“Maybe someone else can help me?”
“You're welcome to ask around. The rest of the staff will be here shortly, but I'm afraid you are mistaken.” She busied herself with the opening chores, and Diane dropped her protest and questions and retreated to a table in the corner of the tavern. Three times that morning the hounds pricked up their ears and lifted their noses when each new person entered. First came the cook, burly and bald and festooned with tattoos, who inspected the photograph Diane produced and agreed with a shrug that it might be a younger version of Mary Gavin. The bartender, an older man with a single gray braid that hung to his belt, affirmed more confidently Maya's surmise. “Could be,” he said, and began counting his bottles. The waitress, young and pretty and slightly hungover, immediately identified the girl in the photograph. “That's Mary,” she said, and laid two fingers over both sides of Erica's long straight hair to cut it off from view. “You have to imagine a totally different do, but otherwise she looks practically the same. What's this from, high school?”
“Do you know a little girl around here named Norah? A third grader? Blonde hair, glasses?”
“Can't say, though there's only about twenty kids total in the elementary school,” she said. “Just down the road.”
Around eleven the regulars began drifting in, some for takeout coffee, others for an early lunch or late breakfast. Diane watched the customers come and go, working up the courage to approach each stranger. Not a single one knew the little girl, either by description or by name. She fought the urge to flash the photo of Erica and ask for another confirmation, but instead held her place, repeating over and over the mantra Mary Gavin.
What's in a name? Her father would have made a game of it, rolling out the possibilities—Gavin, gave in, haven, heaven. Mistress Mary, quite contrary. Hold on to your name, girls, he'd say, it's the only thing you can be sure of to tell yourself who you are and where you've been. He used to call her Di, Diana, Diamond Lil, Didi, Dimples. Poor Margaret had it worse—Mags, Marge, Margie, Maggie, Meg, Peggy, Millie, Molly, Maghilla, Margarita, Mame. For some reason, his wife was only Peaches, and as she lay dying, Peaches confessed: he thought I was sweet and juicy. Then she returned to her morphine slumber and was heard no more. You become your name, he had told Diane, and not the other way around.
Shortly after noon, the tavern began to fill up with diners, and Diane stretched and walked to the bar. She needed to clear her head, to sift through the information which had distorted her vision of reality. “I'm going out for some fresh air, Maya. But I'll be back, and maybe we can sort this out.”
“Take care crossing the highway, and always look both ways,” Maya said and hurried the next order to an impatient table.