Not My Daughter

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 & 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 reshedule sophomore English observation, she ignored a computer screen filled with pending email and 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 flame-like 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, cookware 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 knitted 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, seeming 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?’

‘I know, but this doesn’t solve the problem,’ Susan 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.

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