Now, though, he was visibly disturbed. "A pregnancy pact. With Abby the messenger?"
"Inadvertently," Susan said.
Tanner looked at Pam. "Do we know that she isn't involved herself?"
"She isn't pregnant. She just had her period."
"That begs the question. If the plot was hatched last summer, she must have been aware of it. She was with the other girls every day, and she claims they're her closest friends. Talk with her, Pam," he ordered and eyed Susan. "This won't wear well in town."
"I'm not sure the girls realized that."
"Perry and Cass is about responsibility," he went on in his sensible way. "That's what makes the company work. Our employees know our name's on the line each time they seal up a package." He took a small breath, blew it out. "A pregnancy pact alone is bad, but involving three prominent girls?"
"The story will be contained," Susan assured him. "It won't hurt the company."
"What about PC Wool?" Pam asked her husband.
"It shouldn't be affected," he said, but he didn't sound convinced.
Susan was unsettled. "Beyond Zaganack, the people who buy our wool don't know the faces behind it. They'll have no way of knowing about this." When Tanner looked troubled, she said, "We're nipping the story in the bud by being up front here in town. That's the reason for my e-mail. Get it out quickly and move on." She faced Pam. "I want to talk with the school board. Can you set it up?"
"Absolutely," Pam said, as if the request were for almond bark from PC Sweets. "I'll get right on it. We'll hold an emergency meeting. When is best?"
"As soon as possible."
"I'll take care of it. How much should I tell them?"
"As little as possible," Susan said, unsure of what Pam would say. She loved a cause--poured herself into it quickly and fully. But her positions changed easily--which wasn't to say that Pam didn't feel loyalty to Susan, Kate, and Sunny, only that she was married to Tanner, and Tanner was worried about the company image. "I'd rather they hear it from me. Besides, with us being friends, you're in a delicate enough position."
"Actually," Pam said, "I'm not, since Abby isn't involved."
"Are you?" Pam asked her daughter a short time later, after finding her in the school gym watching basketball practice.
"No, I am not," Abby said without taking her eyes from the court.
"Even though the girls are your best friends?"
"Were. Getting pregnant was dumb."
"Did you know they were making a pact?"
"No."
"You didn't hear them talking about it this summer?"
"No. They were friends before I ever came along. They don't tell me everything."
"But you were the one who got them those jobs."
Abby turned to her. "I was just the first hired. Lily was the one who made the initial contact, not me." She turned back to the court.
"You told me--"
"I didn't," the girl insisted, digging her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket. "You assumed. You always assume things that aren't true--like my friendship with Lily, Mary Kate, and Jess. You want us to be BFFs, because you want their moms to be your BFFs, but wanting it doesn't make it happen."
"I do consider their moms my best friends," Pam said, though she was unsettled.
"Well, you're dreaming. Susan, Sunny, and Kate are a threesome, just like Lily, Mary Kate, and Jess. Why do you think they won't tell anyone who the fathers are? They don't want the boys to bust up their group."
Pam could empathize with her daughter's hurt. Hadn't she found her best friends at the barn, all knowing about the pact but none telling her? That said, she was certainly glad Abby had been left out. Getting pregnant at seventeen was totally irresponsible.
"Do you know the boys' names?" she asked.
"No."
"But you know Jacob fathered Mary Kate's baby?"
"Everyone knows that."
"What else does everyone know that maybe I don't?"
Abby stared at her. "Why does it matter? Why can't you just let it go?"
"Because I'm on the school board, which will be discussing this, so the more I know, the better. I'm also the only board member with children in the schools right now, and since you are best friends--were best friends with the girls involved, I can try and help work things out."
"Whatever I tell you, you'll tell the board."
"No. I won't. It'll just help me decide what to say."
Abby turned back to the court, grumbling, "I don't know anything more."
Pam studied her face. Not a happy one. She put an arm around her shoulders. "Well, I'm proud of you."
That seemed to upset the girl more. She whipped around a final time. "For what?"
"For separating from those girls. For knowing better."
Abby looked like she might cry--and Pam understood that, too. There was a trade-off to being on the fringe of a group. Not that Abby would want to hear that. She was only seventeen.
Chapter 12
Susan was up late Thursday night crafting an e-mail to the faculty. After a final tweaking, she sent it out at dawn. She wanted her teachers to start the day with the facts--the nature of the pact, the names of the girls, the involvement of the school psychologist and the nurse. The e-mail to parents was harder. It wasn't that the content was different, though she mentioned no names in this one. But with parents concerned on a more personal level than teachers, the stakes were higher. She wrote and rewrote in search of exactly the right tone. Then that e-mail was sent, too.
Following a difficult day filled with questions from all sides, she got home shortly after six. She wasn't surprised to find Lily; volleyball practice was over and Friday night plans not begun. Nor was she surprised that Lily had made dinner. She often did that when Susan ran late. She liked cooking.
What surprised Susan was her daughter's contrition, evident in the fresh flowers on the table, the crab and corn bisque, which was Susan's favorite but not Lily's, and the fact that Lily was waiting in the kitchen, not in her room phoning or texting.
Susan's cell rang. Ignoring it, she hung her jacket on a hook by the door, dropped her bag on the bench beneath it, and sat. "You've been busy."
Lily hovered near the table. "I just made a few stops after practice. Jess drove." The phone rang again. "Aren't you going to answer?"
"No. It's been ringing off the hook all day. Our land line will be starting soon."
The words were barely out when it did. Lily checked the caller ID panel. "Legere. Sara's mom?"
"Probably," Susan said with resignation. "I haven't heard from her yet." The woman was a royal pain. Everyone knew it. She decided not to answer.
"You sent out the e-mails," Lily deduced. "Was it bad?"
"Oh, the sending was fine. It's the replies that were bad."
"How bad is bad?"
Not rational or understanding, thought Susan--but then, since she hadn't mentioned the girls' names, some of the parents wouldn't have realized that Susan's own daughter was pregnant. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes."
It suddenly struck Susan then that if Lily was old enough to be a mother, she was old enough for this. "There was disbelief. There was curiosity--lots of questions for which I do not have answers. And there was criticism. One mother called it a pathetic stunt. Another used the word disgusting. A father who obviously knew you were one of the girls said it was shameless that I couldn't control my own child."
Lily gave a half blink, clearly struggling to be strong. "They knew it was me?"
"Some did."
"Who called me shameless?"
Susan smiled sadly. "I was the one being called shameless, and I doubt it'll be the last time. This does reflect on me."
"It wasn't supposed to."
"How could it not? I'm your mother."
The silence that followed was broken only by the soup bubbling on the stove. Lily turned off the gas. "I guess I didn't think through what you'd have to face."
"Oh, Lily. It isn't just me. You heard what Jacob did when he saw Mary Kate. This may kill their relationship, and what happens then to the father that Mary Kate assumed her baby would have? What do you think Jacob's weekend's going to be like? Or Adam's--at least I assume Adam was the one who fathered Jess's baby? And who fathered yours?"
Robbie, Lily mouthed.
Susan hadn't expected an answer. Startled, she sat straighter. "Robbie Boone? Are you sure?"
"Mom. I've been with one guy in my life. I think I know who the father is."
"But Robbie? He's--he's the boy next door."
"Not next door. Across the street."
The phone rang. They continued to ignore it.
Susan was having trouble picturing her daughter and Robbie together. "You've known him since you were six. He was your first trick-or-treat buddy. He taught you to ride a bike."
"Does that disqualify him?"
"No. I just didn't see the two of you that way." She grew guarded. "Does he know?"
"He suspects. But no one else does--and please, please, Mom, don't tell Kate or Sunny or--or least of all Dr. Correlli. How's he taking this?"
Susan might have asked more about Robbie if she knew where to begin, but she just said, "The superintendent is upset. He has a right to be."
"I'm sorry."
Susan couldn't stop thinking of Robbie. He was the youngest of three, which made his parents significantly older than Susan, but they had always been unfailingly kind. When she had bought the house twelve years before and, mortgaged to the hilt, had struggled with things like a burst water heater and hurricane damage to the roof, Robbie's father had directed her to men who helped for a nominal fee. To this day, after every snowstorm, Bill Boone was outside with his shovel, digging out what the town plow had piled at the end of her driveway.
Susan was thinking that Robbie had never been publicly paired with a girl and seemed as innocent as Lily, and that if Lily had truly seduced him, Susan might be on her own after the next storm, when there was another call, this one on her cell. "I'm not answering," she murmured, wondering how Robbie's parents might feel about their son fathering a child at seventeen. Livid, she feared. Both parents were affiliated with Percy State, his dad in the treasurer's office, his mom in the art history department. Talk about responsibility? They lived and breathed it.
When the cell rang a third time, Lily fished it from Susan's bag and glanced at the caller ID. Eyeing Susan apprehensively, she opened it and, mouthing My dad, handed it over.
Had it been anyone else, Susan would have passed it right back. But Rick was her consort. "Hey," she said softly.
"How's it going?"
She sighed, releasing a little tension. "You don't want to know."
"I do. I talked with Lily earlier. She said word is out about the pact."
"Only we're not supposed to use that word."
"Correlli? He's afraid of panic."
"Clearly."
"I take it this is all falling on your shoulders."
"If not now, soon," Susan said. Rising from the bench, she left the kitchen. "One girl, and people would blame her for being careless. Three girls makes it deliberate. People start off blaming the girls, but, after all, they are only girls." Just past the front door were the stairs leading to the second floor. She climbed three and sat against the banister. "If one of those girls has a mother who was pregnant and unmarried at seventeen herself--and who is in a position of responsibility for hundreds of impressionable teens--how easy is it to blame her?"
"You'll have allies. There must be others who had babies in their teens, and there are certainly other single parents out there. They'll identify. As for the rest, eventually they'll look at the good job you've done. Tell me, would you do anything different as principal now if this didn't involve girls you love?"
"No. But I'd probably be blaming the parents, too, so I can't entirely fault Correlli."
"He's blaming you?"
"Oh yeah." When Lily appeared, Susan turned away so that she wouldn't hear. "We had a pretty heated argument. I really do have good control, Rick, but when he attacked me, I had to defend myself. I mean, really, are these girls pregnant at seventeen just because I was?"
"Did Correlli suggest that?"
"He kept repeating, 'You were seventeen.' Like I set a bad example? No matter. I may have lost him as an ally."
"Give him time. You're his protege, so the situation is personal right now. Are you feeling any better about the baby?"
"No," she confessed softly. "I'm not ready to bond. Is that an awful thing to say?"
"No. You're human. How are Sunny and Kate?"
Susan turned back. Lily needed to hear this. "Kate e-mailed before I left to say that Mary Kate is hysterical at the prospect of losing Jacob, and Dan is grilling Sunny over why she allowed me to send my e-mail to every parent in the school. But should I have sent it to senior parents only? Seniors and juniors but not sophomores? If the goal is to minimize rumor, what I did was right."
"What's happening with Abby and Pam?"
"Now, there's an interesting question. What's happening with Abby?" Susan asked Lily.
"We're not talking," the girl said. "She hasn't been much of a friend."
"Maybe she's just smart," Susan replied and said to Rick, "There's no way she'll keep trying to get pregnant now."
"She was pregnant," Lily cried.
"Excuse me?"
"Before any of us. It was right after we conceived that she lost it. And who helped her through that?"
Susan bowed her head and said into the phone, "Did you hear? Abby got pregnant first. How far along was she?" she asked Lily, who shrugged. "Does Pam know?"
"No, and please don't tell her. It's Abby's place to tell her mom."
"What about the boy?" Rick asked Susan. "Lily wouldn't tell me about him. Any ID yet?"
"Uh-huh."
There was a silence, then a wise, "But you can't tell me. She's right there."
"Yup."
"Please don't mention Robbie," Lily whispered.
"Did you hear his name?" Susan shook her own head in reply.
"Is he a decent guy, at least?" Rick asked.
"Very decent. It's actually a relief. Of course, I may not think so once he finds out."
"Want me back there?"
"No," she said, turning away from Lily again. "I can handle this. It isn't cholera, only scandal." She sputtered. "How pathetic is that? No communicable disease, no third world country, but it'll get dirty. My phone is just starting to ring."
"They love you in town."
"They did before this. I'm a good principal. I communicate with them, something they haven't had before. Do you think my predecessor would have opened up about a problem like I did today? No way. Wardell Dickinson would have taken himself off to a conference somewhere until the uproar died down. Of course, he couldn't have e-mailed parents, because he was computer illiterate. Technologically, our high school was behind every other one in the area. Now we're ahead. With one click, I was able to send out an e-mail that could directly impact my job. How ironic is that?"
There was a pause, then, "I think I should come."
"No," she said, quieting. "I'm just venting. You're the only one who goes way back with me."
"Speaking of which, my father called. Your dad's not well." Susan's heart skipped a beat. "What does 'not well' mean?"
"'Feeling poorly' was how my father put it. He's in touch with a couple of people from back home. Your dad canceled his annual golf trip."
That didn't sound good. John Tate loved his golf nearly as much as he loved fishing.
"My mother would call me if it was really bad, wouldn't she?"
Susan asked, but she didn't blame Rick for not responding. "I'd better call them."
It took several hours for her to drum up the courage. First, she blamed the hour's time difference. Couldn't phone during dinner. Then she had to finish the row she was knitting, then the next. By way of penance, she answered s
everal incoming calls--half expecting Robbie's parents to be calling in a furor. As it happened, most of the calls were from friends who expressed support, even when their voices held disappointment.
Finally, she dialed her parents. Her mother was always up late, but not her father, and it wouldn't do for the phone to wake him. He liked his sleep. At least, he used to. Susan really didn't know what either of her parents enjoyed now.
Ellen Tate picked up after a single ring, her voice fragile in a way that pricked Susan's heart. The woman was only fifty-nine, but sounded much older.
"It's me, Mom. Susan."
There was a pause, then a low "Yes."
How are you, Mom? I didn't wake you, did I? Were you watching TV? Knitting? It's getting cold here, what's it like there?
So many possible questions, ones that were conversational and caring, but Susan had been down this road many times, always trying to smooth out the contact, to pretend that their relationship was a typical one. After one answer too many that was either short or silent, she had come to rethink asking. Her questions only seemed to make Ellen tense.
So she got to the point. "I heard Dad wasn't well."
"Who told you that?"
"Rick. His dad told him. What's wrong?"
"Nothing much."
"It was enough to keep him from golfing."
"Oh, that," Ellen said offhandedly. "He just doesn't like to fly anymore."
"Not even for golf?"
"Flying tires him out." There was a tiny pause. "He tires easily."
"Has he seen a doctor?"
"Every year. Faithfully. But your father isn't young anymore. He'll be sixty-five in the spring."
Susan was well aware of that. She guessed that there would be a party, but was afraid to ask. She wouldn't want to know that she wouldn't be invited.
"Sixty-five is not old, Mom. Does Dr. Littlefield do blood tests and EKGs?"
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