A Chance to be Sally

Denise had never liked her name. She was a tall girl, mismatched in so many other ways that the ordinary disconnects in life failed to make an impression: she never noticed when the blankets on her bed didn't even cover her shoulders, or if there weren't as many buns as there were hot dogs, or if the battery in her walkman went dead a mere half hour before she'd finished her run. When you were a tall girl with a short girl's name, a brunette whose eyes really belonged on a blonde, a size 10 shirt but a size six pant, when your life was measured out wrongly from the very first day, you didn't notice petty quotidian miscalculations.

Denise hadn't known as a child that she would be too tall for her name, naturally, but even then her dark hair and some deep seriousness had marked her as, well, not a Denise. Also, from the outset she had differed unmistakably from her older brother and sister, who were close in age and temperament and gave off the clannishness of a salt and pepper shaker set. David and Julia were both blonde and cheerful, and while they didn't look alike, exactly, there was something about one that reminded you of the other. Denise was so unlike them that teachers who had taught David and Julia didn't even ask if she was related to either of them. Penny, Denise's best friend of the third, fourth and fifth grades, had three older brothers and a pale, pale complexion from sitting in their shadow. Penny was jealous of Denise's clean slate. Penny's life was like a constant mountain climb with one or another of her brothers adding to the mountain's height all the time. Compared to Penny, Denise was walking on level ground. But it was deserted ground, or if not empty, filled with incongrous images, melted Dali clocks and plinths.

When Sam first called her Sally by mistake, it resonated, absolutely, but her life had been so calico and kalidescope that she didn't recognize the pleasurable sensation for what it was. She didn't correct him, hoping he would do it again and she could dissect the feeling. It was, she realized months later, the elusive click of fit.