Not My Daughter

Chapter 7

The minute he was gone, Susan opened her cell. Her hand shook. Even the sound of Kate's hey did nothing to soothe her.

"We have a problem-I have a problem," she said, head bent over the phone. "Correlli just left. He knows about Lily, but not about the others. He's worried about copycat behavior, when what he really needs to worry about is pact behavior. But it doesn't stop there, Kate. This situation is reflecting on me, my character, my job." She hadn't imagined this a week ago. Back then, the extent of the problem was Lily's pregnancy. "You'd think there'd be some understanding-everyone knows teenagers act out. Don't I get cut a little slack? School board members who will be the most critical of me are the ones whose kids did God-knows-what behind their backs. But forget the board," she hurried on, fingertips to her forehead. "I have to tell Phil about Mary Kate and Jess. He'll find out anyway, and the more he goes ahead with damage control for one pregnancy, the more he'll look like a fool when it turns out there are three. Phil is my boss, Kate. He hires and fires. I need him on my side." She swore softly. "What a mess."

"That's a kind word for it," Kate mused. "All it would have taken was one of them saying, 'No, don't do this, bad idea.' But my daughter went right along. Whose idea was it anyway? Which one of them dreamed it up?"

"I haven't asked Lily that," Susan said. "But the immediate issue is Phil. What am I supposed to do, Kate? He'll learn about Mary Kate and Jess soon enough, and it had better come from my mouth, or his faith in me will be even more shot than it already is. Have you talked with Mary Kate about when she's planning to tell people?"

"She wants to wait."

"And let Lily be strung up alone?"

There was a pause, then a defensive, "It's not easy for us, either."

Susan softened. "I know. But what if I told Phil in confidence? What if I prefaced it by saying that I was sharing this with him because there is serious damage control to be done, and he needs to be in the loop? I've shared information on students with him in the past, and he's always been good for his word. He can be trusted." The other end of the line was silent. "Kate?"

"I'm wishing you weren't principal of the high school. I'd have preferred to fly under the radar."

Susan wondered if that was resentment she heard. Unnerved, she said, "Right now, I'm wishing it, too. But don't be angry at me, Kate. I didn't dream up this scheme."

"I know."

She waited for Kate to say more-Kate, who could always go with the flow, believing that everything worked out in the end. But that Kate was silent.

"It'd be nice to have a little control over what happens now," Susan argued. "That's another reason to share this with Phil. And about Mary Kate-how long can you hide it-maybe two months?"

"No one cares if my daughter is pregnant. I never finished college. No one expects great things of my kids."

"Excuse me? Kate, your kids are all at the top of the class."

"But no one's watching us. Alex was pulled over once and ticketed for having open beer in the car, and no one cared. I like being anonymous."

"Do you honestly think that if one of your twins had made a pregnancy pact with friends when she was in high school, no one would care? Come on, Kate. It'd be on the front page of the paper!"

"Omigod," Kate shrieked. "Is that where we're heading with this?"

Susan couldn't answer. At every turn, it seemed, there was another layer to the horror. Trying to stay calm, she focused on Phil. "That's another reason to tell Correlli. He has an in with the paper. If he can't keep it out of the press, at least he might be able to control what they print." Tired as she was, frightened as she was, she had to convince Kate. "Look, I won't say anything unless Sunny agrees, too. There's no point in telling Phil half the story. It's either all or nothing."

"What if you told him without using our names? Wouldn't that solve your problem?"

"It might solve mine, but it wouldn't solve yours. He'd guess right away it was Mary Kate, and if he didn't, one question to any of Lily's teachers would bring up her name. That teacher might ask another, who might mention it to a third, and before you know it, speculation is rampant. Far better that I tell it all to Phil in confidence. And here's the thing. Phil is really good with kids. He might be a help with our girls."

Kate sputtered. "How can he help? It's not like he has a say in whether Mary Kate keeps her baby, and he sure as hell won't help pay its way. Oh, we can manage, Susie, I know we can. But I wanted my kids to do more than just manage. I keep asking Mary Kate what she was thinking when she took it upon herself to do this, and each time, she goes off on a long discussion of how she's looked at it from every angle and knows it will work. But she hasn't looked at it from my angle or from Will's-or from Jacob's. I can't imagine what he'll feel when he finds out. Our daughters didn't look past themselves. They didn't consider us."

Relieved that they were on the same side about this at least, Susan said, "No. And Phil will know eventually. Let me tell him now."

"I should ask Will. He works for the company. What if the company has a problem with the pregnancies? Will Pam cover?"

Once Susan would have answered in the affirmative, but there was so much yet to play out. "I don't know. She stormed in here earlier, angry that I hadn't told her about Lily. She doesn't know about Mary Kate and Jess, yet, and I couldn't warn her about Abby, for which I will be eternally damned. Believe it or not, Pam isn't as worried about Perry and Cass as she is about the school board. Our being friends puts her in a vise. Honestly? If push comes to shove and she has to take a stand, I'm not sure whose side she'll take."

"She'll take yours. I'd put money on that. She loves you. You represent everything she wishes she could be."

"Unmarried?" Susan asked dryly.

"Your career, your focus. She looks to you for advice. I've seen it even when Sunny and I are right there. She asks you, not us. By the way, what does Sunny say about this?"

"She's my next call. I can wait until you talk this over with Will. Or I can test the waters with Sunny," she said, taking a lighter note. "I can pretend you've given me the okay-you know, take a page from our kids' book-the old 'my mommy says it's okay' trick. If Sunny agrees, you won't have much of a leg to stand on."

Kate snorted. "Like I have much of a leg to stand on now? I still wish you weren't such a big cheese. But go ahead. I don't have to ask Will. He'll know you're in a bind. Just make sure Phil doesn't blab until we're ready. I'm counting on you, Susie. Don't let us down."

One of the advantages of being principal was that Susan's schedule was more forgiving than if, say, there were twenty-five juniors waiting in a classroom for her to discuss Jane Eyre. Emergencies were part of her day. She could postpone a teacher meeting or class visit, and the world accepted that she was dealing with something urgent.

So, asking her assistant to reschedule sophomore English observation and ignoring a computer screen filled with pending e-mail, she left school. She walked quickly; it was a cold day. The wind was blowing dried leaves from branches, whipping others up from the ground. When her hair flew, Susan tucked it into her collar and double-wrapped her scarf, leaving a hand in the wool for its warmth. The scarf was of sock yarn from the fall collection-called Last Blaze-and perfectly matched the reds and oranges the leaves had so recently been. They were faded now, but her scarf, knit double-stranded in flamelike chevrons, was as bold as ever.

Head low against the wind, she pushed on to Main Street. She trotted past a tour bus that was pulling up at the curb, crossed diagonally, and continued on another block to Perry & Cass Home Goods. One foot in the door and she was enveloped in the scent of spiced pumpkin. Thanksgiving was coming on fast, with autumnal tableware, wood carving boards, and ceramic serving pieces prominently displayed. Seasonal candles and potpourri were on one side, cook-ware on another, but it was at the back of the store, where yarn filled huge baskets, that Susan spotted Sunny.

She wore dark green today, coordinating slacks, sweater, and hair bow. Susan immediately recognized the sweater as one Sunny had knit the summer before when the first of the fall colors had been painted and skeined. A rich hunter shot through with tiny wisps of russet and gold, it was one of Susan's favorites. Sunny was an exquisite knitter, the only one of the four who could be trusted doing straight stockinette. Every stitch was precise.

She was talking to a display designer, seemingly engrossed until she saw Susan, at which point she was immediately distracted.

"Um, that might work," she said to the designer, "um, it probably will-but don't line the baskets with anything dark. I want this part of the store to be, um, bright. Excuse me, I'll be right back." Hurrying over, she guided Susan to a nook where mounds of goose down pillows and comforters would be a buffer and, even then, kept her voice down. "What's happened? Does someone else know?"

"No. That's the problem," Susan said and told her about Phil. She hadn't even finished before Sunny was shaking her head.

"Uh-uh. I refuse. This is too humiliating. It'd be one thing if Jessica was in love with someone, like Mary Kate is. She could get married and be part of an adorable young couple who, by the way, is having a baby, but that's not the case at all. Jessica has no intention of getting married and every intention of keeping this baby. I'm so angry with her, I don't know what to do."

"I'm angry at Lily-"

"Not like this. Trust me. I don't want my daughter around, and she knows it. Why do you think she's been at your house so much?"

Susan realized it was true. "I know, but this doesn't solve the problem," she argued. "We need help."

"I can't go public."

"Not public. Just Phil."

"Phil is public," Sunny cried in a frantic whisper, gripping the laces that framed her V-neck. "You can't imagine how I feel. I swear, this is in the genes. Jessica called my mother last night-my mother, the queen of quirky-and she's just fine with her teenage granddaughter being pregnant, or so Jessica says. I have to take her word for it, because I am not about to discuss this with my mother."

"It is not your fault."

"Dan blames me."

"That's because he needs to blame someone, but he's wrong."

"Is he?" Sunny asked. Her V-neck was narrowing as she clenched the laces. "He says I never confronted the issue of my mother head-on, and maybe he's right. I've talked to Jessica until I was blue in the face about the right and wrong way of doing things, but did I ever come out and say my mother is a misfit? Did I ever call her unbalanced or selfish or… or evil? Well, she isn't evil, just totally outrageous-but no, I don't call my mother names in front of the kids, because a good person doesn't do that. Oh, and Dan blames you and Kate for not controlling your daughters, because Jessica would never have done this alone."

Susan felt the same qualm she had earlier with Kate. These friends meant the world to her. With so much happening, she needed them on her side. "Going after each other won't help. Playing the blame game is destructive."

"Tell that to Dan."

"Is he going after Adam, too?"

"No, because Jessica won't confirm that it was Adam, and Dan won't confront anyone on the outside yet. He wants to keep this as quiet as possible. In the meanwhile, he has me to upbraid."

Susan loved Dan for enabling Sunny to create the structured life she needed, but he had strong opinions and was judgmental without ever raising his voice. "Speak up, Sunny. Tell him he's wrong."

"Easier said than done." She continued to tug at her neckline. "You don't know what it's like to have a husband."

Coming from a stranger, it might have been a slap in the face, but Susan knew Sunny wasn't criticizing her; she was simply complaining about Dan.

Susan covered her friend's hand lest she choke herself. "He's being unfair."

"He's my husband."

It wasn't anything new. In all the years Susan had known her, Sunny had deferred to Dan on every major issue. There had been times, even during the creation of PC Wool, when he had been an uninvited presence, second-guessing every decision. Much as the others coached her, though-much as Sunny promised not to ask his permission when she wanted, say, to buy a new coat-she always fell back to the default.

But Susan didn't have the strength to argue. "I just think we should get Phil on our side."

"You're worried about your job," Sunny hissed, "but what about mine? What about Dan's? Fine for you to act in your own best interest, but what about ours? Your daughter may be making waves, but mine is barely seven weeks pregnant. I don't need to go public yet. It'll be another three months before anyone even guesses."

"I thought the same thing about Lily, and look what happened," Susan pointed out. Yes, she was acting in her own best interest, but the line between what was best for her and what was best for her friends was fluid. She squeezed Sunny's hand to soften the words. "Who's to say Abby won't blab about Mary Kate and Jessica, too?"

"You need to be talking to her, not to me."

Not a bad idea, Susan realized. But the basic problem remained. "This month, next month, the month after-it doesn't matter, Sunny. You can put it off all you want, but sooner or later the story will break."

"Later is better. At least the holidays will be over. Next week is Thanksgiving, for God's sake. If this comes out now, with us going to Albany to see Dan's family, it'll ruin everything."

If it wasn't Thanksgiving, it would be Christmas. There would never be a good time for this, Susan knew. But she could wait a week.

News of Lily's pregnancy spread. Back in her office, Susan received a call from the middle school principal, who was ostensibly more curious than disapproving, though Susan imagined the latter was there. When she stopped at PC Beans for coffee on her way to a varsity football game, she felt other customers staring. And when she went to the supermarket on her way home, she knew the checkout clerk was darting her questioning looks.

The following day, she and Kate were the only ones at the barn. Sunny was baking pies to take to her in-laws, and Pam was preparing for the Thanksgiving open house the Perrys hosted each year.

They didn't dye yarn, didn't even play with colors. Neither of them had the heart for it. So they knitted. Susan's work in progress was a T-shirt for Lily, Kate's a set of cotton place mats. They admired each other's work and talked about the menu for their own Thanksgiving at Kate's, the rise in postal rates, the weather. Neither of them mentioned that Lily's T-shirt wouldn't fit her for long, or that the place mats might not hold up well spattered with baby food.

On Sunday, Susan worked on her budget, with papers spread over the kitchen table beside her laptop and a calculator nearby. She wrote up several teacher evaluations that she had neglected earlier that week. She composed her Monday bulletin, giving a plug for the concert at school Tuesday night, a reminder of the food bank drive that would start after Thanksgiving, and a get-well wish for the school librarian's husband.

Lily's singing group, the Zaganotes, usually practiced Sunday afternoons. With the Thanksgiving concert imminent, the practice today started earlier and ended later. Normally, Susan would have hated the silence of the house and would have either met a friend for coffee or asked someone over.

This week she stayed home. The house was dead quiet and too lonesome for comfort, but she didn't have the strength to go out. She told herself she was tired and, once she had finished her work, burrowed into the den sofa with the Sunday paper. But she couldn't focus on news. The silence of the house was too loud. So she picked up her knitting-not the T-shirt for Lily, but a pair of socks for herself. When she had a split-second thought that she ought to be knitting baby booties, she ignored it.

The problem was, her life seemed to be made up of split seconds now-a split second imagining Lily having sex, a split second hearing the gossips in town spreading the word, a split second wondering what her parents would think-all horrendous thoughts, none of which she could bear to dwell on. Put all those split seconds together, though, and she wasn't thinking about much else.

Except Lily. Always Lily. She missed their closeness, missed the way they could finish each other's sentences, the way they could watch a movie they both loved, the way they could knit together in silence and feel totally at peace.

Lily had ruined all that, which made Susan angry. A good mother loved her daughter no matter what.

She did love Lily. She just didn't like her very much right then, and that upset her even more.

By Monday, she was receiving calls from random friends, from a parent of one of her students who had graduated the year before, even from a woman who had worked at PC KidsCare when Lily was first enrolled. As she had done Friday afternoon, Susan imagined each caller hanging up and instantly calling five friends.

Rather than go to the gym after work, Susan went straight home. She had a quiet dinner with Lily. It lasted all of ten minutes. Afterward, she knitted. She had botched shaping her sock's heel gusset the day before, so she ripped out what she'd done and tried again. She had to do it three times before she was finally pleased, but she welcomed the forced concentration.

Still, she heard the shower go on and off, heard Lily come down for a drink, heard the phone ring. Normally, she would have stopped by Lily's room two or three times before going to bed, but she didn't this night. Nor did Lily come in to see her.

Not that Susan could blame her. Lily clearly felt Susan's disapproval. Having been in her shoes, Susan knew how that was. When she had been pregnant, she had consciously avoided confrontations with her parents.

History was repeating itself.

On Tuesday, Lily made the final cut for the varsity volleyball team. Ebullient, she ran to Susan's office with the news. She saw this as a personal vindication, a See, I can do this! moment.

Susan tried to be happy for her, but all the while, part of her was thinking that the coach had no business taking on a pregnant player, that it was sending the wrong message to other students, that Lily had no right to have her cake and eat it, too.

Later that afternoon, when Lily dashed into the house barely twenty minutes before being picked up for the concert, and declined to eat any of the dinner Susan had made, Susan reminded her that her baby needed to eat even if she did not. Moments later, feeling guilty for the sharpness of her tone, she went scrambling to find the black sweater Lily wanted to wear and was in a tizzy trying to find.

After Lily raced out the door, Susan felt abandoned. She sat down to have some of the chicken pot pie that she and Lily both liked, but eating it alone killed her appetite.

Leaving the table, she opened her laptop on the kitchen counter. E-mail was backing up, including a new one from Phil about the budget she had just submitted. She had to address his queries, had to answer urgent parent questions, had to write college recommendations for three students she had taught as freshmen and with whom she remained close. As she stared at the screen, a note arrived from the woman heading the auction that was held every February to raise money for class trips. She was reminding Susan that copy was due for the PC Wool contribution she had offered, which got Susan to thinking that the past few Saturdays had been a bust workwise, that they hadn't begun testing spring colors, much less produced something to photograph for Pam. She wondered if Pam was going to want to go ahead at all once she learned the whole truth-which got Susan into a snit, because she loved PC Wool and couldn't bear the thought that it might be at risk because Lily had decided she needed to have a baby.

Beside herself with dismay, Susan strode into the den, snatched up her knitting, and settled cross-legged on the sofa, but she didn't have the wherewithal to focus on finishing the heel. She needed straight, simple stockinette stitches. Tossing the sock aside, she stomped back into the kitchen, pulled the T-shirt from her knitting bag, and, for a minute, standing there at the table set for a dinner that wasn't to be, she knit feverishly. She was thinking that she was doing a lousy job-lousy knitter, lousy principal, lousy mother-when a loud knock at the door interrupted her.

Startled, she jumped up, dropping a handful of stitches, and, tossing the knitting aside in disgust, went to answer the door.