I'm nineteen, home for one of my college breaks. My mother is insisting that I put on a dress and high heels and accompany her to the wedding shower of a distant relation. I'm in my marriageisashamforceduponusbythepatriarchy phase of my life (also the phase of my life where I would rather die than wear a dress. Or heels.) and I'm trying to beg off the event.
"I'm going to go shoot my bow." My father is nothing if not to the point.
"Can I please, please, please, please, please come with you?"
He just laughs.
"I should have been born a boy." I grumble.
***
Female rights of passage make me uncomfortable.
A few years ago a close female friend of mine got married. Through some sort of clerical error or the intervention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I managed to avoid invitations to every single one of her wedding showers. It's not that I don't love her or that I wasn't thrilled she was getting married. I do and I was. I've just never been terribly comfortable in large groups of women.
Well, large groups of mothers at anyrate.
***
"C'mon, Kel, we're going to miss the window!"
I go running onetwothree down the steps to the lake, step off the pier into the boat, and drop the cooler down next to my seat.
"What'd you bring me?" Dad starts the motor on the boat and we're off before either of my brothers can object.
I grin at him. "Night crawlers. And PBR."
"Did you get a . . ."
"Fishing license? You betcha."
"That's my girl."
***
"I regularly apologize to my mother for the period of my life between eleven and nineteen."
"Why?"
"We didn't get along great."
"How were things with your dad then? I mean, I can't imagine he found having a nerdy, klutzy, hormonal daughter super easy."
"You know. They were actually all right." I pause. "I used to be a little bit of a Daddy's Girl."
The friend across from me actually does a spittake. When she manages to cough the coffee out of her lungs she chokes out:
"Used to be?"
***
"Here, Kel. Open this one." My father is beaming. He loves Christmas, especially Christmas morning, before Mom starts her yearly shouting sessions about the turkey and church and ohmygodcompany. Despite my bad attitude (I'm eighteen and have just broken up with my first boyfriend and am so not in the mood for Christmas) I smile at him.
I take the package from him, staggering a little bit. "I picked it out for you myself!" He looks so happy and excited that it's infectious. I rip off the brightly colored wrapping paper and find . . .
Hubcaps.
"Now your car won't look quite so old!" He snatches them out of my hands.
"I'm going to go put them on for you right now."
***
"Why do things like this make you so uncomfortable?"
I'm standing outside a wedding shower, taking deep breaths and trying to talk myself back into going inside when a friend appears at my elbow with a glass of champagne.
I shrug. "I don't have any sisters. Mom would take me to these kinds of things and I was always the kinda awkward girl in the corner." I take a sip. "I don't like to coo over baby things. I think watching people open presents is an uncomfortable waste of an afternoon."
She smiles at me over her champagne glass. "You remind me a lot of your dad."
"Huh?"
"You look just like your mom. I mean, just like her. But the first time I met your father and watched the way you interact with one another and with your mom and with the other people in the room all I could think was "Jesus. They are the spittin' image of one another."
"That," I say, starting to tear up a little, "is the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
She smiles. "We should probably go back inside."
"Shit." I drain my glass and she laughs.
"See what I mean? Just like your pops."
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