The most remarkable encounters surface when they are least likely to happen. Emily Beauchamp experienced this fact to her delight. This fateful episode surfaced during what began as a dull as dishwater study night at Montclair State University’s Sprague Library.
Emily shuffled into the library’s first floor quiet room for some serious studying. The Simone Beauvoir look-alike knew it was high time to do some highbrow reading. Emily faced a menacing midterm in her graduate French Perspectives class. The stakes were higher than a bet at a high-limit Monte Carlo roulette table. The Francophile needed a good grade to ace French Perspectives. Such a feat would increase the chances of landing that state department internship.
The mind-boggling midterm loomed less than a week away. Emily had some Maginot Line wide gaps to fill in her course knowledge. She felt she had a snowball’s chance in the French Riveria of coasting through the exam. When motivated, Emily can study like a Fulbright scholar. Yet, that is cold comfort for the full night of cramming that laid ahead of her. The granular ground in her French Perspectives class contained more ups and downs than a Tour de France bicycle race.
The graduate student plopped her Montclair State University logo tote on the table. Emily’s bag had softcovers on sophisticated subjects which soared over her head like Mont Blanc. The titles boasted highfalutin’ names such as intentionality, intersubjectivity and phenomenology. Emily had to digest voluminous matter that was more thought-revoking than thought-provoking.
It was small wonder that Emily’s first tour de force was to stare at Cole Hall through the study room’s bay window. Her impending challenge had her more at sea than Jacques Cousteau’s submersible. Emily glanced around the deserted sanctum. Friday evening at the Sprague Library bore the golden opportunity for a diamond-in-the-rough French Perspectives student to read. And that silver lining was worth its weight in platinum.
Emily yanked the first foe from her tote to duel with. The beast of a book was entitled “The ontological impact of intentionality in phenomenology.” This charming title’s text drifted on longer than the Loire. That was a surefire guarantee to have any French major treading water. Emily slowly lifted the cover open. She began reading this monograph with as much relish as being stuck in a Paris traffic jam. But the next development was about to come from nowhere like a breakneck Train à Grand Vitesse.
About 10 minutes later, Emily glanced up for a much-needed pause. The graduate student gazed around the study room to make a fortuitous find. An intriguing character had sat down at table about 25 feet away. This individual was as far from the average university student as a Sorbonne savant. She stood out as gracefully as the Eiffel Tower. And to top things off, Emily immediately felt attuned to this stranger’s wavelength.
The mystique piquing woman resembled a middle-aged version of the late intellectual Susan Sontag. She wore a maroon beret with a matching color business dress. Even more captivating were her appearance and mannerisms. Her egghead face, contemplative nods and pensive postures conveyed intellectuality as convincingly as an Academie Franҫaise lecturer. The manner in which this woman stared at her softcover left no doubt about her brain power.
Emily speculated that this newcomer was, perhaps, an exchange professor from Europe. And this person was stoking a desire in Emily to exchange phone numbers. The graduate student dropped all concern about her midterm like a used Paris metro ticket. She was too distracted by the appealing situation at hand.
To vent her growing excitement, Emily pulled a notepad out from her tote. She jotted down the quixotic scenarios that sprouted from her mind like the Latona Fountain at the Versailles Palace. She saw herself swapping ideas with this woman over café au lait and macarons at Pierre And Michel’s bakery in Ridgewood. She pictured herself traveling with her to Quebec City’s old section and onward to Paris’ quaint Montmartre.
Initially, Emily dismissed her reveries as being as absurd as a Dada art piece. But as it turned out, nothing was coloring the graduate student’s perspective about this wonder-inducing woman. Emily began to notice that there was literally something in way she moved. The stranger began flashing flirtatious eyes at Emily, with increasing frequency. Each repeated overture sent goose bumps shooting through Emily. She thought to herself, “Is something really happening to me?”
Little did the Francophile know that she was on the threshold of an incredible chapter of her life.
