Daddy Dearest

Chapter Twelve

Ben

I have to say no. For my own preservation, I have to say no. Dear God in heaven, I must say it. But in the light of the moon coming through the windscreen, her skin seems to glow with an otherworldly pearlessence and her mouth brings to mind dewy, ripe strawberries. I must get out of the car or risk doing something I'll regret for the rest of my life.

Instead of answering, I open the car door and step out to take in big gulps of cold air to wake my brain. I lean against the bonnet of the Escalade and give myself a couple of taps on the cheek. I only had a couple of drinks at dinner. You're all right, Ben. You're okay.

The passenger door opens and everything in me clenches in anxiety. I tell myself not to turn around and instead focus on the full moon, which looks unusually bright tonight and pregnant with premonitions. Maybe it's having an effect on me and causing me to act and think like a mad man.

"Mr. Davenport?" Melody's soft voice says inquiringly. "Are you okay? Was it inappropriate for me to ask you inside? If I offended you, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

I laugh quietly to myself. That is indeed the crux of it. She didn't mean anything by that invitation. I am the one making it sordid. "Oh, Mel, don't be silly. I'm just taking in the full moon. Come stand beside me and have a look."

She hesitates. "I guess the view is better there, huh?"

She realizes the silliness of my request. The view is the same from where she is standing three feet behind me. The moon dominates the sky tonight, looming over our side of the world like a spectator. She has no reason to join me where I'm standing; I just want her close to me.

"I think the view is only better for me because I'm taller," I say dryly, to break the tension. "Come on."

I don't look behind me to see if she's moving toward me. I can almost hear her deliberating. I know she is attracted to me as a man, but does she have the presence of mind to act on it? I don't mean for her to come on to me as that would be wholly inappropriate. But I wonder if she'd ever confess it to me or do the opposite and start avoiding me, instead.

She sidles up to me and slips her hands into the skirt pockets of her school uniform. I smile down at her and she smiles back, albeit shakily, before dropping her gaze to her black Mary Jane shoes. "When I was a little girl, Nancy used to tell me stories of a man who lives on the moon. He's all alone up there, you know. She says he was a brave knight who loved a woman, a princess, that he wasn't supposed to because she was engaged to his brother who was a lord."

She has her hands out now and folded in front of her, palms up like a cradle. With her head lowered, I study her scalp and find myself entranced by the beige micro spaces in between the hair shafts. I long to bury my face in her hair and inhale her sweetness. "Tell me more," I prompt her.

"But the brother, who used to be good, is now corrupt and cruel as a lord, so the princess doesn't love him anymore. The gallant knight becomes a friend and confidant to the princess and they eventually fall in love, which makes the king and the knight's brother very unhappy. The two of them conspire to get rid of the knight and ask the castle sorcerer to banish him."

"Of course they do," I murmur, which causes her to look at me and smile shyly. "What's a fairy tale without an evil sorcerer?"

She shakes her head. "But he wasn't evil. The king had asked him to banish the knight to the ends of the earth where there's a flesh-eating dragon waiting for him, but the sorcerer doesn't do that because he's a fan of the knight. He tells the princess he will send the knight to the moon where there is a crystal palace he could live in and later on, he could also send the princess, so that they could live on the moon happily together."

Her voice carries a trace of wistfulness, the romanticism of a young woman who still believes in things like true love and happily ever after. I know I am not the man who will make her dreams come true. I'm not the noble and gallant knight in this story. Nevertheless I found her story compelling. "What happened next?"

She drops her gaze back down to her hands. "The king and the knight's brother find out about the sorcerer's betrayal and they kill him before he could send the princess to the moon. However, he was able to send word to the knight that the princess was on her way. She never made it there, of course, and the knight is still up there, waiting for her. He's so brokenhearted that he decided no one else should suffer like him, so from time to time, when he hears a sincere entreaty from someone on earth, he grants their wishes." She laughs softly. "I used to worry about him up there and hoped he had enough books to read and had moon people to talk to."

Of course she would worry about the emotional and mental state of the Man on the Moon because that is just the kind of person Melody Plum is. She thinks of others before taking care of her own needs. "Did you ever ask the Man on the Moon for anything?"

She doesn't answer me for a long time, but turns halfway toward the bonnet and starts to write her initials in the dusty surface of the bonnet before drawing a heart around them. She must have realized what she was doing just then because she stops herself and erases her doodles with one horizontal swipe of her hand. "I think it's time for a car wash, Mr. D." She wipes the smudge off her fingers with her navy blue shirt.

"So? What boon did you request from The Man on the Moon?"

She shrugs, a gesture that reminds me of my daughter Madison. Whenever I ask her about something she knows she might get in trouble for, she looks down on the ground, hunches her shoulders up for a few beats, before allowing them to slump back down. "I was really young, Mr. D. And I still believed in fairy tales back then." She brings one hand up to scratch the side of her head, a sure sign of anxiety. "I asked him to bring my mom back. I asked him every night for a year and when nothing happened…" She shrugs again, this time from self-consciousness. "I got mad at the Man on the Moon and stopped talking to him for a while."

I lowered my head and stared at the ground myself. After Merry died, I used to go up to the roof of our house, through an access panel in the attic, and lie on the shingles to ruminate about the night sky. I'd smoke two or three cigarettes, then go back down to my office, get drunk, and write. "How about now? Do you still talk to the Man on the Moon?"

She gives me a very teenage give-me-a-break look. "Come on, Mr. D. He's a fairy tale. And a really depressing one, too." She crinkles her nose.

"Hey, you know what? I have a few minutes and it's getting chilly out here. Shall we go inside and have a cuppa?"

Her face brightens and she nods. "Great. Nancy just got this nice Darjeeling tea from an Indian grocery store in Burbank, the one that comes in the pink tin canister, and it's amazing."

"Lead on." I follow her to the five-bedroom bungalow once shared by Harry and Meredith Plum, now both deceased, leaving behind a beautiful, intelligent daughter who is lonely and in need of guidance, at the cusp of adulthood.

She stops by the red double doors and pulls out her phone, upon which she activates an app that requires a fingerprint and a code. There is a beep at the door and the sound of locks getting disengaged. She smiles sheepishly at me before she proceeds, pushing open the red door and stepping aside to let me in.

Upon our entrance, a high-pitched beeping starts up and Melody turns it off by going up to a panel on a wall next to the door and pressing her thumb into the allotted space. A disembodied robotic voice greets her with, "Welcome home, Melody."

I raise my eyebrows. "That is very fancy."

"Nancy is very frugal, but the one thing she doesn't skimp on is home security," she replies, rolling her eyes. "The alarm can only be turned on or off by our thumb prints. If it goes off while Nancy and I are both home and we don't deactivate it within five minutes, it calls the police station. The front door also automatically locks after three minutes just in case we forget to lock it at night."

I nod approvingly. "That's very good. I'm glad that you and Nancy have all of these precautions in place. You two are all alone now…"

She gives me a skeptical sidelong glance. "We do all right. Nancy has two guns and I know how to shoot."

I had opened the front panel of their security system and was studying it when I heard her say this. I look at her in surprise. "You do?"

The smirk she throws my way is pure teenage bravado. "Of course. Nancy has been taking me to go out shooting at her friend's ranch in Topanga twice a month since I was fourteen. Nancy has a Sig Sauer P365 9mm compact and a Smith and Wesson .380. They're both lightweight and compact, easy on the recoil."

I somehow manage to keep my dignity by not gawking openly at her. I can honestly say that I've never fired a gun in my life. Harry had a few and showed it off to me every time he acquired a new one. Merry was against them and I'd always been uncomfortable with them since my grandfather had ended his life with one.

Melody is Harry's daughter, all right. Another reason to stay away from her: she can shoot my d**k off.

Melody leads me to the kitchen and the lights turn on over our heads as we pass different sections of the house. The living room, dining room, breakfast nook, then finally the kitchen. She turns around with a shrug and an embarrassed smile.

"The lights are on motion sensors throughout the house. At 10:30 pm, the floodlights on top of the garage door and front door activate, so that anyone who approaches the house after a certain time will be in the spotlight, whether they want to be or not. I told Nancy she was going overboard, but she's been paranoid since we got robbed six months ago."

"Wait, what?" I haven't heard about this incident. Charlie never mentioned it to me. "My God, Melody, why didn't you ever say anything to me or Waverly?"

She is filling the kettle with water from the sink. I see her shoulders stiffen for a moment, then she turns back around to face me and puts the kettle on the electric stove. "It wasn't a big deal, Mr. D. Just a couple of crackheads who broke in through a window in dad's old office, which we use as a*****e room now. They took Nancy's old laptop, which had already been wiped clean because she was getting ready to donate it. My old Playstation 3 that I hadn't used in years and some of the old coins that dad used to collect. Nancy said some of them were rare and worth some money, but other than that, nothing of value. Home insurance covered the repair of the window, then Nancy beefed up the security after that."

The casual way she describes the incident sends a little chill down my spine. When was the last time had I really checked in with them? The first couple of years after Harry died, I made a point to visit her and Nancy every other month just to see if they needed anything. But the two of them also came to most of our family events, so the visits became less and less frequent. I figured I would just check on them whenever they came over. Nancy also struck me as a very independent person who wanted to prove to everyone in the community that she could raise Melody by herself. I thought I was doing the right thing by giving her the space she needed.

"Were you and Nancy home when it happened?"

Melody takes out a teapot and puts in a strainer for the tea leaves. She also sets out two mugs and a sugar bowl. "Yes, we were both home. Nancy heard the noise in dad's office and went to check it out, but she called 911 first. She went into the office with her gun, but the crackheads were gone. The cops said we were the third house in the neighborhood they hit in a week. I slept through the whole thing."

Horrible images besiege me as Melody narrates the event with a certain remoteness. I remember that a few houses around us were burgled several months ago, but wasn't aware that theirs was hit. I rub off the goosebumps that sprouted on my arms. "My God, Melody, you two could have been seriously hurt."

The kettle whistles. Instead of answering me, she spends the next few minutes preparing the tea. She put the teapot, mugs, the sugar bowl, and a half pint of cream on a tray. Before she can lift it, I rush over and take it from her. We walk together to the breakfast nook.

We sit on cushioned benches on opposite sides of the table so we're face to face. "Three minutes to brew at minimum. I find four minutes to be just right. Any longer and it becomes too bitter." She glances at her Hello Kitty wristwatch, which I didn't even notice she was wearing.

"That's how I brew my Darjeeling," I tell her with a smile. She glances at me briefly, then focuses on arranging the tea on the table. "Melody, you were in grave danger. You could have been seriously hurt."

She lifts one shoulder in response. "I asked Nancy if I could have a gun in my room that I can put in a safe and can only be accessed by my fingerprint, but she said no."

I breathe a sigh of relief. "Do the twins know about the guns?"

She picks up the teapot and pours a serving for me and her. The mug she pushes toward me is a Donald Duck one. "No. The twins… have a certain expectation of the Melody they know. I don't know why I'm telling you this, Mr. D. You'd likely warn the twins off from me because I'm a secret trigger-happy psycho." She pours cream into her teacup. "Cream?"

I laugh, surprising myself. "Of course not. You're an integral part of my family and Madison adores you. I would ask that you don't show the gun to Charlie and Lottie." I take the tiny pitcher of cream from her.

"Never, Mr. D. I'm sorry to say this, but your kids live in a different reality than I do." She drops her gaze to the table. "I don't know if you know this about Nancy, but before she met my dad, she was… assaulted."

I do know about that. It was part of the reason I had accused Harry of being predatory. He confessed to me that Nancy was raped on the night of her senior prom and also molested by her older step-brother. She was a fragile girl, I had argued, and didn't need an old man who should know better, taking advantage of her. Harry punched me in the jaw and I gave him a bloody nose. We didn't talk for a month. Waverly called us "very stupid little boys."

"Your father told me," I say, stirring my tea.

"Nancy is overprotective because her past molded the person she is today." She's also stirring her tea, but almost lazily, like she just needs something to do with her hands. She is vibrating with nervous energy. "She said she doesn't want me to go through any of the things that happened to her."

I bring my mug of tea to my mouth and sip to give myself a moment to formulate a proper response. I am physically attracted to her, yes, but it's a little more than that. I enjoy talking to her, being around her, and relish the idea of taking care of her. That was what Harry felt for Nancy and I judged him harshly for it. "She has been a very good mother to you, hasn't she?"

Melody's eyes glaze over with tears. "I don't remember much about my mom and Dad was away a lot on business trips, so Nancy is the only person who's really been constant in my life."

Harry had been a Creative Writing professor and a world-renowned literary agent. I'd met him when I sent a collection of my short stories to his office in London. He took me on as a client and we became friends, close enough for him to invite me to try out New York. I had planned on going to Cambridge for my grad studies, but I also felt I was stagnating in England. Waverly and I had just broken up and I was looking for a change of pace. New York sounded like heaven. Before settling there, I spent several months traveling to other countries with Harry. I learned that the man always had to be on the move.

"Nancy has done a great job with you, Melody," I assure her. "I often tell Mrs. Davenport that you're a good role model for the children and she agrees with me."

She smiles briefly, but continues to look anxious. "I sometimes envy your kids, you know, for having you two as parents. Not just because my mom and dad are dead, but because you seem to really care about their welfare and that's really great."

I reach over and pat her hand on the table in an attempt to console her. "Now you said you need someone to talk to. What is it?"

She looks up at the ceiling for a moment as if she were expecting to find the answers there, then looks right at me. She sighs and her shoulders slump forward. "Mr. D, this is something really awkward for me to talk about and I'm not even sure if I should be talking about it to your or Mrs. D."

I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. What the hell can she be talking about? I half-hope and dread that she would confess some kind of attraction for me. But that's a horny middle-aged man's pipe dream. I tell myself to get a grip and focus on the situation at hand. "Tell me, Mel."

On the table, she starts fidgeting with her fingers, twisting them together or bending them backwards to try and touch her wrist. She is not double-jointed. "It's like this… Charlie and I have been friends for a long time and I think over the last few months, he's developed non-platonic feelings for me. So things have been kind of weird between us because… well, I don't feel the same."

I hate the feeling of relief that I get upon hearing that. I'm a rubbish father. "Has he made any overtures toward you that have made you uncomfortable or unsafe about maintaining your friendship with him?"

She appears confused for a moment, then shakes her head. "Not really. He hasn't been overt about it or anything. It's just that Horrorcon is coming in a few weeks and he wants to go with a bunch of friends, instead of you taking us. You've taken us every year we've gone and I think it's great because I feel safer when you're around. This year, I'm afraid he'll… make a move or something and I'd have to tell him no. And we can't be friends anymore."

The first thing I heard out of everything she said is that she feels safer when I'm around. Most likely because she sees me as a father figure and not some manly man who'll protect her. Secondly, she wants me to go with her and Charlie to their annual horror convention in San Francisco. "Charlie hasn't mentioned anything about it to me. I was starting to think you guys weren't interested in going this year."

Well, my son is seventeen, so it's officially embarrassing for him to have his old man take him to a pop culture convention. It was cool, for a while, I guess. But that era has ended and I find myself a bit forlorn about it.

"So you think if I go, Charlie won't put the moves on you?"

She makes a face but nods. "I mean, Charlie has already laterally asked me to go to the Homecoming dance this year."

"Laterally?" I ask with raised eyebrows.

She does her tiny non-shrug gesture again. Her shoulders barely move. "We went to Homecoming together last year because he and Stephanie broke up a week before and he already bought the tickets. I wasn't even planning on going. Over the weekend he said since we went together last year, we should go again together this year. For funsies."

Oh, Charlie. Well, I was a bit of a shy lad myself when I was at university. Waverly was the one who chased me and I was the i***t who didn't realize that I was in love with her till she broke up with me. "Wow," I say dryly. "Smooth."

She covers her mouth with her hand and laughs. "Right?"

I notice she always covers her mouth when she laughs around me. I've seen her laugh with Charlie and Lottie. She outright guffaws. Maybe she's concerned I wouldn't think she's ladylike? This girl certainly has some absurd misconceptions about me. "So what are you going to do?"

"Oh." She tucks her hair behind her ears and bites her lower lip. "Well, there's this boy at school I'm hoping would ask me. Maybe if I go with him, Charlie's feelings would change."

Melody is such a lively, beautiful, and kind spirit that it's quite hard not to notice her and like her. The devil in me pushes me to ask, "Who is this boy?"

She concentrates on her half-empty mug of tea, biting her lower lip again. "Umm… Alex Chambers."

"Huh. Really?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of my tone. Alex Chambers is the worst of the lot. He's more handsome than anyone has any right to be, rich, a bloody genius, and unlike many of the good-looking, spoiled-rotten, rich kids in our school, he's actually a kind and decent human being. There's a reason he's been Head Boy for two years in a row.

But I've had my suspicions that it's a cover of some sort because he's also known around campus as The Devirginizer. Rumor has it that girls just throw themselves at his feet and once he's "tagged" her once, he does the whole "it's not you, it's me" thing, so the girl wouldn't feel bad about the breakup. I hate that little s**t.

Melody's eyes widen. "Oh, Mr. D, I've heard the rumors about him, too. Don't worry, I'm not going to fall for his tricks." She giggles. "Oh jeepers, no. I'm just hoping that if I go to the Homecoming dance with him, Charlie will lose interest in me and he'll think I'm just like any of the 'dumb girls' he makes fun of at school."

I frown at this. "Charlie makes fun of girls at school?" That doesn't sound like the son I raised.

"Oh, no. No. He just thinks a lot of the girls at school are superficial and shallow, so he doesn't want anything to do with them. Tessie Kwon really likes him, though. I wish he'd notice her. She's so smart and pretty."

Tessie Kwon is indeed smart and pretty, as well as one of the more level-headed girls at school. Waverly told me she has an early admission to Harvard. I heartily approve of her as a candidate for Charlie's new girlfriend. Unfortunately, my son has also confessed to me that Tessie tends to get on his nerves because she's bossy and argumentative. I smile in remembrance of my early courtship with her mother.

"Ah, so you want to go to Homecoming with Alex Chambers because you want Charlie to think you're just another vapid, shallow girl at school?"

She nods enthusiastically. "Good plan, eh?"

Oh, brother. "Melody, my son has known you all his life. He knows you're not shallow and vapid."

"Exactly. That's why my plan will work perfectly." Her eyes gleam with the excitement of executing her plan. "He has known me all his life, so for him to discover that I go googly-eyed for dudes like Alex Chambers just like any other girl at school, would be a massive disappointment for him."

I stare at her, taken aback. All she has to do now is put her palms together and rub them briskly like an evil villain. "That's… yeah, good luck with that."

Suddenly, she's an uncertain and anxious teenage girl again. "You won't tell him, right, Mr. D? I'm just doing this so I don't want to have to tell him no and hurt his feelings."

"Your secret is safe with me," I tell her somberly, offering my hand across the table for hers to shake. "Although I would prefer that you just tell him the truth."

Horrified, she shakes her head no and doesn't notice my extended hand. "I can't do that. He's my best friend. He'll hate me!"

Ah, the intricacies of teenage logic. In my pocket, my phone buzzes and I instantly know it's Waverly, wondering where I am. "Well, I should go, before Mrs. D sends out a search party for me."

She swipes her palm across the back of her neck--a very Harry gesture--indicating embarrassment. "Golly, Mr. D. I didn't mean to keep you so long. I just wanted to talk to you about Horrorcon and Homecoming because I thought you should know what's happening just in case I become persona non grata in Charlie's book or something."

I push the bench back with my legs so I can get up. "It's not a problem, Miss Plum. I won't think poorly of you if Charlie suddenly starts talking about you like you're an evil witchy woman."

She stands up, too. "Thanks, Mr. D."

And then she does the most unexpected thing. She launches herself at me and hugs the middle of my torso tightly. Slightly shocked, I pat her head awkwardly. Then I put my arms loosely around her and pat her shoulder blades before dropping my arms back to my sides.

She lets me go and takes a few steps back, her cheeks as red as apples. "Gosh." She giggles, which is a nervous tic that I've come to associate with her. "I'm sorry if I scared you, Mr. D. I just wanted to say thanks."

I take a deep breath to quiet my rioting emotions. Everything happened so fast that she was already pulling back by the time I realized I could have embraced her and kissed the top of her head in a show of fatherly affection. Jesus, I'm a proper bastard.

"You apologize too much." I reach out to ruffle her hair, which I do to Lottie from time to time, even though I know it annoys her. "Come, walk me out." I hold out my elbow to her and she quickly takes it.

She smiles up at me. "You're really wonderful, Mr. D. Not just as a dad. But… as a man, I guess."

Our short promenade ends at the foyer. "Why, thank you, Melody. I think you're pretty swell, too." I lower my head and just before my lips touch her forehead, I see her eyes widen in surprise. "Lock up after me, there's a good girl. See you at school tomorrow."

I look back at her once I reach the end of the driveway, where I have the Escalade parked. "Good night, Miss Plum."

"Good night, Mr. D!"

She blows me a kiss before closing the door.