Page 45 of The Deepest Lake

“Changing my name from Patricia to Eva was the best thing I ever did. Tell me the significance of your real name. The whole thing, ‘Juliet May.’”

This story. I enjoyed telling it when I was a preteen. Not since.

“I was a preemie. They planned to call me Juliet, because of my due date, in July. They thought it was clever. But then I slipped out in May, and Dad wanted to name me after my actual birth month. Mom wouldn’t budge on their original plan. She kept calling me Juliet, then Jules for short.”

Eva was bored by my Dad essay, but I can tell from her expression that she is interested in this.

“My parents argued about a lot of silly things, back then. They’re more reasonable now.”

“No.” Eva purses her lips. “That’s not the story.”

“Dad was stubborn. They laugh about it—”

“Forget ‘Dad.’ You already tried writing about him.”

Okay.

“Mom’s the one who won’t adjust to reality. You were supposed to be born in July, but you weren’t. Your premature birth was a failure of sorts—her failure. Her own body’s failure. She expected one thing and life gave her something else. I’m sure that’s defined your relationship more than once. Daughters are always turning into something other than we planned.”

I can tell she’s talking about me, but not only about me.

“Your mother will never completely get you,” she continues. “She’s still one step behind. Juliet—or Jules. Not May. What else does she refuse to understand about you?”

I wait for her to tell me. When she doesn’t, I say, “I’ll think about that.”

“Do,” she says, granting me a wide, dazzling smile, the one I’ve been longing to see. Eva is never happier than when she’s cracked someone’s story code. “And honey,” she says, “I think ‘Juliet May’ is too long.”

Thank goodness. I’ve been feeling like a weird Southern belle every time she uses both names. “I agree.”

“I think we should just call you May. In this case, your Dad was right.”

“But he never did call me that. He wanted to, for maybe a week—but he didn’t.”

“All the better. Then it’s still fresh. It isn’t polluted with bad associations.”

Part of me thinks, Do I get a say in this? But a bigger part of me thinks: A new name. New possibilities. Energy surges through me. Family arguments, crap writing, wasted months trying to decide about grad school: all of it can be left behind. Not just left, like all those program catalogs gathering dust under my bed. Erased.

“You’re smiling,” Eva says. “It’s a different smile. You look different.”

“I feel different.”

“Even when I met you, I didn’t think you were a Jules or a Julie, or even a Juliet May. I think you left that identity behind weeks ago—probably back in Mexico or Panama. Do you think?”

I shrug.

“When you walked in this door, you were already someone else. We just needed to find out who that person was.” Eva keeps staring at me. “Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, trying my hardest not to look away. I see you, the real you. That’s one of her phrases, like Cracks and all and Broken but beautiful and Story as liberation and Tell your story, reclaim your soul.

I see you. It’s a gift. A gift should be accepted. I suppose I’m accepting it now, by pretending to understand, when I don’t.

I’ve always wondered if I’d look back on my life as a series of chapters, most of them exciting, hopefully. I thought a new chapter was starting the first time I stood on Eva’s balcony, when she hired me. But I was wrong. That was just the last chapter winding down to a close. The real new chapter isn’t about a mere job. It’s about the chance she is giving me right now—I think—to live a bigger life.

Eva is still gazing intently, but then she nods once. We’re done.

“Don’t think too hard. Close the door behind you, May.”

And so, I do.