DASH: A Secret Billionaire Romance by Lucy Lambert

Author:Lucy Lambert [Lambert, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pub Yourself Press
Published: 2016-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

CHARLIE

I picked up the stack of marked essays. Thirty seven in all, I knew. There were forty students in this class, and I knew I’d have to have a talk with the three who decided that they didn’t need to hand in their papers.

I ran my thumb over the top right corner of the stack, flipping through them like a mobster might run his thumb through a wad of cash, making sure some wise guy hadn’t tried hiding singles between a couple $100 notes.

The paper was all the same. I knew because I’d bought it. 20-weight stuff from Staples. On sale of course. A teacher’s salary pretty much made sure you didn’t buy things at full price.

I’d had everyone email their essays to me so that I could print them here at school. Many of my students didn’t have printers, let alone paper to print on.

Not here at Thomas A. Edison High, where average family income for students usually dipped below the poverty line.

I had the papers arranged by grade, all in red ink. And I had to say that I was pretty proud of the number of A and B level grades in there.

I glanced at the clock and rubbed at my eyes, hoping I didn’t look as tired as I felt. And then I took a quick look down at myself, feeling a sudden moment of panic as I wondered if I’d put on the blouse with the ink stain on it.

“Hey, Miss M.”

“Hey, Tyler,” I said, smiling at the young man as he walked in and sat at his desk. It was like he’d broken the seal. My classroom soon filled with youths. They smiled and laughed and didn’t seem to notice how cramped the space was.

It was a plain room, with cinder block walls and rows of efficient fluorescent lights in the ceiling. For the past two weeks the tube in the back left corner had been flickering and buzzing. Three others at various points in the room were dark. On cloudy days it could get pretty dark in there.

When I’d brought it up with Mr. Stockwell he said there wasn’t any room in the budget for new bulbs until the next semester.

I’d been doing some calculations, and if I skipped lunch for a week and had noodles for breakfast I could afford some new ones.

One of the big windows looking out onto the plain concrete courtyard had a big spider web of cracks radiating from the point where someone had thrown a beer bottle at it over the summer. No room in the budget to get a new pane put in, either.

And that’s definitely beyond what I can afford, even if I switch to Ramen for all my meals.

It still made me feel bad, though. Like I wasn’t trying hard enough.

The room had been designed with twenty five people in mind and we had nearly twice that in there. I had to keep my desk so close to the chalkboard that if I leaned back too far I would get white dust all over my shoulders.

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