Daddy Dearest

Chapter Eight

Mr. Davenport POV

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-five 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. i***t.

"It's kind of creepy, actually," she mutters, not looking at me. "The lines are from a poem, I think, but I don't recognize which one."

We are stopped in the hallway outside the yearbook office. I see the card clenched between her fingers. "If it's not too much of an intrusion, Miss Plum, may I see it?"

She makes a comical face that isn't a smile and more like a grimace. Her brows remain drawn together and her eyes worried. After a moment's hesitation, she passes me the card.

We enter the classroom, so that I could set down the flowers and my briefcase on my desk. Once inside, we are greeted with some cajoling, hollering, and a chorus of "Who gave you the flowers, Mr. D?" I take the jokes in stride, make a couple of my own, and wait for the students to settle down while Melody stands next to me by the door, red-faced and looking like she's ready to bolt like a deer to the nearest thicket.

Tessie Kwon, the yearbook editor and Marco Rodriguez, her co-editor, come up to say hello to me and take Melody away. Melody looks at the flowers, then at me, with a sheepish smile and the slightest wiggle of her fingers over her shoulder before walking away with them.

I was about to sit down and read the card when the familiar form of my son passes by the desk and stops. I look up to see him scrutinizing the flowers with a curious look on his face.

"Somebody send you flowers, Mr. D?" he asks with a smirk. He doesn't call me Dad at school.

"They're not mine," I drawl, slipping the card into the top left pocket of my shirt. I take the seat and fold my hands in front of me on the desk, leaning toward him. "Somebody sent them to Melody and she's allergic to one of the flowers." As though in agreement, Melody sneezes from across the room. I lower my voice to a near whisper. "Did you send them?"

Charlie's green eyes widen and he shakes his head, the expression on his face horrified. He glances over his shoulder before looking back at me. "Why would I do that?"

I can think of a couple of reasons, but keep them to myself. His cheeks and neck are already red with embarrassment. "I didn't think you could afford such a grandiose display on your allowance."

He splays his hands on the table and leans over to me. "There's enough flowers here for the Rose Bowl Parade."

I chuckle, shaking my head slightly. "Not quite. I'd say the Winner's Circle at the Kentucky Derby."

"Who the hell would send her this monstrosity?" My son sounds truly bewildered.

I think of the card in my pocket and shrug. "I don't know, but you better step up your game."

Charlie rolls his eyes and pushes himself off the desk. "Ugh, not this again. Cut it out."

I don't know why I tease him about his obvious feelings for Melody when the last thing I'd want is for the two of them to start dating. Maybe it's a form of self-preservation on my part. To desire my son's girlfriend: that's a line I'd never cross. If she became Charlie's girl, I could put her out of my mind for good.

I open my briefcase and pull out my copy of Wuthering Heights, so I could look busy by pretending to read. I was told that the yearbook advisor job basically amounted to babysitting. The kids just need adult supervision and the occasional editorial input so the yearbook doesn't end up as some teenage anarchist manifesto with boobs and fannies. Sister Adelaide apparently used to just sit around and do Sudoku puzzles.

I take out the card that came with Melody's flowers from my pocket and quickly scan the handwritten lines:

I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I recognize the poet immediately: Pablo Neruda. I could think of no curriculum in the last three years within our junior and senior classes that explored South American poetry, not even in the tenth grade where World Literature is surveyed. No teacher would have introduced the passionate, evocative poems of Pablo Neruda which often centered on the primal expression of carnal love.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

"Jesus," I mutter under my breath.

There's no second-guessing what that line means. No subtlety whatsoever. It's probably some kid who pored over a book of poems in his parents' library and picked one that sounded kind of dirty. I make a tsk sound of disgust.

When I lift my head, Melody is looking at me expectantly from across the desk. I straighten up in my seat, use the card as a bookmark, and set the book down next to the bouquet of flowers. I clear my throat. "Yes, Miss Plum?"

"I have an idea for a feature that I would like to run by you," she says. The tip of her pink tongue darts out to moisten her lips and she reaches up to brush her hair out of her eyes. "Tessie and Marco think it's great, but they said I should check with you."

The sight of her tongue causes me to shift uncomfortably in my seat. Lo-lee-ta. Ahem. I'm afraid there is something terribly wrong with me. I mentally order myself to stop thinking with my ballocks and get it together. "Let's hear it."

***

As I sit in traffic, I try to recall what I could of the Neruda poem "Every Day You Play." I was a fan of Neruda while at university and even once fancied myself a poet to follow in his footsteps. I cringe in remembrance now of the odious lines I composed for Waverly in celebration of her beauty in the early days of our courting. They were terrible. I knew I meant to marry her when she didn't outright laugh in my face.

...little one, you bring me honeysuckle,

and even your breasts smell of it.

While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies

I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

Damn. I take a deep breath and shift uncomfortably in my seat as my c**k suddenly hardened, upon my remembrance of that particular stanza. Did it really have to be that one? I think about Melody's full, pink mouth, which reminds me of raspberries, and groan. What would it be like to kiss those lips?

Do I love her? I suppose I do, but not the way a father loves a daughter. I used to think my attraction to her stems from my old unrequited desire for Meredith, her late mother, whom she very much resembles. Waverly has no idea and Harry never knew that I carried a torch for his wife for years. When Merry died, I felt like a part of me died with her.

I exorcised her ghost by writing a book about her, one with a story development and style that was quite a departure from any novel I had written before and anything I've written since then. It won the National Book Award the year it was published and was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. People who have read my books tell me that it's my most heartfelt and accessible work. Sure... but the process of writing it also almost caused me my marriage and life.

I basically sequestered myself in my office and drank myself half to death. I wasn't useful to anyone and at the time, Harry could have really used a friend, especially the man he thought was his best friend, but I was emotionally and mentally unavailable. I couldn't even help my wife, who had her hands full with baby Noah and seven-year-old twins. Thankfully, Madison wouldn't be born for a few more years.

It wasn't until I had a full manuscript in my hands that I realized I had shut everyone out for several months while I mourned Meredith, as though I were the only one who had the right to mourn her. Waverly and Merry had been as close as sisters. Harry lost the love of his life. I had been a shitty husband and father. I resolved to be better and agreed to marriage counseling when Waverly suggested it.

And yet through our many sessions, I never admitted I was in love with Meredith Plum.

I glance at the giant bouquet of flowers propped up in the backseat through my rearview mirror. It really was quite tacky. It almost looked like something one might send to a funeral if it weren't for all the bright colors. Melody refused to take it home with her even after I offered to remove the gladiolus. She said it creeped her out. I thought of taking it home with me. Maybe Waverly would get a kick out of it. I can't even remember the last time I brought home flowers for her.

God knows I could use the good will.

I received a call today from the small, private liberal arts college who's been courting me to help build their MFA in Creative Writing program. We've been going back and forth in negotiations for a couple of months now and they've finally presented me with an offer I would be foolish not to accept. Friends of mine have long wondered why I have been wasting my time as a high school teacher when I had a doctorate in English Literature from NYU and could attain full professorship. The answer has always been Waverly. She is the headmistress at Sacred Heart, so I saw it as a way of connecting with her, since my tendency is to hide in my office after dinner and work till just about midnight. It's also nice to see my children running around on campus and be there for them on a day-to-day basis.

But lately I have become listless and feeling like I need to be back in academia. I have been champing at the bit to get out and jump into an environment where I can once again discuss literature and writing with adults. I want to pontificate about Beckett, Nabokov, and Joyce without fear of coming off as a pretentious prick. I'm stagnating in my current position as a high school instructor and afraid I will no longer grow as a writer if I stayed at Sacred Heart.

I haven't mentioned this job offer to Waverly because I know she won't be happy hearing about it. The college is in Ventura County, forty-five minutes north of where we live. Moreover, she is comfortable having me working on campus because for years, I concentrated on my books and didn't work outside of our home. She's concerned that my isolation was what caused my depression and doesn't want me to go through that again, especially now that the kids are older. It was a dark time in our lives. I was drinking a lot more than I do now and my frequent depressive episodes and outbursts of rage nearly ended our marriage.

I was not a good husband to Waverly and I'm not any better now, since I'm actively lusting after a woman more than half my age.

This job also appeals to me because it severs a connection between me and Melody. If I were no longer her teacher, she may no longer see me as an authority figure and that might get her to relax more around me. Granted, I am still the father to her two closest friends and that's never going to change, but at least that tips the scale a little bit in my favor as far as the balance of power between us is concerned. Maybe she'll even stop calling me Mister. She could call me Ben, instead.

I drive the car into the garage and grab the briefcase and the flowers before going into the house. Waverly got home before me today because the smell of her chicken Alfredo wafts toward me as soon as I cross the threshold. My little girl barrels toward me, embraces me tightly around the middle, and buries her face in my stomach. With my hands full, I'm unable to hug her back.

"Hey, Junebug. What's happening? What's wrong?"

She looks up at me and gives me a bright smile. "You're finally home and now we can eat dinner. I'm soooo hungry! Oooh, flowers! Are they for mummy?"

I experience a twinge of guilt as I glance at the bouquet of flowers in my hand. It seems in poor taste now to give my wife flowers rejected by another. "It's for the house, Junebug. They're kind of pretty, don't you think?"

She nods, agreeing wholeheartedly. "Like a rainbow! So many different kinds of flowers."

My wife pokes her head out of the kitchen to greet me. Her eyes widen when she sees the flowers. "Good God, Davenport, what is that monstrosity? Did you win a beauty pageant or something?"

I grimace and walk over to her, though with some difficulty since Maddie is still clinging to my waist. I hand my wife the flowers. "Some over-eager suitor gave them to Melody at school and she didn't want them."

At the sink, freeing the flowers from their plastic confinement, Waverly turns her head to look at me. "Darling, Melody is here. She's staying for dinner."

I reach down to muss Maddie's hair and tell her to go find her siblings to play with. Alone in the kitchen with my wife, I lean against the counter and sigh. "I guess we'll have to get rid of them, then."

Waverly smiles warmly. "Nonsense. I'll just distribute them to a few vases and she won't even recognize it."

I nod and walk over to her to give her a kiss. "Remove the gladiolus. She's allergic."