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Letters from Tara · March: The Right Name

The draft she did not send

Danya,

The flat by the canal was lovely. Very small kitchen, very thick walls, a window you can see the ducks from. Joss and I have signed for it. Hollie says she's going to visit every Sunday whether we like it or not, and bring soup.

Something embarrassing has happened, and it's been happening since October.

My lab partner is called Ade. He's really nice. He's very careful with the chemicals and he always brings two pens because I always forget mine. On the first day, in the first week of October, he asked my name over the noise of the fume cupboard, and I said Tara, and he said, "Nice to meet you, Tia."

And I didn't correct him.

I meant to. I thought I'd do it next time. Then next time felt too late, because he'd already said it twice, and it would be awkward. Then it was a month. Then it was Christmas. Now it's March. That's five months, and we have a lab every week, so that's about twenty labs of being Tia. I answer to it. I sign the group sheets as T, so nobody notices.

It's far too late to say anything now. He'd feel awful. I'd feel awful. It's only till June.

Except that this morning he sent round the slides for our group presentation next Friday, the one the whole course comes to. Title slide. Big letters. ADE, TIA, AND GROUP 4.

I'm just going to be Tia until the end of the year. It's honestly fine. It's just a name. I

The draft stopped there, as all the drafts did.

Tara read it on the Tuesday evening, at her desk, with the presentation slides open on the laptop beside it. The title slide glowed: ADE, TIA, AND GROUP 4. Under it, very small, someone had added a picture of a beaker with a smiling face.

She noticed something she had not noticed while she was writing. The draft said it was too late, three times, in three different ways. And it had a plan in it: say nothing until June. It was a waiting plan. It was the same plan she had made about Joss and Christmas, and about the essay, and about the house. And every time, the plan had been for the thing to get more expensive.

She looked at the sticky note inside the front cover of the notebook. There were four lines on it now.

The cheapest time to say the thing is before there is a plan for it to be against.

Ask on the second day, not the last.

First chance, not last.

A no on the day costs a minute.

The cheapest time to correct a name had been the first minute in October, over the fume cupboard. That was gone. But there was a second-cheapest time, and it was before the slides went in on Thursday and the name went up on a big screen in front of the whole course.

She put the draft in the back of the notebook with the other six. There were seven now.

Wednesday

She found Ade in the lab the next afternoon, setting up the burettes for the practical. He had two pens in his top pocket, as always.

"Ade," she said. "Can I tell you something slightly awkward?"

"Is it the slides?" said Ade at once. "Is the beaker too much? I can take the beaker off."

"It's not the beaker," said Tara. "I like the beaker." She took a breath. "My name's Tara. Not Tia. You misheard me on the first day, and I should have said in October, and I didn't, and then it felt too late. But it's going on a screen in front of everyone on Friday, so I'm saying it now."

It came out all in one go. She had practised it on the stairs again, which seemed to be where she practised everything.

Ade stared at her.

What Ade said

For about ten seconds, Ade looked as if he wanted to climb into the fume cupboard and shut the glass.

"Oh no," he said. "Oh no. Five months? I've been calling you the wrong name for five months?"

"About twenty labs," said Tara. "I counted."

Then, to her surprise, he started laughing, and once he had started he could not stop. He had to put the burette down.

"That explains it," he said, wiping his eyes. "That explains so much. You know how sometimes I say 'Tia, can you pass the pipette,' and you don't turn round, and I think you're concentrating really hard? I thought you were just very focused. I thought you were going to be a famous scientist."

"I might still be," said Tara. "I was just ignoring my name."

"It was the fume cupboard," said Ade. "It's so loud. You said Tara, and I heard Tia, and then I said it, and you didn't say anything, so I thought I'd got it right." He shook his head. "I would much rather you'd told me in October. Honestly. In October it would have been nothing. I'd have said sorry, and that would be it."

"I know," said Tara. "I worked that out on Tuesday."

"But I'm really glad you told me before Friday," said Ade. He opened the slides on his phone, there and then, and changed the title. ADE, TARA, AND GROUP 4. Then he looked at it, and added a second smiling beaker. "That's for the apology."

Saffi

The next Monday, a new student joined Group 4. She had transferred from another course, and her name was Saffi, and she had been sent an old email about the project with everyone's names in it, from before Christmas.

She walked up to the bench where Tara and Ade were weighing out salts, and smiled, and held out her hand.

"Hi," she said. "You must be Tia. Nice to meet you."

And Tara, without thinking about it at all, smiled back and shook her hand and said, "Nice to meet you too. It's Tara, actually. The email's out of date."

"Oh, sorry! Tara," said Saffi. "Got it."

And that was it. It took about two seconds. Nobody went red. Nobody laughed. Nobody needed to apologise with a beaker. Saffi said Tara for the rest of the afternoon, and the next day, and every day after that.

Ade watched the whole thing with his eyebrows up.

"That was much quicker," he said, when Saffi had gone to get goggles.

"The first minute," said Tara. "It's so much cheaper in the first minute."

"Than five months?"

"Than five months," said Tara. "But five months was still better than June."

The letter she sent

Danya,

We got the canal flat. Very small kitchen, very thick walls, ducks. Hollie says she'll bring soup on Sundays. I believe her.

This month I corrected my own name. Twice.

My lab partner had been calling me Tia since October. I didn't correct him on the first day, and then it felt too late, so I let it go for five months, about twenty labs. Then he put TIA on the title slide of our group presentation, the one the whole course comes to, and I nearly let that go too.

I didn't. I told him on Wednesday. He was horrified for about ten seconds and then laughed till he cried, because he'd been wondering for months why I sometimes didn't turn round. He said he'd much rather I'd told him in October. Which, yes.

Then on Monday a new girl in our group called me Tia straight away, from an old email. I corrected her in the first minute. It took two seconds. Nobody even noticed.

So I've learned two things. The first minute is the cheapest time to say a small thing, by miles. And even when you've missed it, now is still cheaper than later.

Tara

P.S. Seven drafts in the notebook. In this one I wrote "it's too late" three times. It wasn't, even once.

The question for your own table

Is there a small thing you have let go on for so long that it feels too late to say: a name said wrong, a mistake on a form, a habit someone has that you never mentioned? What would it cost to say it now, compared with saying it never?

Something to do

Next time someone gets your name, or anything small about you, wrong, say so in the first minute, kindly and plainly. And if there is one you missed a long time ago, pick the next chance before it goes on a slide.

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