Clara's Undoing

Clara's Undoing - Chapter Four: Coffee Shower

Breakfast with my parents was one thing I had always looked forward to in the morning—on rare occasions that they were here for it.

Dad came from a long stretch of structural engineers and only children. So, automatically, he inherited the Wheeler Group—the most prominent structural engineering consulting firm in all of New England—and eventually tied it up with Price Vanguard Associates, an architectural firm founded and head-speared by my mother, Marthine Price. They got a pretty good gig going on except it keeps them extremely busy; they were rarely home. I guess the upside of it all was that they were always together.

The downside was that I was another product of the busy lifestyle thus resulting in lack of time or chance to parent another child. Another one was, as expected of me, I shall follow through either the generations of structural engineers or the prized child of a world-renowned architect, no matter how much I sucked at drafting.

I wasn’t bad per se. I was actually pretty good at drawing, it was the ‘putting things in perspective’ thing that I didn’t really have the eye for. I never really understood why since both my parents were extremely talented on that front and actually profited millions of money from it so maybe I was adopted. Except, I wasn’t. My mother’s picture with me right after my birth was proof enough. Not to mention the fact that I looked like the exact female version of my father when he was younger and still had soft features for a guy as opposed to the bearded, butch look he had now. The more plausible reason was that I was a late bloomer and it just hasn’t come to me yet. All I knew was, whatever talent I may have inherited from my parents, it was still a no-show.

“Clara, darling,” My Dad called my name sweetly as he looked up from his tablet. “Would you mind getting my prints from my office?”

I was about to stand up when Mom popped out of the kitchen with the aforementioned prints in hand. “Here you go, honey. Clara, eat your breakfast.”

I did as told, silently laughing internally. Mom always knew what Dad needed long before he said it or even realized it himself.

“Oh, Mom,” I called her attention as she was taking a sip of her tea. “I need you to sign something for school. It’s a waiver for our Science trip for Physics class to Philadelphia next week.”

I took the three-piece waiver out from my bag and handed it over to her.

“Where are you going?” She asked, studying the papers.

“The Franklin Institute, Mutter, Penn, Science History Institute,” I dictated as I took a bite of my waffles. “Among many others. I think we have more than ten in the itinerary. They’re taking us to every kind of Science museum there is in Philly to actually broaden our horizons or something similar.”

“Wow. How are you gonna fit that all in one day?” Dad asked, his tablet and prints were now carefully tucked away. If there was one thing my parents were good at parenting, it was listening. They always kept an interested ear out whenever I talked and as a child of two very busy people, that was more than I could hope for.

I took a sip of my watermelon juice. “It’s actually a museum s***h camping trip for three days, hence the three-page waiver.”

“Mr. William Percival Parrish,” Mom read the end of the paper out loud. “Now why does that name sound eerily familiar?”

“I sincerely doubt you know him, Mom.” I said. “He’s too young to be a business associate of yours and he’s a teacher. You don’t know that many teachers.”

Mom shrugged and proceeded to sign my waiver before handing it back to me. I immediately stuffed it in my bag to secure it and went on to finish my breakfast.

“Someone’s at the door.” Mom suddenly said before standing up to check.

Then the doorbell rang.

“How does she do that?” I asked that, stupefied at one of my mother's superpowers.

Dad shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “Beats me. She’s been that way since we were dating.”

“Seriously, it’s like she has magic powers or is psychic or something.” I said.

He laughed and finished his coffee but said nothing else. Soon after, Mom was back with mail in her hands and we settled into our morning routine.

Suddenly, I got a text from Sidney.

Sidney: SCHOOL NOW.

I excused myself from breakfast and scrambled to get to school. Uppercase between Sidney and I meant emergency, and this was definitely one since it was impossible for her to beat me to school. I, on the other hand, come into school an hour or two earlier to draw some sketches of the surroundings. Her texting me this early to go to school meant she was having some sort of crisis.

“I need your spare uniform.” She said as soon as she opened the main glass door of the school. “I went to Oasis last night and didn’t get the chance to slip into a fresh uniform. Now, I’m wearing yesterday’s uniform and spilled coffee on it.”

I shook my head. “Why didn’t you come home? You could’ve at least gone to my house.”

“Oh I came home. I just didn’t make it inside.” She explained. “I woke up sprawled across the back garden. Good thing my mother doesn’t enjoy nature on the weekdays. If she asks, tell her I slept over at your house.”

I led her to my locker, typed in the passcode and took my spare uniform out to give to her. She thanked me and then told me she was gonna be in the library sleeping if I ever needed her. I rejected her offer to join her before she left to get on with her sleeping venture.

I was too busy searching for my phone in my bag when I bumped into something massive. Liquid spewed all over, including the front of my shirt, and before I knew it, my stomach was already feeling the searing pain of the liquid.

It was Mr. Parrish, and the liquid was fresh, hot coffee, which went all over both our dress shirts.

“Oh God, Mr. Parrish, I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, picking up the empty double wall cup of coffee on the ground.

“What are you doing, Ms. Wheeler? Don’t pick that up.” Mr. Parrish replied, seeming to have forgotten I just accidentally spilled his coffee all over his shirt and instead reprimanding me for picking up trash on the floor.

“I can’t just leave it here, I have to throw it in the bin.” I reasoned out.

He snatched the coffee cup from my hand and only now looked at his ruined clothing.

I stared at him in horror, guilt clawing its way into my skin. “It was an accident, I swear.”

“I know, it’s fine.” He responded calmly. “Don’t worry about it, I have extra clothes in my office.”

He put down his satchel on top of his desk and went straight to the door at the end of the white board. I followed him.

“Oh dear Jesus!” I cried in utter surprise as soon as I got in through the door after him. “I didn’t think there was an office here.”

“What did you think was behind the door all this time?” He asked, wriggling out of his coat and hanging it by the coat rack at the end of the room.

It was pretty huge for a backroom, almost as big as the classroom itself and that was saying something since science classrooms in Bridgeborn were pretty huge. There was a vast bookshelf at the back wall filled with different Physics books on one side and other literary ones on another. A tall lamp sat at the corner by his mahogany desk which was pretty tidy for the Head of Physics Department and a gray fabric couch was on another wall. Adjacent to the door, on the right was a modest square dinner table for two.

Overall it was pretty simple.

“Um… bathroom?” I muttered, unsure if my answer would make me look like a complete i***t or not but I was too shocked to care. “I mean it makes sense, teachers don’t go out to the restrooms during class. Well, except for Mr. Pabst who spends an awful lot of time going out while class’ ongoing.”

Mr. Parrish chuckled. He then opened a door at the corner of the room—which turned out to be a cabinet full of extra clothing—and got one set hanging from it.

He began unbuttoning his dress shirt, showing some part of his broad chest but stopped immediately as soon as he saw me watching him. “Are you gonna watch?”

I could imagine my face turning red. “Oh! Sorry. I’ll wait outside.”

With the feeling of extreme embarrassment pumping together with my blood, I got out of his office and into his classroom. Amidst my humiliation, I started getting this cold feeling on my stomach and I looked down to see that my dress shirt was soaked in coffee too.

I grabbed a couple of tissues from the box of Kleenex at the edge of Mr. Parrish’s classroom desk and started wiping the stains off of my clothes, to no avail. Then I heard Mr. Parrish’s office door opened and closed so I pulled together my blazer towards my stomach to hide my ruined shirt before turning around.

“What are you hiding there?” Mr. Parrish asked, gesturing to my abdomen.

I shook my gently vigorously. “Nothing.”

“I saw the coffee spill on your shirt earlier, Ms. Wheeler.” He stated. “You should change into something else.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a spare in my lock—” I cut myself off. “Oh shoot! I gave it to Sidney earlier, she didn’t have hers. There’re a lot of coffee spills today, jeez.”

I heard a chuckle come from Mr. Parrish’s direction. “Come in, I have plenty of spares.”

“Oh no, it’s okay! I can just borrow Milla’s or Beatrice’s.” I refused politely.

“Don’t be silly, come on. You can’t walk around looking like that while you wait for them.” He insisted, leading the way back into his office again and handing me a folded dress shirt from the cabinet. “You can change here. I’ll go outside and wait.”

This time, it was his turn to leave me in his office. I made sure to lock the door before getting out of my coffee-wet shirt and replacing it with Mr. Parrish’s fresh ones. As soon as I put it over my head, I immediately got a whiff of lavender-scented fabric conditioner and that fresh-press smell I’d always loved smelling off of clothes. Then I instantly noticed how big they were on me.

I never realized how long Mr. Parrish’s arms were. I had to fold the cuffs until my hands began to show but the chest area kinda fitted. It may have been because I had boobs, regardless of how broad his chest was.

After having clothed fully, I went back out to the classroom again and found Mr. Parrish missing. A couple of minutes later, he came back with a janitor in tow, cleaning up the mess by the doorway.

“Thanks for the shirt, Mr. Parrish.” I told him. “I promise, I’ll give it back to you fresh and pressed.”

“Don’t worry about it.” was his only response.

“And I should probably replace your coffee. I’ll go run over to the coffee shop now. What do you want?”

He licked his lips before replying. “You don’t have to. It’s just coffee.”

“Oh come on!” I cried. “Please let me do something to pay you back. I’ll feel guilty the entire day if you don’t let me.”

He stared at me flatly. “Fine. Hot white mocha americano breve, no water.”

I gasped in surprise. “No kidding! That’s how my coffee goes too!”

He chuckled softly. “Are you gonna get it or not?”

“I’m going, I’m going.” I mused, leaving my bag at one of the chairs and went to fetch the coffee.