Not My Daughter

Chapter 10

Lily was in the lunchroom, at one end of a long table with Mary Kate and Jess. Other students sat nearby, but the empty chairs they had left meant they were giving the three girls space.

"It guess this is how it'll be," Lily said, "but I'm okay with it. They've always seen me as good little Lily, the principal's daughter. They don't know what to make of me now." She thought about it. "I kind of like that."

"I wish my parents weren't so upset," said Mary Kate. "We may have underestimated their reaction."

"Y'think?" Jess remarked.

Lily knew. "My mom's hurt, like I deliberately disobeyed her. But I never thought of it that way."

"My mom's furious," Jess said.

Lily knew her mother was that, too, and it worried her a lot. She had hoped that her own control of the situation would smooth things over. She really had thought this through. Getting pregnant wasn't something you did on a whim.

And in the end, she had to be optimistic. "They'll come around. Once they get over the shock, they'll realize a baby's a baby, and that we have each other, which will make it easier. Look at our moms and PC Wool. No one of them could have created the business on her own."

Mary Kate finally smiled. "Can you imagine our kids taking it over someday? Honestly? I don't think it's a little Jacob in here. It's a girl who'll be best friends with your daughters, just like our moms and us."

Lily thought so, too, but she had pictured a fourth. "Maybe that's why Abby blabbed. She feels left out."

Jess leaned back and peered across the room. "She's still sitting with Theo Walsh. What happened to Michael?"

"Second guy's a charm?" Lily asked, though she knew what Jess was thinking. They had agreed that the fathers wouldn't be involved, but that didn't mean they didn't matter. If you were planning to have a baby, you needed a father with good genes. Theo Walsh was marginal.

"Uh-oh, here she comes," Mary Kate murmured.

"Hey, guys," Abby said, sounding more confident of their welcome than she looked. "How's it going?"

"It's going great," Jess said before Lily could answer. "No thanks to you. What you did to Lily was awful."

Looking contrite, Abby said, "I feel bad, Lily. I didn't plan to tell. It just came out. I'm sorry."

"Being sorry doesn't make it better," Jess said, but Lily pulled out a chair and made Abby sit.

"Do you hate me?" Abby asked her.

Lily couldn't. Hate implied a permanent break, and Lily didn't want that. She felt for Abby. Abby always seemed to be on the outside looking in-like she had a big name and plenty of money, but wasn't comfortable with either.

That said, Lily was hurt. "When we agreed to do this, we talked about how important it was to keep things secret and stay totally loyal to each other. It may be hard for you right now-"

"That doesn't excuse it," Jess cut in and might have said more if Mary Kate hadn't touched her hand.

Abby stared at Jess. "You don't have a clue."

"I do. It didn't happen right away for me. So maybe you have to work to make it stick. Maybe you have to try five guys before it does."

Lily hushed her.

But Abby was glaring. "Maybe I won't try any guys. Maybe I'm waking up and realizing what a stupid idea this was."

"And who came up with this stupid idea?" Jess shouted.

"Shhh."

"No, Mary Kate," Jess argued. "It was her idea, and now she's backing out."

Abby stood up. "I was upset, and maybe I said things I shouldn't have that day in the hall, but do you think you're any better? I should try five guys? That's disgusting. And you think you're ready to have a baby? You have no business being pregnant! Lily, yes. Mary Kate, yes. But you? I feel so sorry for your baby."

She turned and stalked off, leaving a stunned silence in her wake-and no fewer than a dozen riveted eyes on Lily, Mary Kate, and Jess.

"They were juniors," came Lily's breathless voice, "and they must have heard every word Abby said. I could see it in the way they were looking at us. What do we do, Mom? Should we say it isn't true?"

Susan was walking down Main Street, head low against the wind, phone to her ear. She was coming from a meeting of community service organizations in advance of the holiday food drive. There were serious issues this year relating to new FDA requirements, but they were quickly forgotten.

"No, Lily," she said, trying to stay calm. "Don't lie. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. They may not have heard as much as you thought. Where are you now?"

"Still in the lunchroom. We have five minutes before class."

Susan picked up her pace. "Go ahead to class. Try to act normally until we know for sure that anyone did hear. Tell Mary Kate and Jess to do the same. Are they okay?"

"No. Mary Kate is trying to find Jacob. He doesn't even know she's pregnant. What was Abby thinking?"

"I don't know, Lily. But Abby is the least of our worries." There were so many other things to consider if word was out. "You all go to class. If you hear people talking about Mary Kate and Jess, let me know. In the meantime, I'll strategize."

Actually, what Susan was thinking was that in the meantime she would pray that those juniors hadn't heard.

But she was barely back at school when she was approached in the lunchroom by a cluster of girls. "We just heard something really weird, Ms. Tate," said one, and the others quickly chimed in.

"Is Mary Kate Mello pregnant?"

"And Jessica Barros?"

"All three?"

"Where did you hear this?" Susan asked.

"Kaylee's sister heard it from someone who heard it last lunch. Is it true?"

Susan tried to look unworried. "Well, it's a frightening thought. Let me get back to you, okay?" She lingered for another sixty seconds, casually working her way to the door. Once in the corridor, though, she hurried to her office. Her assistant was just replacing the phone. The look on her face confirmed the problem.

"Who was that?" Susan asked.

"Allison Monroe. She wanted to report what her students are saying."

Allison taught introductory Spanish, mostly to freshmen. Susan considered her a friend, which gave credence to her report.

Knowing she had to act quickly, Susan said, "Would you ask Amy Sheehan to come up here? Tell her it's urgent. Same with Meredith Parker." Meredith was the school counselor. "If my daughter or either of her friends show up, let them in, too."

Entering her office, she closed the door and leaned against it for a minute. This was the calm before the storm. It was time to plan.

But first she had to tell Sunny and Kate. She made the two calls; each was short and upsetting. Amy arrived, with Mary Kate on her heels, and by the time Meredith arrived, Lily and Jess were there, too.

Amy, bless her, relieved Susan of the responsibility of formally spilling the beans by asking a startled, "You're all three pregnant?"

The girls stared at each other. Mary Kate was the first to nod.

"How far along?" Amy asked.

"Eleven weeks," said Mary Kate.

"Ten," Jessica said.

"Intentionally?"

There were three nods.

"No one was supposed to know until we were starting to show," Jessica said. "This is all Abby's fault."

Devastated, Susan braced herself against the desk. "Abby was not in that bed, or wherever you were, when each of you had unprotected sex."

"But we wouldn't be sitting here now if it weren't for her."

"You made a pact?" Meredith asked, her melodious alto sounding dismayed.

"It wasn't a pact," Lily said. "We just agreed that this would be a good thing to do together."

"That's a pact, sweetheart," Susan said, having learned the lesson from Rick. "You can play with words all you want, but it is what it is."

"Why?" Meredith asked the girls.

"Because we love babies," Lily answered.

"So do I," the counselor replied earnestly, "but I don't have a husband or the means to support a baby, so there is no baby, and I am done with school, and the perfect age to have a child." She had been one of Susan's first hires, a spunky African American who seemed perfectly happy mothering high schoolers in lieu of her own kids. She spoke her thoughts freely, and while that upset some parents, it worked for the students. Kids didn't always like what Ms. Parker said, Lily had explained, but they liked knowing where she stood.

So did Susan, particularly since Meredith had brought up husband, money, education, and age, all issues Susan had raised herself.

Subdued, the girls sat on the sofa. Mary Kate, in particular, looked stricken. "Did you find Jacob?" Susan asked.

Eyes tearing up, the girl nodded.

"How was he?"

"Angry. He stared at me, then walked way." Her voice broke. "I ran after him-I mean, he was one of the reasons I wanted this baby-but he wouldn't listen."

In different circumstances, Susan would have gone to her, held her, reassured her that Jacob loved her and would come around. But Lily and Jessica were doing just that, now. This, apparently, was the purpose of the pact, to support each other when the going got tough.

Susan wondered what the father of Lily's baby was thinking. She hadn't allowed herself to think about him, was still having trouble visualizing her daughter with any boy. But he would surely know by now. She wondered if other students would guess his identity and whether Susan would learn it that way.

Angry at Lily for this, too, she wandered past the bookshelf that held the summer reading assignments for each grade level. Nearby were pictures of Lily in third grade, sixth grade, ninth grade, looking so innocent that Susan could have cried.

Continuing on to the girls, she took a chair. After a minute, thinking aloud, she said, "We have three planned pregnancies in three seniors who would be the last ones anyone would expect to have done this. The question is how to handle it."

"You can't kick us out of school," Jessica cautioned meekly. "I asked my dad."

Susan sighed. "I wouldn't kick you out, Jess. You need to graduate." She filled in Amy and Meredith on what had happened at lunch. "Word is spreading fast."

"This is Abby's fault," Jessica insisted.

"If you weren't pregnant," Susan said, "she'd have had nothing to say. But it's done, Jess. We have to figure out what to do now."

The door opened. Kate and Sunny slipped in, both looking pale and upset. Kate closed the door, shaking her head when Amy rose to offer her a seat. Sunny stood by the file cabinet, radiating anger. There were glances at the girls, but they were brief.

This is not my daughter, Susan could hear them thinking. She shared the sentiment, but dwelling on the horror of what the girls had done wouldn't help. "It would have been nice to have had a little more time, but the grapevine can be lethal. Everyone will be speculating and exaggerating."

"How do you exaggerate this?" Sunny asked in disgust.

Easy, Susan thought. "You say there are ten girls involved, not three. You say that the pact is among the boys to impregnate girls. You say that someone is going to parties, slipping Mickeys to sweet little things like you three."

"None of that's true," Jess said.

"Correct, which is why we need to define the story ourselves. Tomorrow's Friday. Students will be heading into the weekend talking-"

"Don't they have anything better to do?" Lily asked.

"That depends on how you define better," Susan said. "Change the parties involved. Think, say, Rachel Bishop, Sara Legere, and Kelsey Hughes. They're your friends, right? What if you suddenly learned that all three were pregnant-three good friends, top students, college-bound kids? Wouldn't you be talking about it? Wouldn't you be calling other friends to find out what they knew? Of course you would. It's human nature."

"Your mother's right," Meredith said. "Kids talk. They text."

"But it's all hearsay," Jess protested.

"Not all," corrected Lily. "What Abby said was firsthand."

"Unfortunately," the counselor said, "it's the classic case of a little knowledge being worse than none. If word is out, we've passed the 'none' stage."

"Fine," Sunny told Susan and folded her arms. "What do you suggest?"

Susan was still trying to decide. One thing was for sure. "I need to tell Dr. Correlli."

"Can you tell him without giving our names?"

"What's the point? He already knows Lily's pregnant. If he doesn't guess that the others are Mary Kate and Jess, a call to any one of Lily's teachers will tell him."

"Teachers can't give out names. What about our right to privacy?"

"It's gone," Susan said, feeling a weight in the pit of her stomach. Her daughter would be named right along with the others. "This is now a public matter. The superintendent is responsible for everything that involves his schools."

"Dan won't agree," Sunny said, but Susan knew the law.

"He'd have a case if a teacher went outside the school system, say to the papers, with a student's name. But Dr. Correlli is within the school system. Especially with my own daughter being part of this, I need him involved. It'd be best if I went to him with a plan." It might even compensate for the incompetence she felt as a mother.

"What do you propose?" Kate asked.

Susan was on shaky ground. She would have given anything to have someone else calling the shots. She was way too emotionally involved for this.

But there was no one else. So she tried to imagine what she would do if she didn't know any of the girls. "We have to contain the story. That means carefully defining it."

"How do you do that?" Sunny asked.

"I'll send an e-mail to my faculty, then one to parents."

Sunny made a strangled sound. "You'd tell everyone?"

"If I don't, someone else will. This is as bad for me as it is for you, Sunny."

"What will you say?" Kate asked, moving on.

"I'll confirm the rumor, say how many students are involved, and that the pact is self-contained." Crossing Abby off the list of potential moms, she stared at the girls. "That is right, isn't it?"

The three nodded.

Susan sat back. "Only three, then. No epidemic."

"For now," said Meredith. "Pregnancy isn't contagious, but pact behavior can be. That worries me, and it'll worry a lot of parents. Can you imagine if other groups of girls decide to do this?"

"Just because we did it?" Mary Kate asked skeptically.

"Just because you did it," Meredith confirmed. "You girls are respected."

"The whole point," Jess put in, "was to do something different."

"Something for us," Mary Kate added.

"Would you name our daughters in your e-mail?" Sunny asked Susan.

"No. But the names will come out."

"This doesn't feel good."

"Not to me, either," Susan said helplessly, "but can you think of a better plan?"