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It’s wrong to abuse my power in this way, but I want access to Emelia. I want to know as much about her as I can. Unfortunately, the university doesn’t provide much: her name, university ID, email address, and semester schedule.
She’s still enrolled in my class, and though it shouldn’t be the case, I’m filled with relief when I see her name listed there among my students.
Emelia Mercier.
Mercier.
I frown.
Mercier isn’t a common last name.
I didn’t put two and two together until now, seeing her name in print, which seems silly considering how French Emelia looks.
When I was younger, I went to boarding school with two boys who shared that last name, Emmett and Alexander Mercier. They were a few years younger than me, and I was much closer to Emmett than to Alexander. Even so, I can’t recall if they ever spoke about a sister. Emmett and I still keep in touch, and we get together when our schedules allow it. His family’s company keeps him predominantly in Paris, but surely if he had a sister, I would have heard about her at some point.
I open Google and type in her name, and as expected, most of the results have to do with the Mercier family and their company GHV. The entire first page is dominated by news of stock prices and arguments for and against raising French corporate income tax on large conglomerates like GHV. The first link that intrigues me is buried on page two: a Wikipedia page for Frédéric Mercier, the founder and CEO of GHV. There, on the right-hand side, are his children listed in descending order by age: Emmett Mercier, Alexander Mercier, and Emelia Mercier.
I sit back in my chair, stunned.
It has to be her.
Emmett and Alexander’s names are hyperlinks to their respective Wikipedia pages, but Emelia’s isn’t. A quick scroll through Frédéric’s page comes up short for information about his daughter beyond her birthday—which was in fact yesterday. Annoyed, I go back to Google and try several different searches: “Emelia Mercier Dartmouth”, “Frédéric Mercier daughter”, “Emelia Mercier GHV”. It’s almost strange how little information there is about her. If Emelia is Frédéric Mercier’s daughter, she would surely be represented in the media somehow. I understand she might not be the type to be splashed across tabloids and gracing society pages, but at the very least she would have been profiled by publications likeForbesandMoneyat some point in her life, no? I can’t find a single quote from Frédéric about her, though there’s plenty to find when it comes to Emmett and Alexander.
On top of that, she has no social media presence whatsoever.
I reload my class roster, just to reread her name, to ensure she’s who I think she could be, but she’s no longer there.
She unenrolled.
