Placing the paper bag on the end of the cafeteria table, I see the name written in my dad’s thin, slanted handwriting: Cyndy, with two y’s. He still insists on writing my childhood nickname on the bag, a name no one knows at school, rendering the label useless if I actually misplaced my lunch. I take a bite of my tuna sandwich and cover it with the foil wrapping to try to hide the smell. It’s not like anyone is sitting close to me, but I don’t want to take the chance of drawing attention. I stare at the name on the bag as I chew. Cyndy, short for Cynthia, a name given to me in accordance with the Ashkenazic Jewish tradition of naming a person after a deceased family member. My mom always wanted a son and to name him Charlie after her uncle. After adopting my sister, my mom tried again to honor Uncle Charlie, but my dad thwarted her, saying he would only adopt again if they adopted another girl. And so, Charlie became Cynthia.

I check the clock. Still 25 more minutes of lunch. I better slow down. I hate finishing too early, having no one to talk to, and then having to pretend to stare at my planner to look busy. The name on the bag still taunts me. Cyndy. Why did they decide to spell it with two y’s, rather than the traditional way: C-I-N-D-Y? It’s like they thought that being Korean in a Jewish family did not require enough explanation already. I do not recall exactly when I stopped using Cyndy, but it was not an active choice. Like so much of my life, it was a passive act that happened to me. I imagine it happened like this. Sometime in middle school, a teacher checked the attendance, saying “I’m going to call out your names. Please tell me if you have a nickname so I can mark it down.” Somewhere in the middle of her list she called, “Cynthia Landesberg?” I cringed as her eyes flitted past my raised hand, looking for someone who actually matched that Jewish-German name, settling back on me when she realized my hand was the only one raised. Confusion and then a slight shrug of her shoulders, like the puzzle was not worth figuring out, she marked me present. The small window available for me to tell her to call me Cyndy comes and goes, my identity transient in the wind. It did not matter, anyway.

Ten more minutes. Perfect. I still have my apple to eat and I think I have a page or two of math I can finish before the bell. A boy walks in the blue double doors, late for lunch, and I recognize him. Ben, from synagogue. Will he recognize me? He would not recognize me from school, for sure. We never have classes together. Besides, he is popular. In synagogue, we are in a class of only about 15 kids, but he never talks to me there, either. One year in Hebrew school, the teacher insisted we use our Hebrew names during class. If Cyndy and Cynthia do not fit me, Ashira Nogah certainly does not, either. Meaning wealthy and brilliant, I found it ugly and awkward. Ben already had a Hebrew name, Benyamin. So did everyone else. Sara and Lia and Noah and Aaron. And I had Ashira Nogah. Whenever the teacher said the name, I would shrink down smaller than my already tiny frame, as the other kids looked around searching for the owner. They never did find me.

Five more minutes until the bell. My heart is racing for no reason, other than I am waiting. I plan my walking route to biology to calm my nerves, avoiding the hallway where the Regina George of the school randomly pushed me into a locker last month. I’m looking forward to biology because Mr. Turner teaches it. He is young, handsome, and kind, and never once mixed me up with Debbie Lee or Jennifer Huang, unlike my teacher last year, who thought we were all interchangeable. The only thing I am dreading is that he said we are starting our unit on genetics today. I imagine punnett squares filled with the various permutations of our parents’ genes that are supposed to make us who we are. White Jew plus white jew makes Korean adoptee, right?

One more minute to go. I double-check my backpack. Science book in front of the red spiral notebook. Pencil on the inside pocket of my bag. Everything in its place. I stuff the apple core and tin foil wrapping from my sandwich into the paper bag and I pause a minute, staring once more at the name on the bag. I imagine for a moment my Korean name written instead. Jae Young Kim or Kim Jae Young. I’m still not sure where to put the surname. The only Korean person my family knew was our hairdresser who we called Kim. I assumed it was short for Kimberly. Jae Young. What a terrible sounding name. My parents told me my birth mom wrote this name, along with my birth date, on a piece of paper when she left me. They do not know that the case file they hide in their closet on the top shelf says otherwise. Some social worker named me, filling in the blank asking for a name on my adoption paperwork. That name is not mine anymore than the others.

The bell rings. I am released into a sea of smiles, laughter, and chatter, swallowed whole, anonymous.