1
Mina
You know that strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to complete her?
Well, that is not me.
I’m not strong. I’m not all that independent.
And I need a man.
I mean, okay, notneed. I don’tneeda man, aside from the Man Upstairs—and He and I are doing all right. And it’s not like getting a man is my only goal in life. I’m smart, and I think I’m nice overall. I have a lot to offer to the world. I want to go to college. I want to be a florist, or maybe an interior designer. So I want other things.
But…a boyfriend would be nice, too. Or just a friend who’s a boy; at this point I’m not picky. It would be nice to go to a school dance—because let’s be honest; I’m not going to go by myself. It would be nice to not feel a stab of envy whenever I see my sisters’ significant others. It would be nice to get a certain football player out of my head.
It would be nice, but as things stand, it’s unlikely. I know this because I just walked past three guys from my grade, none of whom I would consider attractive or popular, and eventheydidn’t give me a second glance. One of them was the guy from my history class who makes farting noises with his hands.
The farting-hand guy is not interested. Ergo, I am doomed.
As I leave the school’s front office, I try to be excited about the fact that my new student ID card now reads “senior,” but I can’t quite manage it. Because my full name is also stamped on said ID card, and therefore this card will now join the gauntlet of cards in my wallet that I would love nothing more than to burn.
The cards, that is. Not the wallet. The wallet is cute. It has a cheery floral pattern—my all-time favorite—but floral can’t make up for the cards inside. I slip the ID card in and zip the wallet again, looping the cross-body strap over one shoulder and making my way to my car.
My parents named me Wilhelmina Dorcas Perkins.
Because they hate me, I guess? Or because by the time they got through my four older siblings—yes,four—they’d run out of good names? All girls, by the way, so you’d think at least a few of them would share my burden, but no. No Hildegards or Gertrudes or Berthas. I am the only one with a terrible name.
And the thing is, my parents are really nice people. And they’re usually very normal. Boringly so, even. Functional and ordinary. You wouldn’t look at them and think, “You know, they look like the kind of people that would name their daughter something life-scarringly horrific.”
But you’d be wrong. They wanted to use family names—both my grandmothers had died by the time I was born—and I got the brunt of those passings: the names.
My parents could have at least spread out those names over two kids. I don’t know why I had to get both of them. And really, shouldanyonebe named Dorcas? They could have let that one go. I mean, Wilhelmina is bad. But Dorcas?
Ugh.
By the time I wised up and realized I needed a nickname, it was too late. There’s something uniquely disconcerting about that moment when you understand the implications of a name like mine.
It was seventh grade. Seventh-grade me was awkward in every respect. I mean, senior-year me is awkward in every respect, too. But seventh-grade me hadn’t yet filled out in the chest region, and she still had braces. I look back on her and feel a mixture of sympathy and deepest mortification.
I was in the lunch room, of course, because all middle-school horror stories take place in the lunch room. I was sitting by myself, eating a chicken salad sandwich—a food I cannot eat to this day, although I’m pretty sure that’s just because I fundamentally reject the idea of celery. One minute I was taking a bite of sandwich, and the next thing I knew, Virginia Cook’s wet fingers were in my ears—which is just sogrossand unsanitary and gross and gross.
Virginia shouted, “Wet Willy! Wet Willy!” (I’m still annoyed that she came up with such a good pun for my name.) And because Virginia Cook was pretty even in seventh grade—when no one should be pretty, I might add—everyone laughed. The whole cafeteria. I thought that was something that happened in movies, you know? The whole cafeteria laughing at the kind of bullying you see only in fiction?
But I guess not. Apparently it is a thing that happens in real life too—people stick their fingers in other people’s ears, and everyone laughs about it. Middle schoolers are the worst.
The crowning moment was when Virginia’s friend Marie dumped her expensive bottled water on my head and did her own chorus of “Wet Willy! Wet Willy!”
It was sort of traumatic. I try not to think about it.
So even though I insist on Mina now, my fate has already been sealed. I will always be thought of as “Wet Willy” by my peers. People like Virginia and Marie would probably still call me that to my face if they ever had cause to acknowledge my existence. I try to make sure that doesn’t happen.
But my eyes make that difficult. I am the only person I’ve ever seen with two different-colored eyes, aside from my mother. My older sister Violet has a little patch of green in her otherwise brown eyes, but it’s barely noticeable.
Mine are definitely noticeable. My left eye is a pale blue; my right eye is dog-poop brown. I try to play it down, but there’s just not a lot I can do. I tried colored contacts for a very brief time before realizing my eyes are passionately opposed to contact lenses. I do wear glasses, and I stay away from eye makeup, but that’s about it. I’m stuck with the eyes, just like I’m stuck with the name. Wilhelmina Dorcas Perkins, the brown-and-blue-eyed freak.
In my wildest daydreams—and I do meanwildest—I would have the nerve to hope that Jack Freeman doesn’t mind girls with weird eyes and weird names. I’ve had a crush on him for years, which I can’t really be blamed for. He’s tall, dark, and handsome, a cliché he brings to life beautifully. He gets a little dimple in his right cheek when he smiles, and his teeth are really white.
I know this not because I’m a stalker but because we’ve had most of our classes together for the last three years.