I did not anticipate my Thursday going this way. I wanted to spend the day lying around, trying to get over what happened with Daniel, and getting up the nerve to call Anna about Ben Simmons. All that accompanied by at least one quart of ice cream.
But no. I thought Dad was going to some sort of planning session with the rest of the Princess Ball committee and just wanted me to come. It isn’t until we get to the church that Dad springs it on me: I’m here to talk with a group of Princess Ball attendees. And the pastor. They call it a Princess Meeting. I call it Personal Hell.
I mean, forget the fact that I pretty much always hate talking to pastors—they have this way of sneaking God into the conversation. You’ll be talking about something mundane, like creamed corn, and all of a sudden creamed corn is a symbol of how God loves you. But pastors aside, I just don’t want to be around the other Princess Ball attendees. From what I’ve heard at school and seen at the waltz lesson, most of them are good girls, sweet girls, girls who have “it” figured out, whatever it is. They’ve got straight As and flawless makeup and whole families and probably golden retrievers.
Hanging out with those kinds of girls feels like showing up to a party naked. No, they don’t laugh and point—they swarm to help me, include me, talk to me, when all I really want to do is run home and find a shirt.
I sigh as I walk down the church hallway; the sound of thirty-some girls in full talking frenzy pours down the corridor. I take a deep breath and turn the corner into the classroom.
The room is the preschool Sunday school room, covered in craft projects and bright posters. I recognize almost everyone, either from school or from my youth group days. I take a seat as far away from everyone else as possible, which is tricky given that the chairs are arranged in a messy circle. Mona Banks waves from the other side of the room; I pretend not to notice, but she heads my way regardless.
“Hey, Shelby!” Mona calls.
“Hi, Mona,” I say, without an attempt to match her enthusiasm. She slides into the chair next to me and flips her hair over her shoulder.
“So, I was talking to some friends about the ball and how you get to plan it while we were working on this Habitat for Humanity house this week. They were so jealous!”
“Things are going pretty good. We have a cake tasting on Friday.”
“Oh, I’m jealous! I also heard about this thing that my cousin did at her city’s father-daughter-princess-ball thing; I bet you already know about it. With the roses?”
“Haven’t heard of it,” I say, which Mona interprets as “Tell me more!”
“Well, everyone gets a big white rose and they take your picture in your dress with it, handing it to your father,” Mona explains, twisting her hair around her fingers.
“Sounds… showy.”
“Yeah, that’s sort of the point, isn’t it?” Mona says. She waves to a few other youth group girls, who venture our way. “A big show about being good daughters and whatever?”
I laugh a little. “Right. Right.”
Mona laughs, then lowers her voice. “Though I have to admit, it’s kind of funny. The questionnaires and the whole bonding thing… like they think this dance will make me go talk to my dad about stuff. It’s like those drug promises they make you sign in elementary school—do they really think those work?”
I stare at Mona for a moment. Mona Banks? Perfect Girl poster child? “What do you mean?” I ask.
Mona giggles and her friends lean in to listen. “I mean, come on. It’s just a dance. Those vows they added in are so stupid, but… they make my dad happy, so whatever, I guess….”
Right. You aren’t bound by promises. This is just a joke to you. I almost feel betrayed—these girls look like the cast of one of those cheery don’t-do-drugs videos they make you watch in health class, and have everyone believing it. But they aren’t. They aren’t perfect. I shouldn’t be jealous of Mona and her total, complete faith after all, because it’s not real—she’s like a math problem, the kind where you got the right answer but didn’t show any of your work. Mona is the right answer, but she didn’t get there by going through anything difficult, by questioning God, by doubting. She landed there by playing a part, but she’s never done the work.
I swallow. I’m still jealous.
I’m about to respond when the pastor steps into the room, all smiles and shampoo-commercial hair.
“Ladies, ladies, thank you so much for coming today,” the pastor says, sitting down in a chair by the door. “It’s nice to see so many people participating in the Princess Ball—we’ve had to split you into three groups to have these little sessions! Anyhow, most of you know me—a few of you don’t. I’m Pastor Ryan, and I’m here to talk to you a little bit about what the Princess Ball is really all about.”
Everyone smiles at him. He leans back in the chair, as if deciding where to begin. It’s a convincing ruse, except I’m pretty certain no pastor has ever entered a room without knowing what he’ll say. Prepared speeches are kind of in the job description.
“The Princess Ball is all about solidifying your relationship with your father. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the ways your father shows you he cares about you. I’d like to go around the room and have everyone tell us about a way your father shows you he loves you.”
I wonder if they’d notice me leaping out the window—I stare at it longingly as the first girl starts. She talks about her dad’s paying for her to attend the local private school. The next one talks about “family night” where they play board games. One cites her father’s always asking about her day. Another one says they make breakfast together on Saturdays. It’s coming around to me. Come on, Shelby, think of something, make something up, anything. I try to formulate an answer, something that girl on the cover of the Princess Ball pamphlet would say. “Shelby?” Pastor Ryan says.
All eyes on me.
I freeze. “Um… my father…” My face flushes as much from guilt as embarrassment—I mean, my dad and I aren’t exactly making pancake breakfasts, but it’s not like he’s a terrible guy or something.
“How about… the way your father takes a very active role in the community so that it’s a better environment for you to grow up in?” Pastor Ryan suggests.
“Yes. That,” I say automatically. It’s only after the words leave my mouth that I consider what Pastor Ryan just said. Is that why Dad would medal in the Volunteer Olympics? For me? Maybe—I don’t think he was in the Organic Produce League for my benefit, but I can’t justify why else he’d head up the Princess Ball planning committee if it wasn’t for me. I guess I’ve never really thought about it.
I dwell on that as the remaining girls answer, and Pastor Ryan talks about ways we can show that we love and appreciate our fathers. It’s mostly stuff I do for Promise One anyway, so I tune him out, until he says—
“Living a pure life. Free from drugs, free from alcohol—for now, at least, and in moderation when you’re old enough—and free from sex until you’ve made your marriage vows.” He pauses, looks around the room—I notice more than a few girls dodging his eyes. He continues, “Your purity is the most precious gift God gave you. And God gave you a father to guide you and help you keep that gift until it’s time for you to start a new life with your husband.”
God gave me a mother, too, and look how that turned out, I think bitterly. I’m instantly sorry—not to God, or anything, but to Mom. Using her name in a mental comeback to Pastor Ryan feels like I’ve cheapened her.
Pastor Ryan’s tone darkens. “But sometimes, the idea of giving away your purity sounds very tempting, doesn’t it? Sometimes people will tempt you. The devil tempted Eve—I’m sure you all know the story from one place or another. The devil wanted Eve to give up another one of God’s precious gifts, the Garden of Eden. And Eve was tempted. She couldn’t resist, and she sacrificed God’s gifts. And in the end… Eve felt shame. She knew she wasted God’s gift, and she was disgraced.”
Pastor Ryan pretends not to notice a girl who is too busy texting to listen to him. “You’re lucky, though, all of you. Not only can you learn from Eve’s mistakes, but by becoming closer to your father through the Princess Ball, you’ll have help resisting temptation. You’ll never have to know what it’s like to feel like you’ve let God down.”
Holy shit. And I mean “holy” in the most sincere way.
I look around—some of the girls are paying rapt attention, some are ignoring him, and a few others look as irritated by the whole speech as I am. I think of my younger self, back when I still went to church—I had preschool in this exact room. I remember being told by pastors, elders, little old ladies, and well-meaning church friends about how important it was to pray for my mom. How God would do what was best. How God loved me. And here they are again, telling me I might let God down?
God let me down. I raise my hand.
“Yes, Shelby?” Pastor Ryan asks.
“So what about Adam?” I ask, trying to appear eager and knowledge-seeking instead of annoyed and bitter.
“I’m sorry, what?” Pastor Ryan asks, bright-eyed. My nerves spike.
“I was just thinking,” I say. “What about Adam? Didn’t he taste the fruit, too?”
“Yes…” Pastor Ryan nods and leans back in his chair, a studious look on his face. “What about him?”
“So, um, if he tried the fruit… shouldn’t guys be having Princess Balls, too? Or Prince Balls, I guess?” I didn’t mean the question to be entirely sarcastic, nor did I mean to say “prince balls,” but I really want to know why the hell guys aren’t stuck in this tomb of eternal virginity with us.
“Well, Shelby, luckily there just don’t seem to be as many temptations in the world for young men as there are for young ladies,” Pastor Ryan says, smiling. “But I think instead of focusing on why we haven’t invited boys to the ball, we should focus on why we have invited you. It’s so important that fathers and daughters understand their roles in each other’s lives. I hope you leave today’s session with the sense that you and your father together have the armor to protect you from falling victim.”
I want to yell at him. I want to fight. Why does he always have to smile? Why is he always so calm? I wish he’d scream at me, so I could justify screaming back. It isn’t fair that he always has an answer, yet it’s never an answer that satisfies me. It isn’t fair that he and the rest of them can say, “God has a plan” and drop the issue, while I’m left wondering what the hell God’s plan is and why he won’t let me in on it. It isn’t fair that half the girls in this room don’t care about the vows, and the other half are Perfect Girls and Perfect Daughters and Perfect Believers who would never break them anyway.
It
isn’t
fair.
But instead of saying that, I stare at the poorly executed paintings of Jesus that line the room, letting my sizzling temper cool as Pastor Ryan talks. They’re big, blocky portraits of a porcelain-skinned, dark-haired Jesus cuddling lambs, offering a hand to children, waving an arm to create a rainbow. Picture Book Jesus, the one who’s easy to have faith in.
Mom never really read Bible stories to me. In fact, she never seemed all that into church—and before she got sick, Dad took me with him more out of habit than faith. So at home, she stuck to the classics: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Goodnight Moon, The Story of Ferdinand, and, at least once every few months, A Little Princess. Sometimes, in a bookless situation, she made up stories; other times we sang—my favorite song was that “Going On a Bear Hunt” thing.
We’re goin’ on a bear hunt!
We’re gonna catch a big one!
We’re not scared!
I’d repeat each line after her, making it a strange duet. It was the same every time—you come to tall grass, a wide river, a dark cave, and you always can’t go over it! Can’t go under it! We’ll have to go through it!
Mom and I would go through the tall grass or wide river or dark cave or any number of obstacles with big, dramatic hand motions. It didn’t matter where we were—restaurant, waiting room, bookstore—she was never embarrassed to be going through a wide river with her giggly daughter. Dad would laugh and smile and act enthused by our bear-hunt tale.
It always ended the same way—we see the imaginary bear, then run back through the river, the cave, the tall grass. We wound up where we started, safe and together and happy, even if our hunt was fruitless.
I narrow my eyes at Picture Book Jesus. So much easier to believe in when I was little and he was just a nice man in a nice story. Just like it was easy to believe in a bear at the end of a make-believe hunt.
But now Jesus isn’t just a nice man. He’s part of the force that stole my mom. He’s the being I can never catch to blame, to hate, to believe in, to grab onto, because whenever I get close I have to run back through the cave, the river, the grass, and start my journey all over again. And I have to do it all without a mom to guide me.
The only thing I leave the session with is a sense of certainty that Eve made a fair trade by eating that fruit. She traded paradise for knowledge. She wanted to know the truth about evil, about God, about sex, just like I do.
Way to go, Eve.
Pastor Ryan stands at the doorway, giving everyone high fives as we leave the classroom. His hand rests on mine a bit longer than everyone else’s, and there’s pity in his eyes. I ignore it and walk out.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe Eve did feel worthless for betraying God—maybe I’ll feel worthless if I have sex. But at least that way, God would be coming through the way everyone predicted. At least that way, I would know that the church’s version of God isn’t just a picture-book fantasy.
Which means I’d finally be able to confront the glorious, giving, benevolent God for not saving Mom.