Chapter Text
“When I come out of here, that’s when I’ll wave and you say….” The little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl dressed in pink with a ribbon in her hair waited for the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy dressed in blue to respond. “Ken, you’re supposed to say….”
“Oh! Hi, Barbie!” Ken beamed because Barbie was smiling again. He likes when she smiles at him. “How are you this beautiful morning?”
Barbie frowned. “You're adding things, but I like that line, so we’ll keep it.” She added a note in her notebook to adjust the script even though she’s not sure how to spell beautiful. “But make sure you’re sticking to the script, Ken. I spent time writing it out for you after dinner.”
“Yes, Barbie. Thank you for taking the time to do that for me.” His ears pinked a bit. Barbie had been thinking about him and their–well, mostly her–fun game they played of make-believe Dreamland.
“Not just for you. For us,” Barbie corrected him.
“Us.” That makes Ken smile even bigger and warmer. Barbie squinted, feeling like she should say something to shrink his smile a bit. She’s not sure why, but she doesn’t want him to get the wrong impression of what “us” means. And yet she doesn’t want to upset him and make him run away and cry to his big sister–she was weird, so she let him smile at whatever meaning is behind his idea of ‘us.” At least if he’s happy about that maybe he’ll leave her alone about adding a stable and horses to Dreamland. She didn’t want to think about what taking care of horses would entail.
“As long as you remember that this is Barbie’s Dreamhouse and not Ken’s Dreamhouse or Barbie and Ken’s Dreamhouse.” Barbie looked away, so she couldn’t see his smile falter. She really couldn’t help herself, but the horses! He was obsessed with them.
Ruth Handler watched surreptitiously while her granddaughter and the neighbor boy played in the backyard. Barbie had commanded that he help her bring the dollhouse outside, and then she handed him a doll and told him the backstory and current story that he was to act out with her. He followed her every order, not showing a hint of irritation, but sometimes the blond-haired boy with gentle blue eyes seemed confused. He’d ask a question, and Barbie would sigh and explain again. This was her dream world and house after all. They could play his way when he had a dream world and house, which they certainly would not. Barbie kept that thought to herself. She didn’t want to imagine what Ken dreamed about—probably fighting and horses.
Ruth considered chiding Barbie for being so bossy to her friend, but Ken seemed … happy? She laughed as she observed, and feeling inspired, she started to sketch again. She’d been drawing a lot more lately since her son dropped off Barbie. It was supposed to just be for the summer, he said, but she had her doubts. He’d been struggling raising such a headstrong girl on his own. Ever since her mother died, she’d become withdrawn and asking a lot of questions about dying and death. Ruth wanted to be disappointed in her son, but she knew he was grieving and unprepared. She looked so much like her mother. What did he know about raising a girl anyway? Ruth barely knew either, but she kept waiting for the behavior her son had warned her about. Instead of withdrawn and morose, Barbie was bright and energetic and completely absorbed in the dollhouse that Ruth had moved out of the attic and put in Barbie’s bedroom in preparation for the young girl. The next day Barbie had asked for a notebook and started writing out scenes of an imaginary family in this house. Barbie was the star, of course, and Ken was her leading … friend.
Ruth glanced down at her sketch of the two figures. It’s rough. Maybe a paper doll or something that Barbie might like to play with. Underneath the figures, Ruth wrote, “Barbie and Ken.”
“Ahhhhh don’t you just love this song!” Gloria turns up the radio and starts bopping around the living room. She motions to Barbara to get up and join her in the out-of-tune rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
“They just wanna… They just wannaaaaa,” Gloria sings louder and purposefully worse to get a laugh out of her best friend.
Barbara tosses the couch pillow at Gloria and grabs the remote to use as a microphone. “Oh, girlssssss, Girls just wanna have f-funnnn.” She knows what Gloria is trying to do, and even though she doesn’t think it will work, it’s a welcome distraction from packing up her grandmother’s house and the revelations she knows she won’t be able to avoid. Gloria insisted it was her duty as her best friend to help this weekend and every weekend she planned to spend in Palm Springs finalizing the details of the estate and the sale of the house.
Gloria collapses on the couch as Barbara keeps dancing around to Billy Idol.
“Ugh, Billy Idol never did it for me,” Gloria remarks, while looking at the ends of hair. It’s time for a haircut.
“What!?” Barbara shakes her head at her friend, still dancing with some invisible person by herself. “Oh no, he was so dreamy with that platinum blonde hair and bad boy attitude. Plus how can you not love Dancing with Myself, Rebel Yell, White Wedding!”
“Okay, okay, I never knew you were such a Billy Idol fangirl, Barb.” Gloria glances up, contemplating her words. “I wonder what else I’ll learn about you while going through your childhood home. Tell me, old, mysterious house, who is Barbara H. Roberts?”
Barbara rolls her eyes and movies to turn down the stereo. Playtime is over.
Gloria continues her musings out loud. “I mean, what does the ‘H’ even stand for anyway? Henrietta? Barbara Henrietta Roberts?”
Barbara gasps. “Wow, first try and you got it.”
“Wait. Really?”
“No! I am not Barbara Henrietta Roberts. You all eliminated that guess last year. Remember?”
“Well!” Gloria pouts. “Tell me what best friend doesn’t know her best friend’s middle name? Or the name of the grandmother who raised her?”
“You know Ruth’s name, and I could’ve just lied about my middle name. I really liked Sasha’s guess. Hadley. Don’t I get points for not lying?”
“I know her name is Ruth now, but I didn’t know that she died three years ago, which explains that weird week where you took off from work and how you seemed sad, but no matter how many times I asked, you pushed me away. It’s all more than a little weird, Barbara. Are you CIA? Were you raised by Russian spies?”
Barbara looks at her hands resting on her knees. She’s sitting in Ruth’s favorite chair. She can see her so clearly with a cup of tea on the side table, losing heat, while she’s absorbed in her sketchbook, coming up with more ideas to capture little girls everywhere. Barbara’s hands ball into fists, thinking of the ideas that made little girls feel like they could be anything with a devoted not quite platonic friend by her side and how it all just made her feel so trapped. She takes a deep breath and remembers. It wasn’t always like that. At first the dreaming and sketches made her feel special. Even the devoted boy….
“Barb, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push. Was it all really bad?” Gloria doesn’t know. She thinks maybe this Ruth lady was awful to her friend.
“No, it wasn’t.” Barbara takes another deep breath. “I’m sorry. I compartmentalized this part of my life into its own world. I never wanted the two to intersect, but it was never bad. Maybe the worst part of it was me actually.”
“But I’m so pushy. I know. Sasha told me to—”
“No, you’re a really good friend. My very best friend.” Barbara nods to herself and puts up a hand. “Wait here.”
She leaves the living room and steps into her grandmother’s study and office. She’d been careful to keep that door closed and to keep Gloria distracted away from it, but she knew that eventually Gloria would have to see it or would come across something that made everything click–a piece of mail from Mattel with her grandmother’s full name on it, a picture, or some kind of news clipping. The entire drive to Palm Springs from Los Angeles, Barbara bounced between blurting it out or just allowing it to tumble out over the course of the weekend. She could just shove Gloria into the room filled with vintage Barbie dolls and rare memorabilia. It was practically a museum. But she didn’t want to overwhelm her. After all, she knew Gloria grew up loving and playing with Barbie.
Barbara goes to the drawer that she knows holds some of Ruth’s earliest sketches and pictures of her and Ken. There’s even a couple of early newspaper clippings, talking about the loving grandmother inventing a toy for and inspired by the granddaughter she was raising alone. In the articles and until this day, she’s just named as B. Handler, but as a kid and throughout her teens until she left for college, she was called Barbie by everyone. She was Barbie before Barbie, and then Barbie seemed to swallow everything. Sometimes she wondered if her grandmother paid off people in their hometown to stay quiet and not write a tell-all. It would explain why there was very little money left and what was there had been mismanaged. “First Gloria,” Barbara whispered to herself, shoving down all the worries and to-do lists she had been avoiding stupidly.
Back in the living room, Gloria is waiting nervously, worried about her friend. Is she crying? She considers pulling out her phone and updating her husband. He’s been curious and concerned as well. He and Sasha wanted to come, too, but she knew this was already overwhelming enough for Barbara. So, they all agreed that the first weekend would just be Barbara and Gloria time, and then the next weekend, they’d make a family trip of it. Before she can dig the phone from her back pocket, Barbara returns and sits beside her with a notebook and a small stack of papers and photos. Silently, Barbara places the items in Gloria’s hands.
“What is this?”
“My grandmother is Ruth Handler. She created–”
“Barbie.” Gloria knew exactly who Ruth Handler was. She only wanted to work at Mattel for years, but the CEO and the entire board was a boys club. Something she still couldn’t wrap her head around.
“Yup.” Barbara lifts the top photo. It’s a photo of her at age 2. It’s faded, and the colors are muted, but there she is dressed in pink with little sunflowers on the sleeves. She turns the photo over and points to the writing that clearly says–
“Barbie. You’re Barbie.”
“The one and many.” Barbara shrugs.
Gloria finally starts going through the photos and sketches in her lap. She reads over the letter Ruth must’ve received in response to her idea for a line of paper dolls, which then became plastic dolls. Photos of Barbie–Barbara–with a young boy catch her attention. She sees the captions say, Barbie and Ken, age 5 . Her jaw drops. “There’s a Ken. There’s a real Ken?”
“Yeah, Kenneth Carson. He lived next door.” Not wanting to get sucked into that topic, Barbara quickly adds. “There’s also a real Alan and a real Midge. She wasn’t too pleased about what her teenage pregnancy had inspired. Pretty sure there was a quiet settlement over that and relief that the Midge doll didn’t take off.”
“What about Skipper?”
“Kinda? She was more a combination of various babysitters. Although Growing Up Skipper was definitely inspired by my babysitter Donna. By then, Ruth and Mattel learned their lesson and stopped naming dolls after their real life counterparts.”
“No wonder you were always quiet when I talked about Barbie or wanting to work for Mattel.”
Barbara grimaces. “Yeah, it was awkward, but more than anything, I felt guilty for not telling you sooner, and I had gotten used to not thinking of myself as Barbie or about Barbie at all. I had boxed it all away. For the most part.”
“For the most part.” Gloria can’t help thinking about the times when it had to come out of the box. When she must’ve visited her grandmother or possibly even had meetings with Mattel.
“You’re handling this pretty well.”
“Yeah…” Gloria nods and nods faster. “Yeah, yeah, I mean I don’t really know what the expected reaction should be when you learn that YOUR BEST FRIEND FOR MORE THAN A DECADE IS FREAKING BARBIE. I PLAYED WITH YOU. And sometimes Ken, but not really actually. BUT YOU.” She carefully places the priceless artifacts (because that is what they are now to her) down on the table and stands up. “YOU ARE BARBIE, BARBIE IS YOU. BARBIE ARE YOU? WHAT THE HELL? AND YOU LIED TO ME.”
“Technically, it wasn’t–” Barbara pauses upon seeing Gloria’s glare that Sasha is usually on the receiving end of. “Yes, you’re right I lied, but you have to understand before I ever met you, I made the decision to keep this part of my life out of my life because I am Barbara because that’s what’s on my birth certificate, and I’m not a toy. I’m a person whose nickname was Barbie, but I am not Barbie. And Ruth respected that wish. For the most part.”
“For the most part. What does that mean?”
“She wanted me to become CEO or at the very least take her chair on the board at Mattel, but I refused.”
Gloria finally sits down in Ruth’s favorite chair. “You just refused to be the CEO or sit on the board of one of the most influential toy companies in the world. No biggie.”
“It was complicated, and it wasn’t my dream.” Barbara presses her tongue to the back of her teeth. She can only guess at what Gloria must think of her for walking away from a legacy, the privilege not afforded to many, including Gloria, who would be amazing if she had a seat at that table. “You know… the chair you’re sitting in, it's the chair Ruth sat in when she drew her first Barbie sketch.”
“Oh my god, really?” Gloria smiles and rubs the fabric in awe as if the creative memory is imprinted in its fibers. Then she frowns. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Barbara grins innocently.
“Or that with your big blue eyes. I’m on to you.”
“You can be on to me and enjoy a bit of history. You can do anything. You’re Gloria.”
“You’re laying it on really thick now.” Gloria can’t help grinning back.
“I learn from the best. C’mon, I think you’re ready to see the showroom aka Ruth’s office.”
Gloria quickly jumps up and follows Barbara down the hall that she’s now realizing Barbara kept pulling her away from wandering down. “She thinks she’s so smart,” Gloria mutters.
“I heard that, and I am,” Barbara sings, opening the double wooden doors.
Gloria enters and spins around like Belle seeing the Beast’s library for the first time. Except instead of books, it’s all Barbies, and Kens, and a few Alans and Midges.
Barbara points her thumb to the right. “In the case over there are prototypes and outfits that never made it to distribution.”
“SHUT UP.”
“That house should be a museum. Not boxed away and sold. Ruth changed toys for generations of young girls, and she should get the same treatment as the creators of Garfield, Charlie Brown, and Superman. You know, if you think about it, Barbie is a lot like Superman.”
“A lot of people would disagree.” Barbara whispers back. Gloria hasn’t stopped talking and asking questions for the last few hours, and her amusement at the curiosity was thinning now that they were in public, seeking out food, so they could get through the weekend with minimal outings. Although Barbara hadn’t dwelled on the thought, she was nervous about running into old friends of her grandmother or maybe even old friends of hers if they could even recognize her. She had darkened her blonde hair over the years, including a brief stint as a brunette in undergrad. And her face had a few more lines and freckles.
“Well, those people would be narrow-minded.” Gloria grabs a bag of oranges. “We need to eat more fruit.”
“Definitely.” Barbara nods solemnly. “We must do all that we can to prevent scurvy.”
Gloria can’t help laughing. “Sasha has really influenced your sense of humor.”
“Well, she’s a smart and funny girl.”
“I’ll make sure to tell her she’s Barbie approved.”
“Please stop calling me that, and don’t tell Sasha. I’ll tell her, and then I’m sure she’ll give me a complete TED Talk about how horrible Barbie is for young girls.”
“Hmmm, maybe if you tell me more about this Ken.” Gloria elbows her with a wink. She saw the photos. All of the photos. So many couple-ly Halloween costumes and the dance photos, and even the embarrassing photos of them rollerblading in matching bespoke outfits. Barbara made a mental note to burn that one. “Barbie and Ken sittin’ in a tree… K.I.S.S.I.N.G.”
“Ughh, you’re like a dog with a bone.” Barbara shakes her head and walks ahead of Gloria who is pushing the cart. The truth is Barbara doesn’t know what to say about Ken. They grew up together. They dated. They had something, she supposes, that came as close to love as teenagers can be, perhaps especially so on his side and on her side–she still didn’t know. She knows that it was sweet until it was sometimes suffocating but also familiar and faintly sweet again and then irritating again. She was a moody teenager, far more complicated than Barbie, but Ken … Ken was uncomplicated. He was supportive, sweet, and completely clueless. She had no idea what he was up to now. If Ruth knew, she was careful to avoid the topic while around Barbie after how that relationship ended–badly, like most teenage romances. She imagined he was probably married by now with 2.5 kids, living an uncomplicated life and remaining supportive, sweet, and completely clueless. She put him in the box with the rest of her past, and there he stayed in her memory unchanged.
Although occasionally a memory of their first kiss and their first times and the many times after for nearly everything would seep through and surprise her. Her face would redden and a fondness would thud in her chest. While their doll counterparts were missing the necessary parts for s.e.x., they certainly were not, and the real life Barbie and Ken were horny teens like anyone else. She could’ve very easily been Midge. Barbara was so lost in thought she had wandered farther away from Gloria than she had intended. She just wanted a little space and time before dealing more with the questions about Ken, hopefully in a less public place. The Carsons were a pretty well-known family, too, and ears were everywhere.
Turning around to find Gloria, Barbara froze. “Noooo… It can’t be. I have the worst luck.”
Staring intently at the variety of pastas is someone who looks a lot like Ken. It was hard to tell. His hair looks slightly longer and more sunny? And he looks more muscular. Not wanting to be caught staring, Barbara darts behind a display, and she can’t believe what she’s doing. She’s literally acting like one of the women in those stupid rom coms she would never admit to Sasha that she loves.
Barbara tells herself she’s not spying as she observes a beautiful blond-haired woman walk up to him and laugh at his confusion. She ruffles his hair, and Maybe Ken ducks away shyly. “Ugh, get a room,” she mutters at their seemingly flirtatious interaction.
“BARBIE!”
Barbara flinches at the sound of her long lost name being hollered in the mostly empty grocery store. Damn Gloria for thinking it’s so fun to make Barbie happen again. She sees Maybe Ken look around, who she has decided to upgrade to Absolutely Ken with how his head jerked up from the label he was reading and swiveled off his neck to search for who yelled out “Barbie.”
Speaking of which—
“BARBIE, there you are! Can you believe this place only has three brands of hot sauce? That just won’t do. Next weekend, I’m going to bring my own. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Are you mad? Is it because I asked about—”
“Shut up.” Barbara pleads. Her eyes are wide, and she just knows that when she turns her head to the right, away from Gloria’s confused face, she will see ocean blue eyes. This certainty is confirmed when Gloria’s eyes dart to the side and widen.
Barbie steps forward from where she was partially concealed behind donuts and pivots so her whole body is facing him. His eyes seem to sparkle with some amusement and undeserved adoration, but that must be the way his eyes just are because there’s no way he could still care for or even like her all these years later. In fact she’s pretty sure his look of utter hatred and sadness from the last time he looked at her is seared into her soul like a cattle brand.
“Hi, Barbie.”
“Hi, Ken.”