Ms. Hempel Chronicles

by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

  The narrow space was illuminated by strings of colored Christmas lights and a glowing clock. A jukebox stood in the back, in between the cavelike entrances to two bathrooms whose affiliation with any particular sex was never rigidly observed. Black battered tables, high unsteady stools, linoleum floor. The floor was wonderful to dance on. It made Ms. Hempel feel very graceful and coordinated, even before she started drinking. All the teachers loved to dance on Friday afternoons. They did the Hustle. They did the Electric Slide. The sticky blinds on Mooney’s windows were always pulled shut, so it was easy to forget that it was only four o’clock and the sun was still shining outside and no one had come home from work yet. They danced as if it were the middle of the night They did silly moves they remembered from high school and looked good doing them. When Mr. Radovich tried to dance like he was black, no one minded. They were too happy feed. ing quarters into the jukebox, shimmying to the bar and back. As she bumped hips with Ms. Cruz and sashayed toward the bathrooms, Ms. Hempel realized that she was actually meant to spend her whole life dancing, like those characters in the Ice Capades who go about their daily business on skates.

  For someone who had an abundance of freckles and almost always wore clogs, Ms. Duffy could dance astonishingly well. She shook back her hair and half closed her eyes and lifted her chin ever so slightly, as if a handsome, invisible person were tilting up her face to kiss her. And then she stepped from side to side, with a barely discernible lilt in her hips, her spine long and straight, her shoulders faintly twitching, the movement small, purposeful, precise, and entirely effortless. It was the simplest dance in the world. And also the most beguiling, somehow. It inspired a feeling of great confidence in Ms. Duffy’s body and the various things she could do with it. Other dancers drew close to her, unconsciously. She could often be found in the middle of a spontaneous dance sandwich. One afternoon Mr. Polidori sprang from his bar stool, cracked his knuckles, and then slid across the linoleum floor on his knees to arrive breathless at her neatly shuffling feet.

  Ms. Hempel liked to think that this was the moment at which their grand passion began. Of course she could be wrong; Mr. Polidori performed sudden, extravagant gestures all the time—kissing your hand in gratitude, wrapping his fingers around your neck and gently throttling you, draping his arm across your shoulders with comradely indifference— gestures that thrilled Ms. Hempel whenever she happened, through luck and proximity, to be the recipient. Her skin on fire she felt how ridiculous it was: Mr. Polidori, as a rule, could not be taken seriously. And Ms. Duffy did not appear to do so. After he came gliding across the floor, arms outspread, she merely offered him her hand and hoisted him up, never once losing the beat of her winsome little dance. But what if, as their hands joined, a secret message was exchanged? A message that took them both by surprise. Ms. Hempel wished that she had been sharp enough to catch the exchange; she thought of this moment only in retrospect, as she tried to make a story of what had happened. How interesting it would have been to witness the very inception of an affair! Or, rather, a thing, these days only married people were entitled to affairs. Either way, she could have hoarded up the image—he on his knees, she swaying above him—to share with Amit when he came home. Walking back dreamily from the bar, the afternoon light slanting across the pavement, Ms. Hempel was full of marvelous jokes and observations and stories to tell him. But then she went inside and it got dark; she turned up the television and felt a headache coming on, and by the time Amit returned from the lab, she couldn’t think of anything to say, even when he wrinkled his nose and tranquilly asked, “How come you smell like cigarettes?"

  Ms. Hempel wondered about the father of Ms. Duffys baby. A sloe-eyed camel driver singing beneath his breath? A poet studying English at the university, or maybe a young doctor who led the way through a bazaar? She spent much of last period considering the possibilities. And if in her speculations she caught a whiff of something faintly rotten and imperial,

  she ignored it. Of all the wonderful novels E. M. Forster had ever written, A Passage to India was her favorite. It made her wonder, Were there any caves in Yemen? Caves that Ms. Duffy could have wandered in to explore, and then stumbled out, dazed and transformed?

  At the entrance to the library, Ms. Cruz sat behind her enormous wraparound desk. It resembled a sort of cockpit, its high sides studded with librarian paraphernalia, Ms. Cruz wheeling expertly about the interior in her ergonomic chair. The desk had two levels; the lower level was intended for the librarian’s use as she tried to do her work, while the higher level was meant for those standing around the desk and bothering the librarian. It was chest-high, the ideal spot for quickly finishing one’s math problems before class, or asking importunate questions about the fate of the dinosaurs, or resting one’s elbows, as Mrs. Willoughby was now doing, and speaking in confidential tones with Ms. Cruz below.

  "Did you see—” Mrs. Willoughby turned to Ms. Hempel with excitement. Then she remembered. “Oh yes, you were there. Isn’t she gorgeous?”

  Ms. Hempel said, “Gorgeous. And very—’’ She extended her arms.

  “I know, I know! Not what we expected. I thought she’d come back with a slide show and some nice scarves. But no! So much more."

  She leaned toward Ms. Cruz, resuming: "Thirty-five miles from the nearest hospital. Is that madness?”

  “There’s a midwife. She’ll be fine.”

  “Of course she will be. But still. Out in the middle of nowhere? With your first child? You have no idea.”

  She was tired of living here. She said so all the time.” You girls don’t know what it’s like. You get lonely at the beginning. You’re tired, your nipples hurt, you can’t remember what day it is.

  “Roman will be there. And they re building a second yurt,” Cruz said firmly, and then glanced up at Ms. Hempel. “Anna is moving upstate,” she explained.

  But that explained nothing. "A yurt?” Ms. Hempel asked. “Is that something... Yemenese?"

  She blushed.

  “Mongolian,” Mrs. Willoughby said. "I had to ask, too. Don't worry; I won’t tell Meacham. Not everybody who teaches here is a walking encyclopedia. It's a big circular tent made out of animal skins. Or, in Anna's case, some fancy, state-of-the-art, flame-retardant fabric.” In the air, Mrs. Willoughby conjured up a miniature yurt with her hands. “Not like a teepee, more like a circus tent. Made out of yaks.”

  With a laugh and a wave, she demolished the little dwelling.

  “But the father,” asked Ms. Hempel, “is he from Yemen?"

  Mrs. Willoughby looked at her peculiarly. “Heavens, no.”

  For the trip abroad had been cut short. Something in the food made Anna sick, dangerously so. Only two months out of the country and she was doubled over, shitting water. Thus the end of the lyrical e-mails. She had lost nearly twenty pounds by the time she crept onto the airplane and came home to convalesce at her mother's; it was there, looking pale and otherworldly, that she met Roman. A kite artist.

  “He was visiting his mother, too," said Ms. Cruz.

  “They’re neighbors in the condo complex, the one her mother moved to after the divorce," said Mrs. Willoughby. “Anna claims that it’s soulless and horrible. But maybe she feels differently now."

  "Wow," said Ms. Hempel, collecting herself. So the father of Ms. Duffy’s baby was an American, met early one mornin in the courtyard of an ugly condominium.

  "Being a kite artist—that’s his job?” she heard herself asking.

  Ms. Cruz nodded. “He’s a master. You can find him on the Internet.”

  “He spends all day making kites?”

  “And flying them.” iM "How wonderful,” Ms. Hempel said uncertainly. “I’d like to do that.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t we all?” Mrs. Willoughby said, and took a great breath, and for a precarious moment it looked as if she might sing the opening chorus of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” But then the opportunity softly passed. “There’s family money, too, of course. And a big piece of land passed d
own through the ages. Anna is living on an estate! In a yurt, admittedly, but still. Pretty grand. Isn’t this what they would call marry-ing up?"

  "She got married?” Ms. Hempel asked, startled. She hadn’t seen a ring.

  A delicate look passed between the two other women. Ms. Hempel caught it, and felt herself go warm.

  “It happened very quickly,” said Ms. Cruz.

  “As it so often does,” added Mrs. Willoughby. “One minute you’re all alone and the next—boom!—you’re standing there in city hall with the man of your dreams.”

  “And moving upstate,” Ms. Hempel said. “And having a baby.”

  “Exactly,” Mrs. Willoughby said, with a slap of her hands on the top of Ms. Cruz’s desk. “That’s the trick of life, how much everything can change.”

  And then, squeezing Ms. Hempels arm, she asked, "Remember? Anna was miserable'.'

  But Ms. Hempel wouldnt have described her as miserable nor, she doubted, would Ms. Duffy

  have ever used the word herself. Because didn’t misery imply a wallowing sort of wretchedness? And a teacher had no time for that. The curriculum was always marching on, relentlessly: the scrambling dash from one unit to the next, the ancient Egyptians melting into the ancient Greeks, the blur of check marks and smiley faces, the hot rattling breath of the photocopier, book reports corrected shakily on the bus, the eternal night of parent-teacher conferences, dizzy countdowns to every holiday, and the dumb animal pleasure of rest. One could be quite unhappy and never have the chance to know it. Ms. Hempel was sometimes astonished by the thoughts she’d have while walking to work: one morning, she looked longingly at a patch of ice on the pavement and realized that if she were to fall and fracture her leg in several places, then she wouldn’t have to go to school. And maybe, if the doctors put her in traction, a substitute would be hired for the rest of the year. Or maybe a body cast.

  There was a way out, an honorable and dignified way out. All she had to do was undergo a terrible accident____

  But then her desk would be emptied, and every one of her secrets would come scuttling forth: the torn and smelly pair of stockings, abandoned there months ago, the descriptive paragraphs she took so long to grade that she finally claimed to have lost them at the laundromat, the open bagofDoritos. And, embarrassment aside, she had responsibilities: the volleyball finals were fast approaching—who would keep score?

  Someone else would have to chair the weekly meetings of the girls’ after-school book group, and conduct the middle school assembly on Diversity Day. And who would finish grading the Mockingbird essays, adhering to the Byzantine rubric she’d devised?

  The fact was, no one could.

  "Call in sick,” Amit would say sleepily, his arm flung over her. "Tell them you caught a cold.” He’d kiss her. "You’re infected. And extremely contagious. You need to stay in bed okay?” But she would already be staggering toward the shower.

  Did Ms. Duffy ever think about slipping on the ice? Probably not; her thoughts likely took a more enraged and sensible turn; probably, as she waited for the bus, she drafted letters of resignation in her head, letters that described in withering detail the incompetence of the new middle school director, or the shabby state of the women’s bathroom on the second floor. Ms. Hempel suspected that such letters existed because Ms. Duffy was so thoroughly equipped when it came to complaining. They all loved to do it, of course, just as they all loved to dance, but she could outshine everyone. She would begin drily enough, with a sigh and a little self-mocking smile, but soon the full force of her indignation would take over, and her complaints would build in hilarity and ire until she was magnificent to behold—her whole self radiant with fury—so that Ms. Hempel shook her head and wondered how poor Mr. Mumford, even in his most ill-conceived moments of middle school leadership, could ever think it wise to say, “Now, Anna, just calm down’.’ Often her stories ended with Mr. Mumford saying these words, or a variation thereof, and even when recollected in the yeasty tranquility of Mooney’s, they still made Ms. Duffy utter a murderous, strangled scream. “Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!”

  From the end of the bar, Mr. Polidori would raise his glass to her.

  The gesture was perfectly in character, joking, wry, yet also somehow gallant. He would then return his attention to Mimi Swartz, the person whose company he enjoyed more than anyone else's. She ran the art department, and made sculptures out of giant nails, was fifteen years his senior ancj went on long bike trips with her girlfriend. And he, as a teacher of physics, seemed always full of things to say to her.

  A mystery. But no more a mystery than his affair with Anna puffy, who was once again complaining operatically.

  Affairs. Flings. Apparently they happened all the time, and between the people you would least expect.

  “You didn’t know about me and Phil?” asked Ms. Cruz, phil Macrae taught life science to the sixth grade. Beardless and cow-licked, he looked as if he had completed the sixth grade only recently himself. She had also had sex with Mr. Rahitni, the computer teacher, and Jim, who ran the after-school program.

  “It got a little weird,” she said.

  Things also got weird for Mrs. Bell and Mr. Blanco; so weird, in fact, that he had to go teach at another school for a few years until the conflagration finally died out.

  “Julia?” Ms. Hempel cried in dismay. She loved Julia Bell. “This was ages ago. Long before you came to us,” Mrs. Willoughby said.

  “But Daniel?” Ms. Hempel cried. “I thought maybe he was gay?"

  “Oh no. No. Whatever gave you that idea? He’s just Spanish.”

  And, incredibly, the former lover of Mrs. Bell. With his

  pointed goatee and his funny little vests? It was very hard to picture. Perhaps, in a younger version, what Ms. Hempel found vague about his sexuality was actually dashing, irresistible. So much so that Julia Bell—a teacher blessed with pluck and humor and sense—risked everything to be with him.

  "This was before the boys were born?” Ms. Hempel asked.

  "Wally was two, I think, and not yet in school. But Nathan had already started kindergarten.” Mrs. Willoughby raised her eyebrows. “It could have been a real mess.”

  Unthinkable, Julia making a mess. Which was exactly why Ms. Hempel adored her: the serene, amused, and capable air-the way she kept an easy sense of order among even the most fractious children; the affection that her sons heaped upon her, tackling her in the middle of the hallway. She also had a plume of pure white hair growing from her right temple, like Susan Son tag if she had gone into eighth-grade algebra. Her husband taught math, too, at the state university; they had fallen in love during graduate school. And all this—her world of boys and equations and good cheer—had been hazarded. And then recovered.

  Now she could sit in faculty meetings with Daniel Blanco and not show the slightest sign that he was in any way different to her from all the other staff members assembled around the room. If it weren't for the older teachers like Mrs. Willoughby, who remembered, there wouldn’t be a trace left Of that strange and perilous affair. Ms. Hempel couldn’t decide which amazed her more: the sight of Mrs. Bell and Mr. Blanco talking amiably by the coffee urn, or the thought of them locked in an ancient, urgent, hopeless embrace.

  Leaving the library, Ms. Hempel was surprised to see Ms. Duffy standing alone in the vestibule, her hands resting ligMy atop her belly. She seemed to have lost her entourage somewhere along the way. She was looking at the enormous bulletin boards that lined the walls and displayed the latest projects generated by the younger grades. Only a year ago she had been responsible for filling such a board, which required judiciousness (for not every child’s hieroglyph could be hung) and a protracted wrestle with crepe paper and a staple gun. But now she was freed of that. What an escape! She gazed at the artwork with the cool eye of an outsider.

  “Beatrice,” Ms. Duffy said, and Ms. Hempel gave her a hug. The belly turned out to be as hard as it appeared.

  “Have you seen this?” Ms. Duffy asked. She was
studying one particular display. “They’re overlapping. You can’t read them. And he put a staple right through that kid’s name."

  He being Mr. Chapman, Wall Street trader turned teacher, called in to replace Ms. Duffy for the year, and now, it seemed, quite possibly for good.

  “How are we supposed to know who drew the Minotaur?" She pointed at the bulletin board. “A child spent hours— hours!—working on this, and you can’t even read her name.”

  “I hadn't noticed,” Ms. Hempel said, peering. “But you’re right. The name is kind of obscured.”

  “My god,” Ms. Duffy muttered. “This isn’t rocket science.”

  She reached up and pinched the staple between her thumb and forefinger. With a worrying motion of her hand she extracted it, and then flicked it to the ground like a cigarette butt.

  “There,” she said.

  The child’s name was Lucien Nguyen.

  “Much better,” Ms. Hempel said, and smiled. She wanted

  to leave, her curiosity deadened; now that she knew Ms. Duff wasn’t harboring a little half-Yemenese baby, she no longer felt a strong need to talk with her. But she didn’t like the way Ms. Duffy was still eyeing the display And Ms. Hempel’s tendency to suggest precisely the opposite of what she actually wished, in the vague and automatic hope of pleasing someone asserted itself.