Daddy Dearest

Chapter Eight

Mr. Davenport

At the end of sixth period, my final class of the day, I was ready to stick my head in an oven and end it all, Sylvia Plath-style. And it's only Monday. Only half of the students in my last class actually read the chapters of Wuthering Heights that I had assigned and the rest tried to fake it badly.

Whatever happened to having enthusiasm for classic literature and wanting to follow in the footsteps of those amazing, albeit long-dead, writers? When I was their age, I reveled in the words of Dickens, Trollope, Hardy, Maugham, Waugh, and Nabokov, and aspired to be in the pantheon of literary giants someday. I still want that for myself, though these days, I doubt that I have the talent to achieve even a modicum of their greatness. I have greater doubts that I can inspire that spark of genius in my students.

I want nothing more now than to go home, lock myself in my office till dinnertime, and have a dram or two of scotch before attempting to get some words on paper, but then I remember that I have one more thing to suffer through before I can drag myself to my car and sit in rush-hour traffic for at least forty-five minutes and enjoy some measure of peace.

Yearbook: which is now my sole responsibility. Hooray. I pack my briefcase slowly, trying to savor my tiny bit of alone time and silence, before I have to once again face needy students, tugging at me every which way.

And then I remember that Melody is part of the staff. I allow myself a moment to indulge in that cheery thought, but quickly slap it down with a reminder that Charlie will also be there. The girl is almost twenty-four years younger than I am and my own son is enamored with her. My feelings for her are profane, beyond wrong on so many levels, and yet like Heathcliff for Catherine, I yearn for her in a sick way that threatens to burn me from the inside out.

I am not the hero of this story. As my daughter Charlotte would say, I'm the bad guy, duh.

I walk out of my classroom, wallowing in my own abject misery, and almost bump into the current object of my obsession, my own little Lolita, carrying a bouquet of flowers bigger than her torso and sneezing every few seconds.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at the three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

I take the bouquet from her when she almost drops it after a particularly violent sneeze.

"Oh, Mr. D!" she yelps, her eyes wide with surprise upon seeing me. "I didn't see you there." She gladly hands off the flowers. "Thank you. I think I'm allergic to gladiolus."

I clamp my briefcase against my side and with my free hand, reach into the top left corner of my shirt and pull out a white handkerchief, which I give her. Our housekeeper Rebecca irons a pile of them especially for me every week. "Here you are. Are these your flowers?"

She thanks me for the hankie and covers her nose and mouth just in time for another sneeze. "Yeah. I just retrieved them from the front office. No one has ever sent me flowers before. I don't know who they're from."

I frown suspiciously at the flowers as she and I begin to walk toward the classroom that served as the yearbook headquarters. A dizzying assortment of tulips, gladiolus, carnations, baby's breath, daisies, and four colors of roses. Almost grotesque in its exuberance, surely. "Wasn't there a card attached or something?"

Melody glances at me, her cheeks flushed pink. "Yes, but there was no name or anything. It just said Secret Admirer."

I raise my eyebrows, wondering if this "secret admirer" is a student. A bouquet this ostentatious probably cost at least a hundred dollars. "What else did the card say?" I ask before I can stop myself. Closing my eyes briefly, I curse under my breath. Idiot.