Middle Name




So, our friends and family in the TV 8 viewing area were alerted, the VCR was programmed, the dress was secured, the plates were in the dishwasher and the parents had gone to bed.

I was still a little wired from the whole circus so I decided to watch TV for a while. I reached for the TV listings to see what was on. Electra stood on the top sheet, arms crossed, a cross expression on her face.

“Hah!” I laughed. “You’re double-crossed!” She wasn’t having any of my comedy.

“My name,” Electra demanded.

“You’ll be mad,” I said. “You’ll see connections that don’t exist.” I sat back in the recliner. Dad’s lockbox for valuable documents is inside the end-table beside his TV-watching chair. I was actually moving towards that because I knew where we were going to end up.

Electra thought I was running away from her by leaning back. She growled and jumped to the armrest, then ran to my elbow.

“Don’t back away from me! I have a right to know my own name!”

“As long as you come when I call, though, does it really matter what the Federal Registry thinks you’re named?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You have to promise not to be mad,” I said.

“Too late,” she pointed out.

“Oh. Well, if you’re already mad, then I can’t make it any worse by-“

“CONRAD!”

“Okay, okay!” I pulled up the vault and found the key. Her official registration was in the same folder as Dad’s military discharge, their wedding license and my birth certificate.

I brought it out and unfolded it on the table. A couple of coasters in the corners kept it flat, I settled back and waited.

She lifted her arms for me to pick her up. “No, it’s the heroine’s journey of self-discovery. I play the wise man who advised caution.” I used the voice of Yoda to say, “Answers find you will, like not you may. Understanding you must be.”

“Riiiight,” she muttered. “Jedi heroine away.” She jumped to my thigh, my next thigh, the armrest then a perfect landing on the line beneath ‘Sylph’s Name.’

Right there at her feet it read: ELECTRA LEIA LOUDON.

“Leia?” she asked.

“I’d like to point out that you were part of the family from the very beginning,” I said.

“You named me after Leia Organa? Of Star Wars?” She was smiling. The connotations hadn’t hit her yet. I tried to smile back.

“I have sort of a crush on her. Not enough to tell everyone to call you Leia, but-“

“Conrad, that’s sweet! She’s my favorite character!”

“She is?”

“Yeah, she’s a damsel in distress, but put a gun in her hands-“

“Blaster,” I said.

“Okay,” she rolled her eyes, “put a phaser in her hands-“

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“And she’s the one that escaped the cell block. I liked her! I still like her! Why were you so worried that I’d be mad?”

“Okay!” I clapped my hands together like Coach Paul did at the end of his attempts at a hygiene lecture. “That’s all I got! Return to your regular schedule.” I picked up the form and put it away, locking the vault.

“Wait a minute,” Electra said slowly.

“Crap,” I muttered. I put the vault down and the key away.

“Electra was a princess… Leia is a princess… OH MY GOD!”

“I can explain!” I said.

“MY name is PRINCESS!” she wailed. She curled up, hugging her shins, face to her knees. “So all those games with Mrs. Princess… You were thinking about me!”

“NO!” I said. I slid out of my chair to kneel before the table. “Jennifer, look at me.” She lifted her head a tiny bit, looking at me through the bangs of her hair.

“Electra, your theory is that when I was within reach of boobs the size of your carrier, I was capable of thinking of ANY other woman than Mrs. Branch?”

Startled, she coughed out a single bark of laughter. Then she remembered she was mad and scowled at me.

“Come on, you and I BOTH came up with the NAME Princess. Even in my deepest fantasies, only Mrs. Branch has that as her NAME. That just happens to be a title for two of the people you’re named after.”

“I suppose,” she said, her scowl softening. A bit. A very little bit.

“I have NEVER called you ‘Princess,’ or my princess, or anything like that, right?”

“Right.”

I cupped my hands and she crawled into them.

“Did you ever get sized for a tiara?” I asked. “I’ll bet you’re a size two.”

“I will kill you in your sleep,” she said. “And you know I’m smart enough to figure out a way.” She smiled when she said it, but it wasn’t the sort of smile a class clown tries to get from his audience.

I gulped audibly and we went off to bed.



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Index

26. Reporting In

28. The Reaction