What's in a Name?

Rosa.

The girls shriek in delight, waving their presents in the air as they run out to the yard. Two handkerchiefs, one yellow and one pink, dance nonchalantly from the tips of their fingers. Their uncle’s in town. They don’t see him often, they’re so excited I don’t know how I’ll manage to get them to bed. He can almost read my thoughts.

“It’s alright, Maggie. They universe won’t collapse if they go to bed a bit late one day.” – Mateo’s enveloped my elbows with his hands; his chin’s resting on the crane of my neck. I take a step forward, almost intuitively.

He looks at me, inquisitive. We haven’t seen each other since the funeral. He lost a brother, I, my world. What felt like it, at least. I was so mad at him, for abandoning us – me, I could forgive; but his two daughters? Mis ángeles, like he used to say. How would they survive this? The worry only fueled more rage.

“It’s a school night. They’ll be grumpy tomorrow if they get to bed too late. Plus, right now what they need is stability. Schedules, predictability and feeling like their world’s safe, understandable.” – I say it dryly. A bit too much, maybe.

“They also need joy, Maggie. Look at them. Honestly, when was the last time you saw them smile like this?”

Rosa lets out a cry of joy at that moment – a loud one, distinguishable from the happy symphony they’ve been conducting throughout the garden. Mateo smiles, and I feel some of the tension dissipate from my shoulders. I exhale freely, loud.

“Let’s make them a good dinner, then.”

He’s good with the girls. He says their names like their father did: Rosa and Carla. The Spanish way, rolling the R’s in the right places and without prolonging the A’s. I’ve never been able to pronounce it that way.

***

Rosie

The assistant scans for the name on her clipboard. Rosa Orfebre. She walks up to the child, who’s sat on a stool, hands tucked under her thighs, glancing around her.

“Hi, Rosie” – She offers her hand, the child shakes it. “How are you?”

“Good!” – there’s only excitement in her voice

The woman’s uptight. Perfectly dressed, heavy makeup. Glossy lips, on a rehearsed, flashy smile. Her voice is pinched when she speaks. “So, has someone already explained how this is going to work?” 

She entered a talent show hosted by the British government. It’s for a campaign against reckless driving. They want cute faces of children to sing a morbid song, pleading the viewers to be careful on the road. Rosa had a particularly touching story, and the talent to accompany it. She’s got a whole ad to herself: alone, playing the piano and singing about her father’s passing in a motorway accident. At that point, she doesn’t yet know that her father was drunk when he took the wheel, that he was so blind it’s a miracle he only got himself killed that night. They call her Rosie in the ad. It’s cuter, more touching. To her, it’s just exciting to sing in front of people. And her mother seems so moved by the cause. Rosa feels this is a good thing.

***

Luna

The hostess tells me it’ll be ten more minutes. I nod and force a smile. I know it’s not her fault, but these pizzas have already taken up 20 minutes of my time. Some guy comes out of the kitchen screaming angrily, swearing in a language I don’t understand. I think it’s Romanian – the guy definitely looks eastern European. I wonder if whatever got him so upset has to do with my pizzas being late. I look at my phone. 08.23, and a text from Sam: how much longer do you reckon?

I have half a mind to tell him to go fuck himself but resist the impulse. If I need a miracle to do well in tomorrow’s exam, he needs the whole bible just to pass it. I found him on our living-room floor, in the middle of a panic attack. I told him I’d get us some pizzas, trying to cheer him up, and that we’d revise together after dinner. Now I’m gonna loose at least an hour of precious study time. I look at the hostess again. She’s on her phone. I exhale deeply. She looks up, then in the direction of the kitchen, and back down at her phone. Thanks, that was useful, I think.

I get my cigarettes out and start rolling one. Before I finish, a piano starts playing. Or, rather, someone – someone with the most angelical voice, starts playing the piano. I stay there, mesmerized. After about a minute, I start looking around me. No one seems to notice the supernatural essence of the music. I look at the waitress, who’s still absorbed in her screen.

“Who is that?”

She looks up at me, not understanding for a moment. My eyes move to the piano.

“Oh, Luna? Yeah, she comes in about once or twice a week. Mostly on the weekends, actually, it’s strange that she’s here on a Tuesday. She’s not our only act, though. The singers come and go. Boss doesn’t pay very well.”

I’m almost sad when the pizzas arrive. On Friday, remembering what the hostess told me, I go back to the place. Nothing. I ask the hostess – a different one than last time. She doesn’t know if anyone’s playing tonight. “I can ask if you want.” It doesn’t look like she wants to ask, but I tell her that’d be nice, thank you. Two minutes later, she comes back and informs me that no one’s scheduled for that night. I want to ask about Luna, but I feel like too much of a creep already. Every night after that, I walk by the restaurant around that same hour. It’s not until the next Tuesday that I see her. I go in, order a beer.

When she finishes, I follow her to the bar with my eyes. She’s talking to the bar woman – a stern, late-middle-aged lady who seems too worn out to have known any lightness in life. I go up to them, bringing back my empty glass. The bar woman doesn’t thank me for the gesture.

“Hey, I just wanted to say I think you’re great. Really talented, I mean.” – I don’t usually do this, so I’ve no idea how I’m coming across. I worry I look too nervous. She seems neutral, which is good; she doesn’t seem to be freaking out at me.

“Thanks, that’s always nice to hear.” – She smiles, and I allow myself to believe that it’s genuine.

“Do you have a Spotify account I could follow or something?”

“No, but I’m on Soundcloud if you want.”

“Yeah, that’d be brilliant. Thank you.” – She’s already taken a pen from the bar and is scribbling something on the back of the restaurant’s card.

I don’t know how I manage this – maybe it’s the fact that my exam went so well, maybe because we’re moving out of the flat soon and I probably won’t be coming around here much anyways; maybe it’s temporary delusion, who knows – but I ask her: “Hey, would you like to stay for a drink? It’s on me, consider it a gesture of admiration.”

She looks up, she’s finished scribbling her Soundcloud on the paper. She puts the pen down, smiles. “Oh, that’s sweet, but I’ve actually got to meet my boyfriend. I’m already running late, sorry.” Without stopping for my answer, she turns to the bar woman and says: “Tell Adil he can pay me next time, but that he still owes me from last week.” Then she’s gone, and the bar woman looks wearily at me and then at my empty pint, and I shake my head and say thank you, good night.

***

Miss Orfebre

The bus is two minutes late, which isn’t a lot in some places but is a lot for London. I barely register the beep of my oyster card and mindlessly walk to the top of the bus. The front seats are empty, but I’m not excited about it. I sit in the one on the right side, by the window, more out of inertia than will. Why did I tell him I have a boyfriend? I fled the scene like a thief, a coward. He seemed nice. Then again, it was weird to accept a drink from him in front of Silvia. She always gossips, and I get enough shit from the chefs hitting on me every chance they get… I rest my head against the window, hoping the vibrations from the engine will shake my neurotic thoughts out of me. I think back to my Soundcloud – Luna Orfebre. He won’t find me on social media, not if he only has my stage name. But then again, I rejected him, even made up a fake boyfriend. He wouldn’t have tried to find me, anyways. I look out the window. It doesn’t matter, I’m not ready to date yet.

Outside, in the world, a screen flashes the clip of a woman seductively looking into the camera, then pushing a man sensually, as if about to make love to him. The next image is of her walking away from the man, wearing his jacket, and the man left stranded in the background, having lost his jacket and what probably felt to him like his dignity. It’s some cheap perfume ad, and it makes me burn in rage. I think of George.

“Miss Orfebre?” – he looked so stranded, the first time I saw him. I was walking out of the classroom, ready to welcome my next student, as Simon was still in there, putting away his music sheets.

“Yes, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m George, pleased to meet you.” He put out his hand, I smiled at him, confused “Sorry – Simon’s dad.”

I reciprocated the handshake – “Oh, yes of course, it’s nice to meet you too. How can I help you?”

“Well, I don’t quite know how to say this. I’ve been arriving a bit early lately, to pick up Simon I mean, and I’ve had a chance to observe the end of his lessons. I also hear him play at home – though not frequently, I must say.” – He spoke strangely, as if his brain was going too fast for the rest of his body. “This is what I’m getting at: I don’t think Simon enjoys the piano very much, and I wanted to get your opinion on the matter.” I wondered if he was a university professor. He was obviously very smart, and the way he spoke, it just felt like he had the vocation to be a teacher. I also felt immediately attracted to him. He had a way of looking at me that was halfway between paternal tenderness and outright amazement, as if I’d just said the smartest, most insightful thing he’d ever heard – every time.

“Well, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Children go through phases. And Simon’s just begun a new course-level. He might be feeling frustrated because it isn’t as easy.”

Simon came out of the class. “Daddy!” he shouted excitedly, running into the arms of his beaming father.

George embraced his son, but soon stood back up. “Go wait by the car Simon, it’s just up front. I’ll be right there.” When Simon had gone, he turned back to me. “You know, maybe right now isn’t the best time to talk about this. Would you possibly be free sometime this week, to discuss the matter more calmly?”

We met for coffee, but it ended up turning into lunch. He paid for everything, even the hotel room later that afternoon. He ordered champagne and I poured it on his chest, only to lick it off him. I’d never felt so free with anyone during sex. It was dirty, raw. I think it was the way he looked at me that got me into this unfettered state. He venerated my body, like he couldn’t believe the privilege he had of seeing me, of touching me.

At lunch, he’d confessed to me: “You know, Simon doesn’t like the piano. He doesn’t play it with virtue, with sentiment. His mother’s the one forcing the instrument on him. She thinks it’s an essential part of a good education. But it’s not for him; he doesn’t play it with talent.” I’d nodded, agreeing but feeling like any other, more emphatic form of concession, would be too aggressive. “You, on the other hand… I’ve never seen anyone play like you. You’ve got talent, raw, unfiltered. It’s… I admit, the first time I arrived too early to pick up Simon I was pissed; having to wait around ten minutes like that… but then I heard you play. It was… I mean” he looked down, embarrassed. He’d gotten all flustered. “Let’s just say I made sure to arrive twenty minutes too early every day after that.”

That’s the moment I decided I was willing to become a mistress.

We passed the stupid ad a while ago, but I’m still angry at it. If Carla were here, she’d go on about how this only reinforces a narrative in which the woman uses her sexuality to lure the man and trick him into giving her what she wants; leaving the woman completely alienated from her sexual self. “It’s a zero-sum game” she’d say, “if she gives it up, she loses, and he wins” – I lost to George; I’d answer bitterly.

When she found me crying over him, drunk, vomiting in our bathroom, she spent three hours consoling me, shushing me so I didn’t wake Mum.

“I should’ve known, though.”

Carla looked at me, confused.

“It was strange, he insisted on calling me Miss Orfebre; even after our affair had started.”

“Didn’t you think that was a little weird?”

“I dunno… I just told myself it was some sort of kink. Or like, maybe it made me sound older; made him feel better about the whole thing.”

***

Rosa (/Row-zah/)

The front door always makes a loud noise when you shut it.  

“Rosa, is that you?” – I still hear it, every time. The way she pronounces my name, with a perfect English accent. It drove me crazy after my father’s death. “No, mama. It’s Ro-ssa, not Row-zah. You’re not saying it right.” She’d patiently tell me that she knew, but that she hadn’t been given the gift of learning Spanish at such a young age, like me “I can’t make those same sounds, darling.” Then, at night, if I heard her cry in her bedroom, I’d feel bad and crawl into bed with her and she’d stop, and I’d tell her I loved her and, free from my guilt, I could finally fall asleep.

“Yeah, mum, it’s me.”

She comes into the living room.

“How was it?”

“Fine.”

“Did they pay you for last week?”

“Not yet.” Then, before she says anything “Don’t worry about it, mum! He always ends up paying, you know that.”

“Still, I don’t like you working there. You could do a lot better money-wise and the place isn’t clean. They’ve got some murky business going on there.”

“Mum, please. Can we not talk about this again?”

“There’s dinner left over in the kitchen; I can heat it up for you if you’d like.”

“No, it’s alright. I’m tired, I think I’ll just go up to bed.”

As soon my bedroom door shuts, I exhale so hard I almost manage to exorcize the day out of me. I open the window, and light the spliff I didn’t have time to finish earlier today. As I’m smoking, I look across my room into the full-length mirror that’s resting against the wall. I observe myself in it.

I suddenly feel very strange being me. I wonder if Simon told his parents about our lesson over dinner. I imagine them sat together, and Simon explaining that Miss Orfebre played a song with her hands crossed today. I wonder how he reacts; I wonder how she reacts – what she thinks of me, whether she ever suspected.

I think about that guy from tonight. I wonder where he comes from. He looked young; he’s probably in London for his studies. I wonder what he thought of me, and whether he’s thinking about me now. In his mind, I’m Luna. Just that. I don’t teach piano to the son of the man I’m in love with, I don’t have a mother who’s been lifeless since the death of her husband. I don’t have to take the bus for an hour to go play at some stingy restaurant that never pays me on time. I wonder what he imagines Luna like.

For some reason, I think of Mateo. He moved back to Chile; my grandmother’s been sick for a while. He wanted to be with her when she died. It’s not the first time we go a long time without seeing him, though. After my father’s funeral, he visited us a couple of times; then he disappeared for years. The next time he saw me, he looked mesmerized. I wasn’t a child anymore. “Rosa… qué mayor.” Hearing my name like that, it was the first time I ever felt like a woman.

I take one last drag of my spliff. I don’t feel like myself, or anyone, which makes me feel like everyone. At least, like I could be. I look at myself in the mirror again. It strikes me that I’ve never thought about this; at least not this clearly: Who do I want to be?