The Cloisters

If only I hadn't stepped inside a bookstore today, I wouldn't have discovered this page turner.  I had read the intriguing Prologue and Chapter One of this book inside the bookstore and I found it hard to put the book down.  When I read about Ann's dead father, her mom who works in the cafeteria in Whitman College and her small town existence in Walla Walla being a part-time waitress in a dinner, I felt sad when she packed up everything in her room at home, leaving her widowed  mother in Walla Walla, for the Big Apple.  There were only two in her family and now they were going to be thousands of miles apart.  I just felt sad when I put myself in Ann's mom's situation. 

In Chapter 2, Ann was told that the Metorpolitan Museum in New York City suddenly realized that there was no internship position for Ann. While she was sitting in the office of some important HR director inside the MET, receiving the blow of the rejection, the curator at the Cloisters suddenly came inside, asking for Ann to be placed with him because the assoicate who was working for him quit for a fancy art director job in a high tech company in California. Ann got her job because she lingered a little longer in the HR office.  This resonates a lot to the Chinese belief of everything in life is 30% dependent on our own efforts and 70% dependent on chance and destiny.  Then, at the orientation breakfast at the MET where all the graduate art students who are accepted by the MET's summer internship program attended, Ann met Rochel Mondray, her future colleague at the Cloisters.  As to how Rachel would affect Ann's life in NY, I'm curious to find out.

In Chapter 3. Rachael gave Ann a grand tour of the Cloisters.  After reading this Chapter, I went to Youtube and checkout the 360° video of the Cloisters, and it's exactly what I imagined from reading the book.  I had never been to the Cloisters and I don't even know what it is until I read this book.

In Chapter 4, Ann got to work closely with Rachel in the Cloisters and therefore got the chance to talk a lot with Rachel. As Ann was eager to learn more about Rachel, she realized that Rachel was doing all the questioning about Ann's life in Walla Walla Washington, and doging much of Ann's attempt to get Rachel talk about her life.  In this chapter, Rachel also revealed to be a smoker who didn't care about the no-smoking rule inside the museum. I'm just stunned to read that and I wonder what will happen to the treasured medival tapestries when cigarrette smoke lands on them on a daily basis.  In this Chapter, Ann seemed to also discover there was an unusal connection between her boss Patrick (the program director at the Cloister) and Rachel, through some ribbon that was worn on Rachel's wrist and that Ann once saw Patrick fingering & turling a similar ribbon.  Ann also met another young man who worked at the Cloister's gardens who also seemed to have some unusual connection with Rachel.  At this point, I am feeling that Rachel liked this young man she just met at the garden....