Counterpart

Written for SM Monthly but works for today, being that it is turkey day! Economics-verse based, but it may stand alone if you're not familiar!

Eat food and try not to kill your relatives!

Raye knew she came with daddy issues. If it came down to bucking up and seeing a therapist, they would probably sense it coming off of her in waves before she made it through the door. It wasn't her fault; no one was born with daddy issues, and as she grew older, she realized that there were some basic ground rules when you had a daughter. Namely, don't be an asshole to her.

Her father failed in that respect.

Jason's father did not. His own daughter, Mina, was relatively well adjusted, maybe a bit too trusting sometimes, but she was strong and confident and balanced in a different way than Raye was.

His son didn't turn out bad, either.

Raye could not help but make comparisons, even if her viewpoint was slightly biased. Or maybe not: reality tended to side with her most of the time in these cases. Despite the similarities in origin and age, her father and Jason's father were not counterparts, and never would be; and it took her only a day to discover what she had been missing out on for so many years.

If he weren't needed in Washington (and he almost always was needed in Washington), he would send a limo down the quaint country roads, out to her grandfather's house; a beautiful Victorian nestled in a tiny town full of antique shops and summer homes. It very much would resemble the same song and dance that occurred yearly on her birthday, except there would be snow on the ground instead of fallen blossoms and new leaves. The limo would be black, always black, with tinted windows, and her dress would be cranberry red or navy with a prissy lace collar, more appropriate for a wealthy preteen at the turn of the century than a girl about to enter high school. She would even wear a thick velvet headband, or a bow at the base of her ponytail. Her father had recommended (ordered) some sort of ostentatious hair accessory ever since he had met another Senator's family and all of the girls in it, regardless of age, sported plaid headbands to match their matching plaid jumpers. Her father needed the other Senator's vote for something, so naturally he tried to curry cheap favor by parading Raye out as the party line perception of an ideal daughter.

Mr. Aino came out of the house when they pulled up in Jason's Chevelle, forgoing a coat and trotting carefully down the frozen stairs in his house slippers. He pulled Raye's bag out of her hands, even though she insisted that she could handle it, and held the door of his house open to let her enter first. The inside of the Aino house was warm to the point of dampness and filled with the thick aroma of baking food. "We're frying one, too!" he said excitedly, pointing to a metal cylinder parked in the middle of the living room, surrounded by packaging. His younger brother Marty, who sported the same graying blonde beard and an impressive beer gut that resembled a full-term pregnancy perfectly, was intensely paging through a crispy new instruction booklet.

Behind her, Jason sighed. "Someone dial nine and one already so that I don't have to do all the numbers when my dad burns his face off."

"When I burn our faces off: you're helping me!"

Raye would ride alone in the limo; her father would be running late, since he would schedule meetings even on Thanksgiving Day. Time was arbitrary, so he sent the car to Raye to give the illusion that he was working on a schedule. It was typical; although he didn't hold the holiday in any importance, he wouldn't think that it might to anyone else, and some poor staffer would be stuck at work with the Senator, sneaking glances at the clock, antsy to get home to his or her family. The Senator wouldn't cut it short, but would finish when he felt he was finished, effectively ruining the staffer's holiday. She would arrive at the restaurant before him, and would be seated alone at the table, holding her head up and picking at bread while the other patrons stared and whispered about the poor child left on her own and speculated the reasons. Once, she had brought a book to read while she waited, and her father had frowned and made a comment about how it was rude to read in a restaurant. It was rude to be hours late, too, but she would hold her tongue because by that point, she was famished.

Jason's father pulled her outside to witness the maiden voyage of the Saf-T-Fryer, purchased earlier that week at Target, which was now hooked up to a propane tank and roiling with boiling peanut oil. He made her step back behind the porch and hold the fire extinguisher, just in case of an "accident" as he and Jason lowered the turkey in. "Hey, the instructions say not to consume alcohol while using this thing," Marty shouted helpfully from the doorway.

Mr. Aino swigged his beer and laughed, his breath pluming out in a fog in the freezing air. "We're all right, we've got a fireman on staff!" He started ambling towards the house. "Jason, watch that turkey. Raye, come with me, you need to watch some football. Do you like football?"

She didn't, but she wasn't going to admit that, especially not to the smiling man who was practically twitching with enthusiasm.

When her father would arrive, Kaidou would be with him, despite having a family of his own. Raye wondered if his children resented their father the way she resented hers; by this point, the tapers on the table would be half the length they were when she arrived. She would stand to give him a quick, obligatory hug before he unwound his scarf and slipped off his jacket, holding it out for Kaidou. Every head in the place would turn to stare; even if they were unaware of his political office, Senator Stovall cut a commanding presence, carrying the air of arrogance that came with power. He was always impeccably dressed, perfectly groomed. His shoes were always shined. His cufflinks were always polished. Kaidou was always at his elbow, and Raye was always the picture of adorned obedience.

She was on her second beer as she sat at the card table and learned how to play cinch the hard way, by losing spectacularly to Uncle John and his son Brent, but Mr. Aino would give a "Nice one, Raye," on the rare turns where she helped their team and threw the correct card. Jason passed the table on his way down to the basement to find another meat thermometer. "Throw your trump, babe."

Brent, being fifteen, got pissed off. "Jace, you can't help her." He had been trying to get Raye's attention in the most annoying ways possible, including ridiculing her lack of football knowledge and trying to best her at cards. Jason had already smacked him in the back of the head, twice, once for the grievous infraction of simply being fifteen.

Mr. Aino shot his nephew a look and palmed his cards. "Can it, Brent. Let's see what you got." He grinned widely at the next card, and then threw down the trump ace. "Ha! That's high, jack, game, and last hand! Good one, Raye."

Raye was never allowed to order at the restaurant; they had a special menu prepared just for them, and she never liked the way this place prepared the turkey. She was never allowed to drink anything other than water, either; her father believed that soft drinks and juice detracted from the taste of food, and she wasn't old enough to drink alcohol. He would order the same wine as he did every year, and Kaidou would have to drink it with him, even though he had previously confessed to Raye that he didn't drink alcohol. She wondered if he had ever mentioned this to the Senator, but decided that he probably had, and that it didn't make a lick of difference. Raye's father forced you to comply with his wishes, no matter how absurd, and it was still a mystery to her how he kept getting reelected.

She would sip her Perrier and pick at her salad and wonder what her grandfather was doing at home. Her grandfather was never invited.

Raye's father came to her rescue when Grandpa Aino asked loudly when she and Jason were getting married. "When are you getting married again, Dad?"

Grandpa Aino patted her on the back, his hand lingering a moment too long in her hair. "When I find a girl as pretty as this one."

"Hands off, Pop," Jason called from the doorway. He was trying to maneuver the freshly fried turkey off of the metal stand and into a pan, and then gave up and hauled the whole thing inside. "Mom, clear the counter off so I can cut this bitch up."

"Jason, your mouth!"

"Pop can hit on my girlfriend right in front of me but I can't drop one 'bitch'?"

"No, you can't, not with the kids around." Brent was the youngest person in the house. "And Pop is not hitting on Raye."

Grandpa Aino drained the rest of his beer in a single gulp. "Yes, Pop is."

If their fathers were nothing alike, Raye thought, their grandfathers were exactly the same.

"Raye, are you not hungry?"

She looked up in surprise; for the last half hour, he had been talking politics with Kaidou while she had cut her turkey into smaller and smaller pieces, until some were just bits of fibrous protein on the end of her fork. "I don't like white meat."

The Senator touched a linen napkin to his lips. "Well, dark meat has a lot of calories. We don't want to overeat, do we?"

In addition to roasted turkey and fried turkey, they had baked a ham, even though it seemed that its sole purpose was to be eaten in sandwiches the next morning. There were regular mashed potatoes and garlic mashed potatoes, and mashed parsnips, which were only eaten by Mr. Aino and his father; sweet potatoes sliced in circles with butter still bubbling on their browned surface, butternut squash gratin, bread stuffing made with sourdough and apple sausage, creamed spinach with saltine crust, green bean casserole, jalapeno corn pudding, roasted cauliflower, and a can-shaped hunk of cranberry sauce with the serial number and expiration date indented in one end.

Raye was seated between Jason and his father, and the latter kept refilling her wine glass every time it dipped below the halfway mark. The dining room was packed, and the card table where they had been playing cinch had been dragged in and stuck at one end of the dining table and camouflaged with a red and green tablecloth. Luckily, the younger cousins were stuck at this makeshift "kiddie table", and one of those unfortunates was Jason. He was sitting a half a foot lower than her and slipping table scraps to the dog. She made it a point to playfully elbow him in the head every chance she got, and he finally responded by tickling in her in the side for a second, causing her to crumple up like the Pillsbury doughboy.

Mr. Aino gestured at her plate with a pair of serving tongs. "Raye, you have to try the fried turkey. White or dark?"

It was very nice to be asked. "Dark, please."

Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she flipped it open under the table. It was a text from Mina. Kev didnt tell me i had 2 wear dress & they r serving foie gras this sux.

"Is that Mina?" Mr. Aino asked as he began shoveling creamed spinach onto her plate. She held up the phone so that he could read the display, and he started chuckling. "Tell her I can't guarantee leftovers." He held up his wine glass. "Kippis."

"How is school?"

Raye cringed. It was time for the same questions that she heard every year, in the same order, and the answers remained the same. "Fine."

"I expect that you're keeping your grades up."

"Yes," she lied. Actually, she was supposed to be failing religion, as she had dismissed the entire catechism as brainwashing bullshit and stopped turning in assignments, but the nuns changed her grades on the reports rather than potentially risk their state funding.

"Kaidou has offered to accompany you to visit some colleges. We'll set it up during spring break."

That sounded like a week of flaming hell. "I'm going to use the bathroom." She got up a little too quickly, and knocked gently into a waitress carrying a tray full of drinks. The woman managed to right her tray, but one of the glasses tumbled off the side, dumping its contents and shattering.

Her father fell all over himself apologizing, throwing dark looks at his daughter in between. "My daughter is a bit clumsy, you must forgive her."

For Christ's sake, it was just a water glass.

It was either the food or the wine, or especially that huge slice of apple pie topped with four full seconds worth of Reddi-whip that had dulled her reflexes, because the platter barely crossed underneath her fingers before slipping through and shattering on the floor.

"Oopsie!" Jason's father shook his wet hands over the sink and bent down to pick up the pieces. "My fault! Don't touch that, honey, I don't want you to cut yourself."

Raye didn't have a chance to refute him before Mrs. Aino came by with a brush and dustpan. "Tommy, what did you break?"

"That green one." He rubbed a hand through his graying beard and tossed a few pieces in the trash. Raye leaned against the counter and wrung the damp dishtowel between her hands, mentally prepping lengthy apologies.

"Oh, that's the one the Murphy's gave us."

Mr. Aino was nonplussed as he brushed the shards into the pan. "Well, we can ask them for another one for Christmas." He straightened up and brushed his hands off, throwing a quick wink at Raye. "So anyway, as I was saying, the Time Bandit was pulling up full pots, but the Cornelia Marie wasn't doing so good. They got a bunch of empties, then on top of that they get this distress call from a fishing boat…"

He got so wrapped up in his narrative that he didn't leave any opening for her lengthy apologies, so she made sure to be extra-careful with the rest of the wet dishes as she dried them off.

They would all ride together in the same limo on the way back to her grandfather's house. Usually by this point, her father would get on the phone and start holding unofficial conferences, bothering those few staffers and lobbyists that managed to elude the face-to-faces that day. She would keep her face turned to the window and watch the dying winter light turn from gray to blue on the snow blanketing the forest.

To his credit, he would get off the phone and walk her to her door, his shoes banging against the stairs as he kicked off the ice. She would have to listen to the thin promise that he would be back for Christmas, and maybe this year they could spend it in England.

One year, he even made good on this threat. It was the longest month of her life.

They would never linger long in the doorway. A quick hug, a few reassurances that she should stay out of trouble, and the black limo would roll away and disappear. She could expect it in a few weeks, or a few months, and the cycle would start again.

If her grandfather were asleep, she would tiptoe up the creaky stairs to her room, and pull off the hated, childish dress and hang it neatly in her closet. She could expect another one to arrive before Christmas, and another after New Year's, and then a white one shortly before her birthday in the spring. The headband would be pulled off and zinged towards the rubbish can; there would be more of those coming, too.

Raye would lay in the comfortably hot bathwater and wonder if something would switch on in her father, and the next time he saw her, he would ask what she wanted to do. She would tell him that she wanted to stay home and eat pizza, and watch old movies where the women wore small hats and smart suits, and she could relax and be herself and he would love her because of that.

Instead, a navy blue dress arrived two weeks later, nearly identical to the red one she had worn at Thanksgiving, and a size too small.

She took a late shower and changed into a camisole and pajama bottoms, shivering a bit at the temperature change in the air when she switched off the hair dryer. The house had quieted; after a cinch tournament and late night screening of A Perfect Storm (a downer if she ever saw one), Grandpa Aino and the uncles and aunts and cousins had bid their goodnights and left. A few would be back the next day to cram down some leftovers before hitting the malls, and Raye had somehow been wrangled into that plan, despite hating suburban shopping centers with a passion. Her sole mission would be to track down a new green serving platter without getting into any skirmishes.

The door to Jason's old bedroom creaked as she pushed it open. He was lying on his back under the covers, seemingly asleep as the small television up on a dresser threw flashing lights across his quiet face. His eyes opened as Raye slid in next to him. "I'm still awake."

She leaned her head into the crook of his neck and swiped the remote control. "I didn't say anything," she laughed. His skin was warm and smelled like soap.

Raye flipped through the channels for a few minutes as Jason shut his eyes and began breathing deeply as he dropped into sleep, and she was about to turn the TV off and join him when there was a loud rap on the door. Her head was knocked aside as Jason jerked awake.

"Hey guys, there's a Deadliest Catch marathon on right now." Jason's father sounded slightly drunk. "Raye, you should check it out! Channel fifty-five. They're just about to start a new episode."

Jason rubbed a hand down his face and rolled over on his side, yawning. "Thanks, Dad."

"OK good night!"

"Good night."

Raye smiled and burrowed in close, wrapping one arm around his waist and pulling her length against Jason's body. He slept only in boxer shorts, and there was a lot of warm skin and hard muscle to touch. "Your dad is nothing like mine."

"Hmm." He pulled her hand up to his face and kissed the knuckles. "He's a good guy."

"So are you."

"Not like him. Not yet."

She let that statement sink in.

She had assumed that her daddy issues would capitulate in the ultimate form of twisted self-loathing: her ending up with someone just like her father.

She rubbed her cheek absently against Jason's blonde hair, and realized that she was going to end up with someone just like someone else's father.

And it was perfect.