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As kisses went, it was a nice one. At any rate, I was pretty sure I was forgiven.
“Happy anniversary,” she said, rubbing her nose against mine.
I gestured to the pad of paper in her lap. “What’s the notebook for?”
“Baby names,” she said.
“Can I see?”
“No.”
“It’s my baby.”
“Or so you choose to believe.”
I teasingly wrestled it out of her hands and opened to the first page.
“See any ones you like?” she said.
I read through the boy list. “I kind of like Henry.”
“You don’t think it’s too old sounding?” she said. “I don’t want the other kids to tease him.”
“I guess it’s a little old-fashioned,” I said. “But I still like it. Henry Dunning. Has a nice ring to it.”
“What about Charles?” she said. “It’s a little more youthful.”
“Too regal,” I said. “Feels pretentious.”
She took her pen from behind her ear and crossed out Charles. “What about from the girl list?”
I looked at the list. The first several names were straight out of the classic name catalogue.Margaret. Elizabeth. Charlotte.Rachael.About twenty names on, they started getting a little exotic.Athena. Harley.Zoe.Willow.From there, I couldn’t help but notice a theme developing.Ariel. Marsha.Shelly.Marina.A hundred or so names in, and it was clear that I’d left my wife baking in the sun too long.Surfina. Pebbles. Fruity Pebbles. Sandy. Piper.
“If our daughter ends up going through life with the name Hightidia,” I said, “I guess I’ll only have myself to blame.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “I actually kind of like the idea of her going around introducing herself as ‘Pebbles—Fruity Pebbles.’She’ll be Connecticut’s own James Bond.”
I grabbed the pen from behind her ear and wrote “VETO” in large letters across the entire bottom quarter of the list. Then I scribbled in a suggestion of my own.
“What about this one?” I said, handing her the notebook.
“Mara?” she said.
“An old fish friend of mine,” I explained. “You would have liked her. At the moment, you two have a lot in common.”
She gave me a cynical look. “Was this the pregnant trout who was supposed to keep us from having sex fourteen hours after we first met?”
“So you remember her.”
She held up her pointer finger. “She had one job, Ian. One. Do you really want to name your first-born child after someone so incompetent?”
“I’ll have you know that Mara’s professional ineptitude is responsible for one of the happiest memories of my life,” I said. “I’d be proud to name my child after her.”
“And what are you going to tell our daughter when she’s seven years old and says, ‘Daddy, my teacher told us to write a paragraph about how our parents chose our names.’”
“Fine,” I said, grabbing the pen and crossing Mara off the list. “What about Tara or Lara? Or Zara?”
She took the pen from my hand, turned to a fresh page in the notebook, and scribbled down another name. “I’ve been thinking about this one,” she said, handing it over. “What do you think?”
I looked at the name. It was a good one. Perhaps the best so far.
“Cassandra,” I said aloud. “It’s perfect.”
