Page 11 of Prosecco with My Professor
That wouldn’t have mattered to him, though.
Offredi men don’t teach; they do!
We don’t work for other people.
When I was your age…
That one almost stops me in my tracks. Because in two years, that sentence will end with “…I was dead.”
I heard my dad start that sentence plenty of times.When I was your age, I was putting food on the table by going door to door. When I was your age, I made my first million. When I was your age…
Dad had always wanted me to take the same path that he had. He wanted me to start as he did, with nothing in my pockets, and he did the best he could to make that a reality. I was supposed to make my own path, and when it was easier for me than it had been for him—at first—that had made him angry.
The Offredi name took me far in life because when people heard it, doors opened. Maybe they thought I would lead them to my dad. So, despite Dad trying his hardest, I was never short of opportunities. Teaching business to young, wide-eyed students is one of them, and although my father would hate having a son who is a lowly professor, I take a deep satisfaction in knowing that it was my—our—last name that got me the job.
And now, instead of refusing to help the next generation, I have helped hundreds of MBA students elevate their careers and success. Where my dad refused to reach down and lend a hand, I am building stairs.
I trot up the stairs to the first floor where my office is. Technically, it’s not the first day of the program, as courses won’t formally start for two weeks, but there is a week reserved for orientation and then a week to discuss current events’ impact on business. I’ll be attending a few sessions plus meetings within my department.
I’ve already been over the curriculum and the schedule, and there’s not much for me to do but show my face today.
My office is small—a long line in a hallway of equally small offices. I say hello to a few colleagues and give polite head nods to the few that are new. When I get to my office, I close the door behind me, set my bag down on the desk, and slump into my seat.
I didn’t expect the walk in to dredge up so many thoughts about my father. Even decades after his death, he still lingers like a specter in my life.
If Dad was still alive, what would I say? What would he say?
There’s nothing like the death of a loved one to make you realize how little you knew them. I thought—hoped, maybe—that someday there would be a reconciliation between us. That someday I’d work for him, alongside him, after having made my own way. After I’d made him proud, I guess.
Instead, he died suddenly, an aneurism when he was fifty-eight. Not that fifty-eight is terribly young—I snort at the thought—but Dad had still been at the top of his game.
And his will had been a shock. Two silent investors I hadn’t known existed had the first right of refusal to buy his shares in the import company he’d built. The rest of his assets—namely, money—went to me, his only recognized child and the man he’d told to make his own way his entire life.
I didn’t know what to make of that. He didn’t want me to have the business, but he gave me all his money when he’d refused to seed my first startup, when he’d refused to pay for my college, when he’d refused…
Well, regardless, here I am about to teach the basics of business to the bright minds of the future.
There’s a knock on the door and at my curt, “yes,” it swings open to reveal Vincente. “Hey, feeling good for the first day?”
I shed my thoughts and shake Vincente’s hand. “Ready to teach Business Analytics to a bunch of twenty-year-olds?” I ask, naming my first course of the year that’ll start in two weeks. “Absolutely.”
“Not quite Organizational Behaviors,” he teases, naming his own course, “so I’m sure you can handle it.”
I walk back around my desk and pull a few things out of my bag that I don’t need before I sling it over my shoulder.
“Wait,” Vincente says. “You’ve been attacked.”
My brow wrinkles in confusion, and he gestures at my gray sleeve. I twist my arm and see a collection of short, black hairs on the back of my elbow, where it’s hard for me to see.
“Zola got you again.”
“Shit. How does she always know exactly where to sit so that I can’t see it? I swear to god I left my jacket on the bed for thirty seconds.”
“She’s the devil,” Vincente points out. Zola hates him, but he’s also not a cat person.
We take a few minutes to get my jacket off and give the sleeve a vigorous rubbing. “I need to bring a lint roller and stash it in my drawer,” I grumble.
“Or get rid of the cat.”
