I ran a delivery to the Charlotte Plaza building two weeks ago. I had just dropped off the sandwich on the 20th floor and was looking down as I tucked the credit slip into my wallet when I heard the elevator arrive. I must’ve stepped into the wrong one because I found myself going up rather than down. I arrived at the 27th floor, where two men and a woman joined me. They were dressed in business attire, young to middle-aged, but the woman looked younger than the men. She wore a suit jacket and a red and white skirt. She was tall and had shoulder length red-brown hair. “Wait, your name is Ashley?” one of the men asked. “Yeah,” she said with a quick laugh. “Oh, I thought it was Carly.” “I guess they’re pretty close,” she said, tilting her head. “Nah,” “No, not really,” said the men with a little embarrassed laugh. “Wait, who’s Carly?” said the first man, turning toward the second. “I think Carly was the intern,” said the other man. “At least we didn’t call you Dalina,” said the first. “Yeah!” laughed the second. “I definitely would’ve said something if you had called me Dalina!” said the woman as she started chuckling along. I wondered

Ashley seemed to be carrying herself with an air of feigned confidence. She seemed to strive to fit in. The men also tried their best to be smooth and authoritative, but they weren’t totally at ease. Soon I realized the context of the conversation I’d stumbled into. “Yeah, your résumé has your middle name on it too, doesn’t it?” asked the first man. “Yeah, it does,” said Ashley. The man tapped his phone a couple times and then said, “Yeah, it’s Marie.” “You should’ve said something when we called you Carly!” the first man reiterated, evidently still embarrassed. “I just figured you’d realize it sooner or later,” Ashley said accommodatingly.

We all stood in silence for a moment, nervously glancing around so as to avoid eye contact. The elevator whooshed downward.

“You know, when I was in school I had a teacher who always called me Anita,” Ashley started, filling the silence. “I couldn’t get him to call me by my right name. I would say, ‘It’s Ashley,’ and he’d say ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Okay, Anita,'” I started chuckling at this point, less because of the anecdote than the growing absurdity of the situation. My quiet giggle spilled into a laugh, and the second man started laughing too. I was feeling playful when the doors opened so I stood waiting for my reluctant travel companions to step out first. They all looked around again, wondering who was to go first. The men started, then hesitated, a stilted gesture of courtesy for the lady who was now the reluctant center of attention. We all finally disembarked, and I smiled as I descended an escalator, musing at the fortunate mistake that had led me into the whole scenario.