THE perfect stranger’s brother sent me an email.
“He doesn’t speak much English. Do you speak French?”
“I can follow along somewhat. I know how to talk food. But no,” I wrote back.
He replied, “He’s the same way with English. It’ll be fine.”
The other perfect stranger I was to drive was a soon-to-be medical student at McGill but, meanwhile, during summertime, would be coming with me to Boston to learn genetics while working for free at some professor’s lab.