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A year ago, Ms. Duffy, the fifth-grade English and history teacher, had come very close to losing it, what with her homeroom being right next to the construction site for the new computer lab, and her attempts to excise the Aztecs from the curriculum being thwarted, and her ill-advised affair with Mr. Polidori coming to an end. She had come very close—or at least that was the general opinion among both the middle- and upper-school faculty, and who was Ms. Hempel to disagree? But now, upon her return, Ms. Duffy looked unrecognizably happy. It was the first week of May, and she was holding court in the teachers' lounge, her hair nearly down to her waist and her big belly protruding over her lap. Above the belly, Ms. Duffy laughed and swayed and gestured freely with her hands, as if to say, "What—this old thing?"
Ms. Hempel couldn't take her eyes off it. It looked as tough as a gourd.
"Yemen is magical," Ms. Duffy was telling the handful of teachers who happened to have fourth period free. "Just unbelievable. The pictures don't capture it at all."
A stack of dun-colored photographs was circulating around the room. After her difficult year, Ms. Duffy had sublet her apartment and struck out for the ancient world. There had been long and poetic e-mails, reasonably free of gloating—they were full of figs, marketplaces, bare feet against cool tiles, shuttered naps at noon. In between classes, Ms. Hempel had stood in front of the faculty bulletin board and read about Ms. Duffy's naps, trying to detect in these messages a note of melancholy, of homesickness. "Miss you all!!" Ms. Duffy would write in closing, but the absence of a subject, as well as the excessive punctuation, made the sentiment seem less than heartfelt. And then the e-mails had abruptly stopped.
Ms. Hempel studied the photograph that had been passed to her: a blazingly bright and empty street with the tiny figure of Ms. Duffy standing at its center. Who had taken the picture—a Yemenese friend? A Yemenan? It seemed important to know a little more about the person who'd stood in the shade of those massive, intricate buildings and pointed the camera. Perhaps this was the first of many foreign transactions that had resulted, so spectacularly, in Ms. Duffy's new belly. Ms. Hempel waved the photograph in the air. "Anna, where was this one taken?"
But Ms. Duffy was distracted as more of her former colleagues filtered in to embrace her. "You astound me!" Mrs. Willoughby said, pressing her clasped hands to her lips, a gesture she normally bestowed upon seniors who were making their final appearance in the spring choral concert. Ms. Duffy looked triumphant: her face shone; gone was the faint grimace that had once been her habitual expression. This wasn't like the first week of school, when the teachers turned up in shorts and sundresses and still had their summer tans—Ms. Hempel remembered the shock of seeing Mr. Polidori's brown, hairy calves for the first time. The change in Ms. Duffy seemed permanent, irreversible.
"Have you seen your kids?" Ms. Cruz, the assistant librarian, asked. "They'll go crazy."
"They will freak!" Ms. Mulcahy said. "Suzanne, where's the sixth grade now? Are they at lunch?"
"They're in gym," Ms. Sprague said. "That's all I've heard this year: 'Ms. Duffy, Ms. Duffy.' They can't write their own names without mentioning Ms. Duffy."
"I missed them," Ms. Duffy said, vaguely.
"You won't believe how big they are. Huge. Amy Weyland is wearing a bra now."
From his cubicle, Mr. Meacham moaned, "Must we?"
And Mrs. Willoughby, peering into her coffee, said, "That girl's going to have a great little figure."
"Amy Weyland?" Ms. Duffy echoed.
"Yes! Can you believe it?" Ms. Olin, teacher of sixth-grade French, nearly shouted. She appeared slightly feverish; in fact, everyone did, everyone seemed eager and a little overheated. There was so much to tell: Jonathan Hamish had got suspended; Travis Bent had gone on medication; Mr. Peele had agreed to turn on the air-conditioning early. And, oh—the computer lab was finally done! Ms. Duffy needed to be apprised, and ushered back into the world they all had in common. The merry, frantic din of school rose up around them, louder and louder, as Yemen, fascinating and dusty, drifted farther away.
Ms. Hempel placed the photograph back on its pile. She would have a chance to find out more, eventually; she and Ms. Duffy were friends, school friends, in the sense that they were both part of the group of younger teachers who liked to gather at a dark Irish bar as soon as the bell rang on Friday afternoons. Ms. Hempel watched as Ms. Duffy was escorted out of the faculty lounge, in search of her former fifth graders.
"Look who's here!" Ms. Olin cried, leading the way.
The whole display was affecting but naïve. Did they all think that Ms. Duffy was back? That once more there would be field trips to Chinatown for soup dumplings, and scavenger hunts in the botanic gardens, and sing-alongs to the Meat Puppets and other college radio stars of the eighties? That the Temple of Dendur would once more be erected in all its cardboard and tempera glory, and the final bittersweet pages of "Tuck Everlasting" read aloud in Ms. Duffy's husky, choked-up voice?
Ms. Hempel knew better. She'd known as soon as she'd seen her: Anna Duffy wasn't ever coming back, not even after her big hard belly had resolved itself into a baby. Most likely, necessity had prompted this visit; she probably needed to empty her locker, or roll over her retirement plan. Didn't the others see? She was no longer one of them; at some point during her year off, she had turned away. Slipped into her civilian clothes and disappeared. And if she was back now, it was only to say goodbye.
Mooney's, the Irish bar, was just a few blocks away from the school. Beautiful Ms. Cruz, who really did lead the fabled double life of the librarian, had discovered it one night while careering through town with a free-jazz drummer nearly twice her age. It had been their last stop. What must Ms. Cruz have thought when they finally left the place, an hour before dawn, and she realized, looking up and down the avenue for a taxi, that she was just around the corner from her desk, her rubber stamps, her little stack of overdue notices? Maybe she thought, How perfect. To feel one's real life rub up so closely, so carelessly, against one's school life—there was no greater enchantment. Or so Ms. Hempel supposed, never having put enough distance between the two to experience it herself. She liked to hear Ms. Cruz talk, in her calm and self-effacing way, about all the old musicians she had fallen for, the hard-drinking drummer included. Ms. Cruz had taken him home with her that night, and the next Friday she had brought the teachers to Mooney's.
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 unisex bathrooms. Battered black tables, high unsteady stools, linoleum floor. The floor was wonderful to dance on. It made Ms. Hempel feel graceful and coördinated, even before she started drinking. All the teachers loved to dance on Friday afternoons. 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. They danced as if it were the middle of the night. They did the hustle. They did the electric slide. They did silly moves they remembered from high school, and they looked good doing them. When Mr. Radovich tried to dance as if he were black, no one minded. They were too happy feeding quarters into the jukebox, shimmying back to the bar. As she bumped hips with Ms. Cruz and sashayed toward the bathrooms, Ms. Hempel realized that an awful mistake had been made: she had actually been meant to spend her whole life dancing, not teaching English to the seventh grade.
For someone who had an abundance of freckles and almost always wore clogs, Ms. Duffy could dance astonishingly well. She tossed back her hair and half closed her eyes and lifted her chin ever so slightly, as if a handsome invisible person were tilting her face up to kiss her. And then she stepped from side to side, with a barely discernible motion in her hips, her spine long and straight, her shoulders faintly twitching. It was the simplest dance in the world, and also the most beguiling, somehow. Other dancers drew close to her, unconsciously. She could often be found in the middle of a spontaneous dance sandwich. One afternoon, Mr. Polidori had sprung from his barstool, cracked his knuckles, and slid across the linoleum floor on his knees, arriving breathlessly at her neatly shuffling feet.
Ms. Hempel liked to think that this was the moment that their romance had begun. 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 affection—gestures that thrilled Ms. Hempel whenever she happened, through luck and proximity, to be the recipient of them. Her skin on fire, she felt how ridiculous it was to be thrilled: you could not, as a rule, take Mr. Polidori seriously. And, that afternoon on the dance floor, Ms. Duffy did not appear to do so. When he came gliding toward her, his 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 had been exchanged? A message that had taken them both by surprise? Ms. Hempel sometimes thought of this moment now, as she tried to piece together a story of what had happened. How interesting it would have been to witness the very inception of an affair! She could have hoarded up the image—him on his knees, her swaying above him—to share with Amit when he came home. Often, walking dreamily home from the bar, the afternoon light slanting across the pavement, Ms. Hempel found herself full of marvellous observations and stories to relate to 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 asked mildly, "How come you smell like cigarettes?"
Ms. Hempel wondered about the father of Ms. Duffy's baby. A sloe-eyed camel driver, singing under his breath? A poet studying English at the university, or maybe a young doctor who had led her through a bazaar? She spent much of the day's final 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 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 into to explore, and then stumbled out of, 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 solely for the librarian's use, while the upper level was used by anyone who wanted to stand around bothering the librarian, as Mrs. Willoughby was doing now.
"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. Isn't 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 so 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," Ms. 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. 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." Mrs. Willoughby conjured up a miniature yurt with her hands in the air. "Not like a tepee—more like a circus tent. Made out of yaks."
"But the father," Ms. Hempel asked. "Is he from Yemen?"
Mrs. Willoughby looked at her peculiarly. "Heavens, no."
For the trip abroad had been cut short. Something in the food had made Ms. Duffy sick, dangerously so. Only two months out of the country and she was doubled over, shitting water. This explained the end of the lyrical e-mails. Ms. Duffy had lost nearly twenty pounds by the time she'd crept onto the airplane and come home to convalesce at her mother's; it was there that, looking pale and otherworldly, she had met Roman. A kite artist.
"He was visiting his mother, too," Ms. Cruz said.
"They're neighbors in the condo complex, the one her mother moved to after the divorce," Mrs. Willoughby said. "Anna claims that it's soulless and horrible. But maybe she feels different now."
"Wow," Ms. Hempel said, collecting herself. So the father of Ms. Duffy's baby was an American, whom she'd met 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 chorus of "Let's Go Fly a Kite." But the opportunity 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 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 her skin prickle.
"It happened very quickly," Ms. Cruz said.
"As it so often does," Mrs. Willoughby added. "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, and she doubted that Ms. Duffy would have 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 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 in her absence, and all her secrets would come scuttling forth: the torn and smelly pair of stockings, abandoned there months ago; the descriptive paragraphs that had taken her so long to grade she'd 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 that 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, O.K.?" But she would already be staggering toward the shower.
Had Ms. Duffy ever thought about slipping on the ice? Probably not; her thoughts likely took a more enraged and practical 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 second-floor bathroom. Ms. Duffy was so thoroughly good at complaining. She'd begin dryly 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 until she was magnificent to behold—her whole body radiant with fury. Often her stories ended with poor Mr. Mumford, the head of the middle school, saying, "Now, Anna, just calm down"—a phrase that, even when recollected in the yeasty tranquillity of Mooney's, made Ms. Duffy utter a murderous, strangled scream.
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 Gertz, the person whose company he appeared to enjoy more than anyone else's. She ran the art department, and made sculptures out of giant nails. She was fifteen years his senior and went on long bike trips with her girlfriend. Yet he, 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.
Affairs. Flings. Apparently they happened all the time, and between the people you'd least expect.
"You didn't know about me and Phil?" Ms. Cruz asked, leaning forward in her ergonomic chair. Phil Macrae taught life science to the sixth grade. Beardless and cowlicked, he looked as if he himself had only recently completed the sixth grade. Ms. Cruz had also had sex with Mr. Rahimi, the computer teacher, and Jim, who ran the after-school program.
"It got a little weird," she said.
Things had also got weird, Ms. Cruz revealed, for Mrs. Bell and Mr. Blanco—so weird, in fact, that he had 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, who taught both remedial and advanced math.
"This was ages ago. Long before you came to us," Mrs. Willoughby said.
"But Daniel?" Ms. Hempel cried. "I thought he was gay."
"Oh, no. No. What ever 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 his ambiguous sexuality had actually been quite dashing. Even irresistible. So much so that Julia Bell—a teacher blessed with pluck and humor and sense—had 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—she was the Susan Sontag of 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 special. If it weren't for the older teachers like Mrs. Willoughby, who remembered, there would be no trace left of the 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 urgent, hopeless embrace.
Leaving the library, Ms. Hempel was surprised to find Ms. Duffy standing alone in the vestibule, her hands resting lightly 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, a task which required judiciousness (for not every child's hieroglyph could be hung) and a protracted struggle with crêpe paper and a staple gun. But now she was free of that. She gazed at the art work with the cool eye of an outsider.
"Beatrice," Ms. Duffy said, and Ms. Hempel gave her a hug. "Have you seen this?" She pointed to the fifth-grade bulletin board. "The projects are 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 asked. "A child spent hours—hours!—working on this, and you can't even read his name."
"The name is kind of obscured," Ms. Hempel agreed, peering at the display.
"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, she extracted it, and then flicked it to the ground like a cigarette butt.
The child's name was Lucien Nguyen.
"Much better," Ms. Hempel said, and smiled. She wanted to leave, her curiosity dulled now that she knew Ms. Duffy wasn't harboring a little half-Yemenese baby. But 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.
"Do you want to walk to Izzy's and get a bubble tea? My treat?"
For a moment, it looked as if Ms. Duffy were going to agree. But just as she was turning away from the displays she inhaled sharply and wheeled back around.
Her finger landed on a piece of pink paper, then circled a single word. "Did you see this?"
The text was printed in a computer's version of girlish handwriting: "Persephone picked up the pomegranate and ate four of its' seeds." Ms. Hempel winced.
"Oooph. Not good."
"They're kids," Ms. Duffy said. "They make mistakes. But how are they going to know that they've made mistakes if their teacher hangs them up on the fucking wall? I mean, does he make them do drafts? Does he correct anything?"
Ms. Hempel shrugged weakly. Her own alertness to error had wavered over the years. But maybe all it took was some time away, some time abroad, for one's acuity to be restored, because now, simply standing beside Ms. Duffy, she could feel her powers beginning to return—the mistakes were leaping out at her, the bulletin board lighting up with offenses.
"Upper right-hand corner," she told Ms. Duffy. "Completely random capitalization. Since when is 'swan' a proper noun? Or 'rape,' for that matter?" Though, she had to admit, both choices had their own logic.
She also spotted "Aries" for "Ares," "alter" in the place of "altar," and, there it was again, that old devil "its'." The real wonder of it all was how these mistakes managed to survive spell-check. You had to kind of love them for it, for being indestructible.
Ms. Duffy was pulling Persephone off the wall. "Where's Leda?" she demanded. There was now a naked, pockmarked hole on the board.
"Up there," Ms. Hempel said, a little reluctantly.
Ms. Duffy rose up onto the very tips of her clogs, like a ballerina in toe shoes. Her belly didn't seem to throw off her balance. Up, up, her puffy fingers reached, quivering with purpose. "Got it," she gasped. Down came Leda. Down, too, came Hera and the peacock, Echo and a weedy-looking Narcissus, Danaë dripping wet in her shower of gold. Down came the Minotaur and Medusa, Hermes, Neptune, Athena leaping bloodily from her father's splitting head. "Neptune? Wasn't that the name the Romans used?"
"Exactly," Ms. Duffy said.
Ms. Hempel gazed at the pillaged display, felt afraid, and looked down the hallway, in the direction of help. She wondered briefly why she, of all the young teachers who drank too much at Mooney's, had been chosen by Ms. Duffy to share this particular mission. Perhaps it was simply chance. The end of the day, an empty vestibule, a surge of nameless emotion—and then someone emerges, making you not alone anymore. So it had happened, a year ago, with Mr. Polidori. "Out of the blue?" Ms. Hempel had asked Ms. Duffy at the time. "The two of you just—?" She could not believe it then, but now, holding the plundered goods against her chest, it made a sort of sense to her. It was easy to find oneself, without warning or prelude, embroiled. She crouched down and tapped the papers against the floor, neatening the pile, making a crisp little sound, wanting above all to avoid the appearance of untowardness, wanting the whole operation to feel as tidy, as considered as possible.
They agreed, finally, that the best thing would be to return the projects, with a carefully worded note attached, to Mr. Chapman's classroom. "My room" was how Ms. Duffy referred to it, and then she alarmed Ms. Hempel by asking, "You're going to sign it, too?" No, she was not, but she didn't have the heart to say so yet, especially now that Ms. Duffy had been seized by some fresh distress. As the fluorescent lights flickered on in the classroom, she looked about her wildly. Things were not as she had left them.
The purple beanbags were still in the reading corner, and the jade plants were thriving, having been faithfully watered by Ms. Cruz. The record-player was there, too, although it was buried under stacks of handouts, and the Calder mobile still dangled from the ceiling. But the Indonesian shadow puppets were gone, and so were the poems.
"He took down my poems?" Ms. Duffy's voice was small. She had gone to great lengths to procure them, even risking arrest. A few years earlier, the poems had begun appearing on subways and buses, alongside the advertisements for credit repair and dermatologists. As soon as a new poem was posted, Ms. Duffy would devise a plan for obtaining it: scouting out empty subway cars, climbing up onto the scarred seats, easing the poem from its curved plastic sheath, secreting it away beneath her long winter coat. All for the sake of her fifth graders! Every day they could gaze up and contemplate the words. Or not, and therein lay the beauty of osmosis. They passed the year in the company of Whitman and Dickinson, Mark Strand and May Swenson; some of the poetry would penetrate even the most obdurate souls.
Which was probably the thinking of the transit authority as well—but the fact that her fifth grade's edification came at the expense of the citizenry did not seem to give Ms. Duffy pause. And then it became possible to acquire the poems lawfully, by sending off a simple request on school letterhead—but Ms. Duffy, like all the best teachers, had a renegade spirit, and continued to haunt the buses late at night.
Now, in the place of her stolen poems, hung boldly colored posters urging the class to READ! And pointing out that Reading Is Fun! That people everywhere should Celebrate Reading! Additionally, there was a poster commemorating a Super Bowl win of the Green Bay Packers. All of which, it was obvious, had been obtained through official channels.
Ms. Duffy sank down onto one of the many little tables arranged throughout the room. The fifth graders didn't yet know the isolation of desk-chairs; they still worked companionably at these low shiny tables. She covered her face with her hands and sighed, her elbows digging into the high mound of her stomach.
"I hope he put them somewhere safe," she said.
"You want me to send them to you?" Ms. Hempel asked.
"No, there's no room. I just meant in case he changes his mind."
She glanced over at what had once been her desk, at the piles she was no longer accountable for.
"He has them doing those dumb workbooks?" she asked, but all her earlier outrage was now exhausted.
"It's his first year," Ms. Hempel said, and laid the ransacked myths on Mr. Chapman's desk. "He should take whatever shortcuts he can find."
Ms. Duffy didn't answer. She was still looking around the classroom, at the small ways in which it was now strange, at the names taped onto the backs of the chairs, names she would not recognize.
She said, "I lost Theo McKibben at the Metropolitan Museum. My first year."
"Theo?" Ms. Hempel laughed. "That's easy to do."
"It was a nightmare. My first waking nightmare."
"The first of many," Ms. Hempel said. "But just think: you'll never have to go on a field trip again."
Ms. Duffy smiled slightly. "Never again."
And then Ms. Hempel realized, with a sick feeling, that she had forgotten to distribute the permission slips for next week's outing to the planetarium. Only three days left—not a problem for the organized students, but it didn't allow much leeway for the children you always had to hound. She would have to resort to an incentive plan. Early dismissal? Ice cream?
She paced around the desk, mindlessly, and saw it as both hopeful and doomed: the careful stacks beginning to slip; colored pens littered everywhere; memos from Mr. Mumford protruding at odd angles; the plastic in-box taken over by trading cards, half-eaten candy bars, extra-credit assignments on the verge of being lost.
"You're brilliant." She turned to Ms. Duffy. "You are. Because we can't leave to make more money—that's despicable. And we can't leave to do something easier, some nice quiet job in an office—that would be embarrassing! Am I supposed to tell my kids, 'O.K., I'm off to answer phones at an insurance company'? It's impossible. So what can we do? We can—" Ms. Hempel gestured helplessly at Ms. Duffy's belly. "Why didn't I think of that?"
She had imagined a body cast instead.
Again, Ms. Duffy gave her a thin smile. It wasn't clear whether she took Ms. Hempel's compliment as such.
"So what's stopping you?" she asked idly. She plucked a long, loose hair from the sleeve of her blouse and dropped it onto Mr. Chapman's floor. Then she seemed suddenly to remember that she was pregnant, and undergoing a remarkable experience. She lit up. "You should do it!" she said with abrupt conviction. "You'll love it. You will." She pushed herself off the little table and began moving toward Ms. Hempel. "We think we have all the time in the world, but in reality we don't. And when you've found the right person you just have to go for it. There's never a good time—it's never convenient. Don't fool yourself into waiting for the perfect moment—"
She stopped. Her hands flew up to her mouth. "I'm so sorry!"
Ms. Hempel touched the fair, freckled arm. "Oh, don't worry. Please, really, don't worry."
"I'm an idiot!" Ms. Duffy cried.
"You're not," Ms. Hempel said. "Because I forget, too. After I do the dishes, I get this panicked feeling that I've put my ring down somewhere and now I can't find it." She lifted her bare hand and looked at it. "Everything was friendly, it really was."
Ms. Duffy nodded, her face stricken.
"Amit and I still talk on the phone. And last week he sent me a book." She didn't mention that it was actually one of her books, a book that he had taken with him by mistake. "We're in very good touch," she said.
Ms. Duffy was unconsoled. "What happened?" she murmured. "What made you decide—"
It was hard to keep straight—they had told people different things at different times. There was Amit's fellowship in Texas, which he couldn't turn down; and there was the difficulty of finding time to plan a wedding, not to mention the expense; there was their youth, of course, and the uncertainty that comes with it, the fearful cloudiness of the future (and what a mercy that was, to be considered, at nearly thirty, still hopelessly young). All of which was true, just as all of it was prevarication, and even in the midst of saying these things she was never sure exactly whose feelings were being spared, who was being protected. For whose sake was all this delicacy required? She hated to think that it might be hers.
"It wasn't the teaching, was it?" Ms. Duffy asked.
Oh, no, it wasn't that. At least she didn't think so. But funny how everyone had a theory of her own. "It's not your father, is it?" her mother had asked. Her father had been dead for two years now, but at times she still found herself ambushed by his absence.
She had told her mother no, it wasn't because she missed her father. And she had told Mr. Polidori no, it wasn't because of him, either. She was surprised that he'd even asked. It had been a startling glimpse of vanity, of self-importance. He had cornered her by the jukebox and gazed down at her earnestly—the earnestness itself a surprise.
They had only kissed!
And nuzzled, with some breathless pressing and hugging, in the bathroom at Mooney's. Ages ago, on one of those happy Friday afternoons. After he had ended things with Ms. Duffy but before he had fallen for the gamine younger half sister of Mimi Gertz. A pause between acts, there in the dark stall at Mooney's, everyone giddy with the rapid approach of summer. She had tumbled into the bathroom and found him, back to the door, penis presumably in hand, and before she could even gasp he had glanced over his shoulder, told her to wait, and then unhurriedly finished, washed his hands, and dried them with a sheet from a roll of gray paper towels, asking her, "Do you hate this song as much as I do?" They had danced, barely able to move. He had lowered the swinging latch into the little round hook by the door.
"Forgot to do that," he'd said, and she'd laughed.
Or had she? She would like to think that she had, that she had kept her wits about her and laughed, kept things floating along lightly, the encounter accidental and jolly. She would like to think that she hadn't swooned. Hadn't shut her eyes and given way, tipped her head and held on. There had been no hesitation—only treachery, only readiness—a perfect swan dive into the dark pool of flings and affairs. Maybe she had let out a little moan. But then the song had come to an end, and he had clasped her bearishly, pecked her on the forehead, and said, "I bet you make all the boys crazy, Ms. Hempel." And, after releasing the latch, he had gallantly held the door open for her.
She'd walked obediently back to her seat at the bar, wondering, What just happened?
Later, she would return to this moment, flipping it back and forth like a tricky flash card, one that somehow refused to be memorized. She had asked herself all the boring questions (not pretty enough? odd smell? fiancé?), but couldn't quite manage an answer. Causality kept escaping her. He had kissed her, then he had changed his mind—that was as far as she ever got. But always fascinating to her was the fact that she had felt him changing his mind. Felt it in her muscles and on her skin. Not that he had done anything as obvious as stiffen, and his body hadn't once let go of hers, yet something had shifted—the pressure that was once excited now merely emphatic, the mouth still warm but only reassuringly so, the embrace turning into a squeeze. His body's gracious withdrawal of interest in the very moment that he decided, No, this really isn't for me.
And though many things would reveal themselves in time—the sex of Ms. Duffy's baby, a girl; and her name, Pina, after the bleak choreographer; the name of the woman who worked at Amit's lab, which was Lilly; the right word, the word she'd been looking for, Yemeni—still she returned to the bathroom at Mooney's, to its perfect mystery, to the moment when Mr. Polidori had wrapped his arms around her like a bear. That moment in which someone had made a decision. She wanted to remember how it felt. ♦


text:
Max Wittek blown away by visit to Texas Longhorns
Max Wittek is being recruited all over again, and Texas, it seems has made a big impression on the eventual USC transfer quarterback.
Wittek has the Longhorns on his list, along with Louisville, TCU and Hawaii. He visited Austin over the weekend and told OrangeBloods.com that the program and coaches exceeded his expectations.
MORE: Replacing 10 starting quarterbacks | Alabama's all-time best
"Everything about my trip (to Texas) was awesome," Wittek said. "From the coaches to the players, the school, the campus —it all probably exceeded what I thought it would be."
He hasn't settled on a new school, though. The California native said he wants to discuss his options with his family before making a decision.
He is familiar with Texas running backs coach Tommie Robinson, who coached the same position at USC. He also felt comfortable with quarterbacks coach Shawn Watson and offensive coordinator Joe Wickline.
"From the time I got to Austin on Saturday, Coach (Shawn) Watson and I were talking ball," Wittek said. "A lot of the concepts they are talking about, I ran at Mater Dei (high school). So I already feel comfortable."
Wittek was also impressed by new head coach Charlie Strong, who coached potential No. 1 NFL Draft pick, Teddy Bridgewater.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Thursday, May 31, 2012
30 comments:
I have a recipe for creme fraiche ice cream somewhere - I like it better than vanilla.ReplyDelete
Oooo...I actually have heavy creme and buttermilk in stock and need to use them up but I'm ashamed to say I have no idea what creme freche should taste like.ReplyDelete
Also...very excited to have someone else to follow on instagram. (I'm @coastinganon)
- AnonymousJune 1, 2012 at 3:50 AM
Looking forward to the recipes...I can't wait for the tart xReplyDelete
I love this. Excited for your recipe. xoReplyDeleteReplies
thanks, molly. and i do hope to meet you someday.Delete
mygoodness. do your kids realize they're living in a fantasia of yumminess?ReplyDeleteReplies
"fantasia of yumminess."Delete
i love that.
i'm writing it down and putting it on my bulletin board.
i'm not sure what my kids think.
i try not to ask!
Oh I am absolutely in the mood. For crème fraiche I will always make room ... I will await further fraiche instruction. ;)ReplyDeleteReplies
yippee!! and i just made some more. i'm thinking i should always have some going on the windowsill.Delete
When you're feeling experimental again, you could try filmjölk. It's a Swedish yogurt that you make at room temperature.ReplyDeleteReplies
tell me more. please!!! i'm feeling experimental right now.Delete
putting ours up today.ReplyDeleteReplies
andi. girl. we need to hang.Delete
- AnonymousJune 1, 2012 at 12:31 PM
You are teasing and tempting us with those photos. can't wait forReplyDelete
"Creme Fraiche, The Sequel"!!
Yummmm. I don't know that I can leave anything on the counter in a NYC apartment though!! May attract unwanted guest EEEK!!ReplyDeleteReplies
oh god. the roaches. the rats. the mice. i lived with them for 12 years in nyc. i forgot. this week i've had birds and squirrels in my kitchen. maybe they're been drawn to the creme fraiche!Delete
cover that creme fraiche. still works fine. most people do it that way anyway. i just like the idea that bacteria from the air (like a sourdough starter) is getting into the mixture. but i'm insane. and i'm sure the nyc health department would give me a failing grade. it was hot in berkeley today. i've had some going for 12 hours. it's getting thick and intense very fast.
Hell ya, I'm in the mood... to come over to your house and eat all of that goodness you have brewin'!ReplyDelete
Google won't let me reply to my first comment! grr! No squirrels yet (in the apartment at least) but definitely a few unwelcome guest bugs! With the heat and humidity, I'm guessing my creme freshe wont take long! Can't wait for the other recipes! School starts Monday so I need to start a list of weekly meal ideas :)ReplyDeleteReplies
so excited for midwifery school. i wish i could join you. i plan to post a lot of recipes. i hope they bring some ease to your life.Delete
Arg! Still can't reply! Recipes will be so helpful!! Cooking is my island of sanity :) and your blog is top 3 for where I got for inspiration :) Friend me on FB if you want to read about the school insanity :)ReplyDelete
I love creme fraiche! I've always made it with just 2 tablespoons of buttermilk and covered, but I'm going to try it your way today. It is nice and warm here in Minneapolis, perfect for bacteria growth. ;)ReplyDelete
yes. i used to make it with less buttermilk. now i'm addicted to this way. you can also mix sour cream and heavy cream. speedy but it's not as tasty.ReplyDelete
I read the ratio wrong and did equal parts buttermilk and heavy cream. Is all lost?ReplyDeleteReplies
a few other people read it that way too! the "half again as much" isn't sinking in. sorry! but don't worry. just add a bit more cream when you get a chance. no big deal.Delete
Yay! That seems to have done the trick. Thank you. I have been dreaming of the pasta dish and apricot tart since you first posted pictures.Delete
I just caught up on the last several blogs and now I MUST make my own creme fraiche. When I get back from vacation and swing into full-time mommy mode, this is high on the to-do list. Thanks for always inspiring new ideas! (Making your Roman-Style Gnocchi for dinner tomorrow night.)ReplyDelete
I take it this is kind of like sour cream? How long can this live in the fridge once it's done?ReplyDelete
Thank you!
I like this and I'm so Excited for your recipe.ReplyDelete
Get free cricket betting tips here.ReplyDelete


text:
- Home
- Eastwood Textured Rust Encapsulator Black Aerosol 15oz
Can this product be used on the under side of the hood of a car? I would like to spray the under side of the hood than install the fiberglass insulation mat, will this product stand up to heat and can it also be used on the fire wall?
Can this be used on the underside of body panels that are new and haven't had a chance to rust yet? I am replacing rocker panels, cab corners, and bed sides on my 96 ram. I am looking to coat the back side of these panels before putting them on the truck.
Can I topcoat this product with roll on bed liner paint?
I have a jeep wrangler.would 2 cans be enough to do my chassis?
Can I get this in White color and Also in Red? I want to paint the roof in White and the rest of the car is in Red as original color is Red.
Can this be sprayed on the frame and under carriage of a truck?
can this be painted over?
Can i apply rubberized encapsulator over regular encapsulator six months later Have rust coming back again
Eastwood Textured Rust Encapsulator Black Aerosol 15oz
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text:
LOL... well, i didn't mean it that way but that's fine, too.
glad the replacement is better for you. my latest two have both been excellent.
ThinkStation P700 ThinkPad X1C7
Just wanted to update my original posting. I was in the process of moving while my laptop was in the depot, so it took me a few weeks to get settled so I could get my hands on it. Anyway, I finally got to it today, slipped my HD and battery back in, and can say with confidence that there's no perceptible ghosting/image permanence, and the screen is beautiful.
Thank you Lenovo!
I can also attest to the fact that the replacement screens are an improvement. Just got my ghosting screen replaced yesterday at a Lenovo Authorized Repairer and very pleased with the results.
As an aside, I should point out that I've had two Thinkpads and both have required repairs. So I can't say these computers are flawless. But the authorized repairer network is really excellent. I have always found Lenovo authorized repairers to go above and beyond when it comes to fixing problems.
11-08-2011 09:17 PM - edited 11-09-2011 08:50 AM
After sending my X220 and supposedly having the screen replaced, the issue is definitely not completely resolved, but may have improved, that's only speculation, however, since I don't have the previous screen to compare it to. To some extent, though the image retention seems much less noticeable.
The only certain change in my laptop is the small chip out of the black layer on the corner of it, which is likely related to the fact that the layer of side cushioning was broken apart when I recieved the laptop and my battery was loose in the box.
To those who have had their screens replaced:
Is the new screen an improvement in any other way besides the ghosting? I have ghosting on my screen but it doesn't interfere with my work. I'm debating whether it would be worth losing use of my laptop for a while if I ship it out. If the screen is better in other ways, then no question I'll do it, but for the ghosting alone it is not a clear decision for me.
My replacement screen is a vast improvement on the ghosting, but it does still have the issue. The only time I've seen it though is when I look for it ... for example, if I hide the Windows 7 taskbar which I always keep visible, it will show itself then. Very minor, and good.
Otherwise, I wouldn't say the screen is any different from before. Still have a bit of light leak but not a major concern. My screen that was ghosting did have two dead pixels and this new one has no dead pixels, so that's a bit of a bonus in my particular instance! :-)
My screen was replaced last week. Since then I haven't been able to make any ghosting visible (yet). I also noticed more improvements:
1 When setting the brightness to 0, the screen now darkens and dims the backlight (or is this a driver enhancement?)
2 In the 50 Hz setting the flicker is less noticable.
12-14-2011 06:42 PM - edited 12-15-2011 03:59 PM
I needed to have my X220 serviced, and thinking the dust must have settled on IPS screen replacements,
decided to have my IPS screen replaced at the same time by my local authorized Lenovo service location,
given that it does exhibit some ghosting.
Unfortunately, the replacement screen is actually worse than my original screen:
Tomorrow the service location will be contacting Lenovo about the replacement screen problem.
LENOVO: What can I do to ensure that I get a proper, non-defective "premium" IPS screen?
Thank you.
UPDATE: This seems to be the same problem as described here:
WishIHadMyX220 wrote:
Just got my X220 back from the factory after a month and guess what?
They left the shiny screen protector on (behind the plastic) with the dot matrix lettering on the lower-left...
Is this a screwup by Lenovo on the part, or by the local tech?
Can the local tech remove the screen protector to resolve the issue?
Thanks for the pic and for bringing this to our attention and the mention of another possible occurance of this back on 9/28. We'll look into it.
If you can pass along your service case number via PM, that might be helpful
Many thanks!
12-15-2011 03:52 PM - edited 12-16-2011 01:03 PM


text:
Frequently Asked Questions
Political Science/International Relations
What are some of the professional organizations may I join ?
The American Political Science Association (www.apsanet.org), International Studies Association (www.isanet.org) or any of the professional associations for a given area of the world that may interest you, such as the African Studies Association or the Asian Studies Association.
What are some skills/aptitudes required for the IR major?
You need to be a good student since the field is very competitive. You need to be able to write clearly and to do documentary research. It helps to know at least one language in addition to English.
What are some of the job opportunities can I look for now and later for my career in International Relations?
Here are a few possibilities:
- Teaching at various levels
- Working for think tanks (defense, foreign policy, development)
- Working on non-governmental organizations
- Working in marketing or management for the private sector
- Companies that operate abroad and for foreign-owned companies that operates in the U.S.
- Working for government in the Foreign Service (Department of State, cultural affairs (USIA), the intelligence community, the international development agencies (USAID)
- Working for international organizations such as the UN, World Bank, etc.
Departmental Features
Study Abroad
China (Suzhou); Germany; France (Clermont) and other countries can be arranged through the Center for International Services and Programs.
Evening Program
The Department offers evening programs for Political Science majors and minors. Required core courses are offered at night at least once during the regular academic year, and intermediate and advanced level courses are offered frequently enough to allow a student to complete the degree over a four-year period.
The Department of Political Science offers internships for political science majors, political science majors with public service specialization, and international relations majors.
Services Courses
The Department of Political Science offers a large number of courses that fulfill University Curricular Requirements.
Distinguished Student Award, Distinguished Senior Seminar Paper Award, Outstanding Student Intern Award, Membership in Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society.
What's NEW
Model UN: Politics and Diplomacy
Cleveland State Model U.N. and N.A.T.O. Are you a political science, international relations or history major? Or are you interested in public policy, diplomacy, or current events? Do you like to discuss, research and debate? Then, CSU Model UN is for you! Click here for more information.
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Cleveland State has partnered with the City Club of Cleveland, CLASS, and donors Alvin and Laura Siegal to provide STUDENTS with FREE admission to the Friday noon City Club Lecture/Lunches. Through the City is Our Campus Ticket Program, this partnership engages students with national experts and Cleveland professionals beyond the formal classroom.
Up to four students can attend each luncheon lecture while spaces last. Simply identify the lecture that most interests you, register to attend ONLINE, receive confirmation of your reservation and instructions, and ATTEND at the City Club downtown. Lectures are added regularly, so check the site often for scheduled events. Leadership Points also available for students pursuing Leadership Certification. REGISTER ONLINE at: http://mycsu.csuohio.edu/studentlife/tickets/lectures.html
For more information, contact the Department of Student Life at 216-687-2048.


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Women's History Collections
The Feminist Chronicles, compiled and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation and written by Toni Carabillo, Judith Meuli, and June Bundy Csida, provides the most thorough history to date of the women's movement and the advancements women have made in the U.S. from 1953 to 1993.
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College
The Schlesinger Library is devoted exclusively to the study of American women's history, and holds hundreds of primary sources, including letters and diaries, photographs, books and periodicals, ephemera, oral histories, and audiovisual materials that document the history of women, families, and organizations, primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture, Duke Univ.
Duke's women's collection contains plantation diaries, women's suffrage documents, the records of local Women's Christian Temperance Union, the papers of contemporary feminist activists, and more.
Chicago Women's Liberation Union Herstory Project
This site offers access to original documents on the founding of the CWLU, as well as resources for feminist activists today - a huge online collection of documents, photos, and more!
Feminist Majority's Teach Women's History Guide
This Teacher's Guide, provided on FM's website in 1995, gives a sample approach to teaching women's history, including topic breakdowns and bibliography.
National Women's History Project
The authoritative women's history site, the National Women's History Project page includes classroom ideas, suggested ways to honor women's history in your community, a listing of events nationwide, membership information, links, and more.
Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College
The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history, with over 6,000 linear feet of material in manuscript, print, and audio- visual formats.
History of Sexuality: Special Collections, Duke Univ.
This collection provides primary sources, including letters and journals, for the history of sex, sexuality, and the construction of gender.