what's god to a woman's love anyway

“Do you miss it?” Gloria asks. “Barbieland, I mean.”
Barbie considers this, looking over at Gloria. She’s wearing a loose linen blouse today, long sleeves pushed back to the elbows, and her hair is blowing slightly in the breeze coming in through the open kitchen window. She looks like every other woman in the world: beautiful.
“Yes,” Barbie says. “Sometimes. But I’d rather be here with you.”

Notes:

i watched the barbie movie and i was changed on a spiritual level. that is all
as usual this is not proofread not edited and written entirely on my phone. my barbie playlist is here and the title is taken from that one tumblr post. you know the one

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.

- Louisa May Alcott, from Little Women

On an unspecified day of the week, sometime just before the beginning of summer, Barbie moves out of her Dreamhouse and into Gloria and Sasha’s real one. She walks her way into the real world again, and when the door closes behind her, she doesn’t look back.

She gets her own bedroom in their house, across the hall from Gloria’s room and around the corner from Sasha’s. The room has a wooden floor with creaky boards and two windows that she doesn’t ever want to close, and the walls are a gentle shade of cream.

The first night that she spends in Gloria and Sasha’s house, Barbie sits awake for hours at the window and stares out at the sky. The stars aren’t nearly as bright as they are in Barbieland, but they feel more reachable all the same.

The real world is still big and wide and terrifying, but it’s what she wanted. She goes to bed with a smile on her face, and when she wakes up seven hours later, it’s with messy hair and morning breath. It isn’t perfect, but it’s real.

Barbie goes to the gynecologist, the dentist, the hair salon, the shoe store. Gloria takes her shopping one afternoon, and waits patiently outside the changing rooms while Barbie tries on outfit after outfit.

Barbie picks up things she never would have thought to wear in the Dreamhouse - cargo pants like the ones that Skater Barbie wears, and pantsuits like the ones that Professional Barbie wears, and old-fashioned petticoats like the ones that American Girl Barbie (no affiliation to that other brand of dolls) wears - and tries them on just because she can.

“How’s it going?” Gloria asks through the changing room door. Barbie’s wearing a long peasant skirt at the moment, and she twirls around to see how it looks from the back.

The skirt flies out, settles slowly. “I don’t know,” Barbie says, turning back to the mirror. “I don’t think it’s really me.”

“It can be if you want it to,” Gloria says from the other side of the door. “You’re not Stereotypical Barbie anymore. You can be whoever you want.”

Barbie looks in the mirror. Her own reflection looks back at her: the blonde of her hair, the arch of her cheekbones, the slant of her eyebrows, the blue of her eyes. Such a familiar sight, and yet there’s also something unfamiliar there; it’s like meeting someone you’ve almost forgotten but once loved.

“I don’t know,” she says again, slower. She leans a little closer to the mirror, searching for something beyond her reach.

Gloria makes a thoughtful sound. “Can I see?”

Barbie unlocks the door of the stall, and Gloria steps in, closing it again behind her. She takes one look at Barbie and lets out a laugh.

“Alright, I didn’t know you were wearing this,” she says. “When I said you could be anyone you wanted, I wasn’t picturing an extra from the set of Little House on the Prairie.”

“You don’t think it looks good?” Barbie asks, looking intently at Gloria’s face for her reaction. For some reason, it suddenly seems incredibly important to her.

“I didn’t say that,” Gloria says. She reaches over, tucks in the tag of the top that Barbie’s wearing; it’s an easy gesture, subconscious yet careful. Her fingers brush against Barbie’s skin, and there’s a weird flutter in Barbie’s stomach, like a bird spreading its wings. “I think everything looks good on you.”

“Oh,” Barbie says. “Well. Thanks.” She looks at the mirror again, trying to decide whether or not the skirt looks good, but her eyes are drawn instead to Gloria, still standing at her shoulder.

“No problem,” Gloria says, breezy, clearly unaware of the strange effect that she’s having on Barbie. “I’ll be outside whenever you’re done. No rush.”

Gloria leaves the changing room. Barbie looks down at her stomach, wondering if she somehow swallowed a butterfly without realizing it.

She ends up buying clothes that fit with her usual style, slightly shifted to adjust to the conventions of the real world, but she does buy one pair of cargo pants just to try them out. She always liked Skater Barbie’s outfits, and anyway, Gloria was right; she’s not Stereotypical Barbie anymore. She can do what she wants.

Barbie had thought that Sasha’s dad was Gloria’s Ken, except with actually reciprocated feelings, but she soon learns otherwise. As it turns out, Sasha’s dad doesn’t actually live at the house. He and Gloria aren’t even together.

“We split up years ago,” Gloria explains over dinner. It’s spaghetti night, and Barbie’s having a bit of a difficult time. She’s still not completely used to forks, or knives, or any cutlery at all.

“Oh,” Barbie says. A piece of spaghetti slides off her fork, and she frowns. “I thought you guys were husband-wife. Or at least girlfriend-boyfriend.”

“The idea that men and women can’t maintain strictly platonic relationships is a heteronormative narrative created by our tragically patriarchal society,” Sasha says with a scoff. “Dad’s not married to Mom. He’s just a guy who happens to be my father. And sometimes he comes to the house to practice his Duolingo on our couch, even though he’s been stuck on Level 2 Basics for almost a year now.”

“Oh,” Barbie says again. “Huh.” And then: “What’s Duolingo?”

Sasha rolls her eyes. “Never mind.”

“We were together once,” Gloria says. “But we realized we worked better as friends, and so we left it at that.”

Barbie nods, looking around the kitchen. It’s a good kitchen - more worn-out than the one she had in the Dreamhouse, but more real, too. The walls are painted a gentle yellow, with light grey granite countertops and pastel-blue tiles set into the wall behind the sink. The fridge is grey and metallic, covered in photos and report cards held up by various magnets.

Nothing is pink. Barbie finds that she doesn’t mind it nearly as much as she thought she would.

“I wish Ken and I had been like that,” she says, slightly wistful. She’d never loved Ken, and she somehow knew she never would, but she still liked him, kind of, in a distant and complicated sort of way. “It would’ve been nice to be friends with him - real friends, not any of that girlfriend-boyfriend stuff he always wanted.”

Sasha scoffs again. “Please. Ken was a loser.”

“Yeah, he was,” Barbie admits, and smiles a little. “Still. I almost miss him, sometimes.”

“Do you miss it?” Gloria asks. “Barbieland, I mean.”

Barbie considers this, looking over at Gloria. She’s wearing a loose linen blouse today, long sleeves pushed back to the elbows, and her hair is blowing slightly in the breeze coming in through the open kitchen window. She looks like every other woman in the world: beautiful.

“Yes,” Barbie says. “Sometimes. But I’d rather be here with you.”

Gloria smiles at her, gentle and gorgeous. Barbie fumbles with her fork, and another noodle slides uselessly away from her.

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 16: Can women actually just be friends with men without having to deal with them wanting more?

Results: 25, including a link to a film titled When Harry Met Sally)

It turns out that Barbie can’t, in fact, have any job she wants - not in the real world, anyway. After four days of rejections that range from polite to outright disparaging, she drags herself back home, depressed and dispirited.

“I forgot that this world still has such a long way to go,” she sighs, collapsing onto the sofa. “How can any society succeed when men are in charge? It just makes no sense.”

“Our society isn’t succeeding,” Sasha answers from the other sofa. She’s slouching against the cushions, a pair of wired earbuds hanging loose around her neck. “We’re just letting a bunch of old white men tell everyone what to do and hoping we don’t all die as a result, because there’s no other choice.”

“Ugh,” Barbie says, and feels the weight of a woman’s world descending once again on her shoulders. “That’s horrible.”

“Es la verdad,” says a voice to her left, and Barbie jumps. She hadn’t realized that Sasha’s dad was even in the room, but there he is: sitting in an armchair, poking away at his phone on what Barbie now recognizes as the app where a creepy green owl can teach people different languages. “Los hombres viejos no son…buenos.”

“Dad,” Sasha groans. “Can you please get better at Spanish? You’ve been doing the basics for literally ever. The five year old down the street can speak better than you. It’s embarrassing.”

“That’s different,” Sasha’s dad says, sounding mildly hurt. “She’s actually Hispanic.”

“Still,” Sasha mutters. “She’s five.”

Barbie’s new phone, which Gloria bought for her last week and put into a pink protective case, rings loudly in her pocket. She pulls it out, hesitating for a second before she remembers how to answer the call. There weren’t any cell phones in Barbieland, after all.

“Hello?” she says. “This is Barbie - Barbara Handler. Who’s calling, please?”

She hangs up two minutes later, beaming. “I finally got a job!”

“Where?” Sasha asks.

“Somewhere called Starbucks,” Barbie says. “It sounds fancy.”

Sasha pulls a face. “Starbucks? Way to become Corporate Sellout Barbie.”

“What’s going on?” Gloria calls from the kitchen. “Did Barbie get a job?”

“Yeah,” Sasha yells back, “at Starbucks.” She says the name like it’s poison in her mouth.

“Oh, honey,” Gloria says, coming into the living room now. “You’re working at Starbucks?”

“Is that bad?” Barbie asks, confused.

“Almost all your customers will be California people,” Gloria says. “So…yes. But congratulations anyway!” She puts her hand on top of Barbie’s, linking their fingers together for a moment before pulling away. “I’ll make a cake tonight to celebrate.”

“Felicidades a ti,” Sasha’s dad says, his pronunciation clumsy but sincere. Barbie barely hears him; she’s too busy looking down at her hand, wondering why it suddenly feels like the bones are being rearranged beneath her skin.

Barbie goes to Starbucks the next day, dressed in a plain pink t-shirt and a pair of cream-colored pants that she bought during her shopping trip last week. She’s met at the counter by a tall woman - Shift Manager Callie, who gives her two green aprons and a pile of online paperwork to fill out in the basement before she starts training.

“You’ve worked food service before, right?” Callie asks as Barbie clicks through another set of interactive learning modules on the corporate tablet, which by now she knows is called an iPad.

Barbie considers this for a minute. She’s hosted lots of parties for her friends back in Barbieland, - including tea parties, which involved both food and service, if not necessarily the two combined in the way that Callie means. Still, it could technically count. Barbie’s good at technicalities, when she needs to be; she’s learned a thing or two from Law Attorney Barbie.

“Sure I have,” Barbie says, in what she hopes is a convincing tone. She flashes Callie a smile. “So, where do I start?”

Callie drags a hand quickly across her face. She looks a little tired, Barbie notices, but she’s pretty nonetheless: dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and a smattering of freckles across her heart-shaped face. She reminds Barbie of Astrophysicist Barbie, who was also extremely pretty.

Barbie reflects that, on balance, she finds all women pretty. There’s probably a statement to be made here, she thinks. Something about girlhood, or sisterhood, or the divine feminine. She’s not quite sure yet.

Callie tosses a bag at her, and the introspective spell is broken. Barbie catches it, feeling something soft yield between her palms - some kind of cloth, wrapped up in plastic.

“Here’s some dry rags,” Callie says. “Let’s get a little cleaning out of the way, and then I’ll start you on training with Jenna.”

“Alright,” Barbie replies. “I’m ready. How hard can it be?”

Callie gives her a look of pitying contempt. “You’ll find out, Barbara,” she says, her voice weary. “You’ll find out.”

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 22: Does caramel syrup come out of white pants?

Results: 42)

“Hey there,” Gloria starts, her tone half amused and half concerned. “How was your first day?”

Barbie just groans in response. It’s muffled, because she’s lying face down on the living room carpet; she’s been there for the last twenty minutes, ever since she got back from her shift.

“Yikes,” Gloria says. “That bad?”

“Yes,” Barbie answers. She rolls over onto her back and looks at the ceiling, her gaze vague and unfocused. Everything smells like coffee and vanilla syrup. “That bad.”

Gloria’s face swims into view above her, wearing a look of worry. Barbie stares up, and for a second it’s just the two of them there: one above, one below. Barbie wonders, briefly, which one of them is really seeing things from the right perspective.

“You don’t have to work, you know,” Gloria says. “I’m not going to ask you to pay rent or anything.”

Barbie shakes her head. “If I’m not working, I’m just making your screwed up society even worse.”

“I’m not sure that being miserable at a minimum wage food service job was exactly what fourth-wave feminists had in mind,” Gloria says, dry, “but alright. Here - I’ll help you up, and then you can go shower. You’re getting mocha stains all over the carpet.”

She reaches down, extends a hand. Barbie takes it, and there it is again: that shifting warmth in her bones, that electric spark beneath her skin. One simple touch, and she feels more human than ever before.

The days go by faster in the real world, or maybe they’re just less perfect. There’s a difference there, probably. Maybe. Barbie thinks about it for a little while, but it makes her brain hurt. She’s smart, yes, but she’s not Philosopher Barbie.

She starts to settle more comfortably into things: the house, her job, humanity. She goes to new places, watches new movies, listens to new music. Sasha shows her songs by bands with names like Paramore and Fall Out Boy, which Barbie listens to eagerly. The songs are a little rough on her ears at first, especially the ones by Fall Out Boy, but she quickly starts to love them.

Barbie’s pink toothbrush rests in a cup beside the bathroom sink, right next to Gloria’s and Sasha’s; her new wardrobe spills out of her closet, overflowing onto the chairs. Her new shoes - brown cowboy boots, and a pair of white high tops with pink laces - find a place next to Gloria’s sandals and Sasha’s black sneakers.

Everything fits together - not perfectly, the way it did in the Dreamhouse, but like it belongs. Everything fits, except… except…

The thing is, Barbie thinks, she’s just not used to having a human body. There’s so many more sensations than she’s ever felt before. Every touch is a new revelation; every emotion is a lesson in living.

She learns the cool smoothness of clean sheets; the hot flare of a sunburn; the sweet taste of vine-ripened grapes; the quick, sharp stab of catching her finger on the edge of a knife. The first day it rains - a rarity in Los Angeles, Gloria tells her - she goes out into the yard and lies down in the wet grass, letting the late spring shower pour over her. The body moves through so many shades of being, and Barbie moves with it, learning pleasure, enduring pain.

And then there are the other new feelings: the ones that aren’t quite identifiable, but ache somewhere deep within her. It’s like hunger, almost, but it’s not satisfied by food or water.

Barbie’s been feeling those ones more and more lately, especially when she’s around Gloria. There’s a kind of urge there now, underlying their every interaction - a compulsion to reach for Gloria, to take her hand, to tuck her hair behind her ear. To sleep in her room the way that teenage girls do in the pink-lit movies that Barbie’s started watching recently; to whisper through the darkness, trading secrets, lying pressed together beneath colored blankets.

Barbie can’t explain it. She doesn’t know how. All she knows is that the urge is there, and it’s not going away.

The movies keep playing, and the feeling remains. Barbie lets it linger.

And more time goes on, and Barbie’s body goes through more changes still. She turns softer around the edges, her muscles less defined. She discovers a swath of light blonde hair dusting her arms and legs. She even gets some of the dreaded cellulite, but when she looks in the mirror, the sight has lost some of its sting.

She finds Gloria on the sun porch, where she’s watering the flowers, and tells her all about the changes, fascinated and full of curiosity. Gloria listens patiently, providing answers for every question that Barbie comes up with.

“Huh,” Barbie says at the end, once she’s learned about menstruation, puberty, and the myth that shaving off body hair makes women more appealing. It’s a lot to take in. No wonder Mattel kept Barbieland rated PG. “So then…since leaving Barbieland and coming to the real world, my body’s been changing in ways that according to society should make me less attractive.”

“Yes,” Gloria says, “but that’s only if you’re going by the bullshit beauty standards that were made up by a bunch of men.”

“Sasha said something like that once,” Barbie remembers. “It’s funny, though, because I think I feel prettier now than I ever did before.”

Gloria sets down her watering can and smiles, her eyes gleaming softly with something that Barbie recognizes as pride. “That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah,” Barbie says, and feels a smile overtaking her own face. “I think it is.”

“Hold on to that feeling,” Gloria says. “Don’t let anyone take it away from you, ever.” She pauses. “And, well…”

Barbie blinks, waiting. “What?”

“You’re beautiful,” Gloria says, the words coming out a little rushed. She’s slightly pink in the face, which Barbie has learned is usually an indicator of embarrassment. Barbie has no idea why Gloria would be embarrassed in this situation, though. “By anyone’s standards, I mean.”

Barbie’s chest floods with warmth. “Thank you,” she answers, beaming. “You are too, you know.” She catches Gloria’s gaze and holds it as she says this, wanting Gloria to know just how much she means it. “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, actually.”

“Um,” Gloria says, turning pinker. “Yes. Thanks. Uh, I should - Sasha. I need to get her. From school.”

Gloria picks up her watering can and hurries into the house, leaving Barbie sitting alone on the porch and wondering what that was all about. She doesn’t have much time to think about it, though; she’s running late for work, and Callie already threatened to write her up if she came in late again this week.

Gloria’s right, as it turns out. Barbie is beautiful by anyone’s standards - or at least by male standards, if the number of men who approach her on the daily is anything to go by.

Men honk from their cars, stop her on the street, leave their numbers at the cash register when she’s working. Barbie becomes reluctantly familiar with the phenomenon of catcalling, a name that makes no sense to her - cats are adorable, but catcalling is most certainly not.

One day, on her way to work, a man whistles at Barbie as she walks past. “Looking good, hot stuff,” he calls out, in a voice that makes Barbie’s skin crawl. “You could be a porn star with that ass.”

Barbie ignores him, and takes a different route home when she leaves. Later, when she’s back in her room, she takes out her phone and types porn star? into the search bar.

She scrolls slowly through the results. There’s a lot of them: various lists of women’s names, a scholarly-looking article titled Porn Stars: The False Mythology and the Tragic Reality, and a dozen links to other websites, most of which have Xs in the URLs. Barbie saves the article to read later, then clicks on one of the website links at random.

Her screen refreshes, and a video pops up - it shows a man and a woman, fully naked and locked in a vertical embrace. Barbie watches for a minute, intrigued and slightly disgusted. Her instinct is to hate it, but there’s something stirring beneath the disgust; a hot feeling that shifts in her stomach, moves like a being come to life.

She clicks to another video, and then another, making her way through a parade of links with increasingly crass and derogatory titles, until she finds one that seems less unappealing than the others. There’s no man in it, anyway, which is a step in the right direction. Barbie reaches for the cheap white earbuds that came with her phone and plugs them in, then hits play.

The woman on her screen now is naked, like all the others. She’s sitting on her bed, facing the camera. As Barbie watches, the woman takes one hand and moves it between her legs; she slips two fingers deep inside herself, moaning quietly as she does. Her hand is visibly wet.

Barbie’s stomach clenches, hard, and her thighs press together instinctually. An ache begins somewhere between her hips, big and nameless and growing by the minute. She turns the volume up a little.

Sasha’s at school; Gloria’s at work. Barbie is alone in this room, alone in the house. There’s no one around to see her place her own hand between her own thighs, no one to see her touch herself - hesitant at first, then harder once she’s found a rhythm. No one to see her choke back a cry as her body spasms in pleasure and a whole new universe, built from blurry, strung-together images of fruit and flowers and women’s faces, blooms into full living color behind her tightly closed eyes.

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 33: Is there a way to hide the things that you’ve googled in the past?

Results: 70)

“So,” Gloria says later that night, once the three of them are eating dinner together. “Did you enjoy having the house to yourself this afternoon?”

It’s an innocent question, posed without a trace of suggestion, but Barbie’s face burns with the truth of the answer regardless. Sasha lets out the sort of laugh that Barbie recognizes as typically following a joke laced with innuendo.

Barbie takes a sip of her water and tries not to look at Gloria. Every time she does, it

“Yes,” she says finally, and leaves it at that.

“Oh,” Gloria says. There’s an unfamiliar note in her voice - not sad, exactly, but tilting downwards nonetheless. “I’m glad to hear that. It was probably nice not to have me around for once.”

Barbie frowns, because that makes sense. “No,” she says. “I always want you around.”

She goes back to her meal, satisfied that her statement has sufficiently reinforced her investment in their friendship. Gloria makes a choking sound, nearly dropping her fork.

“Are you okay?” Barbie asks. She knows now, at least in theory, what to do if someone’s choking - her Starbucks training modules had a whole section on first aid - but she’d rather not have to test that knowledge. She’s trying, now, to remember exactly what she’s supposed to do in that situation.

“Fine,” Gloria coughs. “Water went down the wrong way, that’s all.”

“Good,” Barbie says, relieved. She squints over at Gloria, checking her breaths. They seem normal, if a little uneven. Her lips are parted slightly, distractingly full, and oh - that’s what Barbie’s supposed to do. “Otherwise I would’ve had to administer mouth to mouth resuscitation.”

“Right,” Gloria says, sounding a little faint. Across the table, for reasons unknown to Barbie, Sasha heaves a deep and long-suffering sigh.

“Jesus Christ,” she says, and then Gloria reprimands her for table manners, and that’s the end of both the dinner and the conversation, all at once.

School lets out in the last week of June, which means that Sasha is free for the rest of the summer. The concept is fascinating to Barbie, who’s never been to school a day in her life.

“So you just get to do whatever you want?” she asks, fascinated. “For two whole months?”

Sasha shrugs. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“Wow,” Barbie says, a little envious. “That’s amazing. I want to have summer vacation.”

“Up until a couple of weeks ago, you spent your entire life in Barbieland doing whatever you wanted every single day,” Sasha points out. “And you didn’t have a mandatory summer reading list, either.”

Barbie furrows her eyebrows, and her forehead creases - that’s another thing she’s gotten used to lately, the thin lines that appear on her forehead when she makes certain faces. Gloria has them too, but Barbie thinks they look wonderful on her. “Summer reading list?”

Sasha produces a crumpled sheet of paper and slides it across the table. It’s just the two of them at breakfast this morning; Gloria’s been called into work early again. Some kind of Mattel emergency, whatever. Barbie didn’t really listen to the details.

“See,” Sasha says, unenthusiastic. “We have to read three of these books and then write a report on each one.”

Barbie scans the list: Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, The Catcher in the Rye, The Giver, To Kill a Mockingbird, and several other vague, ominous-sounding titles that include colors and animal names.

“They’re all boring,” Sasha gripes. “And they’re almost all written by old white men. The lack of diversity in our core curriculum is frankly horrifying, especially for a state that usually presents itself as liberal.”

“Uh huh,” Barbie says, nodding. She only understands about half of what Sasha’s saying, but she grasps enough of the sentiment to be in agreement. “Where do you get these boring books, then?”

“Library, duh. I’m not going to spend any money on this exclusionary revisionist literature.”

Barbie hums in thought. The library, although something she’s aware of conceptually, is one of the places she hasn’t yet visited since coming to the real world. There was a library in Barbieland, technically, but the books were merely decoration - all of them were stuck shut cover to cover, unable to open.

“Okay then,” Barbie says. “The library it is.” She gives Sasha a hopeful look. “Can I come along?”

They take the bus to the library - Barbie still isn’t allowed to drive yet, despite her protests that she’s driven for most of her life (“Yeah,” Sasha pointed out, “but that was in a car that ran on magic Barbieland powers.”).

Barbie is enchanted as soon as they arrive. The library is a big stone building with elegant, sweeping steps out front; inside, tall wooden shelves and soft maroon carpeting extend in every direction. There are books and books and more books, as far as the eye can see.

“Whoa,” Barbie says, throwing in a whistle after her words for good measure. She’s picked up the habit in recent days, after seeing someone do it on TV. “This place is incredible.”

“Shhhh,” someone hisses. Barbie looks up, startled, to see a grey-haired woman glaring at her from behind a piece of furniture whose white placard identifies it as the Reference Desk.

“Oops,” Sasha mutters. “Yeah, we’re supposed to be quiet in here. That lady is always shushing me. Come on, this way.”

She takes Barbie by the elbow and leads her through the bookshelves - “Stacks,” she explains - until they reach a sunny space by the tall glass windows on the south side of the building. Big leather chairs are scattered around the room, filled with various people all holding books and newspapers.

Barbie’s gaze falls on a tall, stunning woman with blunt-cut hair and angular cheekbones. The woman leans over and says something to the skinny man with curly brown hair who’s sitting next to her, and they both laugh at a joke that Barbie can’t hear.

“I’m gonna go find my books,” Sasha says, gesturing to another set of shelves to their right. “You can browse around, whatever. I’ll come find you.”

Sasha disappears, leaving Barbie to scan the shelves with fascination. Words jump out at her, titles like The Lighthouse and The White Album and The Bluest Eye. She walks up and down the aisles, picking out books at random and replacing them on the shelves if their covers aren’t pretty enough.

One book in particular catches her attention, halfway through the A-G section: Little Women, written by someone named Louisa May Alcott. The pages are soft, time-worn, the words of the story kept company by names that aren’t familiar but feel like they should be - Jo, Amy, Meg, Beth. Barbie runs her hand over the cover, which shows four young girls standing by a window, and feels an odd stirring sensation in her chest.

“I’m ready,” Sasha announces, appearing at Barbie’s side again. She’s got a pile of books in her arms, including some that don’t seem to be from the required list. “What’ve you got there?”

Barbie holds up Little Women. “I think I want this one,” she says slowly. “It feels right to me.”

“Solid,” Sasha says with an approving nod. “Louisa May Alcott was an activist.” She takes a book from the top of her stack and hands it to Barbie: a green cover, a drawing of a father and daughter on the front. “Here. Take this, too.”

Barbie squints at the title: Fun Home. “This is for me? What’s so fun about the home?”

“I think reading this will help you, like, figure out some stuff,” Sasha says, which doesn’t make Barbie any less confused. “Come on, the checkout counter is this way.”

The next day, which is a day off for Barbie, she takes her two books into the small garden at the back of the house and sits down to read.

She settles into Gloria’s favorite chair, the blue and white striped one where she always sits to do the morning crossword puzzle when she has time. (Barbie usually joins her, but rarely helps; hardly any of the crossword clues ever make sense to her, no matter how patiently Gloria tries to explain them.) Once she’s comfortable, she opens up Fun Home.

It’s mostly pictures - that’s what she realizes first. The entire story is told in square little boxes and simple drawings, with words wrapping around the edges. It’s sort of like a comic book, which Barbie is now familiar with, except with far fewer superheroes in silly costumes.

The minutes pass, and the sun moves slow across the sky. Barbie reads on, entranced by the narrative. The story is simple on its surface - a young girl, Alison, grows through the years while she navigates life, loss, and a difficult relationship with her father - but there’s layers beneath that, running together in a blur of significance.

There is, in particular, a word: lesbian. Barbie’s never encountered this word before, but she feels the same way she did when she picked up Little Women; the same way she did when she first saw Gloria, when the meeting of their eyes was enough to take Barbie, just for a moment, away from everything else in the world. Like she’s finding a piece of herself she didn’t even know was missing, like remembering a version of herself from another time and realizing that the time, after everything, is still here and now.

“What are you reading?”

Barbie looks up. Gloria’s standing there, holding two glasses of iced lemon tea. There’s a newspaper tucked under her arm, folded open to today’s crossword.

“Sasha gave it to me,” Barbie says. The word lesbian is still hovering behind her eyes, twisting through her thoughts.

Gloria tilts her head, reading the title off the spine, and then smiles a little. “Yeah. That’s one of her favorites.”

“It’s going to help me figure something out,” Barbie explains. “At least, that’s what she told me.”

Gloria slides into the chair across from her, sets down the glasses of tea. “And has it?”

Barbie hums, thoughtful. “I think so. I didn’t - I didn’t know that women could love women. Not like that, anyway.”

A beat. Barbie reaches for one of the glasses, just for something to do with her hands, and then realizes: one of them is for her anyway. Gloria brought tea for her, the special lemon one that Barbie’s grown to love, without even asking if she wanted it.

“So there were no gay Barbies in Barbieland?” Gloria asks at last. “That’s surprising, considering how many kids make their dolls scissor. But yes - women can love women. Women can love men. Women can love both, or neither, or people who aren’t either.” She pauses for a minute; Barbie watches as she bites quickly at her bottom lip. “I, uh, I like both. That’s called being bisexual.”

“Oh,” Barbie says, and nothing else. The idea of Gloria liking women - loving women - strikes like a lightning bolt at the center of her chest. “There’s different labels for this?”

Gloria nods. “There’s several. Collectively, people who fit into these kinds of categories are usually called LGBTQ.”

“Hm,” Barbie says, her head spinning with the effort to keep up. “Okay. Got it.”

“Unfortunately,” Gloria continues, “a lot of folks in the real world don’t accept people like us. There’s a lot of discrimination and prejudice. It’s scary sometimes.”

Barbie frowns, an ache forming in the pit of her stomach. “How could anyone be hated for who they love?”

“I don’t know,” Gloria says sadly, “but it happens. It happens all the time.” She takes a sip of tea. “Anyways, enough of that. Do you have any questions about all of this?”

Barbie does. Barbie has more than one question. Do you like me, she wants to ask; if you love women, do you love me? Could you? Would this world be safe for you if you did? Would it be okay if I…

She says nothing, just shakes her head. For some reason, the words won’t come.

“Alright, then,” Gloria says. “Do you mind if I stay out here a while?”

“No, of course not,” Barbie says. “Please stay.”

Gloria smiles, then unfolds her crossword puzzle and begins working. Barbie turns back to her book, trying to school her eyes away from the curve of Gloria’s mouth. On the open page, Alison questions: “What would happen if we spoke the truth?”

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 54: Is there a difference between loving women because they’re amazing and pretty and wonderful and loving them because you’re a lesbian?

Results: 30)

A few days after the conversation in the garden, Barbie wakes up feeling like she’s trapped underwater. Everything is too heavy, weighted down, and the world outside her bed seems impossibly wide and weary.

Instead of getting up and going downstairs for breakfast the way she usually does, Barbie curls up beneath her covers and closes her eyes again. She stays there for a long time, hovering somewhere between sleep and consciousness, until there’s a knock on her door.

“Come in,” Barbie mumbles, without enthusiasm.

The door opens, and Gloria pokes her head in; her eyes narrow in concern as soon as she catalogues Barbie’s position. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”

“Not sick,” Barbie says, listless. “Just…off. Wrong.”

Gloria comes fully into the room, sitting down on the edge of Barbie’s bed. She drapes one wrist over Barbie’s forehead, the gesture careful and practiced, and the touch feels so nice that Barbie doesn’t think twice about leaning into it.

“No fever,” Gloria says, half to herself. “That’s good. Are you hungry?”

Barbie shakes her head. She can’t imagine ever being hungry again.

Gloria runs her fingers through Barbie’s hair, soft and comforting. Barbie’s eyes flutter closed despite herself. She’s still miserable, yes, but oh - even in the middle of everything, this point of contact feels wonderful.

“Can you describe how you feel?” Gloria asks. “That might help.”

Barbie rolls over onto her side, looking up at Gloria. Watery sunlight pours through the window, drenching them both in muted tones of grey. “It feels like being Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie all over again.”

“Oh,” Gloria says, her tone shifting. “I think I understand.”

“You do?” Barbie asks, clutching the edge of her pillow. “Am I dying?”

“You’re not dying,” Gloria says. “You’re just a little bit depressed.” Her fingers move through Barbie’s hair again, sympathetic. “It’s part of being human, unfortunately.”

Barbie blinks in surprise. “You mean every person in the world feels this way?”

“Most of them do, yes. At least during some point of time in their lives.”

Barbie takes a moment, takes this in. It should be a revelation, but it sits secondary to the lingering feel of Gloria’s hands in her hair. Everything inside of her feels like it’s been shaken up - like it’s spiraling, growing too big for her bones. There are too many emotions to hold inside her body.

“It’s just so much,” she says, wretched. “Is it always so much?”

“Yes,” Gloria says. “No. Sometimes.” And then, fingers tucking a strand of hair behind Barbie’s ear: “Can I show you something?”

Gloria’s studio is a small, many-windowed room tucked away on the south side of the house and filled with pens, paints, pencils, papers. A pair of easels stand in the corners, and small potted plants sprawl across the windowsills. Barbie’s never been in here before; she looks around in every direction, fascinated.

“This is where I do most of my work,” Gloria says. “It used to be Sasha’s playroom when she was a kid.”

Sunlight spills through the window, dancing across the sketches resting on a wooden desk. Gloria motions to the nearest easel, whose canvas shows a charcoal-dark scene: a tornado sweeping towards a tiny house, drawn in thick, violent black strokes and smudged in places.

“When I feel too much, this is how I let it out,” Gloria says. “Right here on paper. That way it can’t hurt anyone, especially when I’m angry.”

“You get angry?” Barbie asks, surprised. Gloria’s the kindest person she’s ever met besides Kindness and Warmth of Human Connection Barbie (discontinued due to lack of popularity), always quick with a smile or a laugh or a hand extended in friendship.

Gloria smiles now, but it’s a little sad at the edges. “I do,” she says. “A lot more than I wish I did.”

Barbie carefully flips through the other pages on the easel. Each of them have dark, disturbing drawings that are off-putting in the most satisfying way. “So this is what Sasha meant when she was talking about your weird drawings.”

“Probably,” Gloria admits. “I’m most creative when I feel a little miserable. That’s how Irrepressible Thoughts of Death Barbie came to be.”

She reaches over to a table of art supplies, picks up a small set of paints, flips to a blank page on the easel. “Do you want to try?”

Barbie takes the paints, enthralled. The sadness is still there, but it’s swept a little farther away by the hopeful look on Gloria’s face. “Can I really?”

“Of course.” Gloria takes a large white shirt from a hook by the door. “Here - put this on so you don’t stain your clothes.”

Barbie pulls the shirt over her head; it smells good, a mix of laundry detergent and Gloria’s perfume and the Sharpies that she’s not supposed to sniff but sometimes does anyways. Then she takes the paintbrush, dips it into a color at random.

She slaps the brush against the canvas, slowly at first and then faster and faster, until all the emotions in her body are pouring out and bleeding onto the canvas in dark acrylic hues. Finally, when her arm is growing tired, she stops to examine her work.

“Feel any better?” Gloria inquires, a hint of amusement in her voice.

Barbie nods. The canvas in front of her is covered in violent slashes of color: orange, pink, white, strokes of black streaking through the center.

“Abstract,” she decides. It’s a word she’s learned from one of the fancy art books that Gloria keeps around the house.

“Abstract,” Gloria agrees. Her hand moves absentmindedly to Barbie’s jaw, her thumb brushing away a splash of orange paint, and Barbie has to hold herself still against the sudden rush that floods through her body. Her painting has no meaning, but suddenly it might be the most significant thing in the world.

The weekend comes around, and Sasha goes away with her friends day after day, the way she’s been doing almost every week since summer vacation started.

Gloria sends her out the door with a smile each time, but Barbie isn’t blind. She sees the cracks in Gloria’s composure, the crease of sadness by her mouth. She sees the way that Gloria watches Sasha leave: wistful, melancholy, as if she’s watching Sasha cross over to a land forbidden to her.

Barbie, being who she is, decides to try and fix it in the way she knows best.

“Let’s have a girls day,” she suggests on Sunday morning. They’re sitting at the breakfast table together, the front door still ringing faintly from slamming behind Sasha as she hurries out to meet her friends.

Gloria gives her a smile, tired but genuine. “A girls day, huh? What do you want to do?”

“Uh-uh,” Barbie counters. “What do you want to do? It’s your choice.”

“What do I want to do,” Gloria repeats slowly. “Wow. I haven’t been asked that in a while.”

“Well, I’m asking you now,” Barbie says. She takes a sip of coffee - blonde roast with cream and four sugars, the only way she finds it tolerable. The one time she tried Gloria’s plain black with a splash of oat milk, she’d nearly thrown up.

Gloria hums, thoughtful. “I haven’t been to the beach in a while.”

“The beach it is, then,” Barbie declares. “Let’s pack right now! I’ll get the towels.”

She rises from the table, ready to put together the best beach bag known to womankind, but a light touch on her arm stops her.

“Thank you,” Gloria says, her eyes deep with emotion. “I know what you’re doing, and it means a lot to me. Can I hug you?”

Barbie nods, dumbstruck. Gloria stands and pulls her into a hug, arms wrapped tightly around her body; Barbie sinks into it, tucking her head into the space between Gloria’s head and her shoulder. She thinks, distantly, that maybe this is what it truly means to be human: the touch of someone you love, safe and warm in a kitchen filled with sunlight.

“Thank you again,” Gloria says, drawing back now. Her eyes search Barbie’s, sincere and sparkling. “I mean it.”

“Um,” Barbie says, feeling an entire house of birds come to life in her stomach - an aviary, she remembers Sasha explaining once when they were watching Animal Planet. “You’re welcome. Yes. Getting the towels now.”

She hurries towards the hallway, heading for the closet, and promptly walks straight into the doorframe. Behind her, like music, Gloria’s laughter echoes around the kitchen.

The beach is crowded with more people than Barbie’s ever seen in one place before, but they somehow manage to find parking in the back corner of the lot. Gloria leads the way, guiding Barbie through the sand dunes and around brightly colored towels and umbrellas until they finally reach a quiet spot near the water.

They spread their towels out and sit, setting their shoes aside. Gloria’s wearing a blue two-piece bathing suit that exposes a lot more skin than Barbie’s used to seeing from her; Barbie’s trying hard not to stare indecently. She’s only partly successful.

“I used to bring Sasha here when she was younger,” Gloria says, once they’re settled. “It was one of my favorite spots in the world.“

“Why did you stop?” Barbie asks. She pushes her fingers into the sand, reveling in the warmth of the grains.

Gloria shrugs. “She grew up.”

“Oh,” Barbie says. The sand suddenly feels too hot against her skin. She searches for the right thing to say. “It’s not too late. You two still have so much time together.”

“I know,” Gloria says, “but it doesn’t always feel like it.” She sighs, and it’s heavy enough to drown out the waves. “Sometimes I just wonder whether I’m doing any of this right.”

“Of course you are,” Barbie says, her voice strengthened by conviction. She feels brave enough to reach out and take Gloria’s hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “You’re a wonderful mother, Gloria. And Sasha is the best teenage girl I’ve ever met.”

Gloria smirks a little. “She’s also one of the only teenage girls you’ve ever met.”

“Still,” Barbie presses on. She leans forward, wanting Gloria to understand. “Doubting yourself won’t get you anywhere, remember? I doubted myself once, and it almost cost me everything. You and Sasha were the ones who saved me.”

“That’s true,” Gloria says, and the weight surrounding her shoulders seems to lighten a little bit. “Enough of this maudlin crap. Let’s go swimming.”

“Swimming,” Barbie echoes, following her gaze to the water’s edge. With all of the emotional feelings talk, she’d forgotten two very important things: 1) the beach here is made of real water, not fake plastic backdrop, and 2) she doesn’t actually know how to swim. “Of course. What else would we do at a beach? But, well…maybe I’ll just watch from the shore.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” Gloria says. “Come on, it won’t be so bad in the water. I’ll help you.”

The water is cold, but Barbie pushes through it until she’s waist deep. Gloria stands next to her, holds out her arms.

“Lay back and extend your arms and legs,” Gloria instructs. Then, seeing Barbie’s look of hesitation: “You won’t drown. The human body is designed to be buoyant.”

Barbie’s not so sure about that, but she gingerly leans back until she’s lying flat along the surface of the water, like she’s in bed. Water sweeps across her face and she splutters, tasting bitter salt.

“Keep your mouth closed,” Gloria says. Her left hand rests beneath Barbie’s head, cradling it gently. “Just relax and breathe. I’ve got you.”

Barbie relaxes. Barbie breathes. The sun shines down on them, warming her face, and it’s like the entire world dwindles to just this point: there’s the touch of Gloria’s hand, and there’s the water, and there’s the sun in the summer sky. There’s Gloria, and then there’s nothing.

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 85: Is it normal to feel like you’re drowning in something even though you’re floating in the ocean and your best friend is holding you up?

Results: 4)

“Oat milk latte for the cafe,” Barbie calls out, setting the drink down. It’s late afternoon, a Wednesday in mid July, and the store is all but empty. Only two of the tables are occupied - one by an elderly couple, one by a young-looking woman with a pink-clothed baby asleep in the stroller next to her.

A woman walks up to the counter. Her hair is blonde, brown at the roots, shorter and choppier than Barbie’s, and her brown flannel shirt hangs loose from one shoulder. “Did you say an oat milk latte?”

Barbie nods, pushing the drink towards her. As the woman gets closer, Barbie sees that she looks tired; her eyes are slightly red, her face lined. She’s beautiful, and Barbie finds herself asking: “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” the woman shrugs. “I don’t really know. My husband and I are getting a divorce.” She wraps her hand around her latte cup, lets out a short laugh. “Sorry, that’s a big overshare for Starbucks on a Wednesday afternoon.”

“It’s okay,” Barbie assures her. She’s familiar with the concept of divorce now, thanks to a few too many episodes of the trashy TV shows that Gloria pretends not to watch - soap operas, they’re called, despite the fact that Barbie has yet to see a single bar of soap appear onscreen. “Are you sad about it?”

“Of course I am,” the woman says, her tone thoughtful rather than angry. “It’s odd, is all. You can build twelve years of your life around someone, and suddenly it all disappears.”

“True,” Barbie says, “but he’s just a man.” She says this forcefully, with intent, wanting the woman to understand. She looks across the counter at this woman and pictures the marriage being left behind, and it’s like this: the man is a man, and the woman is the entire universe. “There’s so much more to life.”

A smile crosses the woman’s mouth, wry but sincere. “There is, isn’t there,” she says. “I sometimes think that this is what it is, being a woman. It’s the beautiful, heartbreaking realization that there’s always more.”

“Gloria,” Barbie says. It comes out as a wheeze; she swallows hard, tries again. “Gloria. I have a really, really important question for you.”

“Go on,” Gloria says from the kitchen table, looking up from whatever she’s drawing. She frowns at Barbie, who’s still standing near the door. “Why are you out of breath?”

“Ran all the way home from work,” Barbie says, and then: “What did you want to be when you were a child?”

Gloria sets down her pencil, looking puzzled. There’s a half-finished sketch on her paper, done in profile. “An astronaut, I think,” she says. “And then a marine biologist, and then a schoolteacher, and then a firefighter. There were a lot of different jobs on the list; I got the Barbie Career Set for my sixth birthday. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t really know,” Barbie admits. She starts to pace around the kitchen, driven by a force she can’t name. “It’s just - there’s more, you know? There are so many women in this world, and there is so much more to every one of them than people ever bother to find out. I’ve seen it over and over since I got to the real world. There’s more and more and more. And - ” She stops pacing, draws closer to the kitchen table. “I want to know you, okay? I want to know you. I want you to be known, really known, the way every woman should be. And if you want to know me in return, then I’ll gladly let you. That’s what I want.”

Gloria looks at her, long and steady. Their gazes touch, hold each other, and Barbie swallows again. It’s not a confession, not really - she doesn’t even know what she’d be confessing to - but it feels like one nonetheless.

“Okay,” Gloria says at last. “Yes.”

Barbie smiles, washed in relief. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Gloria repeats. There’s something else here, lost in translation, but Barbie gets most of the message anyway.

She sits down next to Gloria, tilts her head curiously to catch a glimpse. “What are you drawing?”

“Oh,” Gloria says, looking embarrassed, shuffling her papers together. “Just some sketches. Nothing much.”

“Can I see?”

Gloria uncovers her sketch, clearing her throat as she does. Barbie looks down, expecting new designs for Mattel, and sees…herself.

She’s right there on the paper, pencil-drawn in loving detail. There’s several different versions - different angles, sketches of her in her cowboy hat, in her Starbucks apron, in an old sweatshirt stolen from the back of Gloria’s closet. Each drawing is done with Gloria’s signature whimsical touch, which Barbie has grown to know well over the past few weeks.

“I’m not trying to be weird,” Gloria says, apologetic. “It’s just - you’re a good subject.”

“Thank you,” Barbie says, flattered to think that an artist as talented as Gloria would consider her a good subject for their art. “According to your art books, I could be…what did they call it? Your muse.”

“Yeah,” Gloria says. A smile touches the corner of her mouth, slightly wistful. “Yeah. You could say that.”

Sasha comes home one day with big news - big to Barbie, anyway.

“There’s a carnival on the boardwalk this weekend,” Sasha explains, opening the freezer and taking out a carton of ice cream. “Ferris wheels, face painting, rip-off game booths, the whole bit. Marley told me about it. She went with her sisters last night.”

Barbie’s mouth falls open. There was a carnival in Barbieland once, but it was mostly for show - a set-piece decoration at a party thrown by Social Media Influencer Barbie, complete with rides that no one went on and fair food that no one ate. This time around, Barbie wants a rollercoaster ride and a real funnel cake.

“We have to go,” she says. “We have to. Please?”

“We can do that,” Gloria says. She looks sideways at Sasha. “Is that supposed to be your dinner?”

“Mom,” Sasha says, pushing her spoon into the ice cream. It’s mint chocolate chip, one of Barbie’s newly discovered favorites. “It’s summer. It’s like, literally the season for ice cream.”

“It’ll be the season for cavities too, if you keep going like that,” Gloria scolds, but there’s no edge to it. “Barbie, do you want to go to the carnival tomorrow night?”

Barbie nods eagerly.

“Sold,” Gloria says. “Sasha, do you want to - ” She cuts herself off mid-sentence, eyes downcast. “Never mind. I’m sure you have plans with your friends already.”

“Nah,” Sasha says, offhand. “I’ll come along with you guys.”

Gloria stops dead, stares at her with an expression of happy astonishment. Barbie, watching from the sidelines, feels a balloon of happiness swelling in her chest.

“You will?” Gloria asks. The question is disbelieving, joyful.

“Yeah, whatever,” Sasha mutters. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”

Gloria wraps Sasha in a hug from behind, all at once, a quick and sudden movement like she can’t help herself. Sasha grumbles in halfhearted protest, but doesn’t pull away.

“By the way,” Gloria says, stepping back and reaching for the silverware drawer, “don’t think you’re finishing that ice cream by yourself. There’s plenty for the three of us.”

She passes Barbie a spoon, keeps one for herself. Sasha moves over to make room and the three of them cluster around the ice cream carton, digging out spoonfuls in turn. Sandwiched between the two women she loves most in the world, spearmint and the taste of summer on her lips, Barbie thinks she’s never been happier.

The next night, the boardwalk is a riot of color. Crowds gather everywhere, spilling across the area in every direction; Barbie, Gloria, and Sasha carefully weave their way around clusters of people until they reach the row of food trucks parked by the water.

“Get whatever you want,” Gloria says, “seriously, whatever, I’m buying,” and Barbie is so excited that she doesn’t bother arguing about the money. She stands in different food lines for upwards of twenty minutes, eventually coming away with a strawberry funnel cake, a bag of caramel popcorn, a stick of pink cotton candy, and a cup of deep-fried oreos, as well as a fried dough that Gloria didn’t ask for but Barbie knows she want anyway.

“Think you've got enough sugar there?” Gloria asks, laughing. She’s radiant in the bright lights of the carnival, carefree, happier than Barbie’s seen her in days. Sasha’s got an overpriced vegan hotdog from the stall behind the ferris wheel, and she’s wearing her headphones as usual, but they’re hanging loose around her neck, not in use.

“Not quite yet,” Barbie says, and smiles so widely it hurts.

They eat overlooking the water, then continue seeing the sights. They go on the ferris wheel, the three of them crammed into a circular car hanging high above the rest of the world, and Barbie stares out at the sprawling lights of the city with an acute sense of awe.

“Great view, isn’t it,” Gloria says, leaning into her shoulder.

“It is,” Barbie agrees, turning her head to look at Gloria directly.

Once they’re back on the ground, Sasha pulls them towards one of the game booths; she’s got an idea that she can outsmart the guy who’s running it, and Barbie believes in her fully. She stands to one side with Gloria, trying to watch inconspicuously while Sasha sets about guessing which shell is hiding under what cup.

While they wait, Barbie looks around curiously. There’s something new at every turn: jugglers, musicians, women covered in metallic paint. And then, by the boardwalk railing - something else.

Two girls stand by the steps, one dressed in a white button down shirt and the other wearing a cropped pink top. They’re looking at each other softly, saying something Barbie can’t make out. And then, as Barbie watches, the one in pink leans forward and presses their mouths together, and oh - they’re kissing.

Oh.

A brief sidebar, sourced from Barbiepedia, on the creation of Socially Conscious and Truly Aware of Lesbianism Barbie (new model, just dropped, limit of one per purchase, never to be continued):

Up until now, Barbie has had - as all Barbies do - a nebulous understanding of All That. Despite a day of questionable pornography exploration, despite the late addition of Alison Bechdel’s ink-drawn lessons in lesbianism and Gloria’s patient, acronym-laden explanation, Barbie has historically learned this story one way and one way only: boy meets girl, they live happily ever, the end. She and Ken were outliers - she an extraordinary narrative who didn’t fit the stereotypical plot line, he a tragic anti-hero who lacked his happy ending.

Now, though, the book is rewriting itself. The pages are turning faster and faster, passing the fairytale ending, showing her flashes of a different story altogether. Oranges in the sunlight, a woman’s hands, two girls kissing on a beach in California. Gloria’s face.

Gloria.

“Oh,” Barbie says - and then, cursing properly for the first time in her until-recently-kept-PG-censored life: “Fuck.”

She comes back to the moment all at once, feeling newly made and delicate. Gloria’s cheering; Sasha’s moving towards them with an enormous stuffed animal in tow, a pink dinosaur with orange spines so large that she’s struggling to carry it.

“Told you,” Sasha says, triumphant. “I knew I could beat him. It’s all about outthinking your opponent. Or, you know, subtly blackmailing him because his stall violates several health and business codes.”

Barbie claps her hands, but her heart isn’t all the way in. She sneaks a glance back over her shoulder at the two girls, only to find that they’re gone.

“Here,” Sasha says, holding out the giant dinosaur to Barbie. “I want you to have this.”

Barbie takes it, deeply touched. “Really? For me?”

Sasha nods. “I thought you’d like it. Plus, the color scheme is pretty fitting.”

“Sasha,” Gloria says, exasperated for a reason Barbie can’t identify. “Are you just gifting that dinosaur to Barbie so you won’t have to carry it yourself?”

“No,” Sasha huffs. “Fine, maybe a little. But come on, it’s perfect for her.”

“It is,” Barbie agrees, hugging the dinosaur to her chest in delight. It’s soft, and she adores it already. “Thank you, Sasha. I’m gonna name her…” She pauses for a minute, thinking of strong female names. “Diana.”

Gloria laughs. “Princess Diana?”

“In the hood I’m like Princess Diana,” Sasha mutters, automatic, and then looks deeply disgusted with herself. “Okay, let’s go. I’m getting tired of smelling fair food grease and a billion people’s sweat.”

“Ready to go?” Gloria asks, looking at Barbie. Barbie just nods.

They wander off the boardwalk and back towards the parking lot: Sasha leading the way, Gloria staying in the middle to keep an eye on both of her girls. Barbie follows a little more slowly, wanting to hold onto everything for just a few more minutes.

Sasha pauses by a tent with a display of black and silver knives; she points something out to Gloria, who leans closer to hear what she’s saying. The sight swells in Barbie’s chest, sweet and affectionate, and she takes out her phone to snap a quick picture.

“Barbie,” Sasha groans, but she doesn’t sound truly annoyed. “I don’t need paparazzi.”

“We have to capture the moment!” Barbie insists. “Like Taylor said. Capture it, remember it.”

“Introducing you to Taylor Swift was the worst thing Mom’s ever done,” Sasha says, shaking her head. “Here, check out this one with the iridescent edges.”

“Sasha, no,” Gloria says. “You’re not leaving this carnival with a knife.”

They start bickering, arguing without real anger. Barbie watches fondly, wondering if she’s ever felt quite this happy.

“Your family is wonderful,” says a voice to her left. Barbie turns. There’s a grey-haired woman standing there, giving her a smile that sparkles bright with life. “How long have you and your wife been together?”

The correction is on the tip of Barbie’s tongue, waiting to fall: No, she’s my best friend. No, we’re not together. But she looks over at Gloria, laughing now at something Sasha said, the lights of the carnival touching her face into pink-tinted beauty as softly as Barbie wishes she could do herself, and lets herself pretend just this once.

“Oh, for forever,” she says. It doesn’t feel like a lie. “Sometimes it feels like I didn’t truly come alive until I met her.”

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 101: What do the colors pink white and orange mean together?

Results: 75)

“Gloria, Sasha,” Barbie says. “I have something to tell you. I’m a lesbian.”

Silence.

“I’m a lesbian,” Barbie tries again. “I’m a lesbian. Me. Lesbian.”

More silence. In the mirror, Barbie’s reflection stares back at her blankly. Barbie doesn’t want to sound crazy, but she swears she’s being judged.

“No,” she says to herself. “Not quite right. Let’s try again.” She strikes a different pose, takes a deep breath. “Gloria, Sasha. I’m a lesbian.”

“You’re a lesbian?”

Barbie shrieks in surprise, whirling around. Sasha’s standing in the open door, holding a bag of microwave popcorn and wearing an expression that Barbie can’t quite read. It seems, for some reason, to be satisfied.

“I,” Barbie says weakly, clutching at her racing heart. “I’m - Sasha. You scared me.”

“Sorry,” Sasha says. She comes into the room, dropping onto Barbie’s bed like she belongs there; Barbie is reminded of Gloria doing the same thing days earlier, sees the mother echoed in the daughter. “So you’re a lesbian?”

“I think so,” Barbie says. “Yes. Yes, I am.” She blinks as she says it, feeling something unfamiliar sweeping over her: a kind of relief, but also a strange undercurrent of melancholy.

“Heard,” Sasha says. She pats the space next to her on the bed, inviting. “Wanna sit for a minute?”

Barbie sits down heavily. She’s not sure what she’s feeling, exactly, but she sure is feeling it.

“It’s just confusing,” she says. “When I was in Barbieland, I didn’t even know that girls could like girls or boys could like boys. I just knew that boys wanted girls, and Ken wanted me, and I never felt the same way about him. I thought that I wouldn’t ever have those kinds of feelings, that I was just meant to be alone and my friends would be enough. Girls night was always enough. And now that I know the truth, it’s like…it’s like. It’s like, there’s a whole other way of living that we didn’t even know about back in Barbieland. There’s so many more choices, and the Barbies never knew about it. They still don’t.”

“Yeah,” Sasha says, frowning. “We need to bring back kids scissoring their Barbies.”

“Gloria said that too,” Barbie remembers. “What’s scissoring?”

“A lie created by the porn industry,” Sasha answers. “But anyway. Mom’s bisexual, you know.”

Barbie nods. “Yes, she told me that.”

“Okay,” Sasha prompts. “So you’re a lesbian, and she’s bisexual. And she’s single.”

“Well, she’ll get a girlfriend eventually,” Barbie reasons. “Or a boyfriend.” She finds it inconceivable that anyone as wonderful as Gloria could ever be single for very long unless it was by her own choice, and she says as much.

“No, I meant…” Sasha trails off, heaves an exhausted sigh. “Never mind. It’s like talking to a blonde brick wall.”

“Thanks,” Barbie says. “I think.”

They sit for a moment, a companionable silence there between them. Barbie feels lighter, like her breaths are coming easier now.

“By the way, I like girls too,” Sasha offers. “Not to like, hijack your coming out moment. I’m just saying, you’re not the only lesbian in this family.”

This family. Barbie’s chest warms with something indescribable. It’s not hers to keep, but she tries to hold on anyway.

“Lesbians in the family?” asks a voice from the doorway, and then Gloria is there, walking into the room. “What did I miss?”

“I’m a lesbian,” Barbie says, point blank.

“Oh,” Gloria says. She bites at her bottom lip, an unconscious gesture that Barbie’s noticed her doing a lot recently. “That’s - wow. Welcome to the club. The LGBT club, I mean, I’m not - I’m still bisexual.”

“And single,” Sasha says, pointedly, from the bed. Barbie isn’t sure why she keeps emphasizing this fact, but Gloria blushes in response.

“I think it’s great that we both love women,” Barbie says brightly. Somewhere in the back of her mind is an image of her and Gloria loving women together - loving each other, specifically - but she pushes it away. It’s not fair for her to assume that Gloria would want her just because she’s bisexual and Barbie’s a lesbian. “Maybe we should have a girls night to celebrate. We can watch movies and do face masks, and - oh, I know! I’ll make us friendship bracelets.”

“Oh,” Gloria says, sounding almost disappointed, and then: “Okay.” Her blush grows stronger, spreads through the apples of her cheeks. Sasha groans loud enough to shake the walls, flopping dramatically onto her back.

“Take me now, universe,” she says to Barbie’s ceiling. “I give up.”

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 123: What is scissoring?

Results: 69, including one link to a top-rated pair of kitchen scissors from Amazon for the ludicrous price of $80085, presumably a typo on the seller’s part)

Barbie and Gloria do have a girls night after all; it falls on a Friday evening, when it’s just the two of them in the house. Sasha’s already gone, headed off to a friend’s house for a weekend sleepover.

For once, Gloria doesn’t seem too sad about her daughter’s absence. She’s cheerful, lighthearted, laughing at Barbie’s jokes. Every time her mouth curls into another smile, wide and wanton, Barbie’s chest aches with wanting.

They order takeout from the Thai place down the street, sharing appetizers and swapping entrees halfway through dinner. Barbie chokes on a too-hot pepper, grabbing blindly for her water glass with teary eyes, and accidentally grabs Gloria instead.

“I’m so sorry,” Barbie says, blinking away another tear. “I didn’t mean to, uh…” And then she realizes where her hand landed, and she falls silent.

She’s gotten more or less used to having a body in the last three months, and more or less used to that body having parts that she didn’t have before. She’s confronted the challenge of women’s chests being seen as shameful, something to be covered up, albeit reluctantly; the first time she’d walked out of the shower and into the kitchen without putting on a shirt, Gloria had turned pinker than a Dreamhouse and quickly walked into the other room.

Now, though, one hand accidentally grasping Gloria’s left breast, Barbie thinks she might understand the big deal about all of this. She thinks she might, because the curve of Gloria’s breast beneath her bare palm, one soft cotton layer in between, is enough to light her up like a shooting star.

For an awful, wonderful moment, time freezes in its tracks. Barbie stares at her hand, at Gloria’s face; Gloria’s teeth dig into her bottom lip, her eyes dark and wide. And then the clock starts again, and the minutes move, and Barbie yanks her hand away as her face flushes with heat.

“I’m so sorry,” she blurts out. “I wasn’t trying to touch your boob. I mean, not that I’d ever be opposed to that. Touching them, I mean. You have nice boobs. Wait, maybe I wasn’t supposed to say that. Sorry.”

Gloria stays quiet, and Barbie cuts herself off before she can keep talking. The silence stretches on, long and agonizing.

“It’s fine,” Gloria says finally. She swallows hard; Barbie tries not to watch the movement, the long line of her throat. “You know, this girls night is still missing something.”

“Yeah?” Barbie asks. “What?”

Gloria smiles, and it’s more mischievous than Barbie’s ever seen before. “Wine.”

Barbie’s never had wine before, never had any alcohol, actually. As it turns out, she’s been missing out - big time, as Sasha would say.

She’s on her second glass; Gloria’s on her third. The two of them are sprawled across the couch, Barbie’s head in Gloria’s lap, Gloria’s old records spinning on the turntable beside the open window: Patsy Cline, Carole King, Stevie Nicks. Barbie feels loose, lazy. The world moves slowly around her, rose-tinted and slightly blurry at the edges. Barbie’s starting to think that she loves rosé.

Scratch that. She likes rosé; she loves the way that Gloria sips from her glass, long and slow, lips pressed to the edge. Barbie’s kind of jealous of the glass, which is a weird thought to have, but whatever.

“Was it like this in the Dreamhouse?” Gloria asks. “Girls night?”

Barbie hums in thought. She thinks back to those nights, those girls, the pajamas and the mirrors and the makeup and the movies.

“We usually tried new makeovers,” she says. “Or had ice cream after midnight. One time, Physicist Barbie braided my hair.” She smiles, warm with the memory. She’d always liked Physicist Barbie so much - liked her the most, maybe, out of all her Barbieland friends.

“That sounds fun.” Gloria taps her fingers against Barbie’s forehead: once, twice. “Do you want me to braid yours now?”

Barbie wants that, suddenly, more than anything in the world. She nods, moves into position where Gloria directs her until she’s sitting on the floor with her back resting between Gloria’s legs.

“I don’t have a hair tie,” Barbie says. Gloria’s hands weave through her hair, deft and careful, and Barbie closes her eyes against the heavenly feel of it.

“That’s okay,” Gloria says. “I’ll make it work.”

Time passes. Barbie feels languid, entirely content. A breeze blows through the window, late-summer warm with a hint of a cooler edge, and Gloria’s hands are soft in her hair. In all her life, she’s never been this satisfied.

Gloria’s fingers catch somewhere, pulling hard at a tangle. Barbie jerks rapidly back to full awareness, the touch careening hot through her body right to the place between her legs. She lets out a small sound, involuntary, feeling a shock of pleasure that she hasn’t felt since that one afternoon when, lightheaded with the rush of discovery, she slipped her fingers inside herself for the first time and learned what it was to see creation.

“Sorry,” Gloria apologizes. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Barbie says - and then, because the wine is running warm in her veins and the world seems wide open, she adds: “It felt good. You should do it again.”

Gloria’s the one to let out a sound now, a sort of strangled noise deep in her throat. Barbie turns around to face her, looking up from where she’s now kneeling on the floor.

“You,” Gloria says, and then stops. “You can’t just say things like that. It’s not fair.”

“Why?” Barbie asks. She leans forward, rests her forearms on Gloria’s thighs. She pictures this tableau from an outside perspective, imagines it to be something like a painting she once saw in the library: a portrait of religious dedication, a nun and her God. Barbie’s learned some things about religion since getting to the real world, and she’s not religious - probably never will be - but as she looks up at Gloria’s face, wine-flushed and lovely, she thinks that maybe she understands belief in a higher power after all.

Gloria makes another sound, this one more frustrated. “You don’t even know what you’re doing to me, do you?”

“No,” Barbie admits. “But I do know this. You’re a woman, and you’re my best friend, and you’re beautiful, and - ” She licks her bottom lip, made brave by the rosé and the coming end of summer. “And sometimes I think I want to kiss you.”

Gloria inhales, sharp. “You what?”

“I want to kiss you,” Barbie confesses, and feels that weight lift away. “I really, really want to kiss you.”

Their faces are so close now, barely six inches apart. Barbie can trace the dark curl of Gloria’s eyelashes, could count every one of the summer freckles across the bridge of her nose if she could just see clearly enough. She leans forward, ever so slightly, her mouth already anticipating the taste of Gloria’s.

“We can’t,” Gloria says. It sounds like the words are being punched out of her.

Barbie frowns, deflated. “Why not?”

“You’re drunk,” Gloria says. “You’re drunk, and I’m at least tipsy, and this isn’t something we should just do on a whim. It isn’t something we can take back tomorrow.”

“What if I don’t want to take it back tomorrow,” Barbie says, flat. It comes out a little sulky, but she can’t help it. She thinks it’s probably an accurate response to being rejected by the woman who’s most likely the love of her whole entire life. “Am I the problem? Am I - am I too much? Do you not want me?”

Gloria laughs: short, disbelieving. “Don’t be ridiculous. You could never be too much.”

“Then tell me why you won’t have me,” Barbie says, soft and almost pleading, sick with herself for ruining a good thing but unable to stop even as everything crashes and burns. She knows the truth about the real world now, and she’s no longer leaving well enough alone. “Please tell me why.”

“You’re drunk,” Gloria repeats, “and you probably won’t even remember this in the morning.”

“I will,” Barbie promises. The room is spinning now, rose-tinted hues sliding into an indistinct crimson blur, and her head is starting to hurt - her head, and her hands, and her heart. She’s not sure which one is worse. “I’ll remember this, I will, I’ll always - ”

And that’s the last thing she remembers before the room goes hazy and dissolves around her and Gloria’s hands are there at her elbow, guiding her to her feet, bringing her to bed.

Barbie wakes up to sunlight streaming through her windows, so bright that it’s blinding. She rolls over onto her back, wincing; there’s a stale taste in her mouth, and her head feels like it’s been run over by one of those huge trucks with eighteen wheels that sometimes go rattling by on the highway.

“Ugh,” she says out loud. “What happened to me?”

Her gaze falls on the nightstand, where several things are waiting: a glass of water, a glass of orange juice, and a little bottle of pills. There’s a note, too:

It’s called a hangover. Have one pill and drink all the water. I’ll be back in a little bit. - Gloria

“Gloria,” Barbie says, confused. “What - ”

And then it all comes back to her, the memories slow and skipping over gaps: the wine, the braids, Gloria’s fingers in her hair. Barbie, resting at Gloria’s feet, all but begging Gloria tolove her in return.

“Oh my god,” Barbie says, copying one of Sasha’s favorite phrases. “I think I’m going to throw up.” Then, as her stomach turns over unpleasantly: “Wait, I’m actually going to throw up.”

She drags herself out of bed and stumbles in the direction of the bathroom, barely making it through the door before she doubles over the toilet and last night’s rosé comes scraping her way back up her throat, along with several liters of of regret and embarrassment.

“Okay,” Barbie says weakly some minutes later, bracing her forearms against the toilet seat. “This is not ideal.”

(Barbie’s internet search history, item number 143: How do i take back everything i did last night including the part where i confessed my feelings to my best friend and then passed out in her arms (i think) (i was too drunk to know what was going on)

Results: 0)

An hour later, showered and cleaned up, Barbie’s feeling a little more alive. She’s slouched on the sofa, dressed in a plain white t-shirt and pink cutoff sweats that Sasha gave her as a congrats-on-finishing-Little-Women present, a glass of water in one hand and the bottle of pills - Tylenol, the label says - in the other.

“Maybe this won’t be so bad,” Barbie says out loud. She’s talking to herself, which she chooses to take as a sign of self-belief rather than insanity. “Maybe I can still make it okay. Maybe it’ll all work out.”

The front door opens and Gloria comes in, carrying a cardboard box wrapped up in pink twine. Barbie’s heart does a few cartwheels in her chest, and she sits up so fast that she cracks her knee against the side of the coffee table.

“Good morning,” she says, in what she hopes is a nonchalant voice. She rubs at her knee. “And also, ow.”

“Good morning,” Gloria replies. “I got breakfast.”

She sets the box on the counter. Barbie can see now that it’s from one of her favorite bakeries, the little one by the ocean. She loves that bakery, but right now she can’t even imagine feeling well enough to eat.

“Thank you,” she says anyway. She may not be hungry, but she’s not rude. “I’ll get the plates.”

She follows Gloria into the kitchen and takes down two plates from the open-ended cabinet, light blue with white flower patterns on them. Gloria opens the box and starts taking pastries out, setting them on the plates.

Barbie watches, aching, and tries not to notice that the late morning sunlight frames Gloria perfectly in gold.

“Here,” Gloria says, pushing one of the plates towards her, at the same time that Barbie says, “I’m sorry about last night.”

Gloria looks at her now, makes proper eye contact for the first time since she walked in the door. Her eyes are luminous, almost amber in this light. Barbie loves her so much she thinks she might die from it.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I didn’t mean to act like that, or pass out on the sofa, or…”

“…throw up in the hallway plant pot?” Gloria asks, and there - another gap in Barbie’s memory is suddenly filled.

“Right,” Barbie says, only slightly chastened. She’s never really liked that plant; the leaves are a funny shape, a little bit off-putting, and they’re the wrong shade of green. “That too.”

A smile crosses Gloria’s face, subtle but there, and Barbie is so deeply relieved to see it that she almost cries. She holds it together, though. Barely.

“It’s okay,” Gloria says. “I don’t blame you for anything that happened last night. It was your first time drinking. Everyone does dumb things when they’re drunk. None of it matters.”

Barbie frowns. “Really? Not even the part where I said - ”

“Even that part,” Gloria agrees, hurried, like she’s trying to cut Barbie off before she says it all over again. “It - it’s fine. You don’t have to tell me that you meant any of it.” She smiles again, this time with a tinge of sadness and self deprecation. “God knows you’re too good for me anyway.”

It’s said lightly, the cadence of a joke. Barbie’s never heard anything less funny in her life. She reaches out and touches Gloria’s shoulder, lightly, just to turn her enough that they’re face to face.

“I do, actually,” she says. “I do have to tell you I meant it, because I did. I meant all of it, and I’d say it again, because I’m in love with you.”

Gloria blinks, looking stunned. “You’re what?”

“I’m in love with you,” Barbie repeats, and something deep within her shifts into place: one last strand of humanity, woven right into the braid of her existence. “You’re my best friend, and I love you, and I’m in love with you. So there - we don’t have to talk about last night ever again, if you don’t want to, but I can’t let you walk away from it thinking that I didn’t mean every word I said.”

“Barbie,” Gloria says, helpless. Something passes between them: an bone-deep, inevitable emotion that’s been coming slowly to life ever since the very first time Barbie saw Gloria’s face outside the Mattel building and felt her world being made anew. “You love me? You really do?”

“I really do,” Barbie says. There’s an echo of something else in the words: a ring, a promise, a white dress like they wear in the movies. Barbie doesn’t quite know where it’s going, but she’d like to find out. “If you don’t love me back, though, it’s okay. You’ll still be my best friend.”

“Barbie,” Gloria says again. She takes a step closer, bringing her hand up to cradle the side of Barbie’s face.

“Yes?” Barbie asks, trying hard not to pass out. She’s pretty sure she’s not breathing anymore.

“I love you too,” Gloria says. She smiles, radiant. “You can kiss me now.”

Barbie doesn’t know what she’s doing, exactly, but she leans in. Gloria leans in too, and their mouths meet, and oh - Barbie understands it now, understands everything, sees the world unfold like a flower and the endless sky stretch out before her as Gloria’s tongue slips into her mouth, licks her open. Heat sweeps through Barbie’s body, lighting her up. Right now, she thinks she could replace the sun.

This is what it really means, she thinks, lightheaded with joy as Gloria pulls back just long enough to brush her thumb fondly over Barbie’s bottom lip. This is what it is to be human.

(Barbie's internet search history, item number 151: Thank you for all the help, little people of google who live in my phone. i think i can take it from here

Results: 0)

“So you finally figured it out,” Sasha says to Barbie and Gloria later that evening. The three of them are sitting on the patio at Gloria’s favorite restaurant, sharing a plate of chips and watching the sun set slowly over the ocean. “Thank god. I was getting tired of dropping hints that would’ve been obvious to anyone else in the world.”

“Watch it,” Gloria warns, pointing a finger at her. “I can still ground you for being fresh.”

“She doesn’t mean that,” Barbie confides. “It’s just a bluff.”

Gloria sighs, turning to Barbie. “Did you really have to expose me like that?”

“Yes,” Barbie says happily, leaning over to press a kiss to Gloria’s cheek. “I did.”

Gloria softens, instantly and visibly. “Okay,” she says with a smile, and returns the kiss. “I’ll allow it.”

“Gross,” Sasha says, with feeling. “Alright, rule number one: no PDA where I can see it. Rule number two: don’t ever, ever let me walk in on you guys. Rule number three…”

Barbie takes a chip from the bowl and tosses it at her. Sasha throws one right back, and a brief chip war breaks out before Gloria glares them both into surrender.

“This family, I swear,” Gloria says, her tone fond. “You’ll age me beyond my years.”

The word makes its way into Barbie’s chest, settles down in a safe, warm place. Family. This is her family now, and she doesn’t have to pretend anymore.

Gloria reaches over and takes her hand, weaves her fingers through Barbie’s. Barbie holds on tight, watching the sunset streak across the sky in pinks and whites and golds, and thinks, just for a second, that maybe this is how it felt to be the first woman on earth.

“Are you happy?” Gloria asks her, quiet and soft-edged.

“I am,” Barbie answers. She looks to the sky, takes a moment to try and believe it all: this moment, these women. This life. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than that. It isn’t perfect, but it’s hers to live.

Notes:

ao3 user overnights try not to write a fic that speedruns the cohabitation to love confession pipeline (level: impossible)
i'm on twitter and tumblr

and shoutOUT to anyone who caught the greta saoirse and timothee cameos. were they necessary well no but i do what i want in this house

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