Ms. Hempel Chronicles

when the telephone rang, her mother, answering it, would say gaily, “Oscar? He’s off canoeing!” And somehow, the way she said it—in a bright, emphatic tone that left no room for further questions—made it seem as if Beatrice’s father were right there with them, uttering the words himself. She spoke in the voice he always used when asserting what was most obviously untrue. The effect was strange—hearing this voice come out of her mother. Then, with a slight shrug, she would return to herself, her face slackening, her pen circling the telephone pad, and Beatrice, confronted with the mystery of her father, the mystery of her mother, could only write repeatedly, in ever tinier cursive, Canoeing is a perilous outdoor sport. She wrote it five times on the last page of her science notebook, stopped, remembered herself, and neatly tore out the page; at the end of every two weeks you had to turn in your notebook for a grade.

By Monday morning he would be back again, in time to make Beatrice breakfast and deliver her to school. She softened at the sight of him standing there in the kitchen, flushed and rumpled and stubbled, placing her favorite antique spoon on the table. The wilderness had released him, had given him back. And, just like that, all her fury would be snuffed out. Any irritation was now redirected at her mother, who upon his return had camped out in her bathtub, listening to NPR at a deafening volume. She should come downstairs! Beatrice would silently fume. She should come fluttering in, full of kisses and gratitude and relief!

Disaster had been held off once again. Wasn’t that cause for rejoicing?

For there Amit was, waiting in the checkout line, his small black head shining above the magazine racks. No crotchless panties in sight. Beatrice stood on the sidewalk and watched him pay for the two bottles of ginger ale. What luck, she felt. What extraordinary fortune.

THE EIGHTH GRADERS WERE less fortunate. The next morning dawned drearily, with assurances from the weatherwoman that the sky would remain overcast. The sky was always overcast on Trip Day, the one day out of the whole year when the eighth grade took a very long bus ride to a rather grimy beach. They showed no signs of discouragement, however. Even at the stoplights, the school bus rocked back and forth crazily.

“Rule Number One!” Ms. Hempel hollered, before she let them disembark. “Don’t go in past your waist. There’s only one lifeguard on duty. And don’t forget to wear sunscreen. Those ultraviolet rays will burn you up, even though it’s cloudy!”

“And don’t talk to clowns,” someone shouted from the back.

“Right,” Ms. Hempel said.

The eighth grade clattered off the bus and, without awaiting further orders, stormed the beach. Ms. Hempel and the three other homeroom teachers trudged grimly behind, trying to balance between them the poles for a volleyball net. Yelps could already be heard from the water.

As they cleared the boardwalk, Ms. Hempel saw her students frisking bravely in the surf. It was still very cold out. Some girls wore cheeky little two-pieces flecked with polka dots and daisies; others skulked about in their fathers’ T-shirts. The boys were already immersed up to their necks, their sleek heads bobbing atop the waves. “It’s freezing!” the girls wailed. “Ms. Hempel! It’s freezing!”

Ms. Hempel held their towels in her outstretched arms and rubbed their backs when they scrambled, dripping, up from the water. The girls clustered about her, reaching out their trembling hands and pressing them against her cheek: “See?” they asked. “See how cold I am!”

“Brrrrrr!” Ms. Hempel said, and rubbed them harder.

The girls then arranged their towels into a beautiful mosaic on the sand. Dropping down upon their knees, they dug into their beach bags, emerging with plastic containers and painted tins and shoeboxes lined with waxed paper. These they gravely placed in the middle of the mosaic. Julianne circled about them, distributing paper plates, while Keisha handed out Dixie cups half filled with soda. One by one the lids were removed, revealing jerked chicken, fruit salad, crumbling banana bread, couscous, fried plantains, sesame noodles, sticky little rice balls. The girls fell upon the food. “We organized a potluck,” Sasha explained, forking a pineapple wedge and making room for Ms. Hempel. “Please help yourself.”

Meanwhile, the boys had straggled up onto the beach and were now huddled around the school cooler, peering down into sodden paper bags. They consoled themselves by clapping their sacks of school-issued potato chips and making them explode.

“They thought a potluck was stupid,” Alice said, with profound satisfaction.

A family of seagulls and the three other homeroom teachers patrolled the area. Ms. Hempel shouted out, “Everything’s okay over here!” and accepted a lemon square, reminding herself that her presence was required. She would make sure that no paper plates were left in the sand. She would apply sunscreen to the girls’ shoulders, and provide an adult perspective on their discussions. Drowsily, she gazed out at the ocean. “I can’t believe you went in,” she murmured.

The morning passed slowly. Swimming and lunch had already taken place, and it wasn’t even eleven yet. No one dared return to the water; common sense had set in. And the volleyball net kept collapsing. The girls wrapped themselves in their towels and asked Ms. Hempel personal questions. Was she wearing, underneath her sweater, a one-piece or a two-piece? Did she propose or did he? But everything she said seemed only to remind them of something more urgent that they needed to say. Each one of her answers was interrupted, and then abandoned, as the girls hurried from one new topic to the next: discriminatory gym teachers; open-minded parents; plus-sized models. The animated nature of the discussion kept them warm. When they wanted to make a point, they threw off their towels, baring themselves like superheroes.

Ms. Hempel found herself noticing a group of boys off in the distance, bending themselves to a task with a suspicious degree of concentration. “What