Standing stock still, Hennessy concentrated on the words. “Feh wanin” took a few seconds to compute. Then she grabbed her coat and followed along. So far her instincts had been right. Angela wasn’t going to give her sympathy. Brutal honesty was what Hennessy needed, and she was already pretty sure Angela wouldn’t pull a single punch.

Townsend stuck her feet onto the seat of a chair and leaned back. Substance Mastery was the biggest time waste in the history of time. No one, including the facilitators, wanted to be there. No one, including the facilitators, was truly sober. Except for her, of course. She hadn’t had a fucking drop of alcohol or even a Valium since June. And here it was February. With her stuck in a warm, creamy-toned room, accented with bright pastels, trying to hide the fact it was an expensive prison.

Mr. Andelson, their facilitator, had the florid complexion of a drunk, and given that he gobbled down breath mints like he needed them to breathe, she’d pegged him as the kind of guy who went out to his car and took a few slugs off a pint of vodka to get him through the day. Not that she blamed him. This was mind-numbing stuff, and doing it sober was about to rip her last nerve from her spinal cord.

But as soon as this bullshit was over, she could sneak over to the garage and liberate a truck. Then she could be with her real peers. People who were honestly trying to get sober and stay sober.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she snuck it out and took a peek. A reply from her mother. If she and Hennessy wanted the Vineyard house they could have it, but she needed an answer that day. God damn it! Everybody had an agenda.

But no matter how many deadlines her mother had, no one topped Hennessy in that department. Amazingly, Townsend had met every damned one of her requirements. She hadn’t been to Cambridge once, hadn’t begged for Hennessy to visit her, and hadn’t written one sexually explicit e-mail. Now it was her turn. Hennessy owed her a visit, if only to test her progress in opening up a little. It was put up or shut up time.

Later that night, Hennessy’s hand slid across the sheet of paper she’d printed off. Playing idly with it, she folded it into thirds, then straightened it out and refolded it—fashioning it into an aerodynamic shape. Snapping her wrist, she launched the projectile across her room to watch it land a good four feet from her intended target.

Muttering to herself about her lack of any useful athletic talents, she picked up the airplane and made another attempt—this time from barely three feet away. Missing again, she smirked at herself and walked back to her desk where she smoothed the paper out and read it one last time.
You’re gonna be the death of me, Townsend. I swear it.

Picking up her rarely used pre-paid phone, she dialed and waited for Townsend to answer. When the line was picked up, she drawled. “You know I don’t like being dictated to.”

“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.”