“I remember that day. I was miserable. I’d just found out I was pregnant two weeks before graduation, and I had no idea how I was going to tell Brett. I couldn’t bear to think about what I was going to say to my parents.” Maggie’s voice carried a trace of the confusion she must have felt back then.
Even though she was sympathetic to her friend’s predicament, Liddy couldn’t help but say, “I still am slightly pissed off over the fact you didn’t tell Emma or me when you were going through it.”
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t talk about it. Once the cat was out of the bag, it was all such a mess.” Maggie sighed. “I was such a mess. Everyone was pressuring me to give up the baby. My parents and then Brett. His father was pressuring him. He was afraid Brett wouldn’t be able to devote enough time to football when he got to Ohio State if we were married and had a child, and he’d lose his scholarship and have to drop out. He was afraid Brett would be overlooked in the NFL draft. Which meant he’d lose bragging rights about having a son who was playing in the pros. So he leaned on Brett, and Brett leaned on me, and my parents leaned on me, and eventually I cracked because I couldn’t take any more. In the end . . . well, you know what happened in the end.”
“Well, you and Brett have your boy back in your life,” Emma pointed out, “and it seems like it’s worked out for the best.”
“He’s been a delightful surprise. His parents—the ones who raised him—must have been wonderful people,” Maggie agreed.
“It just goes to show you never know what’s around the next corner,” Emma pronounced. “Fate always seems to have another trick up its sleeve. You go along steadily for a while, then boom! Something you never expected pops up.”
“True enough.” Liddy nodded. “I never thought owning a bookstore was in my future.”
“My point.” Emma had been about to drop back onto her towel when she paused. “Oh, did you see the local paper this morning?”
“No,” Liddy said. “Did I miss something?”
“There’s an article about the coach’s upcoming trial. Apparently, it’s being delayed again because another victim has come forward, and the defense says it needs time to investigate.” Emma rolled her eyes. “As if they don’t have enough to convict that man already.”
“What man? What trial?” Maggie asked.
“The former girls’ basketball coach from the high school. Haven’t you heard about it?” Liddy leaned up on her elbows. “Actually, I don’t think you’d moved back when the story first broke, and since then it’s been mostly legal stuff going on—appeals and discovery, that sort of thing, so it hasn’t been in the news lately.”
“So what’s the story?” Maggie asked.
“A couple of girls came forward three or four years ago and told police their basketball coach had assaulted them. As in repeatedly raped them.” Liddy sat all the way up. “They didn’t report it at the time because he threatened them, said he had pictures of them and he’d send them to their parents if they told anyone, so they kept quiet. But one girl confided in her older sister, and it turned out he’d done the same thing to her two years earlier. They went to their parents, the parents called the police, and once the story broke, other girls who’d been abused came forward. It seems every year he’d picked out one girl on his team. Always a senior who wouldn’t be around after graduation, which left him to cultivate a ‘relationship’”—Liddy made the quotes sign—“with another girl the following year. Of course he claims it was all consensual, and the girls were all over sixteen. They said he continued the abuse and the threats right up to graduation; then he’d tell the girls to put it behind them and get on with their lives—or else the photos would be everywhere.”
“Oh my God. That’s disgusting. As the mother of daughters, I can’t even imagine such a horror. Dear God, that’s just terrible.” Maggie visibly shivered. “I’m surprised Brett didn’t mention it.”
“It’s not a Wyndham Beach case,” Emma told her. “Since the regional high school is in Hastings, the police there handled it; then the state police got involved because the girls are from different towns. It’s going to be tried in Fall River. And because the cases are still being investigated, all the action has been behind the scenes for a while. I heard they were still taking depositions from the victims. The judge has tried to keep a lid on it to avoid influencing the potential jury pool. There really hasn’t been much about it in the news lately.”
“He’s an evil, sick man. He targeted the girls on his team and victimized them. They looked up to him and trusted him as their coach, and he abused them in the worst possible way. There’s no punishment that would make up for what he’s done to these kids.” Liddy had been sickened by the sordid story, but at the same time, she’d been secretly just a little relieved all this had happened after Jessie’s high school days had ended.
The conversation having taken a disturbing tone, all three women fell silent.
Finally, Emma said, “Guys, I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Liddy chimed in. “I say we go back to Maggie’s and get started on lunch.”
“Yeah, it’s about time. I made a ton of food, thinking we’d have a crowd since Brett had invited a few of his officers, but they all bailed, and he’s working. So it’s just the three of us and Grace.” Maggie stood and shook out her towel. “Besides, if you’re eating, we don’t have to worry about you running down Cottage Street to Front.”
Liddy was awake at four on Tuesday morning, her nerves firing on all cylinders. She finally got out of bed at five fifteen and went downstairs, where she made coffee and talked herself into a real breakfast of waffles—frozen—and bacon. She stared out the kitchen window, watching for the sun to come up while she drank her first cup of coffee and practiced deep breathing to keep herself focused. Today was a big day, and she didn’t want her nerves to dictate how it was going to unfold. She’d pondered her choices of opening-day garb, and decided to go with her perennial favorite: a long purple skirt, a white shirt, and miles of multicolored beads. It had been a while, she acknowledged, since she’d gone full-out Liddy, but there hadn’t been much occasion for her to dress in anything other than work clothes for most of the summer. A business suit or tailored dress—she did, in fact, own one of each—might have seemed more apropos for the grand opening, but this was Wyndham Beach, and she was Liddy Bryant, and everyone in town knew her, and most—okay, some—loved her just the way she was. Her trademark long skirt and what Emma referred to as her rainbow of beads around her neck were her statement: This is who I am. Who I’ve always been.
She paced herself on her walk to the shop, the sun just rising above the church on the corner. She stopped at Ground Me for coffee, a croissant, and all the congratulations the staff there had to offer. She gave them a thumbs-up as she left the shop and headed across the street. Traffic was almost nonexistent due to the early hour, so when she stopped dead in the middle of Front Street, there was no danger of her being run over.