My daughter Bill and I were spending Bring Your Child to Work Day together. And before you start scratching your head about her name and start calling me an asshole, let me explain something about Bill. You see, when my wife and I went on our inaugural date together the very first thing she said to me was that she had to call her first daughter Wilhelmina. Okay, perhaps that wasn’t the very first thing she said; she may have said, “Hi, my name is Ammie.” But it definitely was the second thing which came out of her mouth. I think I said, “Okay, but I was thinking of maybe having supper first.”
When Ammie was five years old she and her mother took a trip to visit her great aunt, Wilhelmina, over in Jolly Old England. When Ammie asked Aunt Wilhelmina why she didn’t have any children for her to play with the old bat told her that she had been too busy building Bristol Inc., which fed and clothed her, and consequently did not have time to spawn a child. Somehow over the next two weeks her aunt had managed to manipulate Ames into promising that she would name her first-born daughter Wilhelmina. The old biddy’s coercion continued well into Ammie’s adulthood until everyone in the family accepted it as fact.
~
“I hate that name,” Ammie confided in me.
“Great,” I said with equal fervor. “I hate that name too.” We both stared down at our brand-new, beautiful, amazing little bundle. My eyes were all runny and pink (I think I must have been allergic to something in the hospital room). “Well, I don’t see the problem. Let’s call her Gladys. That was my aunt’s name.”
Ammie laughed and batted my arm, then sighed. “She’s so beautiful. She doesn’t look like a Wilhelmina.”
“So let’s call her something else. How about Emma? That’s a nice name.”
Ammie looked up at me and gave me a smile which didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Wilhelmina Gretel Bristol-Hays,” she said.
“Aw, come on, Ames, we can’t stick this little bundle of goo with a horrible name like that. Besides, the old biddy is dead; she’ll never know.” But that didn’t matter to Ammie. Ammie had made a promise, and Ammie always kept her promises. So our little beauty with the soft dark hair and sleepy eyes became Wilhelmina.
Days later we were still throwing nicknames at each other.
“Willy?”
Ammie made a face.
“Okay, Willy is out. How about Will? Wills?”
“Lil?” Ammie said.
I made the face now.
“Hell? Helly?”
“That’s just asking for trouble.”
“Meena?”
“Minnie?”
“Libby?”
“Liberace?”
“Batman…I’m Batman.”
“Leona Helmsley.”
“Why would you even joke about that?”
Sven, our resident bodyguard, walked over to the cradle during this particular name throwing session and picked the baby up. “Come on Bill, let’s leave these two crazy people alone,” he said with his low raspy voice. We looked at each other and smiled. Bill!
Dora’s name came about when Ammie made a hasty promise to an inconsolable Bill after she found out that she would be getting a little sister or brother, or in Bill’s opinion, a usurper. “Mommy and daddy will even let you name the new baby,” Ammie said after a particularly long temper tantrum. Oh well, it could have been worse; she may have wanted to call her Boots.
It turned out that inadvertently a new precedent had been set. Dora was convinced that it was her turn to come up with the new baby’s name when we were expecting our third. She decided to call her after her favourite uncle, Sven; thank god she pronounced it Seven!
~
“Daddy, what does your company make?” Bill asked. This, by the way, was question four thousand and ninety five.
“Um, well, we don’t make anything. We’re mostly consultants,” I said. I was ready for the next question: What’s a consultant?
“What do you consult about?”
“Hunh? You know what consultants do?” I said. Yes, as a matter of fact I do sound that slick and sophisticated.
Bill looked up at me and rolled her eyes. “Of course I know what a consultant is,” she said. “Gramma Bristol says that consultants are the leeches of the universe who feed off hard-working legitimate businesses. Dad, what does legitimate mean?”
“Your Grandma Bristol sure has a great sense of humour,” I said as I ground my teeth. “Look,” I said as we stopped in front of a large imposing door and I waved at Esme, dad’s diminutive eighty-year-old secretary. “This is grandpa’s office. Should we stop in and say hi?”
Bill shrugged so we walked into dad’s interrogation room. A quick look around assured me that no one was being water-boarded, so I pulled Bill further into the room. My brother Jake leaned against the wall near a window and gave me a nod but continued furiously texting on his phone. An argument with either ex number one, or two, I assumed. His son Dylan struck exactly the same pose as his red-rimmed eyes remained glued to the electronic game in his hands.
Dad was reading something on the computer screen and didn’t appear to notice our entrance. I cleared my throat then pushed Bill in front of me. “Dad,” I said. “I want you to meet my daught…”
“In a minute,” he growled, and continued to read. I smiled down into my daughter’s innocent face and wondered what the hell I had been thinking bringing this child into the middle of the nest of vipers. “So,” Dad said when he finally looked up. “This is your daughter?”
“My name is Bill,” she said and walked over to the old man’s desk, her hand stuck out for a shake.
With open mouth and round eyes I saw my father reach out and shake my daughter’s hand. “Your name is Bill,” he said. “That’s the same as my name.” He looked from her face to mine and then back again, his eyebrows climbing to his hairline.
Suddenly the door opened, and there, in the inner sanctum of the Hays Empire, stood my wife, Ammie Bristol, of Bristol Inc, public enemy number one. The plastic clatter of a phone hitting polished tiles indicated that Jake had noticed. Ammie, in her immaculate power-suit, her perfectly coifed hair, and a charming smile stepped into the room. “Hello, Mr. Hays,” she said.
Image Credits
“(01) 226” by Victor1558. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.
“three girls” by nerissa’s ring. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.
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