Blue

MONICA

MONICA

“Does Your Name Fit?” Monica read the headline aloud. Yes. No. I don’t know. She

sighed, wagging her head from side to side. Does it even really matter?

She sat alone at her kitchen table reading a survey in Ladies Home Journal, the kind

she usually skimmed over because they were too personal or ridiculous to give merit.

Moving her gaze away from the magazine, she examined the teacup in her hand as if

it might hold the answer to the question. Does Your Name Fit?

The first syllable of her name was “mon,” the French masculine possessive. Masculine

possessive? Ha. She shuddered at the thought.

“I” was the fourth letter of her name. “I lost myself a long time ago, didn’t I?”

This time she spoke to the slice of toast between her fingers. She observed the bread

like a scientist, thought about how “I” united with a masculine possessive, and then

took a voracious bite out of her crusty confidante.

Munching away, she considered the last two letters, “CA.” California? No. She’d never

been south of Portland. Cats Anonymous? It sounded like a support group for octogenarian

women with feline-infested homes. At this particular moment, she was grateful for

the allergies that would save her from becoming a pledging member of the CA society

she’d just envisioned.

Ça? There, or that? Again, she was thinking in French. She wondered if she would

ever make that journey across the ocean.

Monica tucked her bobbed auburn hair behind her ear, pushed her heavy-framed glasses

up on her nose, and turned her attention back to the survey.

Question #1: If you could name yourself at this moment, what would your name be?

Pathetic, forty-three-year-old spinster. It wasn’t the first time this self-flagellating

image had popped into her mind. Her shoulders slumped and her spine curled inward

as she dropped the magazine onto the table.

Rename Yourself, beckoned the glossy image on the page. Be Who You Are Destined to

Be.

“Oh, please,” she groaned. “I tried reinventing myself once, didn’t I? Look where

that got me.”

Does Your Name Fit? The magazine was relentless.

M.O.N.I.C.A. She sounded out each letter inside her mind. Possessed by a man. I am

that. Evidently, it does fit. She sighed as her thoughts drifted back to another

place and the time of her so-called reinvention.