Not My Daughter

Chapter 6

Susan was on the phone with a headhunter, whom she hoped would locate a replacement for the retiring director of athletics, when Pam showed up at the door and, none too softly, said, "What did I just hear?"

Finger to her lips, Susan waved her in. "Yes, Tom. Male or female. Our current AD coaches football, but that isn't a prerequisite. My priorities are administrative experience and the ability to work well with kids."

"Susan," Pam whispered urgently as she closed the door, "what did I hear?"

Susan gestured her to a chair and held up a hand for the minute it took to finish the call.

Pam didn't wait a second longer. The phone was barely in its cradle when she said, "Word's going around that Lily's pregnant. I've had three calls this morning-three moms asking me the same thing-and I couldn't answer, even though I'm your friend, which was one of the reasons they were calling me. I couldn't even call Abby, because you don't allow kids to use phones during school. Is it true?"

Pam was a Perry by marriage and, as such, a member of the town's royalty, but she didn't often pull rank. Susan wasn't sure what she heard in Pam's voice-whether it was arrogance, indignation, or hurt-but she felt a quick anger. There would have been no calls, no questions had it not been for Pam's own daughter.

But Lily would still be pregnant. Resigned, Susan nodded.

"How?" Pam asked in dismay. It was a silly question. Susan's expression must have said as much, because her friend hurried on. "Who?"

Susan shrugged and shook her head.

Pam was sitting on the edge of the seat, her cardigan open, a paisley scarf knotted artfully about her neck. "You have to know. You're just not saying."

"Pam, I don't know."

"That's impossible. You and Lily are as close as any mother and daughter I know. She must have told you she was sleeping with someone." When Susan shook her head again, Pam said, "How could you not?"

Susan was duly chastised. She had prided herself on being one better than the parent who didn't notice her Vicodin running low long before it should. It was a humbling experience.

"There comes a point," she said in her own defense, "when our children choose not to share some things."

"Some things. This is major. When did you find out?"

Unable to lie, Susan said, "Last week." It felt like years ago. She kept flashing back to Lily's conception. Even this morning, reliving her own nightmare of going to school on the day after the whole world suddenly knew, she half expected Lily to show up at her door in tears, looking for a shoulder to cry on.

But either Mary Kate and Jess were walking the halls beside her or Lily was tougher than Susan had been. And perhaps that was for the best. Lily had become pregnant by design-and in agreement with friends. She had way more to answer for than Susan had.

Pam Perry didn't know the half of it. Innocently, she exclaimed, "Last week? Omigod, Susan. This is awful. What was she thinking?" When Susan simply gave her a look, she said, "What are you going to do?"

"I'm trying to figure that out."

"She's keeping the baby? Of course she is. Lily loves kids, and there's no way you'd make her abort it. So the guy has to come forward," Pam decided. "You have to find out who he is." When Susan said nothing, she added, "Well, some guy made this happen."

"Obviously," Susan replied, "but does his name matter?"

"Absolutely."

"Wrong. It's a woman's body, a woman's baby."

"You say that because you're a single mom."

"I say it because I'm a realist," Susan insisted. "Even moms in traditional families do the brunt of the child care. The buck stops here."

"Some of us see it differently," Pam argued. "The father has to share the responsibility."

"Maybe in an ideal world," Susan conceded. "You're lucky, Pam. Not only is your husband a gem, but he's from a storied family. Perrys don't divorce, and they don't go broke. But Tanner doesn't change diapers or fold laundry or make school lunches, and that drives you nuts. Remember the time you and Tanner both had the flu? Who was crawling out of bed to take care of Abby?"

There was more to the story, of course. Pam did all of those things without complaint, though she could certainly afford a maid. But with one child and no other full-time job, these chores helped define her.

"So, basically, you're having another child yourself," Pam said. "Isn't that the bottom line?"

Susan considered it, pressed her lips together, nodded.

"You can't do that," Pam argued. "You know the work. You have a whole other job now that is very demanding."

"What would you have me do?" Susan asked. Frustrated, she rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. "She wants the baby, Pam. She's heard the heartbeat. She knows the options. She wants the baby."

"And you'll just let her have it?"

"What can I do? Put yourself in my shoes. This has happened-past tense. It's done. Maybe you can do better and talk with your daughter about not getting pregnant." There it was, the closest Susan could come to disclosing what she knew.

Pam frowned at the papers on the desk, then at Susan. "This is what you three were talking about at the barn last week. You told them. Why couldn't you tell me?"

Susan felt another stab of anger. At Lily for getting pregnant? At Abby for outing her? At Pam for playing the victim? "They already knew," she explained. "Mary Kate had told Kate, and Jess had told Sunny, but clearly Abby hadn't said anything to you, or you would have mentioned it. Has she yet?"

Pam raised her chin. "No, but she considers Lily one of her closest friends. She probably feels it wouldn't be loyal."

"Loyal? Abby was the one who shouted it all over school!" Pam looked startled, but Susan couldn't stop. If Pam wanted to be a friend, she had to hear this. "Abby blurted it out yesterday in the hall filled with kids, so maybe you should be talking with her, not with me. But those moms who called you this morning didn't tell you that, did they?"

"No," Pam said, subdued. "They heard rumors. They know we're friends, and since I'm on the school board, they thought they were killing two birds with one stone."

Susan felt a hitch at mention of the school board. It had seven members. All were elected; most had served for years. At thirty-nine, Pam was the baby of the group, elected largely because of her name. The closest to her in age was the board chair, Hillary Dunn, who was fifty-five. The other five members were men, four of whom were particularly resistant to change. Susan had had to argue for hours, working them individually and as a group, before they gave the school clinic a green light.

They would all be upset when they learned Lily was pregnant. And when they heard about the other two girls?

But first things first. Susan was tempted to ask Pam the names of those who had called, only she could guess. Zaganack was a close community. Its members had a good thing going with Perry & Cass and knew it, and while some were open to innovation, others believed that you didn't tamper with the status quo. Those were the ones who phoned Susan to complain about the slightest curriculum change. They were the ones who would have phoned Pam.

"Were they calling to complain?" Susan asked.

"Mostly to know if it was true."

"And then to complain." When Pam didn't deny it, she asked, "What did you tell them?"

"I said I'd check it out-I tried to make light of it. When all three carried on, I said that if it was true, it was a private matter. Only it isn't, Susan. This could really screw things up. For starters, there's the PC Wool Mother's Day promotion. Boy, does that take on new meaning. Lily will be big as a house."

Susan had thought this herself, but it was offensive coming from Pam. "Were you planning to photograph her in profile for the catalogue cover?"

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't. Our clients don't have to know about Lily. What she does with her life has nothing to do with PC Wool."

"She knits for us."

"So do Mary Kate, Abby, and Jess."

"They're not pregnant," Pam pointed out.

Tell her, that little voice in Susan cried. Tell her out of friendship and concern. But her loyalty was to Kate and Sunny. Pam was a latecomer to the group and, given her role as a Perry, a sporadic member. That said, when she was with them, she was a devoted friend. The group gave her focus, which she craved. She loved belonging, which added to the guilt Susan felt in keeping silent.

"What should I tell Tanner?" Pam asked. "He'll want to know who the father is."

"Tell him I don't know."

"Hey," she drawled, "if that's hard for me to believe, he never will. Same with the school board. They'll be gunning for bear when they hear about this. The principal's daughter? I mean, it really puts me in a bad place. I recused myself when it came to voting on you for this job, but talk about conflict of interest. What am I supposed to do now?"

Wait'll she hears about the others, Susan thought, and her uneasiness grew. "Buy me some time?" she begged. "That's all I ask. A little time."

But Pam was no sooner out the door than Susan's assistant, Rebecca, appeared. A capable woman with thick white hair, she was the school's resident grandmother. "Dr. Correlli's on his way over. He asked if you had a few minutes to talk. I tried to tell him you were scheduled to observe sophomore English, but he said it was urgent." She was apologetic. "I'm sorry. Have you told him yet?"

"Not me," Susan murmured and tried to gear up, but there was only one thing she could imagine the superintendent wanted to discuss.

Phillip Correlli was a stocky man who often ran with the crosscountry team to try to lose weight. Having risen through the ranks as Susan had, albeit in a different school system, he liked being with kids. Even more, he liked turning life's trials into lessons-the one for the cross-country team being that if you ate badly, you gained weight.

He appeared at her door now with an apology for interrupting, but he didn't sit, and he didn't waste time. "The phone's been ringing. Tell me that what I heard isn't true."

Susan tried to stay calm. "I can't."

"Your Lily? She's the last one I'd have expected to be pregnant."

"That makes two of us, Phil."

"How did it happen? Lily is a good girl, and I'd have heard from the police if there was a rape, so it must have been someone she knew. Was she forced?"

"No," Susan said and, leaving the desk, sank into a chair.

He continued to stand. "Careless?"

Even that would have been easier to swallow, Susan knew. But what could she say without betraying her daughter's confidence?

"I'm a friend," Phil reminded her gently. Only it wasn't as simple as that. He was also a colleague, a mentor, and, as superintendent of schools, her boss. He was the one who had pushed her to apply for the principalship, the one who had championed her when the board questioned her youth and lack of experience. He was the one who had shown up in person to offer her the job, and his pride was genuine.

"That's one of the reasons this is so hard," she tried to explain. "I've just learned about it myself. It's still raw."

"I understand, but we don't have much of a window here. You're in a public position. To judge from the calls I'm getting, you won't have the luxury of time." He scowled. "I wish we were talking about someone else's child. We've dealt with pregnancies before. But you're our principal, so the playing field is different. I was caught flat-footed this morning. It would have been better if I'd had a heads-up."

Susan was sorry to have let him down. "In hindsight, you're right. But I've been agonizing over this on a personal level, and I needed more time. I didn't expect word to spread so fast." She explained how it had.

"A friend, huh? That stinks. Did you know Lily was sexually active?"

Either way she answered, Susan was damned. So she said, "Lily and I have discussed sexual responsibility more times than I can count. Right now, we're just trying to plan for the future. She claims she can study and have a baby and go to college." Feeling an old shame, Susan added quietly, "Who am I to contradict her?"

"Yup," he murmured. He scratched the back of his head and asked a puzzled, "Is she having trouble in school?"

"No."

"Scared about next year?"

"No. Phil, it just happened."

Leaning against the desk, he asked meekly, "Can I say she was forced?"

Susan caught his drift. He needed a story that would sit well with the town. It was about damage control.

He elaborated. "See, I need a reason why this could happen to the daughter of my principal. It'd be best if I could say Lily was forced or even that she's in love." He paused. "Otherwise, they'll blame you."

Blame her? After all she'd done with her life in the last seventeen years? And the good will she'd built up in the last two-was it worth nothing?

"I had no say in this, Phil," Susan argued. "I've been a hands-on mother. I've taught Lily all the right things. But she didn't consult me. She-" consulted her friends, Susan nearly said but caught herself. "She didn't consult me," she managed to repeat, shaken. She hadn't thought about the others until now, but it was a staggering omission. The idea of a pact made things ten times worse. It might spread the blame around a little, but Susan was still the most prominent of the players. The town would be obsessed with the story. Phil would not be happy.

"But you're her mother."

"She isn't five," Susan cried in a voice heightened by panic. "Would you have me be one of those parents who wait at the curb to whisk their kids off the instant classes are done? Or who e-mail their kids' teachers five times a day? Or stand over their kids' shoulders the whole time they're doing homework to make sure they don't get a texted answer from a friend? That's micromanaging. We've discussed this, Phil. We both hate it. I've talked with parents about it. I've addressed the issue in bulletins. At some level, parents have to trust."

"And when they perceive that the trust is betrayed by someone in a position of authority?" he asked, but quickly relented. "Look. You're a role model for our students. That's one of the reasons I fought to give you this position. You're an example of what a woman can do when life takes a wrong turn. Only it's taking the same turn again, and that won't sit well. Once, okay. Learn from the lesson and move on. Twice?" Lips compressed, he shook his head.

"The situations aren't the same," Susan argued, though if he had asked how they differed, she would have been in trouble. But she was in trouble anyway. There was so much he didn't know.

"You were seventeen," he remarked. "She's seventeen."

What could Susan say to that? He was right.

She must have looked stricken, because his face gentled. Bracing his hands on the edge of the desk, he said, "See, if it had been anyone else getting pregnant, there would be no issue. Because it's Lily, we need a plan. The best we can say is that there was an accident. That'll give us an excuse to talk about the consequences of being irresponsible. We can involve the school clinic, maybe conduct a series of lectures about the downside of teenage pregnancy."

"We already have."

"Well, the circumstances call for more, because here's another flash. With you principal and Lily a model student, there could be copycatting. We don't want that. Get a doctor in to paint the dire consequences of teen pregnancy. It'll be a good use of the clinic, maybe convince a few doubters on that score. We have to hit this hard."

"At my daughter's expense."

"Who told her to get pregnant?" he asked.

He didn't have a clue how loaded the question was.