Teacher's Pet - A Standalone Novel (A Teacher Student Romance) Read online

  TEACHER’S PET

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams

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  1.

  Tessa

  I didn’t think there was ever a time in my life when I had been more nervous.

  And this all had to do with a paper.

  Well, really it was the grade that was going to be on the paper, and as I sat there, waiting, I tried to convince myself that everything was going to be okay, that I had done well enough on the assignment to get at least an A. Because that’s what I needed: an A.

  My palms were sweating, and my heart was beating fast, like I’d drank too much coffee on an empty stomach. My stomach, in fact, was all clenched in knots, and I was having trouble sitting still in my seat. I tried to take deep, calming breaths like they told us to in yoga class, but taking deep, calming breaths is difficult to do when your whole chest feels like it is in a vice. Professor Rochman had given Kristin, the teaching assistant, half the papers to return, and he had the other half. It was probably random, who had which papers, but my mind for some reason latched onto the idea that if Professor Rochman handed mine back to me, it would be good news. And that good news could only come in one form: an A.

  “I was mostly quite pleased with the effort shown in these articles,” he said. “Most of you showed that not only have you been paying attention in the past month’s lectures, but you’ve been applying the principles we’ve been learning to the work you do out in the field.”

  My best friend, Lindsey, sat next to me, chewing on the cap of her pen, not even paying attention. She wasn’t in this class because she was interested in journalism; rather, she was here because she’d heard the professor was hot and not a curmudgeon like a lot of the faculty here at Benton College were.

  And Professor Rochman was hot—call me Leo, he’d said on the first day of class, but that was so weird. I couldn’t call him Leo; I’d never been on a first-name basis with a teacher before. None of the other students seemed to have a problem with it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  He was getting closer to us, and I felt my heart rate accelerate. My GPA had slipped below a 3.5, and my parents would be infuriated if it remained there. Subpar performance was simply unacceptable to them, and up until this point in my life, I’d always gotten straight As. I had just assumed that going into my junior year at college, things would be the same, but then I’d made the mistake of falling in love. Well, I thought it was love, but it really turned out to be a big disaster. His name was Nick Sanders and he was one of the stars of Benton’s basketball team, a total jock, not the sort of person I ever would have dated, but we ended up sitting next to each other in an American politics lecture and it just sort of went from there. It was great, until it wasn’t, and I’d found myself totally caught off guard when he told me that he didn’t think we should hang out anymore. I didn’t think that I’d done anything wrong, or that anything had changed between us since the last time we’d hung out and everything seemed great, and it had taken its toll on my schoolwork. Only in the past month or so had I been able to wake up and not find myself thinking about him first thing in the morning, but it was still difficult to see him around campus, to know that he probably hadn’t given me a second thought.

  And now here I was, behind in most of my classes, all because of some stupid guy.

  There was more than just my GPA at stake. I did not take it for granted that my parents were paying my tuition, and they were also paying for my car and for me to live in a small apartment in the city, as opposed to the dorms, because they thought living by myself would not just get me out of the party atmosphere, but would also help me become more independent. My father transferred a monthly stipend into my account, which I could use for groceries, utilities, and any other expenses that cropped up. Unlike many of my classmates, I didn’t have to eat in the cafeteria, I hadn’t needed to take out any loans, and I didn’t have to try to juggle a part-time job on top of my studies.

  The one condition of this, though, was that I maintain a 4.0 GPA.

  If only I hadn’t gotten involved with Nick, this wouldn’t even be an issue. But I had, and on more than one occasion I’d put off studying or doing my homework to hang out with him, because the whole experience was thrilling. Here I was, dating a popular guy, a guy that other girls around campus were interested in, yet he had wanted to be with me. I still occasionally thought back to that time, marveling at the fact that it had even happened in the first place, except those memories always ended with me recalling how unceremoniously he had dropped me.

  Professor Rochman was heading my direction, and I felt my heart lighten, and relief begin to flood me as he paused right in front of us. I even went so far as to lift my arm, palm up, to receive the paper he was about to hand back to me, but he handed it to Lindsey instead. He glanced at my outstretched palm like I was some panhandler he’d encountered on the street, and then kept walking. A few seconds later, Kristin appeared, dropping my paper down in front of me. She was average height and very thin, with blunt-cut, shoulder length brown hair and big brown eyes that sort of reminded me of a basset hound’s. She looked at me with those eyes but didn’t say anything. I looked down at the paper.

  A C+. A big, red C+, right there on the front of the paper, like an angry slash, a blood stain, a symbol of doom.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “How’d you do?” Lindsey asked, leaning over, peering at my paper. “Oh,” she said when she saw the mark. She quickly flipped her own paper over, but not before I caught sight of the A- scrawled across the top.

  Professor Rochman and Kristin had finished handing back all the papers, and he was saying something now to the class, but I couldn’t really hear what it was; his voice was distorted, like he was talking underwater.

  “It’s okay, Tessa,” Lindsey said quickly. “It’s not like you got an F. C is average. So you got a C+. That’s better than average!”

  She smiled, but I could tell that she felt bad for me. She knew what my parents were like. Unlike her parents, who didn’t seem to care what her GPA was, my parents were not going to be happy to hear about this. Part of me wanted to just keep it quiet, to resolve to get nothing but A-pluses on all my remaining assignments, but I didn’t even know if that would be possible. I didn’t have another choice; I would have to tell my parents.

  2.

  Leo

  I was bored.

  And it wasn’t just a short-term, easily fixable type of boredom, something that could be remedied by scheduling some activity, planning some outing, this was chronic, bone-deep, terminal sort of boredom.

  My life—which had once been rather interesting, if I do say so myself—had gotten so boring that it was almost unrecognizable to me. Here I was, a college professor, a teacher, a job that I had somehow ended up with because I’d fucked up in my other one.

  I was so bored, in fact, that just the other night, I watched an entire soft-core porn on HBO GO, about a college professor who sleeps with one o
f his students. The plot was flimsy, the acting even flimsier, and I might have fallen asleep toward the end, but before I did, I remembered sitting there thinking that if I at least had something like that going on, then maybe I wouldn’t feel like shooting myself every morning before I had to go to work.

  Today though, there was at least a little something to look forward to: I always derived some sort of perverse enjoyment when it came to returning assignments, because undoubtedly, there would always be a handful of students who assumed they had done far better than they actually did. These were usually the kids who were used to skating through life, either because they were the smartest kid in their high school (big fish, little pond) or because they’d been born with a silver spoon and had everything handed to them on a fucking platter.

  The big fish, little pond students, upon arriving at a much larger pond (as Benton College was), would either take it as a challenge to do better or would take it personally and think that their whole life, up until this point, had been one big lie. The spoiled kids (of which there were many) either acted indignantly or just didn’t give a fuck.

  Professor at some private college was not numero uno on my list of career possibilities when I was growing up. Seeing as I fucking hated school, I suppose you could call this turn of events ironic, but I have reached the point where I can just accept that this is the way life works out sometimes. One day, you’re working your way toward editor-in-large at a national magazine, the next, you’re out of a job and blacklisted just about everywhere else because your boss found out you had slept with his wife.

  The only reason I had this gig at Benton was because a pal of mine from high school was working here, as a sociology professor. Or was it psychology? I could never remember. The difference between Jack and me, though, was that a teaching position at Benton was probably numero uno on Jack’s list, and he just as likely woke up every morning, thankful for his amazing life that was working out exactly how he hoped it would be.

  Glad it was for one of us.

  I’d been feeling more and more restless lately. I needed to get the fuck out of here; I needed to do something that didn’t require me to sit in a classroom for four or five hours a day, doing little more than babysitting. Don’t get me wrong—some of my students were eager little beavers, showing up each morning with bright eyes and bushy tails, hanging onto every last word I said. A few of them actually reminded me of myself when I was still young and fresh and thought that the world was ripe for my picking.

  But mostly, this whole thing was just a gigantic fucking pain in my ass.

  I’d handed out the graded feature articles that my dear students had written, and most of them were pleased with their grades, though there were a few that were surprised, and that surprise went in both directions. Lindsey Porter, for example, had actually written an A article, a feature piece on a medical cannabis clinic that would be going out of business since the legalization of marijuana had been voted in. The doctor she profiled had been a family physician at some hippie compound for decades, and then, only after becoming a grandmother and the medicinal use of cannabis approved by the good people of California, did she decide to reinvent herself as the pot doctor extraordinaire. The story was actually the most interesting one I read, and even my teaching assistant, Kristin, agreed.

  I returned to the front of the classroom and gave the class a few moments to read over the comments that either Kristin or I had colored their papers with. Some students, such as Lindsey, weren’t even bothering with it; they were scrolling through their phones, probably checking out how many likes a recent post had gotten. Though Benton had a zero tolerance policy for personal electronic devices in the classroom, I didn’t really give a shit, so long as they weren’t using them when I was talking.

  Tessa Donovan, on the other hand, looked as though she was about to burst into tears. Jesus fucking Christ. There were always a handful of those students, too; the sorts that the sun rose and set with how well their GPA was. Tessa was actually probably one of the brightest students I had, though her work in the recent past hadn’t been as good as I’d come to expect. And the moral of that story is not to have any expectations when it comes to students. Kristin had graded her paper, an article about a high-kill animal shelter in Daly City, and had given it a C+. I’d skimmed the article, and though I probably would have given her a B, I let the grade stand. I didn’t feel like getting into some sort of moral debate over it with my goddamn teaching assistant.

  After they’d had the chance to take in their grades and read the comments, I opened the discussion, for all those who wanted to participate, about the feedback they’d received on their articles. I knew some teachers preferred to discuss these matters in private, if a student had a specific concern about a grade or a particular comment, but more often than not, the whole class could learn from the questions their classmates asked, even if it didn’t apply directly to the article they had written.

  So we spent the majority of class going over their questions. I wanted to tell the students who looked completely crestfallen over their grades to man the fuck up—this wasn’t the end of the world. No one failed, and it’s not like this little feature article assignment was something that even mattered. It wasn’t going to be nominated for a Pulitzer; it wasn’t even going to be published anywhere. That way of thinking, though, directly contradicted the last thing Kristin decided to say to them before we dismissed the class:

  “Every single thing you write matters. Dedicate yourself to your work, be willing to go over each word with a fine-tooth comb. If you’re diligent about this, and willing to put in the hard work, you will succeed.”

  The students looked at her and nodded collectively, as though she were channeling wisdom from some sort of higher being. It was total bullshit, what she was saying, but I just smiled and nodded and acted like it was absolute fact.

  I had a shitty little office that I retreated to in between classes, where I occasionally graded papers or met with students who were concerned about how they were doing. I was sitting in this office, inspecting the dried up ring of coffee in an old mug that I’d found buried under a stack of papers, when there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I said, still holding the cup.

  It was Carla Douglass, who you could technically call my colleague, as she was the other journalism professor here at Benton. She was older than I was, by at least a decade and a half, and she had worked mainly for newspapers, which was a purer form of journalism than magazines. She hadn’t come out and said that, but I knew she was thinking it.

  “Leo, hi,” she said. “Shannon wanted to know if you got the memo about the faculty meeting on Friday. She said you didn’t RSVP.”

  “I didn’t realize we were supposed to RSVP.”

  “It said RSVP at the bottom. Bold letters. You were cc’d; I saw your name on the list.”

  “That was thoughtful of you,” I said. “Looking to make sure I’d been included,” I added, when Carla gave me a blank look. “I’m not really that interested in going to a meeting, especially on a Friday night. Shouldn’t these things be scheduled during the school day?”

  “We’re all busy, Leo,” Carla said. “And the meeting is at 6 o’clock. I’m sure we’ll get out in time for you to do whatever it is you have planned for Friday night.”

  What I had planned for Friday night was the big fuck all, but I wasn’t about to let Carla in on that.

  “I was just about to check my email,” I said. “I’ll be sure to RSVP.”

  “Please do. I promised Shannon I’d make sure that you did.”

  Carla left, pulling the door closed firmly behind her. She was no fan of mine, I knew that, because my classes were more popular than hers. Even her own son, one of the star basketball players at Benton, had registered for my article-writing class as opposed to his mother’s, though I had a feeling that was more in part because the class was rumored to be easy. It wasn’t, and I’d given Seth a C, which was generous, though I
knew it pissed Carla off. Benton had a strict policy that its athletes maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher in order to play, and the school also had a reputation for not employing teachers who were willing to give a pass to a student just because he or she happened to be a star athlete.

  I went back to examining that ring of dried coffee when there was another knock at the door. I sighed.

  “What, Carla?” I said. “What did you forget now?”

  The door opened, but it wasn’t Carla; it was Tessa Donovan, the girl from my feature writing class who had looked so positively gutted when she got her paper back. She was certainly one of the better-looking students. Part of what made her so attractive, though, was the fact that she didn’t realize she was so good-looking. Benton actually had its fair share of hot chicks, but the majority of the hot ones knew that they were hot. This one, she didn’t have a clue.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “Um, hi, I’m in your feature writing class?”

  She had long brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail, and a fringe of bangs cut straight across. She had our primary textbook, The Fundamentals of Feature Writing, clasped to her chest.

  “Is that a question?”

  A confused look crossed her face, but then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I . . . I’m just . . . I was wondering if I could talk to you about something.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Have a seat.” I gestured to the blue plastic chair that sat at the front of my desk.

  She sat down, placing her backpack, purse, and textbook on the floor next to her. For not the first time, I asked myself the riddle of: why did the female student need to carry both a backpack AND a purse? And in this particular instance, why not put the textbook INTO the backpack?

  I refocused my attention on Tessa’s face, as she’d started to talk and I had no idea what it was she was saying.