A stranger sits before me. On her right hand is a black support brace: a rock-climbing incident got the best of her. She’s wearing a red t-shirt adorned with cartoon sheep.  The curly script below the graphic informs me that the garment is from “Bä Häbä, Maine.”  I laugh and tell her I like it. My subject is, unlike the t-shirt, not from Maine – she hails from the West Coast, having traveled a long way from California to end up in Northampton, Massachusetts. We’re studying together at an outdoor table, both of our laptops open, squinting to see the screens and each other better in the direct sunlight.

Her given name is Sally, the same as her mother, and her mother’s mother before her. The family name, she tells me, but she goes by her middle name, Claire, instead. It’s simply a better fit.

For Claire, California is home. Northampton is home, too, if only temporarily. She briefs me about a few other places she’s been. Pisa, Italy, to see the leaning tower. She took a picture with the tower, of course, pretending to hold it up like everyone does, but she won’t show it to me for whatever reason. This doesn’t bother me. Keep your secrets, I think, I don’t need them for this assignment. She’s been to Venice, during the same trip. There she fell into a canal, which she tells me was quite a dramatic scene. Luckily she’s a strong swimmer, and a benevolent gondolier was there to help her in her time of need. It seems from an outside perspective that this memory is a special one to her – or perhaps not. She’s hard to read.

Claire’s preschool boyfriend was the son of a criminal. Her top song of 2021 was “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones. She showed me a picture of a beheaded squirrel drying up on the pavement outside of President Kathleen McCartney’s house. All of these things I learned at a Campus Cafe table on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.