He hands us each one.
“Thank you,” we both tell him.
Alex sighs as he peers down at Mia. “I miss the days when I paid for my swears with a penny in a jar.”
“I don’t.” She gives her cake pop a lick.
He laughs. “That much is obvious.”
Mia says to me, “Give it a lick! Daddy and I made them!”
“You don’t have to lick it,” Alex tells me. “You can just bite into it like a normal person.”
“Who wants to be normal?” I lick my cake pop and smile up at Alex, squinting against the sun. “Mmm.”
Mia asks me, “What do you think?”
“I think,” I tell her, “this icing issuperb.”
“That’s the part I made,” she says proudly. “What’s ‘superb’ mean?”
“It’s a synonym for excellent.”
She beams. “Got it! So likereally good.”
“Exactly.”
“More words, Thea Thesaurus,” she says.
This is a game we play. I frown, pretending to think deeply. “Synonyms for superb, okay.” I tap my chin. “Horrendous. Atrocious.”
She shrieks. “No, Thea! Those aren’t cinnamons! They’re Entenmann’s!”
The day Mia stops calling synonyms “cinnamons” and antonyms “Entenmann’s” will devastate me.
Alex shakes his head. “Ted, come on. Much better examples would be substandard, inferior—”
“Daaad!” Mia hollers. “Noooo!”
“What?” he gives her exaggerated deer-in-the-headlights eyes.
Mia slaps her hand to her forehead.
I frown and scratch my head. “Okay, okay, I’ve got it now. Despicable. Dreadful—”
“Thea!” Mia yells, brandishing her cake pop like a sword. “For real life now. More cinnamons!”
“For real life,” I tell her, leaning in, elbows on my knees. “More synonyms for superb are: exquisite, outstanding, splendid.”
Mia licks her cake pop and smiles. “Thank you.” She turns toward Alex. “Daddy, lick yoursplendidcake pop, too!”
Alex lifts the cake pop, holding it up to the light, as if appraising it. He tips it side to side, brings it to his mouth, then bites off half of it.
Mia boos. I hiss.
Alex grins, then says around his mouthful, “So, how is Holidays in July Day treating you two?”
“Superb!” Mia says.