“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 morning 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.”
“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 down through the ages. Anna is living on an estate! In a yurt, admittedly, but still. Pretty grand. Isn’t this what they would call marrying 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. Hempel’s arm, she asked, “Remember? Anna was miserable.”
BUT MS. HEMPEL WOULDN’T 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 a 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. Perhaps she’d need 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 bag of Doritos. 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 in- fected. 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 and 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 Duffy, 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
