My name is Dorothy.
It was my grandmother’s name.
It means Gift of God.
My mother thought it was sweet.
I would not have chosen it, not even over a name like Lillian or Bernice.
I could have been an Isobella or Carmen or even a Peace or Sage or Kylean for God’s sake but I got Dorothy.
My full name is Dorothy Edna Brown. Exciting eh?
“My” Dorothy wanted to fall in love more than anything in this or any other world.
I dreamt of love. I wrote of love. I read of love. I was glued to love.
I tried turning everything into love.
Not just any love but great love.
I met a man called Evan.
Even Evan I called him in my mind and turned him into Miguel or Justin or Bjorn, anything but Evan.
But Evan stayed Even Evan, a Romeo to my Juliet struggling to escape my Dorothy.
Until one day I looked at him over my cup of coffee.
“I can’t do this any more, Evan,” I told him.
“Do what?” he said, oblivious to the streak of boiled milk over his top lip like something had crawled there to rest.
“Be your Dorothy to your Evan anymore. I am sorry but I cannot be dominated by this paradigm any longer,” and he just looked at me with the white moustache slowly moving towards his chin and the spoon in his hand hovering over his cup.
There was nothing there. Nothing was disturbing the shallow waters of the pond that was all there was of his mind.
I got up and left my coffee with the heart delicately drawn by the barista and went to change my name, with Evan still looking at the spoon in his hand as the coffee moustache worked its way towards his chin.
I became Chantelle, sorry granny but your name did not work for me.
A name can define and confine you. Dorothy had defined and confined me.
I changed my family name too. Chantelle does not work with Brown any more than Dorothy worked for me, so I became Chantelle Granger.
I liked the initials C.G. They worked for me.
For the first time in my life I started to enjoy myself.
I started smiling. It hurt at first but I soon made new friends who also smiled.
I celebrated my new name and my new life by going back to the place it all started at the cafe.
When I got my coffee it had a heart drawn in the milk again but this time there was a delicate little arrow, more like a dart really, piercing the heart.
I looked up and saw the barista clearly for the first time then.
He was smiling at me.
His lips were red, not lipstick just flushed, as were his cheeks above his full black beard and his eyes were liquid pools of honey.
I fell in love.
“My name is Chantelle,” I said. My voice squeaked a bit, like a rusty hinge.
“I am Rusty,” he said, before he took my coffee back to write Rusty and Chantelle in the milk.