Fairy Tales

My father used to tell me fairy tales. He would tell me Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty from memory always with his own funny additions, like how Cinderella had bunions and when the prince woke Sleeping Beauty up, she had to wait to kiss him because she had to pee so bad.
After dinner, at a restaurant or at home, I would climb into his lap and bury my head in his shoulder and pretend to sleep. All the while, feeling his chest rumble as he talked to my sister about her newest track record, or my brother about his newest suspension.
He would quiz me on my multiplication tables as we drove down Leland Road on my way to school, teaching me silly tricks to remember the hard ones, like seven.
But then I guess, I got a calculator.
And I got a new life.
All the sudden his little girl as grown into this thing.
This thing with ambition, and dreams, and desires, and God forbid breasts.
And I can feel his eyes watching me as I stretch out on the couch, in sweatpants and a wifebeater. I can feel his heart palpitations as he takes in the sliver of skin between my shirt and the top of my pants, the dyed hair, the black eyeliner, the fingers flying across phone buttons. And I know he asks himself "Where has she gone?"
I can't be daddy's little girl.
I can't keep the promises I made when I was seven and didn't know what on earth I was saying.
I can't say I won't lie,
or roll my eyes,
or kiss boys,
or get my ears pierced.
He has to let me go.
There is an image in my father's head of what I should be. The image is of a girl with long straight hair, a button down white shirt, simple makeup and khaki shorts. The girl gets straight A's, dates people her own age, comes home at nine on the weekends, and does the dishes.
The reality in front of him is a young woman with a crazy scarf, skinny jeans, piercings, an older boyfriend with a car. She's away from home as much as possible and all she wants to do is dance and make music.
She's a hippie by his standards, and he resents her life.
My father resents what I've chosen to make of myself.
I'm not my sister, and I'm certainly not him,
and worst of all, I have no desire to be either one.
He asked me last night if I would still climb in his lap after dinner.
I looked him in the eye and I said,
"I'm sorry John, I can't."