Daddy Dearest

Chapter Sixteen

Ben

Waverly asked me to meet her in her office for lunch. She rarely ever summons me to her office because she usually comes to my office or the teacher's lounge out of deference to me. That's all her, though. I never asked for it. She said she doesn't feel right demanding her husband to come see her at her office, even if he was her employee. Wave is quite old-fashioned in a lot of ways.

For lunch, I usually grab a sandwich from the cafeteria, unless Wave cooked dinner the night before and we have leftovers, because then that's what I would eat for lunch the next day. But she was out last night with our two younger kids and didn't come home till almost ten. It was a school night for the children. They were a nightmare to pull out of bed this morning.

Today's Special at the cafeteria is Mrs. Johnson's Turkey Meatloaf on Rye sandwich, which is one of the few things I actually look forward to at this school. I called Mrs. Johnson ahead, so she'd save one for me and I could just pick it up. Though I always insist on paying, she just gives it to me and says, "Free of charge, Dr. Davenport."

She's also one of the few people who calls me a "Doctor," instead of "Mister," which is always a nice reminder that I have a PhD in British Literature and yet I teach high school English. I have yet to give my answer to that liberal arts college in Ventura and every week it seems they call me with an offer of more money. Last week, they threw in tenure. Apparently, one of their esteemed professors saw me as a guest lecturer in Cambridge a couple of years ago for an eight-week writing seminar and whole-heartedly recommended me.

I enter the staff office and say hello to Margaret Reyes, Waverly's long-time secretary, who is eating an egg sandwich at her desk. The plump, bubbly Filipina-American gives me a thumbs up as she has just taken a huge bite of her lunch and gestures at me to go right into my wife's office.

I knock twice before going in and find Waverly on the phone. She is in an ivory skirt-suit today with an emerald button-up silk blouse underneath. Her blond hair is pinned up and held by a pencil and she is wearing the diamond inlay pearl earrings that I got her for our fifteenth wedding anniversary. As usual, she looks effortlessly stunning, especially for a woman of forty-three. 

I sit down in the armchair in front of her massive desk and place the bag of my sandwich and can of cold ginger ale next to her tub of salad, which she probably asked Margaret to buy from Trader Joe's, sometime before lunch. I pick up a coaster from a dispenser on the corner of her desk behind her Apple monitor and put it under my soda. Then I bring out my mobile and look at the latest scores in the match-up between Manchester and Chelsea.

I hear my wife say goodbye and return the phone to the receiver, so I put away my mobile and look up at her. "You summoned, milady?"

She shook her head at my poor attempt at levity, then sighs. Right after that, she rests her forehead on her palm propped up by her elbow on the desk. It's her shorthand for "we've got a problem."

I immediately worry. I have gone over the budget on this year's Homecoming dance and have supplemented whatever else the committee needs with my own money. Did that violate some rule I wasn't aware of? Or was this about Melody's bike? My pulse thrums in my throat. "What's wrong, Wave?" I get up from the armchair.

"This thing with Melody might be bigger than we think," she says, pushing forward a previously folded note with the capped tip of a biro. She puts her hand over it without touching it so I don't see what's on it. "Ben, before you look at it, I warn you: it might be upsetting."