Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gloria rocked, waited, watched. Trying to read the server’s eyes, feet, the angle of her hand. Anticipating, visualizing—

Backline, judgment call.

“Me, me, me!” Gloria shouted, stepping back, turning her body, leaving the decision to the very last moment.

In.  

With one foot on the line, she put the ball in the air, finding Kate on the left. The set looked beautiful coming off Kate’s hands, a push to the right, and Gloria’s smile broke out even before Barbie started her approach.

The block was sloppy, and Barbie would have found a way around it anyway, they hadn’t been able to stop her all game. With a wave of her arm and a flick of her wrist, Barbie sent the ball over the net, hugging the right sideline, their libero too slow to save it.

Barbie with another kill, had to be her 8^th or 9^th of the set. Not that Gloria was counting…

There were giddy, apprehensive smiles all around as they huddled—pats on the back, a high five, Barbie’s hand on Gloria’s ass.

Her heart raced, it was match point.

Gloria’s heart raced because it was the state championship game and it was match point and she was up to serve. Not because Barbie had smacked her ass.

Not because Barbie had smacked her ass.

Obviously.

“You’ve got this,” Barbie encouraged like she absolutely believed it. “Bring us home.”

Gloria walked to the service line in a daze.

Match point.

She looked to her coach for guidance, for a sub, maybe. All that came were the words, “Get it in bounds.”

In bounds, she could do that.

Gloria had served the ball thousands of times, this wasn’t any different.

Just get the ball in bounds.

Barbie’s weight shifted from foot to foot up at the net, bent over, her hands on her knees, blonde hair rebelling from her long ponytail, sweat dripping down her neck.

Gloria blinked, dribbling twice, taking a deep, centering breath…waiting, for something.

For Barbie, who looked back over her shoulder and smiled with bright white teeth. Barbie, who winked.

The ball made it over the net and in bounds. Gloria’s job was done.

Well, until it came back over, a tip from the opposing Middle, arching over the front line.

Shit!

“Me!” Gloria called out; voice shrill as she stumbled forward.

“I go, I go!” Barbie said at the same time, diving sideways towards her, everything happening too fast, disaster imminent.

They collided, Gloria taking the blonde out at the knees, Barbie falling on top of her, stretching miraculously, one last desperate reach—

The ball popped back up in the air, and then it was on the ground.

On the other side of the net.

Game over.

Barbie over Gloria…still.

With a squeal of excitement, Barbie looped an arm over Gloria’s shoulder and around her back, sitting up and yanking the smaller girl into her chest, their hearts beating hard and fast against each other, fueled by adrenaline and relief and—yeah, just those two things.

The rest of the team was on top of them in a matter of seconds, joining in on the dogpile.

California State Champs, 2001.

Chapter Text

“This is a joke,” Gloria muttered, hands on the steering wheel, using it to pull herself up higher in the driver’s seat, to try and peer around the cars in front of her. “This is such a joke!”

Of course, it wasn’t. There was no humor to be found here. This was the pickup line, and the pickup line was where fun went to die.

Every day, for the past 3 years, Gloria had dedicated roughly 45 minutes of her afternoon to this ordeal. Every day, for some reason, expecting it to run smoother. It never did and it never would.

Well, OK…maybe not every day, there were weekends, obviously. But those didn’t belong to her anymore. Naturally, his days didn’t include the pickup line.  He got fun! Late nights and even later mornings, happy carefree, no homework, no alarm clock no—

Gloria hurried to roll down her window when she spotted her on the curb. “Psst, Sasha!”

Her daughter looked up from her phone, startled, and then embarrassed. The sound of Gloria’s voice, the thought of her existence like nails on a chalkboard because Sasha was 13 and 13…sucked.

“Sasha, get in, let’s go.”

Silently, Sasha shook her head, eyes flitting to the teacher tasked with crossing guard duty that day (a responsibility they seemed to believe transformed them into drill sergeants). “No,” she mouthed.

“Sasha, I—,”

“Pull forward, Mrs. Williams.”

Gloria’s jaw clenched even tighter; her knuckles white on the steering wheel now.

“Mrs. Williams, can you—,”

“It’s Cortez!” Gloria corrected, an edge to her tone that bordered on panic. “Cortez, it’s Cortez now, again.”

“Pull forward.”

Nostrils flaring, Gloria obeyed, inching forward to move the line along. Her eyes found Sasha again, and again, Sasha shook her head, feet cemented to the ground. Such a rebel until it came to the school pickup line.

With a sigh, Gloria rolled the window back up, resigning herself to this reality, shuffling her music until Closer to Fine came on to calm her down.

She wasn’t fine, not even close, actually, but she was certainly past seeking the source for some definitive.

Eventually, Gloria and her electric blue Chevy Blazer reached the front of the line, and Sasha trudged over, yanking the door open and then shutting herself inside, backpack thrown into the seat behind her.

“Hi, Baby, how was your—,”

“Sucked.”

“What happened?”

“Literally nothing.”

With a hum and a nod of exhausted understanding, Gloria pulled onto the main road. “Mine too.”

Sasha peered sideways at her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Gloria confirmed, turning the music down and…naturally, finding herself in yet another traffic jam. “This construction was supposed to be done last month.”

“I’m gonna be late, aren’t I.”

“No, just—you brought your stuff, right?” Gloria glanced into the back, locating Sasha’s backpack but not seeing her team bag. “Sasha, please tell me you brought your stuff.”

“I forgot it,” the girl muttered, slumped back in her seat, eyes out the window.

“Sasha, we talked about this.”

“I forgot, OK?!”

“We hit this same traffic every—,”

“Mom, look out!”

Gloria slammed on the brakes, but wasn’t quick enough to stop the impact, not exactly colliding with but definitely bumping into the car in front of her.

The pink, convertible Corvette in front of her.

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

“Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit!”

“Mom, please tell me you did not just hit that Corvette!”

“Sas—,”

“We’re so screwed!”

“Not helpful, Sasha! Shit!” Gloria slammed her hand down on the steering wheel, sick to her stomach. Horns blared behind her, and the woman in the Corvette pulled off to the side. For a moment, Gloria considered not following, putting into practice those long since retired evasive driving maneuvers…but the traffic wasn’t going to allow for a hit and run. And that’s an awful thing to do, anyway.

You’re an adult, Gloria, face the fucking music.

“I’m definitely gonna be late now, huh?” Sasha pouted from the passenger seat.

“Yeah, Sash, probably.” Gloria flipped off the car still laying on the horn behind her and veered left, following the Corvette onto the shoulder of the road.

The driver was already standing, expectantly, near the rear bumper of her car, dressed in a pink tennis skirt that matched the ridiculous (though, admittedly, fun) color of the convertible. She was long and lean, blonde with sun kissed skin and dark, oversized sunglasses; a rather expensive looking purse clutched to her chest.

Great, I hit Malibu Barbie.

“This is so embarrassing…”

“I know,” Gloria agreed with a sigh, reaching over her daughter to retrieve her insurance information from the glove compartment before exiting the vehicle, each step feeling heavier than the last as she crossed the pavement. “Hi!” she greeted as she approached, trying to start this conversation out on the right foot.

The woman’s eyes were obscured by her sunglasses, but Gloria didn’t miss the subtle tilt of her chin—down, and then back up—or the beat it took for her to respond. “Hiya,” she said, finally, not quite smiling but not quite angry, either. “Did you not see me?”

“No, I—I’m sorry, I—,”

“I’d think I’m a little hard to miss.”

Gloria wasn’t sure if the woman meant her, the car or her in the car, but she chuckled nervously regardless, stopping between their bumpers to assess the damage. It wasn’t bad, exactly. Worse for Gloria than for Malibu Barbie, of course, because why wouldn’t it be.

“Are you OK?”

The question briefly scrambled Gloria’s brain. Frowning, she straightened up, finding genuine concern on the woman’s still half-obscured but very pretty face. “Um, yeah, I’m—I’m fine, thank you.”

“Is she?” she nodded towards Gloria’s car where her daughter sat, covering her face in the passenger seat.

“I think so.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” the woman smiled for the first time, and with it came the sun, the smog quite literally parting.

“Are—you’re fine?” Gloria struggled to ask, squinting against the brightness this woman radiated. “I mean you are, obviously—fine, I mean. But you’re—,” oh jesus christ, Gloria, “You’re not hurt?”

A giggle came in response, an actual giggle, and—, “Wait a minute.” The woman dropped her hands to her hips, smile widening in something like pleasant surprise. “Gloria? Gloria Cortez?”

Gloria blinked. “Um, yes?”

“Oh my goodness!” the woman exclaimed, taking off her sunglasses to reveal twinkling, sky blue eyes. “It’s me! It’s Barbara—Barbie! Barbie Handler?”

Gloria’s jaw dropped dumbly, finding herself mute, suddenly.

“From high school?” Barbie continued to try and jog her memory like that was the problem here. “I played Outside? State Champs 2001?”

Finally, blessedly, Gloria’s faculties returned, and she found herself smiling too. At Barbie’s presence, at the irony that she had, actually, hit Malibu Barbie, and mostly at the rather charming realization that Barbie Handler—class president, valedictorian, team captain Barbie Handler—thought herself to be in any way forgettable. “Barbie! Hi!”

“I can’t believe it’s you!” Barbie’s voice lifted in relief at Gloria’s recognition. “What are the chances?”

“I, uh—low, probably,” Gloria laughed, feeling herself relax a bit before the next inevitable wave of embarrassment rolled in. “You look—ha—exactly, wow! Better, somehow. Somehow you look better.”

“You too!” Barbie blurted out without a hint of hesitation, taking a step forward and wrapping Gloria in a hug before she had time to react—not that she would have objected, but—god, she smells so good. She was held at arm’s length afterwards, Barbie keeping a tight, affectionate grip on her shoulders as she looked her over. “How are you? How have you been?”

“Well, better before I hit you with my car,” Gloria admitted.

Barbie waved her off. “Oh, don’t worry about that. It isn’t a big deal, really.”

“Barbie, it—,”

“I’m kind’ve obsessed with your blazer.”

“Oh, thank you,” Gloria chuckled, glancing down at her own pink jacket. “It’s company pride day at—I work at Mattel.”

“Mattel? That’s wonderful! Are you designing?”

Gloria felt a blush creep into her cheeks at the realization that Barbie Handler had remembered what she’d wanted to be when she grew up. “Not quite yet.”

“Soon, then,” Barbie assured with a grin. “You were always so talented, Gloria, really.”

Did I die? Is this really happening?

“And is that your daughter in the car?”

“Sasha, yeah,” Gloria confirmed. “She’s 13 now.”

“13…” Barbie said it almost wistfully. “They grow up so fast…or so I’m told.”

Gloria nodded, hiding the slightly sour feeling the reminder of Sasha getting older inspired in her stomach. “It’s true. She just started club this year.”

“What position?”

“Libero, not tall enough for anything else,” Gloria laughed.

“Sounds familiar.” Barbie twisted her ponytail around her finger, smile never wavering. “You and your husband must be so proud.”

“Oh, um, no husband—not anymore,” Gloria set the record straight. “Divorced, last fall.”

“Aw, I’m—Gloria, I’m so sorry to hear about that.”

“Don’t be, we—,”

/

Sasha leaned forward to get a better look, confused by every aspect of the interaction she was watching. Her mom had hit Malibu-fucking-Barbie with her car—a Corvette! A classic Corvette! They’d rear ended her! and yet—

This whole thing was so weird.

It started with the up-down when her mom got out of the car.

Malibu Barbie had literally given Sasha’s mom an up-down. Like, head to toe, and she hadn’t been super subtle about it, either. The sunglasses helped, but not that much.

And whatever, even if Sasha was misreading that, she definitely hadn’t missed Barbie blatantly looking at her mom’s ass when she’d bent over to inspect the damage. Like, there’d been a head tilt and everything. Insane!

And the hug? What the hell was that all about?!

Worst of all, though, was the hair twirling. Sasha was literally watching Malibu Barbie twirl her stupid, pretty ponytail, her hip dropping, toe twisting on the ground, looking at SASHA’S MOM—dreamily!— while she spoke about something that was probably incredibly lame and embarrassing.

At that exact moment, Barbie leaned forward with a laugh, resting her hand on Gloria’s shoulder completely unnecessarily, like she’d been looking for a reason to touch her and decided whatever dumb joke she’d just told was the perfect excuse.

/

--Gloria laughed too because Barbie’s joy was infectious, but she was startled out of it when Sasha honked the horn, causing both women to jump.

“I’m so s—,”

“Don’t be,” Barbie said, kindly, with understanding. “We were 13 once, too, remember?”

“Right,” Gloria breathed out something like a sigh of relief. “Anyway, she really is going to be late. Should we exchange information?”

“Definitely! Here, I’ll—” Barbie turned, setting her purse down on the trunk of her Corvette to search for something inside, eventually coming back with a pad of pink, heart shaped sticky notes and a sparkly pen. “Here.” she offered it to Gloria.

Gloria smiled, grateful one of them was prepared. She balanced the notepad on her thigh and began copying down her insurance information, but there was a hand on her elbow mid-policy number, Barbie stopping her.

“I’d rather have your phone number,” she said.

“You’ll probably need both,” Gloria told her, all business now. “Usually they ask for—,”

“I’m not filing an insurance claim, Gloria.”

“Oh, no, Barbie, you—,”

“You’ll have to find another way to make it up to me.”

Chapter Text

Barbie glanced down at her watch, unsubtly, this time. It was a sports watch—a gift from her mom—, the digital, waterproof kind that was supposed to track your heartrate. Mostly, she just used it to keep track of how late her brother was, which seemed like a waste…but still, it came in handy in times like this. Barbie, standing in the cold outside the athletic club in a puffy jacket and spandex shorts, waiting for Ken to be done in the gym.

“Hey!”

A truck she didn’t recognize had pulled up along the curb, and Barbie squinted, trying to make out the driver in the dark.

“Do you need a ride?”

Oh.

Gloria Cortez and her exquisite smile leaned into view, the light from the lobby illuminating her big brown eyes through the truck’s open passenger window.

“That’s OK!” Barbie was quick to say—too quick. “I’m just waiting for my brother. Thank you, though!”

“It’s really no problem,” Gloria said. “He always makes you wait, and you’re on my way home…I think.”

Barbie bit her lip, rocking back on her heels. “Whose truck?”

“My dad’s.”

“It’s nice!”

Gloria laughed. “It runs! Come on, you didn’t even bring sweats.”

Looking down at her own bare legs, Barbie realized she was right. “You’re sure I’m on the way?”

“Yeah!” Gloria assured her, and then…”I mean, I think so. Doesn’t matter.”

Pursing her lips thoughtfully, Barbie eventually came to a decision—Why not? “OK, just one sec, I’ll run inside and tell him.”

Gloria gave her a thumbs up from the driver’s seat and Barbie didn’t waste any time running inside, finding Ken on a flat bench, platinum blonde hair pushed off his forehead by a black bandana that Barbie had always told him looked stupid, not that he listened.

“Gloria’s going to give me a ride home.”

He squinted one eye. “Who?”

“A friend! Just a friend, geez!”

“OK, whatever! Go ahead, I guess.”

Barbie grinned, turning on her heel, the words “Tell mom I want lasagna!” chasing her out of the building.

She waved at Gloria as she emerged, giving her a thumbs up for extra measure, in case it wasn’t clear he’d said yes. Skipping down the front steps and climbing onto the truck’s bench seat, Barbie stowed her duffle bag neatly at her feet, not wanting to be impolite and take up too much space.

“Thank you,” Barbie breathed, blowing warm air against her frozen hands. “You’re right, I definitely should’ve brought sweats. When did you get your driver’s license? I don’t even have my permit yet.”

“Few months ago,” Gloria told her. “We just don’t have an extra car, so I never get to drive.”

“Oh, right, totally,” Barbie nodded sagely.

It was quiet for a while, Gloria’s fingers tapping idly on the steering wheel to fill the silence. Barbie tried to start about three different sentences before she finally landed on, “Wasn’t that rally crazy?”

Gloria’s eyes lit up. “The one that went on for, like, 15 minutes?”

“Yeah, because of you! I hate when they split us up for scrimmages, you save everything, I swear.”

“I mean, it’s kinda my job,” Gloria reminded her with a shrug, but Barbie didn’t miss the pride in her voice. “And anyway, all my bruises are your fault.”

Barbie’s stomach flooded with warmth and she bit down on her grin, settling deeper into the seat. “Oops.”

Gloria laughed, and Barbie found she liked that sound a whole lot.

“Oh, I love this song!”

Barbie hadn’t even realized there’d been music playing, and when Gloria turned up the volume, she found herself struggling to identify it.

“I went to the doctor / I went to the mountains,” Gloria sang along quietly. She had a nice voice. “I looked to the children / I d—you don’t know the Indigo Girls?”

The question was more self-conscious than judgmental, and Barbie shook her head in response.

“I have a CD you can borrow, if you want.”

/

‘’—I drank from the fountains!” Barbie sang at the top of her lungs. “There’s more than one answer to these questions / pointing me in a crooked line…Closer I am to fine, yeah!” she had to point her finger to the sky to hit the high note. “Closer I am to fi-i-i-ne!”

She jumped out of the convertible once she’d parked, not bothering to open the door, but remembering at the very last moment to reach back in for her purse. She approached the house at nearly a sprint, deciding this jaunt up the steep incline could count as her cardio for the day.

“Ken!” Barbie shouted, slamming the front door behind her. “Are you home?”

“Mojo Dojo!” Allan called from the kitchen; voice slightly muffled by the sound of a blender.

Barbie pinched the bridge of her nose as she rounded the corner to find Allan at the kitchen island, blender in hand, preparing Ken’s post-workout shake. “Please call it the gym, Allen, we can’t be encouraging him.”

“Sorry, it’s just—it’s kinda fun to say. Mojo dojo—,”

“Allen, please.”

“Sorry,” he apologized again. “How was lesbian tennis?”

“Is that where Ken told you I was going?”

“Yes, is that not…you’re dressed for it?”

“No, I went to play tennis and I’m a lesbian, I didn’t go to lesbian tennis.”

“I’m not understanding the distinction—but anyway, how was it?”

Barbie brightened, remembering her magical afternoon. “I didn’t go!”

“Why not?”

“I was in a car accident! Well, a fender-bender, really, but—wait, come with me.” She grabbed his hand, pulling him along to the gym to save her from telling the story twice. “Ken! You’ll never believe who rear ended me just now!”

“Who—what?” Ken dropped from the pullup bar before the end of his rep. “You got rear ended?”

“Yeah!”

“Are you OK?”

“Completely! Now, guess who. You’ll never guess.”

“But you still want me to?”

“Guess!”

Ken frowned in deep contemplation, fingerless gloves wiping away the sweat from his brow. “Ellen DeGeneres?”

“What? No. Better,” Barbie grinned.

“Um, Barack Obama?”

“Better!”

Allan raised an eyebrow from where he lingered in the doorway. “Better than former President Barack Obama?”

“Gloria Cortez!” Barbie revealed with a flourish, still not quite believing it herself.

Ken and Allan shared a confused look. “Who?”

“Oh my god! From club? And high school?” Barbie prompted. “She’s divorced!”

“That’s…great?” Allan guessed at a reaction based on Barbie’s tone, looking to Ken for guidance, receiving a nod of approval. “That’s great!”

“Yeah! And I was like—Ken, you’re gonna love this—she said ‘I got divorced last fall’ and I was like, ‘Aw, I’m so sorry to hear that’,” Barbie recounted, giddy. “Because, I mean, I am,” she sobered suddenly, wanting her sincerity on the record. “Divorce is sad.”

“Totally,” Ken agreed.

“But then she was writing down her insurance information and I stopped her and I said—,”

“Did you hit her with the, ‘you’ll have to find another way to make it up to me’?”

“I did!” Barbie squealed.

“So cool,” Ken smirked, offering his hand for a high five, which Barbie readily took him up on.

“Wait, so, you didn’t get her insurance information?” Allen attempted to clarify, sounding concerned.

Ken shook his head, disappointed, Barbie mirroring his expression. “He doesn’t get it. It’s the charisma—the rizz, if you will. He lacks it.”

“Please don’t say rizz,” Allan and Barbie begged in unison.

“Whatever,” Ken muttered, beginning his next set.

“Anyway, I got her phone number,” Barbie concluded her dramatic retelling. “And she’s taking me out to dinner tomorrow night, so I’ll probably need a new dress. Do you guys want to go shopping?”

“Literally, of course, Barbie,” Ken grunted at the top of his rep. “You don’t even have to ask.”

/

Gloria was smiling when she got back to the car, ear to ear like a big, dumb, cartoon smile. And then she had the audacity, the audacity to say nothing! Not a word! Just turn the engine on like none of that had happened, like everything was business as usual.

“Um, excuse me?” Sasha demanded once it was clear her mom planned to offer no explanation. “What the hell was all that?”

Gloria rolled her eyes, cajoling Sasha with a, “Language, please,” even as she gave the blonde a little wave through the windshield, Malibu Barbie returning the gesture with this sort’ve cutesey finger-to-palm wave that turned Sasha’s stomach for no particular reason—and what’s worse? Then she waved at Sasha! Ducking her stupid, perfect head to ensure they’d made eye contact before she slid her sunglasses into place and got back in her car.

“Do you guys know each other, or something?” Sasha had to know, turning to her mom but realizing Gloria was completely preoccupied with watching Barbie pull out into traffic. “Who is that?!”

“Oh, just someone I went to high school with,” Gloria said like it was no big deal at all. “Barbie Handler.”

Sasha blinked, beyond disbelief. “Her name is literally Barbie?”

“She might prefer to go by Barbara now, I don’t know.”

“OK, well, was Barbara in heat or something?”

That finally got her mom’s attention. “What?”

“You mean you didn’t notice?” Sasha was beside herself. “Mom, oh my god, you’ve been outta the game too long.”

“The game?”

“Can we, just—can we go?” Sasha begged, gesturing to the traffic as it began to clear. “Coach is gonna make me run, like, an insane number of laps.”

“Fine, sure,” Gloria acquiesced, turning her blinker on and finding an opening. “She was actually a really talented Outside Hitter,” she said, unprompted, sometime later, shattering the silence that Sasha was just beginning to enjoy.

Now it was Sasha’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh, yeah? Was she?”

“Mhm,” her mom confirmed, not quite picking up on Sasha’s condescension. “She went to USD on scholarship—full ride.”

“No way.”

“Yes, way!”

“That’s crazy.” Sasha tried to make it clear with her tone that she did not, in fact, find it crazy, or even interesting, really. But Gloria didn’t seem to realize or care, so Sasha crossed her arms, studying her mother closer now—the sparkle in her eyes, the grin on her face—what a dork. “What does she do now?”

“Hm?”

“What does Barbara do now, mom? For work?”

“Oh, um…I don’t know,” Gloria admitted with a frown, looking a bit disappointed in herself. “I didn’t ask.”

“So what did you talk about, then? Between all that lip biting and hair twirling?”

“Lip b—me, I guess.”

Sasha blinked. “You?”

“Yeah, she asked me about my job and you and the divorce…”

“Wh—mom! You didn’t ask her a single question?”

“Well, just—just how she was doing and that she looked, I mean, she looks good!” Gloria was quick to defend herself.

“You look good isn’t a question, oh my god!”

“I know that she and her brother were playing mixed pairs beach on the US circuit, for a while,” her mom said like that was in any way a defense for having zero game. “Barbie and Ken? I think they had their own Gatorade flavor, or something.”

Sasha’s jaw dropped.

Gloria noticed the silence. “What?!”

“That’s B—mom! They had like their own Nike commercial! You asked a lady with her own Nike commercial zero questions about herself and she was giving you all that?! Unbelievable!”

“Your energy is a lot, right now,” Gloria admonished, trying to dial down the vitriol aimed at her from the passenger seat. “And anyway, we’re going to dinner tomorrow night, put a spreadsheet together, or something, I’ll ask her all the questions you want.”

“She’s taking you to dinner?”

“Technically, I think I’m taking her.”

“Oh, technically?” Sasha mocked.

“Yes! As an apology for crashing into her car!”

“Did she ask you or did you ask her?”

“She…” Gloria considered. “She asked me to ask her. What?” she complained once she noticed Sasha had yet to relax her expression. “We were pretty good friends in high school, it’ll be nice to catch up.”

Oh, mom, that woman does not want to be your friend.

Chapter Text

“Did you get to drive again?”

Gloria shook her head. “No, my mom dropped me off.”

“Why so early?” Barbie had just finished tying her shoes and was moving on to fastening her ponytail.

“She works, like, a weird split shift tonight. So it’s either be early with my mom or late with my dad,” Gloria explained, sitting down beside her. “I didn’t think anyone else would be here.”

“Oh, I always get here early,” Barbie said, hair tie between her teeth, watching Gloria take her court shoes out of her bag. “Why does your mom work at night?”

“She’s a nurse.”

“Cool!”

Gloria’s laugh was for Barbie, but her smile was for herself, the expression quiet, lips twisting rather than parting. “Yeah, she likes it, I guess. What does your mom do?”

Barbie stood, grabbing her ankle and pulling it to her butt to stretch her quad. “Um…well, she had this great idea and some guy made a lot more money on it than she did, so she sued him for copyright infringement or intellectual property theft or something and now she just kinda hangs out in our kitchen and worries about the IRS.”

Gloria blinked, then she frowned, digesting. “That’s…cool, too.”

Barbie nodded, switching legs.

“Why are you always here early?”

“Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to achieve true expertise,” Barbie explained, shaking out her legs. “And we don’t have 10,000 hours of practice time scheduled.”

“Who’s Gladwell?”

“He wrote a book.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah.” Barbie grinned, pulling her volleyball out of its dedicated pocket in her monogrammed team bag. “You wanna pepper?”

/

“Thoughts?”

“I love it.”

“I know, right? How fun is fringe!”

“So fun, but—be honest, am I pulling this off?”

“Ken, stop, you know you are.”

“I’m a big denim guy, you know this about me.”

“I do! And you’re making it work!”

“Is the hat too much?”

“Is my hat too much?”

“Never.”

“OK, so, I actually do think the hat is too much,” Allan piped up from the corner. “And I also feel like you guys, maybe, forgot why we’re here?”

Ken scoffed. “Allan, we’re shopping, it’s not a hard thing to remember.”

“Right, yeah, totally, but we’re shopping for Barbie’s date with the reckless driver, specifically.”

“She is not reckless,” Barbie set the record straight, pinning Allan from across the room with a pointed finger. “She’s actually really pretty, and very nice, and her hair is super soft and smells great.”

“See, I just…I feel like none of those things have to do with her driving…”

“What was that, Allan?”

“Yeah, speak up, Allan!” Ken shouted—encouraged. “You’re pulling it off, Barbie, don’t listen to Allan.”

Barbie grinned, putting her hand on her hip to strike a pose. “I am pulling it off. And so are you, Ken!”

“You guys are almost 40,” Allan felt the need to remind them. “It’s important to me that you know that.”

Ken waved him off.

Barbie turned to the mirror to study herself. “Maybe Allan has a point.”

“No!”

“Maybe the hat is a bit much for a sit-down restaurant.”

“Where did you guys even find the cowboy paraphernalia? This is, like, an upscale store.” Allan was glancing around, confused.

“You get the denim, Ken,” Barbie decided. “I’ll find a dress.”

“And the hats?”

“We should both get the hats.”

“Sublime!”

/

OK, so maybe Gloria had oversold it a bit. She and Barbie had been good…sports…friends, in high school. Which, yes, was a particular genre. Teammates. They’d talked at practice—before, after, during, but never really hung out outside of that, aside from a ride home here and there, carpooling to tournaments, etc. Barbie used to wave at her when they passed in the hallways between classes, but then again, Barbie had waved to everybody, she was just nice like that. A genuinely kind, very attractive person.

They’d had nothing in common growing up. Like, literally nothing—besides volleyball, of course, which could really only take their friendship so far.

So…that’s as far as they’d taken it.

“She’s just a good person,” Gloria said, aloud to an empty living room, pencil scratching away on the sketch she’d been working on rather than responding to the mountain of emails she’d been neglecting. “Just a nice, good, hot person who saw a single mom having a hard time and decided to give her a break.”

Barbie smiled up at Gloria from her sketchbook, a volleyball on her hip, dressed in their old high school uniform, the number 10 embroidered on her chest. 10 because…well, because she was a 10, obviously. Gloria had worn number 6…make of that what you will.

The front door banged open in the next moment, and Gloria watched as Sasha dropped her bag on the ground, making a beeline for her, a fire in her eyes that Gloria wasn’t used to seeing after practice. Usually, she ate and went right to bed, exhausted.

“Did you thank Jade’s mom for the ride?

Without so much as a greeting, Sasha pulled her phone out of her pocket, shoving the screen in Gloria’s face and pressing play. “This is who was drooling over you today.”

“She was not—,”

“Shh!”

With a sigh, Gloria folded her hands in her lap, focusing on the screen in front of her. The video was titled “Unleash the Pink”.

Oh, great.

The video—a commercial—opened on a beach volleyball court, the sun shining, Barbie and Ken set for serve receive in matching neon. Barbie took the serve with a rolling save, managing to get back on her feet in time for a kill off of Ken’s set. They high fived, and the announcement, “Barbie and Ken have done it again!” came over the loudspeaker.

“You thirsty?” Barbie asked, luminous, sweat beading on her skin.

Ken broke out into a sparkly grin. “You know it.”

“Race you?” Barbie proposed, shining just as bright.

“You’re on.”

Some metallic, poppy synth was piped into the background.

“Hey, Ken?”

“What?”

“Look, over there!” Barbie gestured somewhere off camera and Ken glanced in that direction long enough for Barbie to break out into a sprint across the sand.

Uh-oh / she my best friend in the whole world—

“Cheater!” Ken called after her, making up the ground on his slightly longer legs.

—on the mood board, she’s the inspo—

Ken arrived at a cement wall, the barricade separating the sand court from the spectators, but Barbie was hot on his heels and grabbed onto his shoulder from behind, climbing over his body to scale the wall first.

Ken over-acted frustration before following her.

—Ah-ah, Barbie, you’re so fine / you’re so fine you blow my mind—

“She has her own song, mom!”

“Well, it’s, I mean—it’s sampling Toni Basil, so—”

The chase was elaborate, Barbie and Ken performing herculean feats of athleticism to best each other. There was parkour, gymnastics, costume changes—Barbie was in a speed boat, at one point, Ken beside her on a jet ski—

—jump into the driver’s seat and put it into speed drive!—

Next came surfboards—Ken wiping out on a wave Barbie handled easily. Then Barbie was back on a beach—a different beach, though? Vaulting over the door of a pink convertible—the pink convertible—that was gassed up and waiting for her. She peeled out, sending a spray of sand rather cinematically into the camera lens, and gave a satisfied little shoulder shimmy once she was on the main road, looking in the center mirror to fix her hair, but finding Ken’s blue eyes reflected back at her in a fairly effective jump scare. Barbie screamed and he smiled at her from the back seat, the editors adding an actual sparkle effect to his very white teeth.

—hot, ridin’ through the streets / on a different frequency—

“What was the budget for this?!”

“I don’t know, mom, like a bajillion dollars, evidently!”

Barbie pulled into the driveway of an enormous and very pink…dream house, and—

“Oh, I get it, that’s cute,” Gloria laughed.

—shoulder checked her brother when he tried to jump out of the backseat, putting some separation between them again as she sprinted through the front door, skidding Risky Business style into a luminous kitchen, Ken stumbling in behind her.

A woman Gloria recognized as Barbie and Ken’s actual mom stood waiting for them. With a charmed smile, she slid a pink Gatorade across the counter to Barbie, adding a “you kids must be thirsty.”

“No fair!” Ken protested.

After taking a slow-motion swig, Barbie tossed the half empty bottle over her shoulder for Ken to catch, delivering a cheeky “You snooze you lose, bro,” direct to camera, followed by a wink.

Gatorade, the logo slammed into view. Unleash the pink!

Gloria pursed her lips as Sasha locked her phone, shoving it back into the pocket of her sweatshirt. “What’s your point, exactly?”

“What are you going to wear?!”

“I don’t, um—,”

“Absolutely nothing in your closet is acceptable for a date with a woman who has her own Gatorade flavor, mom,” Sasha interrupted before Gloria could suggest the new blouse she got on sale at The Gap. “And don’t you dare suggest that lesbian flag blouse you got at The Gap.”  

“Wh—S—I—lesbian flag?”

Sasha buried her face in her hands. “You’re so clueless.”

“It’s not a date, Sasha!”

“Mom, listen to me.” Sasha knelt rather dramatically in front of her, taking Gloria’s hands, imploring. “It’s a date, OK? Please, can we go to the mall?”

Chapter Text

“Handler and…”

Barbie held her breath.

“Cortez.”

Her stomach swooped.

“Room 310.”

Barbie would have been happy rooming with any one of her teammates. They were all smart, strong, incredibly capable young women that had something different to offer, each and every one…

But Gloria…she was…

Special.

Barbie smiled even before she’d turned around to find her favorite brunette holding their room key. “Roomies, huh?”

“Yeah.” Gloria smiled back, pointing down the hallway. “I think it’s this way.”

“Team dinner at 6!” Coach announced. “I need everyone in the lobby by 5:45.”

“Sounds good, coach!” Barbie affirmed, exuberant, falling into step with Gloria.

The room had two twin sized beds, a table, a chair, a coffee maker and a bathroom.

“This is so cool,” Gloria said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear bashfully like she was embarrassed she’d said that out loud…but Barbie wasn’t sure what there was to be embarrassed about. This was Gloria’s first season of club ball, and her first overnight tournament. Gloria had told her that on the bus ride over, and Barbie wasn’t about to forget. It was cool to have their own hotel room.

“Which bed would you prefer?” Barbie asked, figuring it was the chivalrous thing to do, it being Gloria’s first time and all.

Gloria shrugged like she didn’t care, but in the same beat, her eyes found the bed closest to the window.

“You take that one,” Barbie nodded over to it. “I like being close to the door.”

“Why?”

Barbie didn’t have a good answer for that because the truth was she usually preferred the window bed, so she shrugged too, hoping Gloria would buy her nonchalance, and she didn’t press, so…mission accomplished.

“Are you going to change before dinner?” Gloria asked, setting her bag down on the bed Barbie had assigned her.

Barbie glanced down at her team sweatsuit, fingers running idly over the embroidered “Handler #10” on her thigh. “I can!”

“I mean, do people usually?”

“Sometimes,” Barbie said, setting her bag down too. “I don’t…usually.”

“No?” Gloria cocked her head.

Barbie laughed. “Why?”

“I just—you know, you’re so, like…fashionable,” Gloria explained.

“So are you!”

Gloria smiled—blushed, maybe—at the compliment. “Do you put makeup on?”

“Um, not really. I just kinda…look like this, I guess.”

“Course,” Gloria breathed out her own laugh. “Well, I was going to.”

“You should!” Barbie encouraged. “I mean, if you want. Whatever makes you feel most beautiful.”

Gloria spared her another smile, one with teeth, this time, and Barbie’s watch beeped. She ignored it, still standing by her bed, watching Gloria unzip her duffel and retrieve her cosmetics bag.

“I think you’re—either way, though.”

Gloria looked up from her compact, brow furrowing. “What?”

…and Barbie’s eyes went wide, realizing she’d said that out loud, and she hadn’t even said it right. “Beautiful!” she clarified, a bit too loud, probably. “Either way. You’re beautiful either way.”

“Oh.” Gloria lit up like the north star, and Barbie’s watch beeped again. “That’s like…the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“It’s true,” Barbie doubled down. “I’m really bad at lying, ask my mom.”

“I trust you,” Gloria chuckled, getting back to the task at hand.

Again, Barbie just watched…until Gloria noticed, and Barbie realized it was probably weird to just watch your friend put makeup on.

“Do you—uh, I mean, we can’t share foundation, obviously, but you could use my lipstick and mascara, if you want,” Gloria offered.

“I’m actually not that good with makeup,” Barbie admitted.

Gloria grinned. “Because you just look like that?”

Barbie snorted, glancing down at her shoes. “Well yeah, but I don’t know, I always get the mascara on my eyelids. My hands aren’t steady enough, or something. I’m not an artist like you.”

“I could help, if you want?” Gloria suggested.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Come here.” Gloria patted the bed beside her, and Barbie was quick to take her up on it, crossing over to her in a few short strides and gingerly lowering herself to the spot Gloria had indicated.

She mirrored Gloria’s body position, slipping her slides off before pulling one leg onto the bed, her other foot remaining on the ground (Gloria’s dangled over the side due to their height difference, which Barbie thought was just so cute!). “Like this?”

“Perfect,” Gloria said as she unscrewed the mascara’s wand, leaning into Barbie’s space, her free hand resting on Barbie’s cheek to keep her face still.

Her watch beeped.

And beeped.

And beeped.

And beeped.

“What is that?” Gloria leaned back to ask, searching for the source of the sound.

“Sorry, it’s just my watch,” Barbie told her, embarrassed. “It keeps track of my heartrate, beeps to warn me when I go above or below my normal range.”

“Oh…well…are you OK?”

Barbie nodded with enthusiasm, unclasping the watch from her wrist and tossing it onto her own bed. “Totally!”

“Should I keep going?”

“Please.”

Gloria didn’t seem totally convinced, but continued anyway, finishing both eyes before uncapping a tube of pink lipstick and applying that too.

Barbie stared, entranced, Gloria’s brow crinkled in concentration, her lips pouted, eyes focused.

“OK,” Gloria announced a moment later, smiling at her handiwork as the spell was broken, Barbie blinking for the first time in far too long. “All done.” She turned the compact around for Barbie to see. “What do you think?”

Barbie didn’t bother to look, just leaned forward before she could think better of it and pressed a kiss to Gloria’s cheek. “I look beautiful,” she said, beaming. “Thank you.”  

/

Gloria had gathered the courage to ask her boss about taking one of his standing dinner reservations, and though confused and obviously disinterested, he’d agreed.

“What name should my assistant give the restaurant?”

“No, I—sir, I’m your assistant.”

He frowned, tilted his head, looked her over, before realization eventually struck. “Ah, so you are! My words lady—assistant!—executive assistant, even! Named…” he snapped at one of his subordinates in the room—Aaron, specifically, dressed in his 3^rd floor khakis—who supplied a muttered, “Gloria, sir.” To which he exclaimed, “Gloria! You’ve done something different with your hair.”

“Oh, um, well, yes, I…” she was about to detail the process of the Brazilian blowout and then the curling that had gone on afterwards but stopped herself, first asking, “do you care about the specifics?”

“Not particularly,” he admitted. “But know that it looks good. Bouncy!”

“What’s the occasion?” Aaron asked.

“Just dinner.” Gloria gripped her tablet tighter to her chest. “Just dinner with…someone.”

“Someone?” her boss raised a furry eyebrow. “Spill, honey, I’m seated.”

He was very much standing.

“Uh…” she glanced at Aaron, who appeared equally shell-shocked, but offered a shrug as if to say go for it? “This woman I—,”

“I knew it,” he cut her off. “Khakis and I clocked that lesbian flag blouse last week.”

OK, so maybe she needed to take that one out of rotation.

“Right, well, I’m—not that it matters, but I’m—I identify as bisexual,” Gloria sputtered out, her fever dream continuing.

“And that’s beautiful,” her boss smiled serenely. “Just like you’re beautiful…with your hair like this. Let’s never let it go flat again. And never let anyone tell you that you don’t matter! How tall are you?—don’t answer that. I’d like it if you called me Mother, that’s how I identify, to you, Words Lady, my little pocket sized bisexual.”

“Sir, you—it’s Gloria, remember?” Aaron prompted.

“I do not remember,” Mother squeezed his shoulder. “Now, please get out of my board room, both of you.”

So anyway….in the end, Sasha was right. About her wardrobe, at least. It did need a bit of an overhaul, based on the reservation she’d scored, and based on the…

Wow.

Barbie was waiting for her, already seated at the table in the most stunning, sparkly pink dress, held up by thin straps, waist cinched by a sort of bodice and—short.

The skirt was very…short.

Gloria had to actually tear her eyes away from Barbie’s tanned legs when the blonde stood to greet her, bright, bubbly smile on her face.

“You look incredible!” the words were uttered, and it was, somehow, Barbie who’d spoken them. She took a step back to…ogle? Telling Gloria to, “Spin! Let me see.”

Gloria found her hand in Barbie’s, held over her head, spinning as if Barbie were a dance partner. “My daughter helped me pick it out,” she was quick to explain—why? “You like it?”

“Gloria…” Barbie didn’t drop her hand, even after they were face to face again. Instead, she squeezed. “I love it. Sasha has impeccable taste.”

Her cheeks grew hot, and it was only then that Gloria managed to get out a, “You’re so pretty—look so pretty! In your dress. It’s a great dress.”

The smile that comment inspired on Barbie’s face could have landed a jetliner in a snowstorm. “Thank you, Gloria,” she said before leaning closer to…pull the other chair away from the table, guiding Gloria to sit down with the hand she still hadn’t let go of.

Eventually, she did let go, but only when they were both seated, and Gloria found herself mourning the loss.

“I ordered some wine to start, I hope you don’t mind,” Barbie said. “Well, Rose. Red is a little too rich for me—did you want red? Or white, maybe? I can call the waiter b—”

“Rose is great,” Gloria interrupted with a reassuring smile. “Sorry I was late, traffic—,”

Barbie reached across the table, taking Gloria’s hand again and giving it another squeeze. “Don’t apologize. I’m always early.”

Right, so that hasn’t changed.

Gloria pursed her lips, pulling away. “I do owe you an apology, though.”

Barbie tilted her head, intrigued. “About what?”

“About the—well, the car accident, for starters.”

“All is forgiven.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I can be,” Barbie agreed, biting at her own lip and—

Huh…

“I realize I didn’t ask you any questions about yourself,” Gloria continued. “Just blabbered on about my divorce. And you’ve lived such an interesting life, oh my god! Sasha showed me your Gatorade commercial and—,”

“You googled me?”

Gloria stopped, her stomach turning with embarrassment. “Just to fill in some background.”

Barbie laughed. “What did you want to know?”

“We can—you can start with college, how was USD?”

“Great! Good, I mean,” Barbie amended. “A little lonely, at first. Ken did a year abroad playing in the European league before he joined me, and that was hard. I’d never been alone before that, like, not even in the womb.”

“Right,” Gloria nodded, sympathetic. “That’s…I can only imagine.”

“It sounds so dumb every time I try to explain it, but it was strange, being just Barbie. Not Barbie and Ken. I had—maybe a bit of an existential crisis,” Barbie laughed, almost nervously, self-deprecating. “And I’m not sure we ever totally figured it out—how to be Barbie and be Ken. He still lives in my casa house—carriage house!” she slammed her eyes shut, repeating, “Carriage house,” like she was disciplining herself. “Sorry, Ken says the dumbest stuff and I end up repeating it, it’s a terrible habit.”

Gloria laughed. “Casa means house, he knows that, right?”

“Yes,” Barbie nodded, briefly burying her face in her hands. “And don’t even get me started on the Mojo Dojo.”

“I don’t have to, if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t want you to,” Barbie affirmed.

Again, Gloria laughed, and it was then that the waiter arrived, filling their glasses with the rose barbie had ordered.

“Do you need a bit more time with the menu?” he asked, and Gloria realized she had yet to even open it.

“Just a few minutes,” Barbie kindly instructed, and the waiter left with a nod of his head. “If you still eat red meat, the filet really is wonderful.”

If I still…

“You used to order steak at team dinners,” Barbie filled in the blanks, seeming to sense Gloria’s question. “And I wasn’t—sometimes people’s dietary habits change, so I didn’t want to presume, but I’ve been here before and if you do still eat steak, it’s very good, um, here.”

“Oh…yeah, I—I guess I’ll get the steak.”

Barbie beamed, perhaps a slight blush coloring her cheeks now, eyes falling back to her own menu. “The joke writes itself, I know, but I think I’ll get the fish.”

Gloria wasn’t quite sure what that meant. “The joke?”

Barbie didn’t look up. “Just the whole lesbian thing.”

Miraculously, without choking to death, Gloria managed to cough out an, “Oh, right,” like her world hadn’t just flipped on its axis.

Is this a date??

“Anyway,” Barbie continued on, closing her menu and setting it aside. “Once I settled in, USD was great. And then Ken and I got on the beach circuit and the rest is history.”

Gloria sat forward. “Yeah, I meant to ask about that. Gatorade and Nike are massive brand deals for a mixed pairs beach volleyball team, how’d you manage that?”

“Well, I majored in marketing, and we were fairly easy to market,” Barbie told her with the purest confidence, never a hint of narcissism or condescension. “We were born with a brand, the rest was predicated by our success on the court, we just had to lean in. And we didn’t have our own Gatorade flavor,” she set the record straight. “It was a promotion for breast cancer awareness, and they picked us to be the spokespeople.”

Gloria found herself in complete awe. “So that’s what you do now? Marketing?”

“Yeah! I have my own firm—it’s boutique, really, just a few choice clients that help to elevate a specific narrative.”

“And what’s the narrative?” Gloria wondered.

“Oh, girl-power, of course,” Barbie’s eyes shone with pride. “Women can be anything they want, Gloria—professional athletes, industry leaders…my job is simply to get them where they want to be.”

“That’s really incredible, Barbie.”

“Thank you, Gloria, I think so too.”

It got easier, talking to Barbie, Gloria putting her own insecurities aside to simply enjoy the other woman’s company, to catch up, as she’d promised. In a lot of ways, Barbie hadn’t changed. She was still kind, and patient, and enthusiastic. Understanding and empathetic and so painfully pretty Gloria found it impossible to look away, fascinated by every movement, expression, and sound.

It was only when Barbie’s eyes began to glaze over after dessert had been served that Gloria realized she’d been rambling. About Sasha, naturally.

“—it’s just such a tough age,” Gloria was saying. “She’s such a great kid, really. So smart and funny and really talented, actually, I’m so glad she started taking volleyball seriously, she…” Gloria trailed off, self-conscious for the first time since they’d sat down. “I’m so sorry,” she was quick to apologize. “I’m totally boring you, aren’t I?”

Barbie blinked as if awoken from a trance, straightening up in her chair, pale cheeks flushing. “No, I’m sorry, I was just…” she shook her head. “Sorry, I just think you’re gorgeous. I’d love to meet her.”

Gloria found herself unable to process either statement, and Barbie seemed to take her silence as a rejection.

“Not that I—why did I just say that. This went well, right? You had a nice time?”

“Y—,”

“Because I had a nice time,” Barbie was earnest, Gloria was…a bit lost. “Um…” she scooted her chair closer, leaning forward to place a tentative kiss on Gloria’s cheek, her eyes a storm of excitement and apprehension. “Thank you.”

Barbie paid the check afterwards, which Gloria had really meant to do but Barbie’s AMEX was out before she could stop her and Gloria’s fingers were still pressed to her own cheek, so…

“Call me?” Barbie prompted.

Gloria could only nod, the kiss on the cheek and the ensuing flashback to a hotel room at 16 years old rendering her mute.

Because…

Oh.

The excitement, the apprehension, the…hope, in Barbie’s eyes, it was all so terribly familiar.

It was the way Barbie Handler had always looked at her.

“Y—yes, I’ll—I’ll call you.”

Chapter Text

To be fair, Barbie had advertised the post-championship party as “A big, blow out party with anybody who’s anybody”. Really, she’d meant…girls, her teammates and maybe their friends if they wanted to come celebrate, but she understood where the miscommunication had happened. Ken and his friends counted as “anybody”, that was a very generic descriptor.

So the Handler house, the yard—it was packed, full of team spirit! And also…teenage hormones.

“Ken!” Barbie tried her best to navigate the sea of people—and also kissing!—on her patio while she looked for her brother who was definitely in big trouble if their mom found out there was alcohol here.

He was sitting on a lawn chair, cheeks flushed, smile…stupid, red solo cup in hand. “Hi, Barbie!”

She sighed. “Hi, Ken.”

“Hi, Barbie!” Barbara B, their backup Middle greeted from beside him.

“Hi, Barbie B,” Barbie said back. “Ken, your homoerotic nemesis spiked the punch!”

“Barbie!” he hissed, glancing around. “Not so loud!”

“That’s what you called him!”

“OK, well, people are having a great time so can you just be chill?”

“I’m having a great time,” Barbara B. supplied.

Barbie spared her a smile. “That’s so great, Barbie B,” before getting back to the task at hand. “I’m so chill, Ken. People say that! They say I’m incredibly chill!”

His eyes squinted, considering the evidence she’d laid out. “I don’t feel like that is a thing people say, Barbie. I feel like they say, Barbie is so pretty, and Barbie is so nice, and Barbie, step on me, please.”

“That was just that one weird guy.”

“And you punched him,” Ken remembered. “So cool. And also, scary.” He held up his hand for a high five and Barbie supplied one before she could remember why they were fighting.

“Fine, whatever,” Barbie gave up. “Just tell your friends not to make a mess, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” he acquiesced, draining the rest of the spiked punch in his solo cup, the liquid leaving a red residue on his lips. “Brewski beer me?”

Barbie rolled her eyes. “Ken, you don’t like beer.”

“Oh, right.”

Barbie turned to head back inside, but someone slammed against her in the next moment, punch spilling all down the front of the “2001 California State Champs” t-shirt she’d already cut into a crop top. She was about to be mad. Like, actually mad, and Barbie didn’t really get mad let alone actually mad. But—

“Shit, perdoname that was—Barbie, I’m so sorry!” Gloria Cortez was looking up at her with big, brown, glassy eyes—a very forgivable offender. “I can’t believe I—I didn’t see you; how did I not see you.”

“It’s OK,” Barbie laughed, stilling the smaller girl’s hands before she could continue awkwardly dabbing at the mess. “Really, it’s—my mom buys, like, the best stain remover. If it works on grass stains, it can work on this.”

Gloria’s eyes fell to her feet, body swaying slightly as she slurred the words, “Estoy un poqito borracha.”

“I don’t, um—Gloria, I don’t know what that means, but I think maybe you’re a little drunk?” Barbie guessed, placing her hands on Gloria’s shoulders to hold her steady.

Gloria nodded in confirmation, resting more of her weight on Barbie.

“That’s…um, it’s OK,” Barbie comforted, pulling her in closer. “Do you want to lay down in my room, maybe?”

“Yes,” Gloria mumbled.

And so Barbie’s mission began, clearing a path for them like an offensive lineman might, but with a polite, “excuse me, we’re just gonna squeeze through here if you don’t—oh, hi! You look so great, thanks for coming!” rather than, you know, pancaking people. She had an arm around Gloria’s shoulder the whole time, holding her up, and Gloria seemed grateful, wrapping her hands around Barbie’s waist in return, squeezing at the exposed (and now slightly sticky, thanks to the punch) skin of her midriff every time they turned a corner or went up a step.

Barbie was very glad she hadn’t worn her watch that night.

Gloria untangled herself once Barbie opened the door to her bedroom, encouraging her inside with a nervous smile.

“Wow…” Gloria remarked, taking in Barbie’s circular bed, covered with pillows and made up in luxurious pink. “Vives como una princesa…”

“Oh, um, no, I’m just Barbie,” Barbie chuckled, hands clasped behind her back now, understanding at least the last word and picking up on context clues for the rest. “You can—go ahead and lay down, I have to change really quick.”

Gloria nodded, plopping down sloppily on the bed with a little giggle.

Barbie’s cheeks flushed at the sound, and so she turned around quickly, pulling a baggy USD t-shirt out of the top drawer of her dresser, one she’d received on her most recent recruiting trip, and a pair of satin pajama shorts. She shuffled into the ensuite to get changed, wiping the punch from her stomach with a damp towel and returning to find Gloria curled up amongst her pillows like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Barbie was sure her heart was going to explode. All that cardio and she couldn’t even handle a pretty girl laying down in her bed, great.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Gloria smiled dreamily—sleepily at her. “I…” she trailed off, looking away. “Tu eres tan bella me olvidó lo que iba a decir.”

Gloria seemed to be talking to herself, so Barbie didn’t ask for the translation. “Do you need a glass of water or something? I’m sorry, I don’t really know all that much about being drunk, and I’m sorry my brother’s homoerotic nemesis spiked the punch. He thinks just because he can do flips that means he can get away with anything.”

Unbothered, Gloria patted the spot on the bed next to her, and just like in that hotel room the year prior, Barbie was quick to fall in line, climbing into bed next to Gloria, although she was careful not to touch her in case that was crossing a boundary. She wanted Gloria safe, and happy, and…on top of her, yes, but not when she’s drunk, obviously.

So Barbie settled down on her side, watching Gloria as she turned to face her. It was quiet for a moment, the two simply looking at each other, Gloria’s eyes a little out of focus but still so incredibly pretty.

Eventually, Gloria reached forward, taking the fabric of Barbie’s t-shirt in her hands and staring down at it. Barbie held her breath.

“¿Alguna vez piensas en besar mujeres?”

Barbie opened her mouth…and then closed it, not understanding.

“A veces, si,” Gloria seemed to answer her own question.

Barbie’s eyes shot open, awoken by the morning light, the slight breeze that brushed her curtains aside.

The bed was empty now, just Barbie among her mountains of pillows, Gloria…gone, but her words looping again and again through Barbie’s head.

She sat up, wrenching the drawer of her bedside table open to retrieve the notebook and pen she kept inside, and scribbled down the words before she forgot them, sure that they’d spell out something profound.

In the next moment, Barbie was out of bed, yanking a sweatshirt on over the t-shirt she’d worn to bed and scrambling down the grand staircase to the first floor, arriving in the kitchen to find her mom and brother already awake, Ken sitting at the island eating a bowl of cereal.

“Did Gloria leave?” Barbie panted.

“Who?” Ken asked, his mouth full.

“Which one is Gloria, sweetheart? Is that the little one?”

Barbie nodded rapidly.

“Yes, she wandered down about an hour ago,” her mom said. “Seemed a little worse for wear. I hope you kids weren’t drinking alcohol last night.” She looked pointedly at Ken.

“What, me?” Ken asked, offended. “I don’t know anything about that, it was Barbie’s party.”

“Kenneth…”

“He said he doesn’t know anything about it, Mom!” Barbie did her best to come to her brother’s defense, even if he’d just tried to throw her under the bus.

“Well, anyway, I gave her a toaster strudel and sent her on her way,” Ruth reported.

“Mom, that was the last one!” Ken complained.

“There are plenty of Poptarts in the cupboard.”

“That’s not the same!”

It was obvious her family didn’t understand what was at stake here. “Mom, that’s—he’s not important right now!” Barbie got Ruth’s attention, notebook paper crinkling in her hand. “I need a Spanish tutor!”

“You want to learn Spanish?”

“Yes,” Barbie confirmed with a resolute nod of her head. “I need to. Like, yesterday.”

/

Sasha was waiting, expectantly, in the living room when Gloria returned home.

“Well?” she prompted, pausing the show she’d been watching and immediately sitting forward. “Was I right?”

Gloria dropped her purse on the ground and shuffled out of her shoes, borderline despondent. “Yeah…I think so…”

Sasha frowned, understandably weirded out by her mother’s behavior. “You blew it, didn’t you.”

“I did not blow it…I don’t think.” Gloria sat down in a huff next to her on the couch, twisting so that Sasha could unzip her dress.

Wordlessly, Sasha took her cue, pulling the zipper down before manually squaring Gloria’s shoulders to her. “So then what’s your deal? Is she a bad kisser or something? Please don’t tell me. Is she a bitch? Or, like, weird, maybe? A fascist or something?”

“Wh—Sasha, no, she’s perfect.”

“OK, so you definitely blew it, then.” Sasha crossed her arms, settling deeper into the couch cushions.

“No, I—tonight was…nice,” Gloria summarized lamely. “I did blow it, though. 22 years ago, I think.”

Sasha’s expression underwent a journey that was hard for Gloria to follow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gloria sighed. “It means I made sort’ve a stupid assumption.”

“What, that she was straight?”

“Yes, but in my defense, she was prom queen, and…like, literally everything else, and I was—you know—me.”

“OK, well, did she have, like, a bunch of boyfriends or something?”

Gloria pursed her lips, thinking back. “No.”

“One, then?”

“Um…also no. I don’t remember her ever having a boyfriend.”

Sasha blinked. “Please, go and get your yearbook, Mom.”

“What?”

“Go.” Sasha pointed. “And get your yearbook!”

“Geez, alright!” Gloria complained, standing to retrieve her senior yearbook from the bookshelf, handing it to Sasha, who immediately flipped to the table of contents, searching out the Varsity volleyball team.

Gloria held her breath in the silence that followed, Sasha’s brow furrowing as she studied the team picture.

“Mom…”

“Yeah?”

“Mom, she has her hand on your waist.”

“Huh?” Gloria leaned over, following Sasha’s finger to #10 and #6 in the team picture, Barbie very much with her hand around Gloria’s waist, fingers splayed on her hip, almost, like…possessively. “Oh…”

“You thought that was normal?”

“I mean, I—we were teammates! Volleyball is touchy-feely, you know that, Sash.”

“Mom, everyone else is shoulder to shoulder and Malibu Barbie is playing grab ass.”

That was…true.

Sasha slammed the yearbook shut, nearly trapping Gloria’s hand inside. “Were you closeted, or something?”

“Sweetheart, it was 2001. Everyone was closeted.”

“And you haven’t talked since?”

“No, we…we lost touch after graduation, Barbie moved to San Diego, I met your dad…and we got you! So really, if I hadn’t blown it, you wouldn’t exist.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “How gracious of you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“So then how did she know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re bi, Mom. Are you guys Facebook friends, or something?”

Gloria frowned. “Uh, no. I don’t…maybe she just, I don’t know, hoped?”

“No,” Sasha shook her head, standing up to pace. “You don’t get out of an insurance claim because someone hopes you’re gay, Mom. She took a calculated risk.”

“OK, well, I don’t think this warrants a conspiracy board, Sasha.”

“I think it does!”

“Don’t you have homework?”

“Already done. Are you going out again?”

“I told her I’d call, so…hopefully?”

Sasha nodded, accepting that answer and reaching for her phone, silently typing out a message.

“Who are you texting?”

“Jade.”

“Why?”

“Telling her my mom fumbled a bad bitch in high school.”

“Sasha, your language is getting out of control.”

“What? It’s true!”

Chapter Text

Barbie stared, slack jawed, down at the paper.

“You’re sure that’s what she said?” she prompted after some undisclosed amount of time, the lesson on her dime anyway.

“That’s certainly what this says,” the tutor confirmed, pointing at the phrases hurriedly scribbled down in Barbie’s looping cursive. “So, as long as you copied it down right…”

“I copied it down right.”

“Then…yes. That’s what she said.”

There were a few more moments of silent staring before Barbie’s hand closed to a fist on the table. “I don’t have 10,000 hours.”

“I’m sorry?”

“There’s—I don’t—it’s November, already, and look, I—” Barbie retrieved her planner from the backpack that had been resting against the table’s leg, flipping it open to show her that every day was marked full with pink pen. “I’d have to—” she began to scribble out an equation below Gloria’s words, “We graduate on May 15^th and it’s November 20^th, that’s 177 days. I’d have to be practicing Spanish 56 and a half hours a day and there aren’t even 56 hours in a day! This is a disaster! Even if I could practice 24 hours a day, which I can’t because I have to sleep, I guess, it would take me 416 days! That’s too many days!”

“Um, OK, Barbara, can I—should I call you Barbie?”

Barbie nodded, wiping away the frustrated tear that was threatening to spill down her cheek. “Yeah, sure, either way.”

“Barbie,” the tutor began again, calmly, which was nice. “With hard work, you can achieve conversational fluency a lot sooner than 10,000 hours.”

Sniffing, Barbie asked. “How many?”

“Well, it’s different for every person, not sure I can assign a number to it.”

Barbie sat forward. “If I’m perfect, and I work hard, like you said…what’s the number?”

The tutor pursed her lips. “Studies are saying…300 hours?”

Eyes blown wide in excitement and relief; Barbie crunched the numbers again. “That’s—that’s only an hour and 45 minutes a day!”

“Sure! Yeah, that sounds right.”

Barbie launched forward, wrapping the woman in a tight hug. “You’re amazing, thank you!”

“Barbara, I—I haven’t taught you anything yet,” she laughed.

Giddy, Barbie sat back. “But I just know you will. I know it.”

/

“—and what about after that?”

“She said, ‘you’re sweet’ and I said, ‘I can be’!” Barbie shouted back across the expanse of ocean between them, feeling the barrel begin to form, Ken ducking in after her.

“Nice!”

“Yeah, because I want her, like, inside me and stuff but I’m also polite, you know?” Barbie lowered her stance, hand trailing through the water.

“For sure!” Ken agreed. He was about to add something else when the barrel closed around him, swallowing him back into a wall of water.

Barbie glanced over her shoulder, catching the tail end of his wipeout. “Oh, shoot!”

“KEN!” Allan screamed from the shore, leaping out of his beach chair.

Once she reached the beach, Barbie sighed, sticking her board upright in the sand to wait for Ken, who tumbled in shortly thereafter, his own board yanked behind him by the leash attached to his ankle.

“Are you ok?”

Ken spit out a mouthful of water, doing what he could to blow the excess out of his nose. “I might puke.”

“That’s alright,” Barbie reassured him, bending down to pat him on the shoulder as Allan arrived with the first aid kit. “Did she call, Allan?”

Allan shook his head like a patient had died on his table.  

“You guys didn’t see that…did you?” Ken wanted to know, still sitting in the water, blonde hair full of sand.

“You falling? I did.”

“Me too.”

“How much of it?”

“Only the last part of it.”

“I saw the whole thing.”

“Oh…” Ken’s face fell. “Can we go do something else?”

Barbie was already unzipping her wetsuit.

/

Gloria and Sasha sat at the kitchen table, Gloria’s cellphone between them, unlocked, Barbie’s phone number already entered on the dial pad.

“Your dad should have picked you up already.”

“You’re stalling.”

“He always—,”

“Mom,” Sasha stopped her before she could start her weekly rant. “This is so much more interesting than cold pizza and Seinfeld reruns, seriously. I really don’t care that he’s late this time.”

“I—,”

They jumped when the phone vibrated loudly on the wood tabletop, although the words “Sasha’s Dad” on the screen came as a disappointment to them both. The contact name was a little immature, but in Gloria’s defense…he was Sasha’s dad, and she could guess on how this phone call was going to go before she answered, the script already tired by this point in their divorce.

/

“It was lilac.”

“Plunging neckline?”

Barbie knelt, pulling a handful of grass from the ground and opening her palm, allowing it to be taken by the wind as she studied its direction. “No, draped.”

“Classy.”

With a frown, Barbie stood, hand on her hip, considering. “Driver,” she said, after a few more moments of indecision, reaching a hand out, waiting for the club to be deposited.

“Barbie, we’re in mid Iron range,” Ken scoffed, leaning against the golf cart in matching argyle. “What about the shoes?”

“White, kitten heel. Driver, please,” Barbie reiterated, and Allan picked through the bag, unsheathing the club she’d requested. “Should be a birdie on this hole, I’m not aiming for par, Ken.”

Club in her hands, Barbie squinted one eye, finding the flag through the foliage, and squaring her shoulders, shimmying into her stance.

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m doing what I have to, Ken.”

“It’ll never work!”

“Don’t put limits on my abilities!”

Ken choked, gagged by such an accusation.

Barbie visualized her shot, taking a practice swing before stepping up to the ball, uninterested in accepting mediocrity. “Allan, has she called?”

There was silence, and then… “Not yet, Barbie.”

The three of them watched her shot fly, landing squarely on the green, setting up an easy putt for the birdie she’d promised.

Grinning, Barbie dropped the club to clap for herself, adding a little hop of excitement. Allan clapped too; Ken stewed.

“Your turn, Ken!”

He grabbed his own driver, sulking over to almost immediately shank his shot.

Together, they watched his ball veer off course, landing somewhere in the woods to their right.

“You know, when you think about it, besides the sweater vests, golf is pretty dumb,” Ken decided.

“But you guys look so cute in the sweater vests, Ken."

Ken grew a bashful smile, chest puffing. “You’re so right, Allan. Actually, golf isn’t dumb, I’m just bad at it!”

“That’s the spirit, Ken!”

/

Gloria raised a tentative hand.

It was silent beyond the door, a few hours since the phone call, hopefully enough time for Sasha to have cooled off, not that Gloria was planning on rushing her.  

“Sasha? Baby?” She finally found the courage to knock. “Sweetheart, are you OK?”

“Go away,” came the muffled response.

“It’s OK if you’re not ready, I just…I want to make sure you know I’m here and that I love you, OK? And your dad does too, even if he…sometimes people are just bad at prioritizing things, Sash. Doesn’t mean they’re not important.” Gloria rested her head against the door, eyes sliding closed, trying to accept that a response may not come, shoulders growing heavy in the silence. “I was thinking, maybe you and I could grab something to eat, hit the town, what do you say?”

“…definitely not ‘hit the town’.”

Gloria rolled her eyes affectionately at the sardonic response. “We could go to the beach? Get some tacos? Some ice cream, too, if you feel like it.”

“Ugh, that sounds so lame,” Sasha groaned. “…sure.”

Gloria tried to keep her fist pump as quiet as possible, hoping the smile on her face wasn’t too obvious when she said, “OK! I just have a few emails to respond to for work, but I’ll come and get you when I’m done.”

Sasha sighed. “Whatever.”

/

The ball slammed down to the sand on the other side of the net, Barbie returning to her feet in the next moment. “Too much spin on that one.”

“Allan’s fault,” Ken passed the buck. “Bad pass. Let’s try again.”

Barbie nodded, returning to her spot on the backline, beginning her approach just before the set left Ken’s fingertips, knowing his rhythm, identifying his ball placement before the ball had even been placed.

This one went a lot better.

“Huzzah!” Ken exclaimed, punching the air. “Allan, put that in the good column and tell us our score.”

“Um…” Allan flipped back a page to tally. “That’s…113 good, um, 15 bad.”

Barbie pouted. “13% bad?”

“Yes, that's...2 points more bad than last week, using this completely arbitrary metric that you guys made up,” Allan reported.

Ken sighed, disappointed. “What are we doing here, Barbie?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed too, falling to her knees in the sand. “Failing...13% of the time.”

“Hey, Barbie?

"Hey, Allan."

"Barbie, you’re bumming me out.”

“Her head’s in the game, but her heart’s in the song, Allan!”

“Fine,” Allan left that alone. “Before you ask, she hasn’t called.”

“Ugh!” Ken slammed his fist to the sand, taking this very hard.

“It’s only been a day. Would work help take your mind off it, maybe?”

“Maybe…” Barbie flopped onto her side, sand sticking to her sweaty skin.

“Is this—Barbie, is this heat stroke?”

“No, Allan, it’s heartbreak!” Ken translated Barbie’s body language.

“OK, well, I don’t know if you’ve had time to look at the earnings report for that jewelry business I sent over between the car accident and the surfing and the golf and the batting cages and the beach volleyball and the heartbreak, but they make their own beads, and—,”

“Bees?” Ken asked, confused. “What do bees have to do with jewelry, Allan?”

“No, Ken, beads.”

“Beads?!”

“Ken’s not onboard…”

Barbie groaned.

“You’re making it worse, Allan!”

“I feel like I’m 17 again,” Barbie complained, propping herself up on her elbows, chin resting in her hands.

“Right, but you’re 39…”

“That’s so much worse!”

Allan agreed with a nod of his head.

Ken laid down on his stomach next to his sister, very earnestly asking, “What’s so great about her, anyway?”

“Everything!” Barbie answered like it should have been obvious. “She looks at me like I’m the prettiest person in the world! And—,”

“You kinda are…”

“Don’t let anyone tell you different!”

“—I never got a chance to tell her! That it can’t be me because it’s her! That she’s beautiful and smart and made me feel like a real person when everyone else saw me as a concept, some ideal, some plastic, one dimensional half of a packaged deal that—,”

“Ha,” Ken laughed. “Package.”

“No, that’s not—ugh,” Barbie huffed. “I said packaged, Ken. You’re not listening.”

“I am!” he disagreed. “I just…Barbie, she’s like, a mother now, right?”

“Yeah, Ken, a milf!” Barbie nearly shouted. “She's aged like fine wine!”

He narrowed his eyes. “…you and I have very different taste in women, I think.”

“Yes,” Barbie conceded. “You like women who look like you. And also, Allan.”

“Oh, um, I’m not a woman, actually,” Allan wanted that on the record. “I’m just a man with no power.”

“Heck yeah, Allan!”

“We love that for you!”

“I think you guys need to eat something,” Allan made an executive decision.

/

Sasha trudged along next to her mom, feet shuffling stubbornly, baggy sweatshirt pulled down over her hands despite the heat.

Divorce was stupid.

Not that her parents’ marriage had ever been, like…good, but they’d at least cohabitated effectively, the three of them. Now it was like Sasha was an afterthought to her dad, and her mom was obsessed with her.

On cue, Sasha felt eyes on her, and glanced over to find her mom with a dorky little smile on her face, stealing weird, nervous looks at her every few steps like she was afraid Sasha might burst into flames if she got too much sunlight.

Ugh.

“Wanna go here?” Sasha suggested, pointing towards a nondescript food truck with a decent sized line.

Gloria squinted to read the sign. “Uh, sure! If that’s what you want, let’s do it.”

…it wasn’t what Sasha wanted, not really. Sasha wanted her dad to not forget it was his weekend and come to her volleyball game. She wanted her mom to stop treating herself like a second-class citizen…and to update her contacts prescription because they really weren’t that far away from the food cart, she shouldn’t have to strain her eyes like that to read words in bold letters.

Mostly, Sasha wanted the walking to stop, so she nodded, crossing her arms to stand in line.

“This is kinda fun, huh?” Gloria prompted, playfully bumping their shoulders together.

“Mom, can you not?”

“Oh, so suddenly I’m lame again?”

“You’re lame until you call her.”

“Hardball, huh? I see how it is.”

They stepped forward, halfway to ordering now.

“What are you gonna say?”

“Say…?”

“When you call her. What are you gonna say?”

“After hi?”

Sasha rolled her eyes, exasperated already. “Yeah, mom, after hi.”

“Maybe…it was so good to see you?”

“Are you sure you’re bi?”

“Wh—yes, Sasha, I’m sure I’m bi. Very, um,” Gloria cleared her throat. “Very sure.”

“OK, so maybe try something that doesn’t make you sound like a straight girl at your 20-year class reunion? And gross, by the way.”  

“Fine, what’s your bright idea, then? Since pleasantries are off the table.”

“You gotta spice it up!”

“And how do you suggest I…” Gloria trailed off when her phone buzzed in her hand. Abandoning the conversation entirely, she pushed her sunglasses back on her head, using them to pin her hair down as she read whatever was on her screen.

Sasha raised an eyebrow, interest piqued. “That her?”

“No,” Gloria muttered, beginning to type out a response to what Sasha now recognized as a work email.

There were only two people ahead of them now, and Sasha decided to occupy herself with the menu while her mom wasted another Saturday night being undervalued by her boss. It was between the birria or the—

“¡Barbara! Al fin te encuentro, bonita. Ven, acércate a la primera fila, eres mi clienta favorita y eso significa que tienes ciertos privilegios,” the vendor shouted over them, a big smile on her face, completely ignoring the rest of the line.

“Ay, no, ¡es demasiado! Qué dulce eres. Todo huele absolutamente delicioso, ¡muero por probarlo!” came the response from behind them, a woman, not that Sasha cared.

“Eres demasiado buena para tu propio bien.”

“Mi mamá solía decir eso.”

“Es muy suertuda con una hija como tú… y un hijo.”

They were laughing—the vendor and her favorite customer, and Sasha was over it. With a scowl that Sasha hoped would communicate her hanger, she turned around, searching out whatever woman in the crowd was keeping her from her dinner, and—

You’re shitting me.

Standing at the back of the line in a sports bra and jean shorts, blonde hair naturally windswept, was none other than Malibu-fuckin-Barbie herself.

“Mom.” Sasha couldn’t look away. “Mom, l—mom!” she hissed, yanking at Gloria’s sleeve.

“One sec, Sash, I—,”

“¿De qué tienes ganas?” the vendor was speaking again. “No hay especias para él, lo sé.”

Sasha resorted to pinching, and finally Gloria looked up, searching for the cause of Sasha’s concern until her eyes fell on Barbie, who’d just tossed her head back to laugh.

“Les prometo que va a estar bien.”

“Si usted lo dice..."

Barbie took a happy breath as the vendor looked away, appearing thoroughly charmed by their back and forth, completely at home, in line at this…nondescript taco truck.

Gloria and Sasha looked on, dumbfounded, which was—naturally—when they were noticed.

Barbie’s smile melted, her head tilting as though she, too, couldn’t believe her eyes. “Gloria?”

Chapter Text

For Barbie, every day dawned with the potential to be the best day ever. Every morning a new start, a clean slate, a unique opportunity. Even still, when everything was amazing, some days…they were just better than others.  

This was a better day.

Their legs dangled over the edge of the pier, sun on their faces, breeze in their hair…

She glanced over to find Gloria looking at her rather than out at the water.

“What?” she blushed, bit her lip, forcing herself not to look away. There’d only be so many more sunsets. “Is there something on my face?”

“Yeah, you’ve got some…here—,” Gloria raised her hand, but seemed to think better of it halfway to Barbie’s face. Instead, she pointed to the edge of her own hairline. “Some sand.”

“Oh.” Barbie rushed to brush it away, gripping the volleyball in her lap tighter with her free hand. “Thanks! It’s the sweat, it makes it stick. Kinda gross, I know. I should seriously take a shower, I’m sure I smell awful.”

“As if,” Gloria laughed.

Barbie laughed too, even if she didn’t quite get the joke. Maybe there wasn’t one. Either way, it loosened the knot in her stomach.  “So, what did you think of beach?”

“It’s hard!”

“Yeah,” Barbie agreed, nodding earnestly. “The conditioning is totally different.”

“Not as many bruises, though,” Gloria remarked with a smile, examining her own elbows for good measure.

“Let me see,” Barbie indulged herself, setting the volleyball aside to take Gloria by the wrist, making a show of some injury scavenger hunt when, in truth, she just wanted an excuse to touch her.

“What kind’ve lotion do you use?”

“Hm?”

“Your hands are, like, baby soft,” Gloria laughed, nervous this time.

Barbie smiled, turning her hands over, studying the callous-free skin of her palms. “Whatever my mom puts in my room, I guess.”

Gloria turned her hands the same way, paying herself the same attention, laughing when she realized, “They’re so much smaller.”

“Let me see.” Barbie grinned, splaying her fingers out for scale, waiting for Gloria to press their palms together. When she did, Barbie felt a whole conservatory of butterflies take flight in her stomach.

“See? I could never play Outside.”

“Poor ball control,” Barbie agreed, wanting so desperately to thread her fingers through Gloria’s she almost threw her master plan to the wind.

Tragically, Gloria pulled away in the next moment, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear and turning her attention back to the ocean. “So, San Diego, huh?”

Barbie shrugged, their shoulders brushing with the movement. “Seems like a good place for me to go.”

“How come?”

“Well, they want me.”

“I’m sure everyone wants you, Barbie.”

The pier nearly splintered beneath Barbie’s grip. “I like the campus, it’s pretty. Great Volleyball program with a strong academic reputation—obviously, that’s a must. Just seems like the right place for me. Plus, they accepted my brother’s deferment so he can enroll after his Kwest. That’s quest with a K for Ken.”

“No sé dónde está el lugar adecuado para mí,” Gloria muttered, a little sad, maybe.

“Do you know what you want to do?”

“I know what I should do…”

“Why do those have to be different things?”

Gloria pursed her lips, placing her hands behind her to lean back. “Because I’m scared.”

“Oh…”

“You’re not?”

“Mm…I don’t think so, not yet.”

Gloria exhaled. “I want to be an artist. Like, a real one. One who makes something, like, tangible, you know?”

Barbie nodded, liking the word ‘tangible’ very much, wondering if it would translate to Spanish. “I’d love to see your art, someday.”

“It’s kinda weird.”

“I don’t mind.”

Gloria laughed. “OK, not like weird, I just…I like to design women—well, dolls,” she was quick to correct. “Barbie…? Dolls…? Is that—saying it to you is extra weird, I’m realizing.”

“Why? Because of my name? Or…my hair, and stuff?”

“No, no, not really, I just…most of them end up looking like you.”

“Pretty?”

“Bright,” Gloria said instead.

/

“B—Barbie, hi!” Gloria exclaimed, doing her level best to recover and not…gape.

Barbie was here, Barbie was…scantily clad. Barbie spoke Spanish, evidently?

“Twice in 48 hours, there may be something cosmic going on here, Gloria,” Barbie’s entire being sparkled with mirth.

And Gloria thought maybe she was right. Maybe there was something cosmic going on. Maybe Barbie and the…the hard lines of her stomach, the, um, swell of her—

“There’s no way you’re shining with Malibu Barbie.”

“It’s so good to see you…again!” Gloria said, interrupting her own thoughts before they could spiral into the realm of intrusive, rather than acknowledge her daughter, which earned her a groan, Sasha burying her face in her hands.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Hush,” Gloria shushed her through a slightly strained smile. “Barbie this is Sasha, she—I guess you’re meeting now! I guess that’s what this is!”

“Señora,” the taco vendor prompted, providing a blessed distraction.

“We’re going to order,” Sasha told Barbie, dragging Gloria by her sleeve up to the window, rattling off both of their orders before Gloria could offer her input. She then reached into the front pocket of Gloria’s chinos, fishing out her debit card and handing it over, taking the beeper from the vendor and then pulling Gloria off to the side, all in a matter of, like, 45 seconds.

“I’m too hungry for gay panic,” was Sasha’s explanation.

Barbie was closer to the front of the line now, close enough for her to really take Sasha in for the first time. “Gloria, she looks just like you. Absolutely gorgeous.”

The smile that overtook Gloria’s face was too powerful to tamp down for her daughter’s sake, and anyway, when Gloria looked over, she found Sasha twisting her lips, trying to hide a smile of her own.

“And I am also a person to meet,” Ken—who’d evidently been standing next to Barbie the whole time (and who Gloria had met on numerous occasions) announced. “A man. I’m Ken, and this is Allan.”

Gloria looked past Ken to the tall, awkward man hovering behind him. It took a moment, but she eventually recognized him. “You are Allan! From the—you were water boy for…” Gloria stopped to frown, realizing she didn’t remember which team he’d been associated with. “For Ken?”

“For Ken!” Ken confirmed.

“Equipment manager. For the lacrosse team.”

“What?” Barbie turned to ask.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“OK!” Barbie stepped up to the window and was handed her food without having to order, taking a wad of cash from the pocket of her jean shorts and winking at the vendor, adding, “¡Aquí tienes!¡Quédate con el cambio!” as the money exchanged hands.

“Did she order online or something?” Sasha was solving her own mystery while Gloria descended further into, yes, gay panic.

Barbie handed Allan the food, nodding towards an empty picnic table. “Ken’s is labeled mild.”

Allan accepted the wordless instruction like a mission from god, looping his arm around Ken’s elbow to guide him over to a table.

“¿Son tus amigos?”

Barbie nodded, resting a hand on Gloria’s shoulder to prove it, Gloria shivering at her touch—jesus christ. “La mejor tipo de amiga… Pero ella no llamó, así que...” she shrugged “que las ti ma.”

Gloria’s skin flushed so hot she, briefly, considered calling an ambulance. “Barbie, I—,”

The vendor handed Barbie Gloria and Sasha’s food too, and the blonde was smiling like theirs was a meal she’d hunted and gathered when she turned back around. “Care to join us?”

“OK, this taco truck princess schtick requires some explanation, actually,” Sasha spoke up. “These are just, like, your people?”

Barbie faltered ever so slightly, though her tone remained upbeat.  “All people are my people!”

“What, like, All Lives Matter?”

“Oh, no,” Barbie made sure to distance herself from that narrative immediately. “Those are not my people.”

“So basically birds braid your hair in the morning and you just decided to learn Spanish?” Sasha was incredulous.

“It’s a very useful skill!” Barbie’s exuberance returned as quickly as it’d vanished.

“So you’re like…white savior Barbie.”

“That feels derogatory.”

“Sasha!” Gloria hissed.

“What? She feels a little too good to be true, is all I’m saying.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Barbie winked. “Now, come on, let’s eat, I’m starving.”

In a daze, Gloria followed Barbie to the table Allan and Ken had laid claim to, lowering herself to the bench across from Barbie. She watched as Barbie took her in with more care, now, licking her lips once she’d had her fill.

Gloria shifted under Barbie’s scrutiny, hoping Sasha hadn’t caught that.

“Ooh, the birria tacos are to die for, great choice, Sasha!” Barbie changed gears, distributing the food.

Sasha eyed her sideways. “Thanks…”

“I meant to call!” Gloria rushed out, a weird, delayed response. “The day just got away from me.”

“It’s OK, I wasn’t, like, waiting by the phone or anything,” Barbie forced out a nervous chuckle, Ken making a similar sound beside her. Allan sighed, shaking his head as he gameplanned his next bite. “Definitely didn’t derail my day or affect my mood. So, what did you do today?”

“Oh, just…” Gloria looked to Sasha, the two communicating in silence. “Sasha’s dad had sort’ve a last minute work thing and couldn’t pick her up, so we…spent the day together.” Her smile earned an eyeroll from Sasha. “And now he can’t come to her game tomorrow so Sasha’s a little dis—,”

Barbie stopped eating. “What?”

“Sasha’s dad, he—there’s a conference in Sacramento that he—,”

“But you told me it’s her first game.”

Sasha had stopped eating too, by this point.

Gloria wondered why she felt the need to make excuses for him. “Yeah,” she conceded. “It’s a bummer.”

“It’s a total bummer!” Barbie was incensed, her attention turning completely to Sasha now. “He’ll be sorry he missed it.”

“Uh…thanks…I guess…” Sasha had to look away, the blue of Barbie’s eyes not for the faint of heart.

“Would you like to come?”

Gloria wasn’t sure whose eyes were on her quicker, Sasha’s or Barbie’s, but the reactions definitely…varied.

“Mom, are you—,”

“I’d love to!”

“—serious?”

Barbie immediately deflated, recalibrating. “Oh, I mean—I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“She invited you,” Ken pointed out, dipping a tortilla chip into just the liquid of his salsa.

“Yes, but—,”

“Whatever,” Sasha muttered, crossing her arms as she sat back. “I guess she can come.”

Gloria blinked, trying to hide her surprise.

Barbie looked like she was having trouble controlling her breathing across the table. “Sasha, that’s very gracious of you, really I don’t mean to—,”

“It’s fine,” Sasha snapped, before softening slightly. “There’s a poster of you and Ken at the gym, you’re basically like a volleyball celebrity. It’ll probably help my street cred.”

“Yes, I can—I can definitely do that,” Barbie rushed to assure her. “Help your street cred, I mean.”

Sasha cringed. “It sounds lame when you say it, but you’re pretty, so I feel confused.”

“I understand.”

“Totally common reaction,” Allan assured her.

“You’ll text me the details?” Barbie asked, focus on Gloria now, lip held between her teeth.

Gloria swallowed, am I literally drooling? “Definitely.”

“You promise?”

Gloria held out her hand to…shake? For some reason? WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH ME?? But Barbie misread the gesture (thank god), lacing their fingers together at the center of the table, exhaling shakily as she did, her perfect smile tinged with that now familiar joyous apprehension, 17 in the blink of an eye.

“Promise.”

They beheld each other for a moment. Shining, as Sasha had put it, the earth's rotation slowing, background noise falling away, time and sp—

“You cannot be serious right now,” Sasha’s eyeroll was audible, somehow. Gloria chose to ignore her.

Chapter Text

“—and skittles, for sure.”

“Barbie, that’s, like, the whole vending machine,” Gloria laughed.

“Not quite! Do you want anything else? My treat.”

Gloria’s laugh dissolved to a smile and she shook her head, gaze lingering in a way that made Barbie’s chest constrict. “Maybe some ruffles…but that’s it!” she playfully jabbed a finger into Barbie’s ribs. “You’re cut off.”

“Fine,” Barbie shrugged, grinning impishly. “But if you get hungry again…”

“I won’t.”

“You might!”

“I only skipped lunch, Barbie.”

“The most important meal of the day! After breakfast! And dinner!”

This time, when Gloria laughed, she leaned into Barbie’s side, forehead pressing against Barbie’s bare shoulder, and Barbie’s hand froze on her way to key in the code, short circuiting a little at the change in proximity.

“It’s F5.”

“What?”

“The ruffles.” Gloria reached for Barbie’s still outstretched hand, taking it in her own to push the buttons with Barbie’s index finger, giggling all the while. Together, they watched their choices be dispensed, Gloria dropping her hand but remaining pressed against her side. “Barbie?”

“Yeah?” She tried not to move a muscle, not wanting anything to change, wanting to stay just like this. Forever, maybe.

Still, Gloria pulled back, looking up at her, somewhere between curious and concerned. “Are you OK?”

Barbie tried to recover, but found her skin flushed, breathing unsteady. Meanwhile, Gloria’s lips pulled into that little frown she got when diagnosing a play.

She wanted to kiss it off her face. Wanted it so bad it hurt, ached.

Gloria rose up on her tip toes, pressing the back of her hand to Barbie’s forehead when she didn’t get a response. “You’re not sick, are you? We’re doomed if you’re sick.”

Enfermo de amor…

Barbie found the strength, the self-control to shake her head, though the truth spilled out of her before she could stop it, “I might be scared, now.”

Gloria raised a dark eyebrow, her heels falling back to the ground, hand sliding to Barbie’s wrist, giving it a squeeze. “Scared of what? The trans fats?”

Barbie blinked. “Tr—,”

“In the ruffles?” Gloria clarified. “I think it’s OK in moderation.”

“Oh,” Barbie laughed, relieved, her sudden swell of feelings ebbing to a manageable degree of yearning, the rip in time and space repairing itself, stitching Barbie back together. “You’re right. We can share, maybe?”

Nodding, Gloria bent over to retrieve the snacks from the machine and Barbie looked directly at the sky, not trusting herself, not risking it—she’d been ogling, lately, sneaking glances, replaying the images in her mind late at night. The stars were pretty, she realized.

Gloria was prettier.

Pretty, now, in the light of the motel’s vending machine. Prettier, even, in Barbie’s fantasies, her lips on her neck, her hand in her hair, her—

“We got way too much; you have to help me out here.” Gloria slipped a bag of peanut m&ms into the pocket of Barbie’s sweats, yanking her back to earth. “You ready?”

/

“Alright…” Allan slowed the car. “This looks like the place.”

Barbie was nearly vibrating in her seat, her smile a permanent fixture, by this point. “Thanks for the ride, guys!”

“You’ve got this, Sis!”

“Thanks, Ken. I love you guys!”

“And we love you,” Allan assured her. “Third time’s the charm! Best of luck.”

“And to you!”

Ken gave her a thumbs up from the front seat and they sat there like that for a moment, smiling and staring.

“Here I go!”

“Here you go!”

More smiling, no blinking.

Allan cleared his throat. “Barbie, you have to go, now.”

“Right, OK, I think I might be nervous.”

Ken reached back to squeeze her thigh. “I believe in you.”

Barbie put her hand on top of his. “And I, you, Ken.”

“…Barbie, get out of the car.”

She gave Allan a two-finger salute and opened the door, stepping out into the sunshine with a deep, centering breath.

Third time’s the charm.

/

“What if I gave her poor directions…”

“Mom, I’m sure she knows how to use google maps.”

“It’s just, she’s always early but it’s 10:02 already, and—,”

Barbie hadn’t even arrived yet and this whole thing was already annoying. Gloria had been freaking out all morning like this wasn’t about to be their 3^rd date in 3 days. Curling her hair, steaming her blouse, trying on like 3 different shades of lipstick—for a 14U volleyball game. How mortifying. Her mom looked good, Sasha had to admit, but, like she didn’t realize how weird it would be to watch her mom put effort in like this for someone.

Weird, and…sweet, how Gloria had stolen one last look at herself in the car’s rearview mirror before they got out, taken a deep breath, asked Sasha how she looked—again—even though Sasha had already said she looked good like 15 times that morning.

The plan was they were supposed to walk in together, the three of them—Sasha, Gloria and Barbie. For the street cred. So Sasha understood, kind’ve, why her mom was stressing. It was almost time for warmups and—

Oh, thank god.

Sasha spotted Barbie exiting what must have been Ken’s Jeep Wrangler (the custom pink paint job was a dead giveaway), wearing lightwash jeans and a white t-shirt under a beige blazer—understated but cute, her blonde hair pulled back in casual, messy bun, and—Birkenstocks. Why?

“Seriously, mom, you need to chill, she’s right there,” Sasha nodded in Barbie’s direction, crossing her arms as the two watched her approach, a skip in her step.

“Barbie!” Gloria basically shouted, causing Sasha to immediately bury her face in her hands.

Barbie was jogging now, somehow, in the birkenstocks—the pink birkenstocks, and—are those rhinestones? “Hi, guys!” Sasha had never seen anyone exhibit this level of golden retriever energy. But, like, a dog show golden retriever, best in show, obviously. “I’m so sorry I’m late!”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Gloria rushed to assure her, reaching forward to squeeze Barbie’s upper arm. Gross. “Glad you could make it.”

“Me too!”

Sasha rolled her eyes, having to look away before she smiled at Barbie’s cute little shoulder shimmy thing. Ugh. “Can we go now?”

“Lead the way,” Gloria said, Barbie sliding to her left, waggling her eyebrows.

Is it too late to uninvite her?

The gym was pretty packed, the tournament’s morning slate just finishing up, afternoon games set to start within the hour.

Sasha saw her teammates stretching at halfcourt and took her backpack off her shoulders, pressing it into her mom’s arms without a word and jogging over to them. “Hey,” Sasha greeted, slowing to a stop as she approached the circle of pink jerseys.

Her teammates, however, weren’t looking at Sasha.

“Is that her?” Jade asked, attention aimed over Sasha’s shoulder, Cloe craning her neck beside her, Yasmine trying her best to be nonchalant.

“Who?”

Jade scoffed. “Oh, who?”

“Barbie,” Cloe nudged. “Is that really her?”

Sasha made a show of rolling her eyes. “No, it’s another LA 10 my mom just happens to cart around.”

“She’s so pretty…” Yasmine whispered.

Cloe nodded in fervent agreement. “Can’t believe she’s here to watch us play.”

“Well, realistically she’s here to make heart eyes at my mom,” Sasha clarified, reaching back to tie her hair into a ponytail. “She’s like obsessed with her, it’s kind’ve embarrassing but whatever.”

“So are they, like, together now?” Jade asked, crossing her arms, eyes never leaving Gloria and Barbie where they stood chatting with Yasmine’s mom near the bleachers.

Sasha shrugged. “I think my mom’s playing it fast and loose right now, keeping her options open post-divorce, you know?”

Cloe nodded again like that made complete sense to her. “Your mom’s really pretty too.”

“What?”

“Your mom.”

“What about her?”

“She has a nice smile and always smells good. And, you know, like…keeps it tight.”

Sasha blinked. “No, Cloe, I don’t know, actually. Wh—,”

“Hey, Sasha—,”

The girls all turned to watch Barbie approach them sheepishly in just her white t-shirt and jeans, blazer discarded (slung over Gloria’s arm where she watched from the sidelines).

“—do you want to pepper?”

Jade, Cloe and Yasmine could do nothing but stare, mouths hanging open. Barbie tended to have that effect on people, Sasha had noticed. Her mom, especially.

Sasha smirked. “Uh, sure, Barbie.” Told you she was a bad bitch.

/

In the 22 years they’d been apart, Gloria had forgotten how existing in Barbie’s vicinity could change one’s gravitational pull.

There were eyes on them the moment they entered the gym, Barbie a spectacle even in beige, Gloria…also there.

Barbie didn’t seem to mind, still smiling, appearing more preoccupied by she and Gloria’s hands brushing every few steps than being the consummate center of attention. Gloria wondered what a lifetime of that might do to a person.

…the attention thing, not the almost handholding.

Gloria expected a lifetime of that might be torturous.

…the almost aspect, anyway.

Sasha handed her backpack to Gloria and was off, leaving the two alone. Well…mostly alone, besides the hundreds of prying eyes.

“Do you, um, there’s a snack bar, if you want anything,” Gloria offered. “On me.”

“On you?”

Gloria feigned nonchalance. “I do alright for myself.”

Barbie laughed, probably harder than the joke deserved. “Skittles?”

“I think I can swing skittles,” Gloria tried to pull off a wink, nodding up at the bleachers. “Have a seat, I’ll—,”

“Gloria, hi!”

“Victoria!” Gloria was forced to switch gears, returning the overfamiliar hug from Yasmine’s mom. Usually, there was a wave, a smile, sure…the hug was new. “I completely forgot to send that uniform fee, didn’t I…”

“Oh, so you did get my Venmo request?”

Gloria felt her face stretch to that slightly disconcerting PTA smile that all mothers must be genetically predisposed to. “I did, yes, thanks for sending that over.”

“No problem, it’s what I do.”

“And you do it so well, really…anyway, I hope Yasmine has a great game! We should—,”

“Who’s this?” Victoria asked, eyebrows raised, eyes on Barbie, obviously.  

“Oh, um—,”

“I’m Barbie!”

“This is Barbie,” Gloria introduced her, hand sliding to Barbie’s lower back seemingly of its own accord. “Barbie Handler.”

“Barbie Handler as in…” Victoria’s eyes drifted to the gym’s far wall as she trailed off, Gloria and Barbie turning to behold the Gatorade ad featuring Barbie and Ken that had been plastered there.

“It’s not to scale,” Barbie explained like maybe the real her was a disappointment. “Obviously, I’m much shorter in person.”

“Right, and you two…you know each other?”

“We went to high school—,”

“We’re on a date.”

“—together.”

Victoria seemed to be struggling to square those two answers.

“We went to high school together and we’re on a date.”

Victoria blinked, Barbie blushed, Gloria pursed her lips after she’d corrected the record.

“Really?”

Barbie was the first to recover, reaching back for the hand Gloria still had pressed against her, taking it in her own. “Yep! Class of ’01, go Cougars!”

“Go Cougars,” Gloria agreed, her skin flushed now, Barbie’s hand warm and soft against her. Warm and soft with long, elegant fingers and—

“That’s…huh.” Victoria put a hand on her hip, glancing between the two. “I never would have…huh.”

“Right, well, anyway,” Gloria tried to move things along. “Barbie would like some skittles, so if you’ll excuse us—,”

“I didn’t see you on the chaperone list for next weekend,” Victoria was, evidently, hell bent on keeping them from the snack bar.

“Oh, shoot, I’d meant to—,”

Barbie’s attention had wandered elsewhere, hand slipping regrettably from Gloria’s grasp, though she didn’t blame her for wanting to opt out of this conversation. Gloria might rather watch paint dry.

“—get on that. I can seat 5. Should have opted for a 3^rd row, I guess, the salesguy was right.”

Barbie slipped the coat from her shoulders, passing it wordlessly to Gloria before making her way onto the court towards where Sasha was stretching with her teammates.

“I’ll resend the google doc.”

“OK!”

“You’ll fill it out this time?”

“You have my word, I will endeavor to fill out that google doc for you, Victoria.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gloria watched Barbie and Sasha pull away from the other girls, Sasha taking a ball with her. Victoria was completely forgotten after that, Gloria’s heart skipping a beat when Sasha tossed the ball, Barbie passing it back, their pepper beginning with simple passes back and forth before escalating to bump, set, spike.

Barbie was gentle, an obvious disparity in their skill levels but the fundamentals a common language. And even better, they were smiling. Not just Barbie, Sasha too.

“Sasha, cheat up!”

Barbie was all business once the game started, and Gloria was…she was engaged, but…distracted. By Barbie’s…everything. Her smell, her touch, her…presence. She remembered this Barbie, her intensity, her focus. Gloria remembered her encouraging smile and the way her pale chest would flush with exertion. The strand of hair that would always rebel from her ponytail, frame her face. The squeal of excitement, the arm around her shoulders, the hand on her ass. The—

“Shift left!” Barbie shouted, almost frantic. “Gloria, it’s gonna drop right behind the attack line. They’re not—,”

“It’s a floater, Sasha, split the difference!” Gloria piled on, worried her lower lip between her teeth, trying to shake herself from memory lane as the opposing server prepared, waiting for the referee to blow the whistle and signal for play to start. “She’s about to learn the hard way.”

Serve was up and…yep. Left sideline, in the nebulous space between the back row and the front line. Ace.

“That’s OK, guys!” Barbie was quick to encourage. “You’ll be ready for it next time!”

Sasha’s team gathered to offer a few resigned high fives before returning to their positions, Sasha sparing a quick glance up at the bleachers and…shuffling forward a few steps, settling into her serve receive stance and waiting for the next one.

“Atta girl, Sash,” Gloria muttered, Barbie’s eyes wide beside her, hands clasped beneath her chin. “Yep, that’s it!” The serve was delivered to center court this time, and Sasha was in perfect position, making an easy pass to her setter.

“Yes! Yes—Outside! Push to the—yes!” Barbie clapped as the kill was tallied, turning to Gloria with a blinding grin, absolutely exhilarated by this 14U Volleyball game. “Who’s the outside hitter? She needs to snap her wrist a little harder but she’s got a lot of natural talent! We’ll see what happens with her height, I hope she—what?”

Gloria realized she’d been floating somewhere above her body, eyes glazed over, sick with nostalgia and a need she couldn’t quite put a name to. Realization, regret—so many years lost, so much life experienced without this, without…her.

The teeth disappeared from Barbie’s smile. “What is it?”

“You,” Gloria replied. “I missed you.”

“Oh.” Barbie blushed, looking away.

Gloria watched her all through the next rally, unabashedly. Because she could. Because she’d spent so long pretending that she wasn’t.

When Gloria finally did turn back to the action, she felt Barbie’s attention shift, and just before it was Sasha’s turn to serve, Barbie learned forward, craning her neck to press a kiss to Gloria’s lips. It was brief, chaste—heart wrenching. Gloria had never been kissed with so much innocence, so much…promise.

Barbie’s cheeks were tinged pink when she retreated, biting her lip to hide a giddy, adolescent smile, eyes pointed firmly at the floor. And Gloria was floating again. Silently, she reached for Barbie’s hand, lacing their fingers together and resting her head against Barbie’s shoulder, eyes slipping closed until the whistle blew.

Chapter Text

Barbie was already crying when she got home, first one tear and then a whole bunch.

Ken put the car in park, the two sitting silently like that, Barbie crying, Ken staring out the window until he was eventually brave enough to turn to her.

“Are you alright, Barbie?”

She sniffed, wiping at her cheek. “I don’t think so, Ken. I might—I think I might be broken.”

“Oh.” He frowned, turning that possibility over in his head. “Do you…maybe wanna talk to mom about it?”

“I guess I have to.”

“Are you too broken to go inside? We can sit in the car a little longer, it's chill.”

Barbie shook her head and reached for her bag, but Ken stopped her.

“I can carry it, it’s OK.”

Gratefully, Barbie nodded, crying harder now because her brother was being so nice and she was too marble mouthed from the tears to say thank you. Instead, she slinked out of the car, closing the door behind her with a dejected click and trudging into the house.

“Barbie, is that you?” Ruth called from the kitchen.

“Yes!” Barbie sobbed, burying her face in her hands to blindly run up the stairs, stomping through the hallway on the way to her bedroom and eventually ending up in a heap amongst her pink pillows. The ones that, regrettably, no longer smelled like Gloria.

She waited for a minute or two, alone, the world falling apart around her. Everything awful and sad and lonely. Eventually, Barbie heard the front door open again and a muffled conversation take place, and then there were footsteps on the stairs—her mom’s, she could tell because they were normal steps and not, like, bounds. Ken always bounded.

At the tentative knock, Barbie turned onto her stomach, burying her face in the bedding, staining it with the remnants of the mascara Gloria had put on her that morning because that was their thing now just like Closer to Fine was their song.

“Barbie?”

“Oh, hi, Mom. Nice to see you.”

“Is it?”

“We won the tournament, isn’t that great?”

“Well, yes, Barbie, that is great…but what’s all this about?”

Barbie shifted onto her cheek, finding her mom lingering by the still open door. “I’ll be OK. It’s just, that, life might be terrible, I’m not sure.”

With a subtle nod, Ruth reached back to close the bedroom. “Ken told me you think you’re broken? Why’s that, Sweetheart?” it was quieter now, somehow. Just the two of them and the bird whistling outside Barbie’s window. It lifted some of the weight from her chest.

“Nothing too major.”

Laughing just a little, Ruth crossed the room to sit down on Barbie’s bed, reaching out to take her daughter’s hand. “Does it have anything to do with that girl?”

Barbie’s eyes widened in alarm.

Her mom seemed to take that as confirmation. “The one you’re learning Spanish for, right? Gloria, is it?”

“You know about that?”

“You aren’t exactly subtle, dear.” Ruth brushed the bangs away from Barbie’s eyes, encouraging her to sit up against the headboard. Barbie obeyed; limbs pliable. “What happened?”

“Nothing!” Barbie insisted, speaking with her hands. “She’s just—she makes—it hurts to be around her, it—my feelings are too big! They don’t all fit in my body! I think I’m, like, defective, I mean it!”

Again, Ruth laughed, tossing her head back this time. “Well alright, let’s hear your other symptoms.”

“All the same as in the books and movies and stuff, but…bigger! Worse!” Barbie was quick to report. “And there’s so many ways it can go wrong, Mom. More ways than it can go right.”

“You might be right about that,” Ruth agreed, to Barbie’s utter dismay. “Have you talked with her about it?”

“About how I only exist within the warmth of her gaze?! No, mom, that’s so embarrassing!”

“It’s true! Love is embarrassing, Barbie.”

Barbie grabbed a pillow to hug to her chest. “And what if she says no? What if she doesn’t like me back? Then I’ve failed, mom. I’ve never—I’ve never failed before.”

“Oh, honey…” Ruth rested a hand on Barbie’s knee, thumb rubbing a soothing pattern. “That’s life. You’ll have to fail eventually, everyone does.”

Barbie slammed her eyes shut, shook her head. “Everything else, I can…if I just put the effort in, if I just work hard I can—there’s no—I don’t like independent variables.”

Ruth sighed. “Barbie, I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“A few years ago, I had a talk with your brother about this and it was an…oversight, on my part, not including you.” Ruth took Barbie’s face in her hands, forcing her daughter to look at her. “Women are not variables. They're not objects. They do not owe us anything—their time, their attention, their affection…and that has to be OK with you.”

“It is, Mom, of course it is. I’m a woman. I love women.”

“Good,” Ruth smiled, kindly. “But Gloria isn’t an achievement, honey. She’s not a trophy that you’ll put on your shelf after you’ve won her over. She’s a living, breathing human being with her own thoughts and feelings and maybe she feels just the same about you as you feel about her, who knows? You won’t, until you ask her. But that’s all you can do, and you have to be ready to live a life that’s different than the one you planned if she says no, or live a life without her at all.”

Barbie sniffed. “I know, that’s why it’s so hard to ask. I don’t—I don’t want anything to change.”

“But she makes you feel alive,” Ruth reminded her. “And isn’t that wonderful?”

Barbie was quiet for a while, finding a shadow on the wall that danced with the sunlight, letting everything wash over her. All the hope, all the awful implications. “I’m not ready,” she decided, eventually. “To fail. I’m not…I can’t.”

“That’s your choice,” Ruth said, and Barbie didn’t miss the disappointment in her tone. That was new, and it hurt, too. “But you may find yourself regretting it.”

/

“You were great!” Gloria squeezed, tight, because this was so rare. The hug, the smile, the joy, all of it. “I’m so proud of you, Sasha, really.”

“Thanks, mom,” Sasha mumbled, pressed into Gloria, not quite ready to let go, it seemed. “Did you see that dig in the 2^nd set?”

“Yes! Sasha, that was incredible.”

When she did eventually pull away, Sasha was still smiling, light and happy, high on that particular adrenaline that comes with a win. Her eyes found Barbie next, who’d been standing off to the side, letting them have their moment. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting me!” Barbie parried back. “You’re such an effective communicator out there, it’s really impressive to watch. Takes a lot of confidence to govern the backline.”

“Guess I got it from my mom,” Sasha said, a knee jerk (honest) response that she immediately seemed embarrassed of, but…too late! It was out in the world! Gloria had heard it, Barbie was a witness.

“Totally,” Barbie agreed, bailing her out, she and Gloria finding each other over Sasha’s head, sharing a smile that was just for them. “Did you, um—are you two hungry? I could buy you a burger, maybe, Sasha. There’s this spot your mom and I would go after home games that I think is still open, I have some notes on—,”

“I’m going to Jade’s,” Sasha interrupted, something like an apology in her tone. “Sorry, team bonding stuff. But you guys could go, I guess.” She nodded between them. “I’m a vegetarian, anyway. As of yesterday. Just something new I'm trying out.”

“Oh, right! OK, no worries. Next time!”

Sasha’s smirk was less than subtle, her cheeks still flushed, and not from the volleyball game. “Yeah, OK. Next time.”

The silence stretched, eyes wandered, Sasha cleared her throat. It was Gloria’s turn to talk, but she was a little preoccupied living out a fantasy that hadn’t even seemed like something worth dreaming about a week ago, a wistful smile on her face, about two seconds from floating towards Sasha and Barbie like they were two parts of a cartoon pie.

…what the hell am I talking about?

“Sleepover?”

“What?”

“Sorry.” Gloria physically shook her head to clear the daze. “You’re sleeping over, right?”

“Yeah,” Sasha confirmed. “Are you good?”

“I’ve quite possibly never been better.”

Sasha’s dark eyes narrowed at her, appraising. “Sure, whatever you say. Um, have fun, I guess.” She took a step towards Barbie, hesitating for a moment, Barbie’s head tilting ever so slightly in curiosity as she watched Sasha fight some internal battle…and then Sasha reached out with one arm, wrapping it around Barbie’s waist and squeezing briefly, an awkward side hug. “Bye.”

She scurried away after that, leaving both Barbie and Gloria reeling, neither prepared to process the monumental happening. The side hug of 2023. A moment in time, in human history.

“Wow,” Gloria breathed, beholding Barbie anew, again. Barbie Handler, Sasha whisperer. “She—you—that was—”

“That was—that was good, right?”

“Lives were changed,” Gloria told her. “Mine, in particular.”

Barbie laughed at that, the sound a little shrill, laced with disbelief and some other cheerfully infectious cocktail of delight. “Are you hungry?”

Gloria licked her lips, trying to keep her attention on Barbie’s face and not the flush that had spread down her neck. “I could eat.”

They walked hand in hand out to the parking lot, Gloria’s chest up, shoulders back, ignoring the outside attention as best she could—wrapped up in Barbie’s warmth, in her smell, in the way she bumped their shoulders playfully together every so often, just wanting to feel close.

Rather than heading straight to the passenger seat, Barbie slowed her walk as they approached Gloria’s car, dropping her hand and circling around to the front end. She crouched, hand running over the scrape her bumper had caused.

“This is a little worse than I remember.”

Gloria wasn’t looking at the scrape. Actually, she couldn’t care less.

Barbie stood, hands on her hips, Birkenstock clad foot tapping on the pavement. “I think the shop that painted Ken’s Jeep does bodywork.”

“Mm, really?” Gloria listened less than carefully, entranced by how Barbie’s golden hair seemed to absorb the sunlight.

Barbie nodded, turning to face her. “Yeah, I can—,”

Gloria’s hands were suddenly fisting in Barbie’s jacket, slamming her back against the car, the kiss almost feral—wet and wanting and open mouthed. She didn’t miss Barbie’s gasp of surprise or the whimper that came afterwards, Barbie kissing her back with the same fervor, hands sliding up Gloria’s body to tangle in her hair, keeping her close, nearly sucking on Gloria’s tongue when she—

“Oh my god, Mom!”

They sprung apart, watching in hormone addled confusion as Sasha rolled by, horrified expression framed by the open window of Jade’s car.

“I’m calling the police!”

Chapter Text

Gloria scanned the mass of powder blue gowns, hoping she hadn’t missed her. Barbie Handler probably had a million better places to be than milling about on the school’s football field after they’d all thrown their caps, officially high school graduates. She’d gone to USD on early enrollment after volleyball season had ended, a quick hug on the quad their only real goodbye. Not that Gloria deserved more than that. They’d been close…teammates, and now that was over, the team disbanded, and Barbie had clearly come to her senses, realized how many rungs there were between them on the social ladder and moved on to bigger and better things. Gloria wasn’t uncool, per say, she understood she’d been a varsity athlete and that put her in a certain tier, but Barbie was from another planet, simple as that.

They weren’t meant to last, the drift had been inevitable, Gloria just…hadn’t expected it to hurt quite this much.

Finally, somewhere between all the “felicidades!”, Gloria spotted her, a head of blonde hair above the rest, she and Ken shining like sun gods among mere mortals. “Por favor discúlpeme un momento,” she told her family, distractedly, already starting in that direction. “Barbie, hey!”

In an odd reaction, Gloria watched Barbie stiffen before turning to her, like she was bracing herself for something unpleasant. She faltered, slightly, slowing her approach…but when Barbie did turn, she was wearing her typical picture perfect smile.

“Gloria, hi!”

“I, um…” Gloria felt a bit self-conscious with Ken and Mrs. Handler there, watching, she hoped she wasn’t interrupting anything. “Will you sign my yearbook?”

“Of course!” Barbie agreed, reaching for the book as Gloria held it out to her, the exchange met with a sigh from Mrs. Handler.

“I figure, since you’ll probably be an Olympian and stuff, I should get your autograph now, before I have to pay,” Gloria tried cracking a joke, it made Barbie smile but not laugh.

“Do you have a pen?”

Mrs. Handler produced one from her purse before Gloria could stutter out a no, handing it to her daughter with a pointed look.

Barbie gripped both the pen and the yearbook like a lifeline, writing two words before pausing.

“I’m glad they let you come back for graduation, wouldn’t have been the same without you,” Gloria filled the silence. “Is college ball a totally different speed?”

Barbie swallowed, nodded, scribbling out the rest of her message before closing the book and handing it back to her. “It is, yeah. I miss everyone.”

Gloria smiled at that. “Are you going to be in town long?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh…”

Barbie pursed her lips, avoiding her mom’s gaze. “I love…what you did with your hair.”

Gloria’s smile widened to a grin as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling her cheeks warm at the compliment. Getting a compliment from Barbie Handler was basically like winning the lottery. Except for…not rare, because she complimented everybody all the time. Didn’t make Gloria special, but it did feel nice. “You’re wearing makeup,” she noticed.

Barbie laughed, a little nervously, maybe. “You’re a good teacher.”

Gloria had to look down at her feet before she could meet her eyes again. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

“I hope so,” Barbie said. And then, shakily, “Espero que pases un buen Verano.”

“Igualmente!” Gloria laughed, a little confused, but…charmed.

Later, after Mrs. Handler had taken Barbie by the hand and led she and Ken away, Gloria opened her yearbook to the page Barbie had signed, reading over and back over her message.

I regret not knowing you better.

<3 Barbie

/

Barbie found herself back peddling, 20 years of near Olympic level footwork leaving her somehow unprepared for this moment, her fingers and feet refusing to work in tandem as she fumbled with the buttons of Gloria’s blouse.

She was being pushed backwards by an insistent force, Gloria leading the charge, sending Barbie stumbling towards the couch. Eventually, the backs of Barbie’s knees hit something soft and buckled, Barbie collapsing with a gasp, mourning the loss of Gloria’s lips for the excruciating stretch of milliseconds before Gloria climbed on top of her.

Barbie moaned into Gloria’s mouth when she found it back against her, searching blindly for the blouse’s final button, which she…maybe…ripped? A shot of guilt ran through her, and Barbie used the hand she’d tangled in Gloria's gorgeous hair to pull her back, still only a breath apart, the concept of any greater distance too painful to consider.

“I’m sorry, I think I—your blouse—,”

“I don’t care,” Gloria assured her, diving into Barbie’s neck this time, tongue and teeth working against sensitive skin. Barbie was positive it was 1 million degrees in Gloria’s house, her skin flushed, heartrate erratic, and all they’d done was—well….

Gloria’s hips were moving against her now, and Barbie whined at the feeling, her hands gripping Gloria’s waist, encouraging her nearly desperate rhythm before her brain could catch up, before she could consider if this was all moving too fast…

There was a sexy rasp to Gloria’s voice when she said, “Maybe we should—,” and in that moment, Barbie knew they shouldn’t. Whatever it was, whatever was going to stop this…no. 22 years was too long.

She tried to work the blazer off her shoulders, Gloria abandoning her protest mid-sentence to try and help. They got it to Barbie’s elbows before she attempted launching forward, fingers itching at the loss of Gloria’s warm skin beneath her nails.

…but her arms were still trapped, so it ended up a sort’ve awkward jolt that made Barbie blush perhaps the deepest shade of pink she’d ever been.

Gloria laughed, the sound light and breezy, charmed. Barbie wanted to bathe in it, positive distilling Gloria’s laugh to a liquid would be akin to manufacturing ambrosia.

“Here,” Gloria was smiling, already sounding out of breath as she focused what attention she could towards freeing Barbie’s hands, which found Gloria’s ass as soon as they were able, squeezing through the taut fabric of her pants.

The rhythm began anew, hips rolling against Barbie’s stomach, aided by Barbie’s groping hands. Gloria whimpered, hand finding the back of Barbie’s head, pressing her down, pressing her closer. Barbie understood enough to push away the fabric of Gloria’s once impeccably pressed blouse, revealing the lacy bra that Barbie shuddered at just the sight of. Let alone the feel. Let alone the soft, warm skin that lay beneath, freed by a hasty tug.

Barbie’s mouth watered. She dipped her head, sucking without hesitation, one hand falling back to Gloria’s ass, the other kneading at what she couldn’t taste.

“Oh—Oh, Barbie,” Gloria breathed, hand tangling in Barbie’s hair now, keeping her close. “That’s—you’re so—oh!—good girl, my perfect girl…”

Barbie’s eyes rolled back in her head; her jeans so very uncomfortable now.

“Wait, we—Barbie, wait,” Gloria was laughing again, breathless, this time, hips never stopping, only slowing. “Let’s—I have a bed, it’s—I made it this morning.”

Barbie shook her head, her lips brushing against Gloria’s straining nipple, the one still moist with her saliva. “I think I have to have you now.”

“You think?”

“I might combust, I mean it.”

Gloria’s laugh was longer, louder, and she sat back, biting at her lip once the joke was over. “All this time, and you can’t bring yourself to wait another 30 seconds?”

“I want to—to—you,” Barbie tried to hone her thought process to a single frequency, her mind too busy, body too preoccupied to translate. “Te deseo…” but that wasn’t enough, it wasn’t—, “Quiero ser tuya.” Barbie watched Gloria’s eyes darken, her breathing change, chest rising and falling in a new rhythm. The silence stretched—thick, heavy—for how long, Barbie wasn’t quite sure. “Gloria?”

Gloria didn’t speak, but she did stand, feet finding the floor one at a time. “Come here,” she encouraged, finally, quelling Barbie’s sudden tidal wave of debilitating fear, failure an unlikely outcome but not entirely impossible. Gloria held her hands out, helping Barbie up off the couch. Barbie didn’t let go, even once they’d started walking.

As advertised, the bed was made, the comforter a soothing periwinkle color, the walls a bright white, curtains a little dated…

Barbie liked Gloria’s bedroom very much. Liked the flowers on the bedside table, the yellow lampshade, the pictures of Sasha that lined the walls—the…

She stopped; Gloria’s hand pulled from her grasp by the change in momentum.

There was a desk in the corner, one stacked high with paper, pencils, a pair of reading glasses perched precariously atop—

“Is that me?”

“Hm?”

Barbie reached for the sketchbook, carefully setting the glasses aside, and now it was Gloria’s turn to stop, to freeze.

“Oh that’s—uh—that’s nothing, I was just—well, I…I swore I put that away.”

Mesmerized, Barbie smiled at the likeness, fingers brushing over the #10 drawn onto her chest. “You drew this?”

“Um,” Gloria’s laugh was self-conscious. She blushed, hands twisting. “Yeah. Is that—it’s weird, I know. It wasn’t—you weren’t supposed to see.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t—I don’t want you thinking I’m, you know, obsessed with you or something.”

Barbie frowned. “Do you have more?”

“More…?”

“Of these,” Barbie indicated the drawing.

Gloria’s face fell, her shoulders suddenly heavy, eye contact wavering. “If I say yes, are you going to leave?”

Barbie shook her head.

It took a moment for Gloria to accept that answer, to trust her. but eventually, she said, “Just the ones from high school. I hadn’t—I hadn’t drawn you in a long time, before the, uh, fender bender.”

Realization struck, and Barbie flipped to the next page in the sketchbook, finding Class President Barbie, and then, Valedictorian Barbie. “This Barbie’s a prom queen!” and “This Barbie won a State Championship!”

“This Barbie needed a ride home from practice and borrowed my Indigo Girls CD”, was less refined, but Barbie saw herself there clear as day, smiling in the passenger seat of Gloria’s dad’s truck. “This Barbie doesn’t know how to apply mascara because she just looks like that”, Vending Machine Hero Barbie and—,

Barbie closed the book’s cover, eyes filling with tears, and Gloria’s demeanor changed, from cautious hope to something more panicked.

“Please, Barbie, let me explain, I—,”

Barbie plopped down onto the bed, overcome, suddenly, burying her face in her hands. “Gloria…”

“What is it?” Gloria dropped to her knees in front of her, hands tentatively resting on Barbie’s thighs, thumbs rubbing a soothing pattern. “What’s wrong?”

“This is all my fault!”

“Your f—your fault?”

Gloria’s brow was furrowed when Barbie peaked between her fingers, fat tears sliding through the crevices.

“Yes! I was so scared, Gloria, I—I took this from us.”

“Honey, I don’t—I’m not sure what you mean,” Gloria admitted, taking Barbie’s hands now, gently guiding them away. “Took what?”

“Everything, you and me, all the years that could have been in between.”

“Barbie…”

“I had such a big crush on you!”

Gloria blinked, she laughed, but it sounded surprised, not humored, really. “Seriously?”

“Yes!” Barbie insisted, squeezing her hands. “Of course! And I didn’t want to fail so I didn’t try, but in doing that I failed anyway because—because you drew me like you loved me, and I—I didn’t have 10,000 hours, my Spanish wasn’t perfect, my—,”

“Your Spanish?”

This is going to sound so stupid, Barbie realized. “I thought—I didn’t—” Barbie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, tried to organize her thoughts. “I didn’t want us to be lost in translation.”

Gloria sat back on her heels, hands falling away.

“None of this is sexy.”

“Um, I’d beg to differ.”

Barbie allowed herself a watery laugh.

“You learned Spanish…for me?”

“Yes! And I kept myself up at night, tossing and turning and touching myself thinking about—I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Um…”

“Oh my god, this is what I mean, see?! I’m almost 40 and still can’t get this right. And the worst part is, I’m pretty sure we’re soulmates or something! Inextricably linked! How else can you explain the car crash? And—shit—I’m just now realizing I shouldn’t have said that either!”

“Barbie, take your clothes off.”

Barbie blinked. “What?”

“Take your clothes off,” Gloria repeated, standing. “The prettiest girl on the planet telling me she’s been touching herself to my memory for 22 years and that we’re soulmates is actually the hottest thing that’s ever happened to a human woman, so please take your clothes off before I combust.”

“Oh, um,” Barbie sniffed, wiping at her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Gloria surged forward, cradling Barbie’s face in her hands, her lips more tender now than in the living room, than pressed against the car, but no less insistent, no less hungry. She wrapped her hands in the hem of Barbie’s t-shirt, pulling it over her head and tossing it aside, then worked blindly at the button of Barbie’s jeans, encouraging her to stand once the zipper was down.

“It wasn’t, like, the whole 22 years,” Barbie felt the need to clarify. “Or not, like, every night, I mean. I only said your name a couple of times, only in high school. After that it was more like the shape of you—the concept, you know?”

“Sure, yeah,” Gloria nodded distractedly, stripping the denim from Barbie’s legs, leaving her in the pink panties she’d worn hoping the day would lead here. Admittedly, there’d been less tears in the here she’d visualized. “Can’t believe you have pink Birkenstocks…”

“I’m nothing if not committed to a theme.”

Gloria smiled, twisting her fingers in the waistband of her panties, using the fabric to pull Barbie tight against her. Barbie moaned at the sensation, the proximity—loud, probably too loud. Gloria didn’t seem to mind.

She laced her hands around the back of Barbie’s neck, pulling her down for a kiss that felt like a promise, tongue slipping into Barbie’s mouth, tasting, taking what she pleased. Barbie shivered with need, with desire, with—

There was a hand on her heart and Barbie was being pushed back onto the bed, Gloria taking the time to strip off her own pants before climbing after her, on top of her, skin slipping, sliding, so soft, so…real.

“I hope the real thing doesn’t disappoint,” Gloria whispered against her like she knew, dragging her lips up Barbie’s neck, the need for reassurance easy to decipher.

“Better,” Barbie murmured. “Already better.” She felt Gloria’s smile, and let herself relax, relieved she’d managed to say at least one thing right.  

“I didn’t know I was allowed to love you,” Gloria told her, sliding down Barbie’s body, marking beach tanned skin with nips and bruises, watching the imperfections bloom beneath her. “You were—Barbie, you were everything. I was just…Gloria.”

Barbie propped herself up on her elbows, watching as Gloria spread her legs apart, leaving her wet and open, as she pressed her face to the crook of Barbie’s thigh and inhaled. “You were Gloria, not just. What’s better than that?”

“You felt so high,” she said, slipping her finger beneath the seam of Barbie’s panties and moving them aside, licking through her wetness without hesitation, dipping inside of her, first with her tongue and then a finger—two fingers, neither causing her any trouble. Barbie’s back arched and Gloria paused, waited before she curled or pressed, until Barbie came back down to earth, until she found her. “Barbie…”

“Yes?”

“Can I have you?”

Barbie’s heart stilled in her chest, everything in her world, her universe, coalescing to a single point in time, a single—

“I do.”

“What?”

Barbie could hear the record scratch.

“Pienso en besar mujeres.”

“Same?” Gloria tried, bewildered, lips wet with her essence, with her slick and her spit, the sexiest possible sheen.

Barbie grinned, entirely taken with the image. “Just thought you should know.”

“Well there were—I picked up on the context clues, somewhere between here and the couch.”

“You’re incredible,” Barbie meant it.

“Thank you, honey. Is it OK if I…”

“Fuck me? Oh, yes, please,” Barbie’s head bobbed with a nod.

Gloria refocused, pressing a kiss where she was wettest, and then higher, suckling at—

“You’ve got this.”

“Barbie…”

“You’re doing so well already.”

“Honey?”

“Hm?”

“Be a good girl for…” Gloria squinted, considered, tongue flicking out to lick her lips clean as she deliberated. “…Mommy, and lay back, alright? We can do the team sports thing later.”

Barbie had always been coachable.

That’s probably why her head hit the pillow so fast.

Probably.