Postby Serena » Fri Nov 06, 2009 8:14 am
The scene was a train station in downtown Jersey City: A beautiful woman met the gaze of an intriguing stranger, with no idea that this chance meeting would change both of their lives forever.
It might sound like the start of a romantic novel, but it's a true story.
"I was standing on the subway platform, waiting for a train to arrive," Tara Clavell wrote in a letter to Good Morning America. "Soon, I heard the roar of an engine and whistling wind in the tunnel. I turned to my right to watch as it pulled into the station. Instead, I caught the glance of a man nearby."
Immediately, she felt something.
"As the wind whirled stronger and the train's engine grew louder, my heart beat faster," Clavell said. "We boarded the same subway car and stood only inches from each other."
She and the man she saw for the first time two years ago, John Paul Vera, are now planning to get married, and are finalists in Good Morning America's Happily Ever After: Love in Times Square series. The winning couple — to be selected by viewers who can vote on ABCNEWS.com after all the finalists are presented — will be married in Times Square.
Leave Nothing To Chance
After that first meeting, Vera was hoping for a second.
"I would try to then schedule myself, you know, to get on the train so we..," Vera explained.
"Oh, you're so cute," Clavell interrupted.
"So we would catch each other," he finished, as Clavell laughed. "So, I was like, all right, the last time I saw her was around 8:30."
He spent six months timing his mornings to catch her eye again.
"We boarded the same train, descended at the same stop and even walked in the same direction," Clavell said. "We walked into the same building and got onto the same elevator."
It was all too much for her — Clavell had to speak to the handsome stranger.
"I saw him in the elevator and I said 'Hello, my name is Tara, and I see you on the train all the time, and I feel weird not saying hello.' He said 'Hi, I'm John Paul.'" That first exchange of words will go down in this couple's history.
"That was the best pickup line … anybody out there who wants a good pickup line, that's the best line," Vera said.
"It was a pretty good line," Clavell agreed. "And then that was it."
That day, they met for lunch, their first conversation that would last longer than 10 seconds. They soon learned that they worked only two floors from each other. Even their weekend jobs — she, a waitress and he, an antiques dealer — were only one mile apart.
'All Aboard the Love Train!'
That train station glance quickly blossomed into love, and two years later, a proposal at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Clavell will never forget it.
"He said 'will you marry me?' And that was it. And we just hugged and kissed and it felt like we were there forever. It was the best moment of my life."
"My life too," Vera said.
"Of our lives," Clavell added.
"That's right," Vera said.
In her letter to GMA, Clavell described how one moment could change your life.
"I look forward to spending eternity with a man that knows me better than I know myself, and has shown me how glorious, life-changing moments can happen when you least expect it," she said.
As they finished telling their story to GMA and cuddled on the train, even the train conductor was moved.
"All aboard the love train," the conductor yelled. "This is the love train: All aboard the love train!"
