Hips, shoulders, chin, hat. (Ryan sketch.) Daddy's favorite has never been him.
Favoritism
Sharpay was Daddy's Little Girl. She was going to be a movie star someday, with her amazing acting skills, her smooth dance skills, and her beautiful voice. Ironically, the very same qualities that Sharpay had made Ryan an outcast to his own father.
Boys, Mr. Evans said, were not made to sing and dance. There was a little kingdom called "Sport" he wanted his son to be a prominent member of. And although Ryan did play golf and baseball and occasionally basketball, his heart wasn't in any of it. His heart was in the theater.
Why couldn't his dad just accept that?
"Hips," Mr. Evans corrected his stance, "Shoulders, chin, hat." He straightened Ryan's brim before he stepped back and allowed his son to swing. Ryan pursed his lips and ignored his impulse to make a disgusted face and swung the golf club. As the ball sailed, Ryan masked the motion of titling his hat as shielding his eyes from the sun.
His father never outright said anything, but Ryan knew the hat annoyed him to no end. The hat, the matching shirts, the dancing… all of it was as unmanly, in his opinion, as it could get. So while he doted on his daughter and helped her (fake) boyfriend get into college, Ryan was left in the dust.
But that was okay, he convinced himself as Sharpay drove off with the caddy in Ryan's seat.
That was okay, he told himself when he was insulted by the boy he was convincing to dance in the talent show.
It was perfectly fine, he knew, when he had friends dancing his dance and a sister who loved him enough to fork over her trophy.
Sharpay was Daddy's Little Girl. But Ryan had been with Sharpay every step of the way, so his dad could just dwell on that.
(Besides, he liked his mom so much better.)
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