Her Name Was Terese

Short Story Day 27 of 365

I wasn’t on the plane and in my seat long before I discovered Terese.

I know that was how to say and spell the two-syllable name that rhymes with that peanut butter cup because she was gracious enough to let me and about 22 of her closest seatmates in on the history and good intentions of her parents to make her name stand out in the crowd, though more than anything it confused her and everyone who even tried to read her name from a list of names – because it’s a name, right? and you have to correct someone mispronouncing your own name, right? – especially if the reader needed to sound off her name day after day, you know, like in a classroom – but that shouldn’t preclude anyone else from saying her name incorrectly especially if she was able to introduce herself personally to them, say, like in an informal environment such as a club or in a classroom, but she didn’t want people to think she was at all snobbish for overpronouncing her name when they first met because that was certainly not the type of person she is or wanted people to think she was, not that that mattered at all to her in the grand scheme of things, though she wasn’t at all sure anybody lived like that, you know, the grand scheme of things, because she believed that nobody lived in that world, so she had no idea why people still use that antiquated phrase but it’s still all over the country in one form or another, - and it is what it is, so to speak - but she certainly wasn’t telling people how they should talk or behave because far be it for her a lowly college student to get in the minds and hearts of people who really do have good intentions, IfYouKnowWhatIMean.

No. Terese was her name, and none of us within earshot was about to butcher, mispronounce, mangle, overarticulate, underemphasize, or mischaracterize the young co-ed seated in 10B.

May heaven help us and the person who does.