by Kalisse L. Van Dellen
My Starbucks name is Amy. Don’t get me wrong, I love the name Ainsel, but I don’t love the immediate waterfall of questions that follow it. “Uh, how do you spell that?” “That’s so pretty, what’s it mean?” “Oh my gosh, are you French?” My unique-monikered siblings understand. On coffee cups and takeout bags, my brother is Kyle and my sister hands out her middle name, Nicole.
I’m not thinking about this when I step into Liquid Highway, a tiny coffee shop in my hometown. It popped up in my old neighbourhood in the years after I left. There’s no bell that rings above the door, but the Barista pivots toward me anyways. The yellow walls are faded and the scone specials are written in blue highlighter on folded notebook paper.
I smile and the Barista smiles back.
“Hi there, I’ll have a 385 Expressway please. Made with almond milk.”
The Barista is familiar, but I haven?t been here before. She’s tall with strong cheeks and toned arms covered in tattoos of ferns and mushrooms and old old trees.
“Hot or iced?” It’s only early fall and sunny out, but I feel a chill between my shoulder blades.
“Hot please.”
“And can I get a name for that?” Her curly hair bounces as she beams at me, her hand poised over the cup with a silver sharpie.
“Call me Amy.” It’s such an old habit by now I don’t even pause. I’m watching the ink on her brown skin shift and arch. The moon at her collarbone winks at me. The leaves along her shoulder rustle in a breeze I can’t feel.
The Barista tilts her head and narrows her eyes, like she wanted a different answer from me. She’s still smiling but her jaw is clenched. Her teeth seem cruel.
My new yoga teacher got angry when I didn’t correct her on how to pronounce my name. I had been coming to the studio for a couple weeks but had only taken her class twice. I was uncomfortable, so I was making conversation with a towering, bearded dude named Glenn.
“Ainsel, huh? Does it mean something?”
“Uh, it’s a pun I think. It means something like ‘Just me.'”
The teacher snapped in between us with loud apologies and blustering pale hands.
“Oh, it’s AIN-sel! I didn’t know that was how you said your name!”
“Oh, it’s okay.”
“I can’t believe you let me call you the wrong name!”
“It’s really no big deal. I mean, I respond to pretty much any name that starts with ‘A.'” I forced a laugh and tried to turn back to Glenn. She danced in front of me again.
“No, it IS a big deal!” When she shook her head, her white hair hair didn’t move. “It’s not fair. Names have power! By denying people your name you are denying them the chance to know you.” She wielded her finger like a baton to enunciate her point. I try to find Glenn in my peripheral, but he has sidled off.
“People want to KNOW you. You owe them that.” She tapped my chest. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to figure out if she wanted an apology. A student walked through the door and didn’t take off her flip flops. My salvation. Even with her eyes on me, the teacher heard the transgression.
“Shoes OFF in the studio!” The teacher spun around and I started attending the 7:30 class instead.
The Barista snaps the lid back on her marker. Her smile is tight and she’s looking at me like I owe her an apology. I step back and it seems to start her orchestra in motion. She spins into the arms of the espresso machine and begins to make my latte.
I watch the paper cup she’s filling. She didn’t write anything on it. I cross my arm and settle back on my heels. That makes sense. I’m the only one here. No. I correct myself. There’s the drive thru. And there was a car there when I parked out front a few moments ago.
I tip a little to the side so I can peek through the pull up window on the opposite side of this tiny building. The black Highlander is still there. At first I assume I’m facing heavily tinted windows. But as I focus more intently, I see the glint along the door where the window has been rolled down. I am looking into the vehicle: it’s dark. Empty. I keep watching as I hear steam hiss. I feel like if I look long enough, I’ll see eyes looking back.
I remember stories from my Scottish great-grandmother. My mom talks about how she went crazy as she got older. Nana had decades of good, common sense. She spent that sense wrapping new babies and sack lunches and sprained ankles, first in a tiny farmhouse, and then across the ocean, and then in a third floor Chicago apartment.
But she’d already had that lifetime when I met her, and I loved who she let herself be. She didn’t talk about how tall I’d stretched or how much mud was compounded into my jeans. Instead, she cackled and poked her finger toward the fireplace.
“I’ve met a fae child in there.”
When I stuck my head to peer up the chimney I heard her softly mutter.
“The younger ones are easier to outsmart. Word play is a good way to go if you’re sharp.” She looked over at me brushing charcoal off my hands onto my Easter dress. “Or you can just keep your mouth shut.”
She grabbed my chin for my full attention when she heard my mother returning from the kitchen. “Remember that. Don’t answer questions. If you must, lie. They’ll be able to tell, but they won’t be able to do anything about it.” She settles back into her armchair and my mother is dragging me up by my arm toward a sink before I can ask who they were.
The Barista slips my latte into a sleeve and sets it on the counter while she rings me up. I notice a tiny wooden sign propped up by the cash register, “Tomorrow I brew, today I bake.” My mind fills in the rest of the rhyme that my nana must have taught me. “And then the child away I’ll take.” The yellow walls seem ill and the darkness from the pull-up window starts to crawl along the tile floor. I look down at my hand, about to surrender my credit card. I shove it back into my backpack and flounder along the bottom to find a crumpled ten dollar bill.
I set the bill on the counter near the Barista. She doesn’t look at it. She’s staring at my backpack where I had buried my credit card. For the first time in my life, I am grateful that my name is weird and hard to spell. I don’t have a souvenir keychain or little gold necklace with my name on it. I’m just Amy here. She can’t know any different.
The last time I saw Nana, she was stroking the top of a doll’s head. It was bundled like an actual baby and she wouldn’t let my mom set it aside. When mom talked to the nurse, I sat beside Nana on the bed, worrying the edge of the blanket.
“What’s her name?”
“You can’t just ask that.” Nana was serious today.
“Why not?”
“Names have power, you should not just give them out.”
“Oh.”
Nana leaned down to whisper in my ear, “You’ve got a powerful name, Ainsel. Had to lie and tell your mum it was a family name!” She poked me in the chest. “You’re just your own self. Remember that.”
The Barista is leaning across the counter. She pushes the cup toward me. I watch the steam curl upward. It seems to orbit her face. I want to ask how long she’s been here. How many of those toadstool tattoos she has circling her upper arm. I want to know how she learned to blend in.
But I know better.
As I reach forward to grab the latte, I can read her name tag for the first time.
She notices the moment I do and her face cracks into a too-wide grin. I raise my cup in a toast and walk out before she can speak.
We both know her name is not actually Ainsel.
Kalisse L. Van Dellen writes about where she’s been and what she’s lost. She is a graduate of Belhaven University and currently resides as a Canadian expatriate in Greenville, SC. Her work has most recently been featured in Capsule Stories, 3 Moon Magazine, and Mississippi’s Best Emerging Poets.
