I wonder what the cats think of our names.
I will not say “their” names. They address each other by their real names, which we will never know.
But they play along with us, the way you let your nephew win at Uno.
Sometimes, we get it right.
Olive is a briny orb who no one admits, but everyone agrees, is the best part of the salad.
Fergie and Rihanna make music that makes you feel good about yourself, or at least ready to walk into that Board meeting. Hips shimmies. Boobalah is the sweetheart who will never tell us that we misspelled her name. Maurice is a space cowboy who sings of the pompatus of love. Angelo favors cannoli.
But Apricot is not peachy.
Peachy was peachy. Steven is peachy. Gator is peachy, but please don’t tell him I said that, since “peachy” does not fit the “apex predator” aesthetic for which he strives.
Apricot is the color of the blackberry, but that name was already taken.
Apricot is the color of the spots, minus the leopard.
Apricot is precisely the right color, but she is not apricot.
Fruit savants might point out that the apricot is in the genus Prunus, the taxonomic bunkmate of numerous plums.
Apricot would appreciate the thought, then remind you that she is not named Numerous Plums. She is Apricot.
She is the color of ink that writes only truth, and as cool as Converse sneakers. Apricot stands by her name.
She will admit: she was a bit of a dried fruit upon arrival. It is a risk to reveal that you are juicy. What if your new acquaintances are cool kids, rather than warm children?
Your sweetness may be so sticky that they run off to wash their hands.
Your jam may be so zesty that they slam the lid as quickly as possible.
It would be safer to hide between earnest oats and unremarkable walnuts in the trail mix. No one can take offense at a dried apricot.
But no gold heart can hide in the granola bar forever. Apricot’s jamboree would not remain jarred.
It started small, like a shy smiley-face of syrup on the corner of your plate. Apricot allowed one staff member to kiss her, then another. She leaked the secret that she likes having her heinie skritched and will raise it up, up, up, like a pot of jam boiling over.
She loved and forgave, which are synonyms, remaining serene as Patches polished off her dinner. She cracked her jar.
A jar, a smile, or a mystery, once cracked, cannot go back to dry perfection.
Today, Apricot inhabits a plump and juicy world. The plummy cat with the peachy name lets risk run down her chin. She loves, without weighing the consequences.
She shakes trees — which is to say, head-bonks legs — expecting friendship to fall like ripe fruit. She loves her name, and she makes nicknames for everyone she loves, which is to say everyone.
(I heard her call Jonathan “Binky.” Do not tell him I told you this.)
In the end, Apricot might have the correct name after all. It is a mere syllable away from apricity, an old English word for “the warmth of sun in winter.”
In a world where winters invade summers and grief climbs every tree, we stand in need of peachy plums.
An apricot by any other color would not be Apricot.