Independent Damsel

Independent Damsel

Micah Jae Anderson

Having a boy’s name sure made life interesting.

Throughout my life, my name has always brought up unexpected complications or problems. From having the nurse look for a boy when calling me back for a doctor’s appointment to my university accidentally placing me in the male dormitory freshman year, my name made my life amusing.

My mother and father, Ryan and April Anderson, were married young. High school sweethearts, they fell in love and married straight away after graduation. They were pregnant within the first year.

When the ultrasound revealed a boy, my father was over the moon, I’m told. He’d been praying for a boy to pass the family ranch to. Our humongous Texas ranch has been in the Anderson family since 1848. Our history traces back further but the ranch was founded and ever since then it has been passed from father to son for close to 175 years. My father wasn’t being sexest in wanting a son to take over the ranch. He didn’t think a daughter couldn’t manage the ranch, it was just a tradition to pass it to a son he didn’t want to end with him. After all, daughters grow up and take their husband’s name.

This is why it was a big shock when Hunter was born a girl. Despite the unexpected surprise, Mom and Dad were thrilled just to have a healthy child. For months they’d been referring to the baby as “Hunter” so they saw no reason to change that after finding out he was a she.

My mother was the only girl in her family, having two brothers, and my Nana went overboard with the pink and the frills. Mom hated having to wear dresses and bows while her brothers ran around shirtless and played in the mud. She always said that she never wanted to make her children feel that way and thus was in agreement that a girl could be named Hunter.

When my oldest sister Hunter was one, my parents learned they were expecting again. They decided not to find out what the baby was since the incorrect ultrasound with Hunter caused so much trouble. When Logan was also born a girl, my dad smiled and was proud to be the father to two beautiful baby girls.

By the time I was born, he was starting to worry. Three daughters was the maximum number of children he and my mother had agreed on and we were all female. Mother, who was an elementary school teacher, had agreed to take a step back from her career and raise us up to kindergarten before resuming her job. It was supposed to take just a few years for me, the youngest, to reach kindergarten. Before that could happen they got pregnant with my sister Carter. Carter was an accident, they’ve always admitted to us with a laugh. Mom had switched birth control and she got pregnant unintentionally.

This story always came with a lecture from either or both parents on covering the gap between birth control methods to avoid their happy accident. *Shudder* I love my parents but I absolutely loathe discussing sex with them.

Determined to be the best father to his four daughters, my dad put on a happy face but Mom knew that it bothered him to be the cause of 175 years of tradition crumbling down. That was the reason they purposefully tried a fifth time for a son. Mason, my youngest sister, was their hail Mary attempt at a son. They laugh about it now and tell us their reasoning was that they could afford five kids, they had plenty of room in our house, and they had enough love. Five isn’t so different from four, after all so why not? After Mason was born, my dad got a vasectomy and threw in the towel.

Most people would assume my dad would be bitter about having five daughters but instead he steered into the skid. He cracked jokes about it by referring to himself as Mr. Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, and made allusions to Little Women. Make no mistake, Ryan Anderson is the best Girl Dad there is, without a doubt.

Growing up, my sisters and I were well-cared for and loved. Not many people can say they were as blessed as I was. I had a family who loved me and supported me and we always had plenty of food and money. I had a great childhood and I am well-aware of how rare that is in today’s times.

Out of all five children, I am the only one who looks like our father. My four sisters all resemble our mother with the same green eyes and blonde hair and even her nose. I was born with a head full of brown hair and blue eyes and it took my father a full minute after I was born to realize I was the third daughter. He laughs with me about how he felt a bond with me the second I looked at him for the first time due to my resemblance to him. He jokes that he thought being brunette and blue eyed was a sign that I was the longed-for son until he looked down and saw I was missing the critical piece that would have made me a son.

It never bothered me that my dad wanted me to be a boy. In fact, I did my best to be what he needed in a child despite my gender. I was a daddy’s girl through and through from the get go. When Dad went to work on the fence, I was there in the truck bed wearing nothing but my diaper and holding a tiny plastic hammer. While my sisters all asked for Mom (the primary parent available to them on a daily basis), I wanted Daddy.

I never developed a complex about being a girl. Mom and Dad would never let me feel that way. Mom made sure I knew how to act like a lady when it counted but Daddy let me run free through the grass in our yard with a pink baseball cap turned backwards.

They raised us Anderson sisters to be strong, independent, and hard working. We have a sign in the living room that lists the family rules and they are deeply engrained into our everyday:

Never be a damsel in distress because you have to be.

Never let someone else do for you what you can do for yourself.

Never use your gender to gain favor or preference over the other gender.

Don’t let a man make you feel you can’t do something they can do (unless it requires a penis)

It’s okay to get dirt under your nails before you paint them.

Empower each other rather than tearing one another down.

It’s okay to cry while taking care of business.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Be less sugar, more spice, and only as nice as you’re able to be without allowing others to take advantage of you.

Hold your heroes to a high standard and if you meet them and are disappointed, be your own.

Your body, your rules.

If you have an opinion, share it when necessary but know why you think the way you do and be prepared to go down on that ship defending it.

We add rules to the list as a family when major life events happen that require one. For example, number 12 was because Mason stood up in class and repeated an opinion to the classroom that she’d heard Dad say. When another kid called her out on it, she couldn’t argue her point and she got after school detention for disrupting class for no reason.

After detention, Mom and Dad asked her why she said what she said and she couldn’t give any logical reasoning to support what she said. Mason finally admitted that she just didn’t want some kid in her class named Zach to think he was right.

Following that incident, Mom and Dad would make us defend our opinion if they heard us speak one aloud in order to teach us not to go around stating opinions as facts and blindly repeating the opinions of others. Mom always said she wasn’t raising her own pack of lemmings so we needed to be smart to avoid being robots. I might be a Daddy’s girl but my mom is pretty awesome as well. We just don’t click the way my dad and I do.

Someday when I have my own children, I hope to be half the parents mine are.

People in town always have something rude to say about the fact that all five of us have a boy’s name. Hunter, Logan, Micah, Carter, and Mason are all male names and I have never met another girl who shares our names. It’s different than being named Jamie, or Casey or Kelly. Kids in my class would always laugh when I asked the teacher to go to the bathroom. The boys would snicker and whisper directions to the boy’s bathroom.

By the time I was in high school, though, they all got tired of it. I was pretty enough that no one cared anymore that I was named like a boy. By college, I even met a couple guys who thought it was kind of sexy that I had a masculine name.

Having a boy’s name is exactly what’s got me started off on the wrong foot today, the first day of my internship at Harper and Sons, a major architecture firm in Austin, Texas.

For the past three years I’ve been attending the University of Texas in Austin and I’m in my last two semesters before I graduate with a degree in civil engineering. To enhance my learning, I applied for a few internships in town. Harper and Sons selected me, one of only three, to intern until graduation. It didn’t pay much but it was work experience that I desperately wanted.

I am the first to arrive.

I confidently approach the receptionist in my charcoal pencil skirt, heels, and purple silk blouse. I look smart and professional as I knew I would have to in order to be taken seriously. Females in male dominated career fields were at a severe disadvantage. This was a lesson I’d been learning all my life.

“Hello. I’m here for my first day as an intern,” I greet the mid-forties woman holding a phone between her shoulder and her ear.

The woman smiles tightly at me as she takes down notes about whatever the person speaking in her ear is saying.

“Okay…yes.. Could you hold one moment? Down the hall behind me and it’s the last room on the left.”

It takes me a moment to realize the woman, Sheila, according to the nameplate on the desk, has placed a hand over the receiver and is speaking to me.

“Thank you,” I smile at her.

The office is very sleek and modern. I make my way down the hallway, the sound of my high heels clicking in a powerful and satisfying way. There are matte silver framed photos with black and white photographs of various buildings, none that I recognize but I can appreciate the structure despite being a civil engineer major rather than an architect major.

I pass by a dozen or so offices before I come to the place the receptionist indicated. The little nook area houses a desk with another middle-aged woman behind it. This woman is typing furiously but she glances up at me and smiles warmly.

“Can I help you?”

I smile back at her, pleased to see that despite how busy she is, she’s not treating me like a pain in the ass.

“Yes, it’s my first day and I was told I needed to go to the last office on the left,” I explain.

“Ah,” she smiles, still typing away even while looking at me. Her smile wanes a little.

“Welcome. I’m Natalie and I’m the PA of Mr. Harper. You’re looking for Mr. Mathers’ office and it is indeed that one over there.”

I glance over to the left and see an office door ajar and an empty desk in front of it. Judging by the set up, I’d say the CEO must have the office to the right and the CFO to the left.

“Thank you.”

I approach the office I was directed to, feeling nervous about being the first intern to arrive. Butterflies were playing kickball in my stomach.

When I get close enough to the office to read “Jeff Mathers, Chief Financial Officer”, I smooth down my pencil skirt and take a deep breath.

I knock on the open office door.

A man who looks to be mid thirties to mid forties is thumbing through some paperwork.

He’s decent looking, I suppose. He has light brown hair that’s kind of shaggy and has been smoothed back without gel. He’s sporting a short beard that looks like he spends a lot of time trimming and edging it. He’s relatively attractive but the smile he gives me when he looks me up and down has me instantly judging him. I’m 21 and he’s at least 15 years older than me.

If you’re old enough to be someone’s parent, you should show more restraint than looking them up and down when first meeting them in a professional capacity. I mentally make this rule number one on the imaginary list of rules I’m creating in my head. “The Anderson Rules for Proper Workplace Behavior”, #1: Don’t look a coworker up and down like a scumbag.

I knew I was good looking. Or, I guess I should say I knew men found me attractive. I didn’t necessarily agree. I take after my father so I have chestnut colored hair, blue eyes, and skin that tans well. These three things sound great on paper but I sometimes wish I looked like my mother and sisters who are all blonde, fairer skinned, and more curvy than I am. Dad is tall at 6’1” and has plenty of muscle from working the ranch all day for years. My dad might only be 46 years old but he’s what my friends call a DILF.

Unfortunately this translates into me being tall. While my mother is 5’4”, my sisters range from 5’ to 5’4” as well. Who knows how tall Mason will be since she’s still growing but my other three sisters are as tall as they will ever be. They will never have to worry about finding a guy who is tall enough that they can wear high heels without giving him a complex. I’m not exactly an Amazon but I am 5’7” and when you’re going to prom with a guy who is only 5’9”, you can’t wear three inch high heels.

I also got a more willowy, athletic build from Dad. Mom and all four sisters have a cup size more than I do, even 16 year old Mason. When my baby sister fills out a 32 C and I’m still in a 34 B, I tend to get a little insecure. I do, at least, have long legs that make being tall worth it.

“Come in. Sit down. I need a minute before I can go over your job with you,” he tells me before swiveling in his chair to face the other part of his L-shaped desk.

I glance around nervously as I take a seat in the chair in front of his desk. There are a few abstract pictures on the wall of shapes and colors that could easily belong to a dentist’s office or even the local CPA. They are so bland that I feel my brain liquifying and dripping out of my ears. The large glass window giving a fantastic view of the city, however, is breathtaking.

Mr. Mathers is shuffling papers around and looking for something among them but he hasn’t looked my way again and I start to wonder if maybe his first impression was maybe just shock at seeing someone as young as I am standing in front of him first thing in the morning. I force myself not to fidget despite the fact that he hasn’t introduced himself or even acknowledged me in the last five minutes.

Finally, he sighs and flips the cover of a manilla folder over a stack of papers and then tosses it on the part of the desk in front of me.

“Alright. Welcome to Harper and Sons. I’m Jeff Mathers but you’ll call me Mr. Mathers. I like my coffee with two sugars and enough creamer to turn it blonde. When I say sugar I mean real sugar and not that fake stuff.”

I blink. Coffee? What does it matter how he likes his coffee?

“I expect my coffee after I arrive each morning because I need it to survive but I dislike drinking coffee in the car. You’ll find the kitchen down the hall is stocked with everything you need.”

My confusion must show on my face because he rolls his eyes at me.

“Do you need to write that down?”

I swallow. “No sir.”

He looks at me and the office is silent. He has brown eyes that look sort of amber and they are narrowed at me.

“Go ahead,” he encourages me by nodding his head to the door. “The kitchen is the first room you passed beyond the receptionist.”

I stand, dazed, and hitch my black leather satchel up a bit higher on my shoulder.

I find the kitchen easily as there is no door to the room, just a wide arched doorway. There are several employees moving about the space. Some are sitting at the little tables placed around the room, drinking coffee and chatting to coworkers.There’s one guy who looks rushed tossing a sack of what must be lunch into the communal fridge before nearly bowling me over in his haste to get somewhere.

I approach a counter along the far wall and look around at the K-cups that are organized around the three Keurig machines. Standing up by the backsplash are several organizers that contain different styles of coffee but only two are labeled. One says “H. Harper” and the other reads “J. Mathers.” I grab one of Mr. Mathers’ and pop it into a machine.

Looking around, I see coffee mugs inside the upper cabinets. Through the glass on the cabinet door I can see that there are two cabinets full of mugs.

Reaching in the closest one, I see no labels and select one of the plain looking mugs.

While the coffee is brewing, I note that everyone in this room is side-eyeing me curiously. There doesn’t seem to be any hostility and no one is breaking their neck to look at me but my movements are being observed.

Ignoring them, I look in the fridge and note three different creamers. None of them are labeled. One is some sort of peppermint flavor, one is pumpkin, and the third is French Vanilla. I take a guess and grab the French Vanilla.

The counter holds a series of sugars and sweeteners and other additives for coffee so looking for actual sugar is easy.

No one says hello or tries to speak to me as I carry the completed coffee out of the kitchen and down the hall.

When I enter Mr. Mathers’ office again, he is on the phone facing away from me as he types on his computer. I see a spreadsheet full of numbers on his computer screen.

His desk is fairly organized so I am able to see a coaster sitting on the rich looking wood for me to place his hot coffee on.

I take a seat again and wait for further instructions.

I’ve been here for about 30 minutes waiting for Mr. Mathers’ to turn around and instruct me. He knows I’m here as he’s turned to take a sip of coffee but he is still on the phone and working on his computer.

“Alright Dale. Give me a few days to work on it and I’ll get back to you,” Mr. Mathers tells the person on the other end of the phone call.

He turns to replace the phone in the cradle and smiles widely when he sees me still sitting across from his desk.

“The last one took a week to get the coffee right,” he murmurs as he reaches for his mug again.

It’s an odd comment since I’m fairly certain this is the first internship program Harper and Sons has ever offered.

“It’s a decent coffee. You pass,” he winks at me in what is supposed to be a reassuring manner but given that I’m a young female and he is a middle aged man, the way he winks at me just feels wrong.

Were he in his fifties, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Not that older men can’t be creepy but in my experience, the older ones tend to be more grandfatherly rather than creepy uncle-like. Mathers gives me weird vibes.

“Next task: go to the workroom and make me 5 copies of this packet. I need them quickly for the meeting I’ve got scheduled before lunch.”

All of that was said without a spare glance. Mathers holds out a stapled packet and keeps his offered arm extended while rooting around the skinny middle drawer of his desk.

I accept the packet of paper from him in confusion.

“And, the workroom, it would be….?”

Head still down searching for whatever it was, he muttered, “It’s opposite the kitchen.”

My satchel still on my shoulder, I stride down the hall in search of the workroom. If I have to fetch coffee and copies it’s doubtful that I’ll learn anything about architecture. I feel a twinge of regret that I went for this internship rather than shadowing the Department of Transportation. At least TXDOT would have been educational if not boring.

It’s actually labeled “workroom” with a rectanglar silver plaque in the narrow window embedded in the wall beside the door. It reminds me of high school, the way the glass next to the door allows you to see inside without opening the door.

There’s no one in here so I set my satchel down on the worktop and eye the huge copier. I can see no instruction book or manual but it can’t be that difficult.

In fifteen minutes I’ve got 5 copies made but since the copier is out of staples, I couldn’t get it to staple the sets for me. I snatch a pen and post it and write a message for the next person proclaiming the copier to be out of staples and slap the note next to the buttons.

There is a stapler next to the pens and Post Its so I’m able to staple them all manually before I grab my satchel again and return to Mr. Mathers’ office.

This time there are people in it.

Standing along the wall is a man with really dark brown hair that seems to have a natural wave to it. The temples are starting to grey but he doesn’t seem like he could be older than forty five. The man stands confidently by the window with his hands in the pockets of his navy blue suit pants. I can’t see anything more than his profile but I can see laugh lines around his eyes and mouth.

“...and of course, you can always come see me if you have further questions,” Mathers is telling the other two people in the room.

Seated in the two chairs across from Mr. Mathers’ desk are two young men about my age. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Mr. Mathers’ sees me standing in the doorway and sticks his hand out for the copies I have brought him.

“Ah, thanks, Miss….You know, I never did catch your name,” he tells me.

It is difficult not to roll my eyes at his belated realization of his lack of professional manners.

I smile instead and introduce myself.

“Micah Anderson, sir.”

The man standing at the window jerks his head around to look at me and I can see the familiar confusion on his face when hearing me, a female, state that my name is Micah.

“Micah Anderson?” Mr. Mathers questions, clearly not believing that it’s really my name.

I nod and smile apologetically. “Yes, my parents really wanted a son but got five daughters instead.”

It’s a standard line that all five of us girls have learned to spit out politely to strangers who are confused about our names.

Mathers’ eyebrows pinch together and I sigh internally. I get this reaction a lot but this guy seems like the kind who would argue with me about what my name is.

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Anderson. There must have been some mistake. The interns were supposed to be directed to my office this morning.”

I turn to the man at the window who is speaking to me and looking me directly in the eyes.

“Hello, sir,” I greet whoever he is. He’s powerful and important, I know that much.Probably as high up as Mathers, or a lateral position of power in the company.

I say, “The receptionist at the front directed me to the far office on the left. Was that incorrect?”

There’s a beat of silence.

Mr. Navy Blue Suit’s jaw tenses up. “Yes. I have no idea why Shiela sent you to Jeff instead of to me. We’ve been waiting for you before to start the office tour.”

I feel heat flush my face. “I’m so sorry sir. I thought I was following the correct directions. I was here on time and have been with Mr. Mathers the whole time, I promise.”

He shakes his head. “I’m only confused as to how this mix up occurred. I’m Harlan Harper, by the way. Welcome to the team.”

I step further into the office with my hand extended. We meet in the middle of the office and I give him a firm handshake.

He grins and I can see where the laugh lines come from. “Nice grip there.”

Many girls might have found it condescending to think a girl couldn’t have a strong handshake but I can tell he’s trying to acknowledge that I’m equal to the male interns by pointing out I have the same handshake they do. Mr. Harper gives off a cool teacher vibe that puts me at ease in Mathers’ office.

My hand is released and he picks up Mathers’ phone and dials.

“Sheila, it’s Harlan. I’ve got Micah Anderson in Jeff’s office and she tells me that you directed her to his office. I’m just wondering why. The other two interns were sent to mine.”

It’s quiet as he listens to Sheila’s response. He turns to look at me and I see him appraising me. It’s different from Mathers’ earlier appraisal though.

“About five nine, long brown hair, black skirt, purple shirt.….yes….no, that’s okay…. thanks, Sheila.”

The sound of the phone clicking into the cradle seems loud.

“Sheila would like me to apologize on her behalf. She mistakenly assumed that you were Mr. Mathers’ new PA and sent you here.”

The look on his face says that he is ashamed that I was mixed up with a PA simply because I was a female with a male name but Sheila never even got my name.

“It’s okay, trust me. I get this a lot. Sheila was on the phone and didn’t even have the opportunity to ask my name so I don’t think it’s her fault,” I reassure him.

“Ah, but I must apologize again. She had the names of all three interns but she was only looking for males to come through the door. We aren’t expecting Mr. Mathers’ new PA until Thursday so she should have been confused, at the very least, and asked for your name before sending you back. Please forgive the error.”

I like Mr. Harper. He is taking responsibility for the mistake his staff made and instead of trying to brush it aside before I can cry sexism, he is taking it head on.

“With all due respect, sir, it’s an honest mistake. If the new PA is female, I think it makes more sense to assume the new PA came a few days early or that there was a mistake with the start of work date than it does to assume that a person named Micah might be female.”

I can feel the eyes of the other two interns and Mr. Mathers’ on me.

“It happens a lot and I am rather used to it now. Please think nothing of it,” I say kindly.

The Anderson Rules for Proper Workplace Behavior #2: Never piss off the secretary/PA/receptionist. They have the power to make your life hell at work.

Sheila’s response happens a lot due to statistics. People named Micah are 99% males. I’m the 1% female named Micah so her response wasn’t necessarily sexist.

Mathers, on the other hand, is sexist, I can tell.

It was a little sexist to assume I was a PA simply for having a vagina and showing up to Mathers’ office.

Shouldn’t Mathers have questioned why his PA showed up three days early? He probably interviewed the new PA, too. Did he not notice that I am a different person than whoever he interviewed? Also, had he used manners and asked my name instead of directing me to fetch coffee, he’d probably have figured out I wasn’t there to do his menial tasks.

“That’s kind of you,” Mr. Harper says with a smile.

***********

The rest of the day flies by with no more incidents like the first. I get a lot of double takes when introduced to new people but that happens everywhere I go, not just at a new job. It’s certainly draining on my mental battery and I look forward to changing into joggers and lounging about in my dorm room later today.

Lunch is catered for us interns from the deli next door and we eat in the conference room with Mr. Harper, Mr. Mathers’ and a few other big wigs around the company. While eating and getting to know each other, Mr. Harper shares the story of the mix up this morning which gets a laugh from everyone who hadn’t witnessed it first hand. I get the idea that Jeff Mathers’ isn’t very well liked by the eye rolls I see shared between a couple of the architects.

This prompted me to tell the story of my first day at college which got more laughs.

I had turned in my application to the RA director via mail as most out of town prospective students do. The RA had ignored the gender box that I checked “female” and put my application in the men’s pile.

When it came time to pair up roommates, the RA director looked over my interests which included football, music, and eating and put me in a dorm room with a guy named Graham Parker who was planning to join the football team as a walk-on.

When my father brought me to campus to move into the dorms, we noticed there were a lot of guys in my building but ignored it assuming it was co-ed. Dad was already wanting to get my dorm assignment changed from simply that fact alone but when I unlocked the door to my new room, there Graham was. He was already in the process of moving in and upon seeing me walk in and claim this was my dorm room, asked me if I was a birthday gift from God before he saw my dad standing behind me.

My dad scared the shit out of Graham by playing the ‘scary dad’ routine that he often does, all he was missing was a shotgun to clean. He ruined it by busting up laughing and slapping Graham on the back and telling him he only wished his daughter was a gift for him and took me to go get my dorm assignment changed.

The conference room of men was full of chuckles as I described how my dad had tortured poor Graham for ten minutes.

“The RA director was so embarrassed that he assumed I was a guy that he placed me in the best dorm he could put me in at the cost of the cheaper one I requested. So I got upgraded to one of the newer, bigger rooms and wound up with a great roommate so it’s a funny story now,” I told them all.

That story ended okay. Graham looked me up the next day and asked me out. He already met my dad and didn’t die so he figured he had nothing to lose by trying. We dated for most of freshman year. Graham did indeed succeed as a walk-on and I got good seats to most of the home games.

That relationship didn’t work out as Graham was gone a lot and busy a lot and wanted to break up since we didn’t see each other much. We didn’t have as much in common as either of us would have liked, either. He’s dating some physical therapy major who works as a sports trainer for the football team and they were happy last I heard from him.

The other two interns are standard architect geeks. One of them is a little shy and introverted and the other one just shrugs and grunts a lot when I speak. I suppose they are decent enough guys. They both seem smart so that’s good.

Sheila apologized to me in person but I laughed about it to put her at ease. I don’t want there to be any issues between us and it wasn’t all her fault.

I knew when I chose civil engineering as my major that it was a male dominated world and that I would face issues like this. Having a male name might eventually help me when I apply for jobs. They’ll see my name on paper and assume I’m a man. When I come to the interview, they’ll be surprised to see a female but that will be my chance to impress them with my skills and abilities.

I noticed that the only females in the company seem to be the PAs, the receptionist, the office manager, and the head of human resources. I’ve not met everyone so I hope to find a woman holding a position of power somewhere in the company. Mr. Harper doesn’t seem sexist at all, it’s just that architecture as well as civil engineering is a male dominated career field.

Sometimes I see my fellow classmates sizing me up during projects, as if they can’t believe I, a female, am really in the same class. I’ve had guys in my classes avoid partnering with me since they have a knee jerk reaction to assume a girl won’t make a good partner.

I’ll just have to do my best to impress everyone despite my gender. That’s what good ol’ Dad always taught me to do, anyways.