Freedom

“Well, Patty, Ethan’s his son. He doesn’t know you as well as we do.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Does Mommy?”

“Of course she does.”

“Then what do I do?”

Her dad turned to her like an attorney. Like an adult addressing another adult. “You drop it,” he said. “Forget about it. Move on.”

“What?”

“You shake it off. Move on. Learn to be more careful.”

“Like it never even happened?”

“Patty, the people at the party were all friends of his. They’re going to say they saw you get drunk and be aggressive with him. They’ll say you were behind a shed that wasn’t more than thirty feet from the pool, and they didn’t hear anything un toward.”

“It was really noisy. There was music and shouting.”

“They’ll also say they saw the two of you leaving later in the evening and getting into his car. And the world will see an Exeter boy who’s going to Princeton and was responsible enough to use contraceptives, and gentleman enough to leave the party and drive you home.”

The deceptive little rain was wetting the collar of Patty’s T-shirt.

“You’re not really on my side, are you,” she said.

“Of course I am.”

“You keep saying ‘Of course,’ ‘Of course.’ ”

“Listen to me. The P.A. is going to want to know why you didn’t scream.”

“I was embarrassed! Those weren’t my friends!”

“But do you see that this is going to be hard for a judge or a jury to understand? All you would have had to do was scream, and you would have been safe.”

Patty couldn’t remember why she hadn’t screamed. She had to admit that, in hindsight, it seemed bizarrely agreeable of her.

“I fought, though.”

“Yes, but you’re a top-tier student athlete. Shortstops get scratched and bruised all the time, don’t they? On the arms? On the thighs?”

“Did you tell Mr. Post I’m a virgin? I mean, was?”

“I didn’t consider that any of his business.”

“Maybe you should call him back and tell him that.”

“Look,” her dad said. “Honey. I know it’s horrendously unfair. I feel terrible for you. But sometimes the best thing is just to learn your lesson and make sure you never get in the same position again. To say to yourself, ‘I made a mistake, and I had some bad luck,’ and then let it. Let it, ah. Let it drop.”

He turned the ignition halfway, so that the panel lights came on. He kept his hand on the key.

“But he committed a crime,” Patty said.

“Yes, but better to, uh. Life’s not always fair, Pattycakes. Mr. Post said he thought Ethan might be willing to apologize for not being more gentlemanly, but. Well. Would you like that?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Coach Nagel says I should go to the police.”

“Coach Nagel should stick to her dribbling,” her dad said.

“Softball,” Patty said. “It’s softball season now.”

“Unless you want to spend your entire senior year being publicly humiliated.”

“Basketball is in the winter. Softball is in the spring, when the weather’s warmer?”

“I’m asking you: is that really how you want to spend your senior year?”

“Coach Carver is basketball,” Patty said. “Coach Nagel is softball. Are you getting this?”

Her dad started the engine.

As a senior, instead of being publicly humiliated, Patty became a real player, not just a talent. She all but resided in the field house. She got a three-game basketball suspension for putting a shoulder in the back of a New Rochelle forward who’d elbowed Patty’s teammate Stephanie, and she still broke every school record she’d set the previous year, plus nearly broke the scoring record. Augmenting her reliable perimeter shooting was a growing taste for driving to the basket. She was no longer on speaking terms with physical pain.

In the spring, when the local state assemblyman stepped down after long service and the party leadership chose Patty’s mother to run as his replacement, the Posts offered to co-host a fund-raiser in the green luxury of their back yard. Joyce sought Patty’s permission before she accepted the offer, saying she wouldn’t do anything that Patty wasn’t comfortable with, but Patty was beyond caring what Joyce did, and told her so. When the candidate’s family stood for the obligatory family photo, no grief was given to Patty for absenting herself. Her look of bitterness would not have helped Joyce’s cause.

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