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So, how did Karel and Bobbie end up making each others' acquaintance?
A few days before classes began, Bobbie was seated in Doctor MacVittie's office discussing her preliminary plans for her doctoral thesis.
"Your plans call for spending some time observing and interviewing islanders on-location."
"That's right."
"We'll have to look carefully at arranging the fieldwork. I'm not sure we can promise anything. We may have to ask you to adjust those plans."
Bobbie sighed before responding. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, I guess."
"Would you be interested in working with another student who is planning his thesis in a similar area?"
Her face became a mask. "His?"
"Uh, yes. His planned thesis is in island economics. We're thinking you would find quite a bit that you could cooperate on."
"You're not trying to set me up with this guy, are you?"
"We don't play games like that with students' lives."
Bobbie was not looking convinced.
"We haven't talked with him about it yet. We thought I could suggest it to you, and only mention it to him if you agreed."
"May I ask his name?"
"Karel Pratt. He--"
"He was a football player here about five years ago."
"You know him?"
"No."
"Football is another of your interests?"
"Football is applied choreography, so, yes. But my mother showed me a newspaper article about him a month or so ago. It seems that football players with advanced degrees are a rarity."
"He has a bachelor's in physics and a master's in engineering, played football as a walk-on player."
"So he has a wide range of interests, too." Bobbie hesitated, and did not verbally complete her thought.
"I didn't say a wide range of interests was a bad thing, I just wanted you to understand you'd need to focus. And you satisfied me that you understood that.""
"Did you ask him about his focus?"
"I understand Doctor White, his supervising professor, did."
Bobbie looked down and rubbed her temple.
Doctor MacVittie pressed ahead, carefully. "Uhm, you could meet in my office and talk about it, if you'd feel more comfortable."
She looked back up, dropping her hands in her lap. "I'd rather not meet him where he knows he has to behave himself. If he's interested, he can contact me, and we can work out whether we'll work together from there."
"So it's okay if we mention this to him?"
"Oh, sure, I guess." Her expression did not suggest she was comfortable with the idea.
"Doctor White will be busy on the first day of classes, so he'll be talking with me then, and I'll suggest it."
*****
After visiting with Doctor MacVittie on the first day of classes, Karel went to his first class, a graduate-level cross-discipline survey of education theories and topics.
As he entered the lecture room, he looked for a seat at the front. PhD candidates were expected to show leadership, and he rightly assumed that the professors who would approve his thesis and candidacy would not perceive sitting in the back as showing leadership.
Whether the supervising professors would be right in such perception is a separate topic of consideration, which we shall set aside.
As he moved to the front, he greeted some of the students. Choosing a seat slightly to the left of center, he laughed silently to himself at the spurious, but accurate, potential political interpretation of his spur-of-the-moment choice of seat.
Shortly, a petite, very pretty blonde came up and excused herself.
"Is this seat taken?"
If you called her a blonde bombshell, not many people would have disagreed. (For the record, she, herself, would have been one of those who disagreed. Politely, but firmly.)
"No, no," Karel shook his head and then nodded with a smile. "Go ahead."
"I'm Kristie Person, by the way," she said as she sat down. "I'm in the Master's program in education."
"Hi. Karel Pratt. Pre-Phd, Anthropology. So this course is in your primary field?"
"Yes. I'm coming in from a bachelor's in PE, so my professors advised me to take the survey class."
"I see."
"Karel, so nice to see you here."
Karel turned at the sound of Dan's voice behind him. He noticed Kristie's brow crease ever so slightly.
"Dan, you made it." The two men slapped hands.
"Well, introduce me to your friend!" Dan said as he sat down on the other side of Kristie.
"I just met her myself. Kristine Pierson. Right?"
Kristie looked a bit non-plussed. "Sort of. My name is Kristine, but everyone calls me Kristie. And Person and Pierson are sort of the same name in Sweden."
(Uhm, "Sweden", yes. No? You will indulge me in this, won't you? The country she named would be somewhat similar, up in the northern parts of their old world, lots of snow and reindeer and northern lights. And the names .... Okay, not Sweden, but a country strikingly similar to Sweden.)
Karel grinned sheepishly. "Sorry about that."
"You'll have to forgive my friend. He can be a little clumsy sometimes. Dan Claymount. Karel and I used to play football together. He was much less clumsy on the football field."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Karel chuckled.
"Oh, that's right. I remember. Dan, you were our quarterback five years ago, and Karel, you were the running back who made all the big plays."
"He sure was." Dan concurred.
"No, I wasn't. Coach saved me to mix things up when we got stuck. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't."
"You're just being modest. I watched a lot of your games. Dan was a good quarterback, too, but you were good on the field."
Karel ducked his head. "So you're a fan of the school's football program, I take it?"
"Yes! Football is one of my favorite sports!"
One of the professors stood up to greet the students.
"Welcome, to this year's graduate survey in education topics. I'm Doctor Donival. Please check your schedules to be sure you are in the right place." And she proceeded to explain the syllabus and the planned assignments.
And all of the students in the room busied themselves taking notes.
After about ten minutes, Doctor Donival shifted from the course outline to the material for first lecture.
After another ten minutes, Karel became aware that the seat to his left was now occupied, and he looked over and nodded to the woman sitting there, then turned back to the blackboard, forgetting for a moment to breath. Mentally shaking himself, he deliberately returned his focus to the lecture.
At the end of the lecture, Karel turned again to his left. "I have notes from the first twenty minutes, if you'd like to copy them," he offered, opening to the first page in his notebook.
"Thanks. That would be nice," she said, and started copying.
We missed her reaction when she sat down by Karel, but when she read Karel's name on the notebook, we suppose she would have been thinking to herself something like, "Of course."
"You could copy my notes back at the apartment, Bobbie," Kristie was helpful.
"You two are roommates?" Dan asked.
"Yes, actually. If you don't have time, Karel, ...," Bobbie lifted her pencil. If you had watched closely, you might have noticed a flash of surprise at how easy it was to use his name, which surprise she quickly covered.
"No problem. Get it while it's fresh." Karel was being careful not to watch her too closely.
"Well, are you going to introduce me, Karel?" Dan prompted.
"Oh. Bobbie Whitmer, meet Dan Claymount. He and I were on the football team about five years ago. Should I tell her what you are doing your masters work in, Dan?" Karel was anything but surprised at how pleasant it felt to say her name.
"Underwater basketweaving," Dan replied.
Bobbie looked up from her copying, amused. "Sports education, with a coaching emphasis."
"How did you know?"
"Read your mind." She smirked. "Karel's mind is not as transparent."
"I see." Dan clearly did not see.
For him, being so unsure of his position was a rare thing, both on the football field and off, and he was rising to the challenge. "Say, is anyone going to the opening social tonight?"
"Maybe we can make it a foursome?" Kristie was also rising to the challenge.
What Bobbie and Karel were thinking at this point would be hard to say. For separate reasons, they had learned to go with the flow in social situations, waiting for opening gambits to play out before deciding which way to move.
"Sounds good. What do you think, Bobbie?"
"Why not?"
Visiting this campus, you might be reminded of Brigham Young University. But it isn't, of course. It's an Ehyephoot institution. You
will notice some differences.
Maybe we could call it Eunice Clark Young University. But that would be the
school at which Bobbie took her degree in nursing.
Orson Pratt University? No. That wouldn't be it. Let's call it Orson Hyde University.
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You can find the original first draft of this chapter and various approaches I have tried with it here: https://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/05/economics-101-novel-ch03-introducing.html.
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Keep it on topic, please.