Fiction

A name for your order

My mother gave me two names but called me by neither one. On my birth certificate, I am Claudia first. Audrey second. The order is important because the first one means limp, which was the way I came into this world. The second is the strong person my mother expected me to grow into.

“Name for your order please?”

The girl behind the counter has no idea what she’s asking of me. She is young and hip and so sure of herself that she only displays half a name on her badge. I remove an AirPod from my ear to speak.

“Bri, is it?”

She eyes me and I take it as confirmation that I pronounced her half-name correctly – like the cheese. Bri, short for virtuous Brianna.

“Bri, how about you take my order first. Then we’ll be slightly better acquainted and I’ll feel much more comfortable giving you my name.”

She looks me up and down before making eye contact again. Until this point, Bri was leaning, her hip rounded with all her weight stacked to one side. She rights herself now, standing taller, wrinkling her brow as she drawls, “Okay.”

“Great.” I rearrange my laptop and crossbody bag so that I can get to the phone in my coat pocket. It’s hot inside and I need to take the coat off, but I’m all tied up in these bags. “Here we go.” I open the digital wallet on my phone, ready to pay, and peer over the top of the screen where I assume Bri will enter my order. I point. “I’ll have a medium oat latte, please.”

Bri doesn’t put my order in. Instead, she slumps slightly and tilts her head. “Sorry, we don’t have oat milk.”

I glance behind her. “Yes, you do.” The dairy milk alternatives are displayed on a shelf. I see soy milk and almond milk, coconut and rice milk. Right in the centre is a pale carton of oat milk, which according to the label is “barista standard” and “totally vegan”. I’m no vegan, but I do prefer a barista-made oat latte.

“We’ve run out,” Bri says. “There’s more coming tomorrow.”

“But I’d like a coffee today. Can’t you use that one?” I point to the carton on the shelf, tugging down the zip on my coat at the same time. I need to get out of it. And I need that coffee. Behind me the cafe door tinkles and a man with a laptop and thick satchel walks in, pausing in the doorway to shake out his umbrella then peer around for a seat. I glance at the corner table I had my eye on.

“That carton’s display only,” Bri says. “We have soy milk though?”

The zip on my coat jags and now I’m trapped in the duck down while some other remote worker grazes his eyes over my seat. I keep tugging while Bri repeats her offer of a soy latte.

“No.” I shake my head. “Soy milk makes your nipples puffy. They’ll end up like fat inflatable discs if you overdo it – even if you’re a man. It’s the chemicals in it. They mimic oestrogen. Menopausal women use it, you know. To prop up their plummeting oestrogen levels? I’m not menopausal, of course. Perimenopausal maybe – I hardly sleep – but nevertheless no soy for me. It’s just…”

Bri doesn’t interrupt; rather, she looks stunned. She is partly at fault here, encouraging me with her silence. In my peripheral vision, the man in the doorway begins to weave between tables towards the seat that I spied first. My jagged zip finally slips and I wrench my coat open and fan my face.

“Soy milk just…” The man halts two tables from mine and pulls out a chair. He unloads his laptop, a stack of folders and a notebook, spreading it across the table that is set for four. I turn back to Bri and circle my nipples. “Soy milk just puffs up your nipples, that’s all.”

Bri raises her eyebrows. “Cow’s milk then?”

I blink. Cow’s milk isn’t meant for humans. By three months old, calves have four chambers in their digestive systems, but we only have one. Somehow, most people tolerate it, but I’ve heard terrible stories about those who don’t. Explosive stories, in fact.

I smile at Bri to stop myself talking. “I’ll have a short black.”

“Name for the order?”

We are quiet for a moment. “Daisy,” I finally say, and hold my phone out to pay.

Daisy: the name my mother ended up calling me. Not because of its true meaning – day’s eye – but because of the way the flower bursts open in the spotlight of the sun, exposing a bright yellow underbelly. At one point, my favourite colour was yellow, but I don’t think that had anything to do with it. My mother never liked the colour. “It’s so gaudy,” she’d say. “Doesn’t matter what shade.”

Bri fishes a Texta from her apron, picks up a takeaway cup and scrawls my name on the side.

I point to the table in the corner. “I’ll be sitting over there. Can you bring it to me please?”

Bri stalls and glances over the cup, then reaches behind the counter and pushes a numbered card on a metal stand forward.

“Put that on your table then.”

I thank her, shoving my AirPod back in and, as I clamber through the cafe with my laptop and shoulder bag, my phone, car keys and, now, a metal stand, someone speaks in my ear.

“Are you done with your order now, Daisy? Can we get on with business?”

I glance at my phone and see I’ve either forgotten to mute myself or I’ve bumped mute off. Though my hands are full, they go straight to my chest to cover my nipples.

“Oops-a-Daisy,” someone else says, and the lot of them laugh.

I don’t know my colleagues well. We all work remotely. They spend the first half of these phone calls socialising before getting down to business, so they don’t usually know that I mute. With eyes closed, I slip my laptop onto the table; drop my bag to my feet.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “I’m done.”

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 9, 2025 as "Karen Howie Casey".

For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.

All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.

There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this. In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world, it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.

Send this article to a friend for free.