Everybody Else But Me!

Hmm, should you hang the garlands higher? Or maybe lower? No. That looks ridiculous now. 

Maybe a little off to the side... 

BZZZT. BZZZT. 

Your intercom screeches as you struggle to barely stick the last of your decorations in place, barely hanging from the armchair of your black leather couch. It takes a miracle for you to not concuss yourself on your living room floor when you lose your balance. 

BZZZT. BZZZT.  

The intercom screen flares to life as it screams into your ears again, and you have to take a moment, making sure your brain is done rattling around in your head. My god, you hate the sound of that thing. You smooth out the back of your hair, and straighten out the fabric of your black pajama shirt as you approach your long awaited guests. 

Cups and dishes are cleaned, floor sweeped, and the decorations you’ve picked out last second hang haphazardly about the walls and stairs. Your house is so clean you can practically see it gleam and sparkle. It was almost as if you never had a mental rut in the first place. Which is what you want people to think. Especially Barbie. 

“Maybe you should go throw something at Raquelle’s window again,” a voice says on the other side. You recognise it as Teresa’s, soon followed by the equally familiar voice of Nikki, “Girl, you do it.”

“She’d break the window,” another voice says and you can tell it’s Summer. 

You throw your double doors wide open. And Barbie’s standing front and centre, captain of the pajama club, on account of everyone being in their sleepwear - everyone being Barbie, Nikki, Teresa, Midge, and Ms. Hulme Sporting Goods herself. All eyes are fixed on you.

Just before you can greet everyone with a big and loud Raquelle styled welcome, an equally and competitively big and loud boom crackles overhead. 

Everyone yells out in surprise as a flash of bright blue light washes over the suburb. 

“What the hell was that?!” Summer says and looks towards Barbie’s house, across from where the sound came from. “Oh oh, fireworks!” Teresa bounds up and down in excitement. 

You hear Ken call out a distant “sorry!” from Barbie’s backyard. 

“Don’t mind that,” Barbie waves dismissively, “it’s for one of Stacie’s projects. Ken’s helping out - something about a dirt bike rally and a grand finale.” She makes her way inside, followed by Summer who rolls past the doorway in her quad skates. Teresa kicks off her sneakers before entering your house, putting them by the doorway, she flashes you an excitable smile. 

Nikki walks in with a duffle bag slung from her shoulder. She peers into the house and pats you approvingly on the shoulder. “You have no idea how happy I am that your house doesn’t smell like a wet dog anymore.” 

You give her a tight smile, but deep down you’re thankful for Nikki’s patience lately.

Midge is the last in and everyone sets up in your living room upstairs. A bed of mattresses and rolling waves of dark duvets, you’ve even thrown in a few large stuffed animals to complete the sleepover vibe quota. You might have pulled every tip and trick those ‘slumber party articles’ have suggested. It’s not often Raquelle hosts a sleepover - Poolside, beach, karaoke parties were all easy to handle for you, but this was a different ballpark. 

“Welcome to Raqqqqqqquelle’s chic chateau slumber party extravaganza everyone! The honor is yours, I’m sure.” 

💌

“Hang on, hang on,” Midge massages her temple as she tries her best to listen to the instructions of the game. “Hide and seek, I tooootally get -  I was one of the best back home. But I don’t understand how you can play it in reverse.” 

You roll your eyes. “It’s really not that hard to understand.” 

“Oh, It'll be fantabulous! One person hides, everyone splits up to find them. And when you do find the person hiding you have to hide and move around with them,” Barbie explains, while Midge nods slowly along. 

“Game ends when the last person standing finds everyone else.” You finish. 

Summer, having had enough of waiting, claps her hands together, “I’m sure she’ll get it as we play.” But you don’t take Midge as ‘as you go’ learner and more of a ‘fifty how-to manuals’ learner - and probably consider those fifty manuals light reading.

The game starts, and everyone draws straws to determine who will hide first. 

First round goes off smoothly… enough - about as smooth as skating over bricks. Summer’s hiding was so good that it took nearly twenty minutes for someone to find her. You eventually discover the sardine chain because no one was able to keep up with Summer switching places every second. 

At the start of the second round, you draw the short end of the stick and have to go hide. 

Your first thought is the closet, but yours is nowhere near as big as Barbies so you drop that idea. Your next brilliant idea was the balcony, where you could try to climb the shingles of your roof and hide out - but you’d rather not put yourself in a life or death situation. 

You race down the stairs into the basement where your laundry room is. You figure it's a good spot. The door that leads down blends in with the wall you can barely tell it’s there. It’s a spacious white room - washing machine, drier, sink, and an island counter in the middle. A number of expensive fabrics with patterns as intricate as they are tacky pop out from their shelves. As soon as you lean on the door, the smell of lily softener hits you like a department store perfume section. 

Around the corner at the back is where you keep (or hoard) your old clothes in a walk-in much smaller than your own upstairs. You suppose if anyone were to find you, it would be a comfortable spot. Unlike Summer, you aren’t about to sweat it out hiding in every nook and cranny of your house. 

When you settle inside the walk-in, the sounds from outside get swallowed up, and it’s apparent that you’ve never really paid much attention to anything in here for years. There were a number of old shirts and dresses lying around. A lilac prom dress hanging in a plastic sleeve seems to stare at you from it’s resting place, peeking out between two oversized black coats you’ve left to gather dust. It wasn’t like prom was earth shatteringly horrible , but it doesn’t really bring you much joy when you look at it. It’s just some out of style garb, a relic of old times. 

Three, maybe five minutes pass by and you’ve busied yourself with refolding a pile of old vacation shirts in one of the shelves. 

Pick up, fold, pile. Pick up, fold, pile. You're entranced by the monotony if you don’t notice Barbie show up out of the blue and frighten the crap out of you. Seriously, how many times is she going to do that? 

Barbie picks up the shirt you dropped to the floor. “Sorry, Raquelle. Didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“You wish, Barbs. Like you could scare me.” You throw your hand on your hip and give her a signature Raquelle eye roll. 

“Right, of course. No one can scare the great Raquelle .” She looks at you curiously and breathes out a laugh, “except that time a tarantula crawled into your villa and you had to get Ryan, Ken, and then me to take care of it.”

You shudder at the thought, truly one of your lower moments in life. “I should never have gone to that state park wildlife photoshoot.” 

“Well, mother nature always seems to be attracted to you,” Barbie neatly folds the shirt away and tucks it back into the shelf. 

“Oh, wow. It’s been ages since I’ve seen you wear this.” She parts the coats away from your prom dress - the embellishments of diamonds across the open shoulder shine slightly under your fluorescent lights. It’s nothing compared to when you wore it out during evening dinner. 

“Hey Barbie, how’d you know I’d be down here?” You ask and it pops the silence that had settled while Barbie was admiring your dress. She half shrugs. “You always seem to go downstairs, or somewhere nice and quiet, just like Blissa.” You roll your eyes at her. But there are worse things to be compared to than a cute, fluffy, dangerous white cat. 

Thud.

You swear whoever was bumping around upstairs just knocked one of the paintings off the wall. You lock eyes with Barbie and just start making whatever faces to convey your panic. 

“Ope, my bad.” The laundry room door opens up with a click. “Hello?” Midge whisperers out into the room. 

Barbie grabs a bath towel from the rack and pulls you into a small space next to the shelves. Quietly, you both crouch and the towel unfurls over you both just before Midge turns the corner. You can see her shadow cast into the closet from the lights in the main room. 

You hold your breath. After a few seconds pass, things seem to go your way and Midge starts to walk off. You think you can both almost get away with it - until a spider crawls down from the side of the towel. It takes everything in you not to lose it.

Barbie turns to see the spider amble down next to her arm. She presses her palm to your mouth just before you can even think about making a noise.

“Don’t look at it.” Barbie whispers. 

You shake your head and mumble into her palm. I can’t. 

“Then focus on me?”

You do your best to calm down. Even counting to ten as you breathe, but it’s difficult. You focus on Barbie. Not looking directly at her, but maybe at the silly little print of a cat on her shirt. And she smells just like jasmine and marigold - it does more to settle your nerves than you’d like to admit. 

“I think she’s gone,” Barbie whispers after a while. She throws the towel off and puts it outside on the island. You breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that you wouldn’t have to look at the creepy-crawly again. 

 “Uh, Raquelle. Don’t freak out, but-” 

You turn your head to your forearm where you feel a slight tickle and proceed to let the entire house know where you both were. 

💌

At the end of the night, everyone settles into the living room to watch a movie. It’s a horror about giant worms, but half way into it you start falling asleep.

You bump into Barbie’s shoulder occasionally, until she insists you can lean on her.

Time jumps forward and an explosion rumbling outside stirs you from your sleep. 

Judging by the wall of text on the flat screen the movies just finished. You can hazily make out everyone heading towards the window, but when you try to bury yourself further into the blankets, Barbie pulls you out of the duvet to join everyone. 

You stumble onto your balcony, rubbing the sleep from your eye.The bracing night air wakes you up a little bit more as you draw in a deep breath. Barbie’s still holding onto your wrist, and you can’t tell the goosebumps rising to your skin are from the cold or how warm her hand is.

The excitable silhouettes of Ken and Barbie’s sisters dance around their backyard. Their voices rise from excitement as they set off another one, you can even hear Taffy’s faint barks as she runs laps around them. 

There’s a scattering bloom of fireworks as it arches it’s way over the Dreamhouse - a dazzling combination of purples and reds. The light of the explosion peppering everyone's bodies in colourful hues. You watch Barbie tentatively, elbows anchored to the railings, cheek in palm. Your exhaustion is heavy on your shoulders. 

A cool breeze passes through in the break between and Barbie has her attention fixed to the night sky, smile wide on her face as another one crackles overhead - a florette of pink and blues reflect sharp and clear in her iris. You think the fireworks are prettier in her eyes. 

Barbie catches you looking and gives you a curious grin. “Having fun, Raquelle?” She asks and mirrors your position, leveling her gaze with you. You suppose you are, but you try not to let it show too easily. “Maybe,” you shrug.

The next thin whistle of a firework flutes overhead and explodes in an obnoxiously familiar logo - Barbie’s ponytailed side profile. A strange anger flares in your chest when you see it, but it dies down just as quickly as it disappears, leaving behind a sheer dusty cloud of pink in its wake, and you’re feeling a little weak-kneed. 

“Do you guys just have Barbie themed fireworks on hand?” Nikki asks, walking up to them. Barbie straightens out her posture and acts like it’s a totally normal thing to own. “You don’t?” She jokes, “Ken made them for some event, but we never ended up using them.” 

Midge sits upright in the lounge chair, “well, I’ve never seen such new-fangled fireworks before. That was some detailed work.” She snorts and holds up a small crochet of an exploding firework, about the size of a coaster. Summer leans in to examine the expert craftsmanship, she’s nodding with her lips pursed and brows crossed in approval.

At the end of the firework show everyone heads back in, talking amongst themselves as they begin to pick out sleeping spots. 

You think you're the last one to leave, being a bit slow on account of your sleepiness. You stretch, undoing the sores in your back from leaning over so long, and turn to see Barbie silently looking out at her house.

Her sisters wave to her as they head back inside, and Barbie waves back with a smile, but it falters when Ken waves and disappears into the Dreamhouse. She sighs. 

“Um, you okay, Barbie?” You ask, not sure why, maybe it’s your sleepy haze that’s making you a little bit more sympathetic than usual. Which is saying a lot since you usually approach any problem with a thick, dense layer of apathy. 

“I have to be,” Barbie says, but she seems unsatisfied with her own answer and tries again with a bit more energy.  “I’m fine! It’s just… I guess I don’t really want to talk about it right now.” Barbie claps her hands together and finds it in herself to smile bright again. “Sorry - let’s go back inside. This party is to cheer you up!” 

Your lips pursed together. Deep down, you finally feel a real twinge of remorse. And you’re battling with yourself as to why. “Sure, Barbie.” 

Barbie gives you a brief hug and you follow her back inside the house.

💌

The next morning is the moment you’re face to face with how fragile your sleepover plan was, and how empty your fridge is. Even with your abundance of talent and sheer skill, you couldn’t whip up a hearty breakfast for six out of one egg, a celery stick, and thin air.

But sure enough, Barbie has the solution. “To the Dreamhouse!”

💌

“I’m fine, it’s fine - I’ve got this,” you say, fiddling with the touchscreen on her new toaster - seriously, who keeps digitizing these things? Was a regular dial not enough? Your paralized by choice, scrolling through the five different ways you could have your cooked bread even more cooked. 

Barbie and Teresa hang back, not without their reservations, and watch as you scroll through images of different types of bread. When you finally pass the images of bagels and waffles and pick out ‘bread, just plain white bread’ it baffles you with another choice - select image to print. 

Teresa practically skips her way over to your side, enamored entirely by the option of printing onto food, like it’s one of life's greatest canvas. “Oh, oh! Can I choose something?” Teresa’s already on her phone sending a photo to Barbie before you can protest. You groan, because breakfast shouldn’t be this complicated. 

Bzzt. Barbie slides her phone off the kitchen counter, and opens up the photo Teresa sent her. She doesn’t show anyone and simply tilts her head to the side for a second before shrugging. The toaster hums to life a second later. Your curiosity keeps you from stopping whatever was going on, but you're regretful as soon as you see your breakfast pop out with the image of Teresa's beloved sock monkey charred onto it. 

You place it onto a plate and slip it to Teressa, to which she enthusiastically claps her hands together and takes a photo of it. “Help yourself,” you say and grimace at the toast slice. It would have felt wrong to eat it. 

Round two with the toaster proves to be a bit more successful since Barbie glides through the process for you. This time she uses a photo of her face. When it pops out, Barbie’s toasted and grooved eyes stare at you just above the rim. “Thanks,” you say plainly, dropping it onto a plate. And the pair of you continue on, choosing out different pictures for everyone, while Teresa sets up the counter with jams and fruit. 

You move onto making drinks, filling a blender with a mix of frozen berries and fruit juice. 

“Raquelle, don’t forget to -” 

“Barbs, I know how to make a smoothie.” You press the blend option and it’s too late. You forgot to put the lid on top. Barbie holds onto the base of the device as it shoots out a slurry of mixed berry on both your faces. You curse against the loud whirring of the device, trying to find the off button in the chaos. When you do, it rumbles a bit more before turning off entirely. 

Everyone stops what they’re doing - Nikki’s mid chew on her waffle slice and has her brow raised, Teresa looks almost envious at the chaos, Midge has her hands covering her mouth, and Summer stops taking a sip from her protein shake. 

You’ve grown quite used to this level of embarrassment, but there was just something irking you. Maybe it was the way Barbie assumed that you didn’t know what you were doing, or even worse, the fact that she was right.

“You forgot the lid,” Skipper says plainly as she passes by them to grab a spoon from the drawer. In her other hand is a tub of ice cream, but nobody comments on her choice of breakfast. 

Without a word you head straight for the bathroom. 

💌

The smoothie is freaking cold, leaving icy burns wherever it clings to you as it thaws. You're near trembling over the sink as the tap runs, cringing at the sight of stains on your silk dressing gown - that’ll be a pain to deal with later. 

Someone knocks at the door. You ignore it while doing your best to remove the smoothie by the scoop off your face. Most of it comes off, but your cheeks and nose have been tinged pink. 

It seems your silence wasn’t enough of a deterrent as the door opens and Barbie’s head pokes through. She doesn’t say anything at first when you look at each other in the mirror. “I brought you some clothes,” she holds them up like a peace offering. 

“Fine.” 

Barbie smiles, coming over to place them on the counter. 

When she walks over you notice that Barbie’s clothes have been hit bad by the fruit typhoon as well. Hm… what’s that feeling? Whatever it is, it feels bad. Probably guilt - whatever. 

Barbie pops open one of the cabinet doors and cradles two towels for you two, they’re both pink, fluffy, and look incredibly soft. “The heaters are already on so we can take a shower.” She passes the towel over to you. 

You don’t take it immediately, instead darting your eyes between the towels and Barbie. “Excuse me?” 

“You… don’t want to?” She asks. 

Your mind draws a blank. “I- I mean, of course I do. But -” Your hands fly around in the air, trying to replace the rest of your sentence with gestures.

Barbie’s eyes grow wide. “Oh! Did you - I mean - I’m, uh, going to the  upstairs bathroom,” she bumbles over her words and it’s not every day you see Barbie flustered. She places the towel on the counter next to the spare clothes and doesn’t look at you.

But now you can feel your embarrassment warm your ears. Since you’ve just more than just jumped to a conclusion, you tripped and fell face first to one. You swallow hard and focus your attention on the hot tub behind Barbie.

“Riiiight! The upstairs bathroom!” You practically yell. 

“Yup! Upstairs.I’ll leave you to it, you must be cold. The smoothie was pretty chilly, huh? Brrrr .” Barbie ends her ramble with a quick laugh and turns on her heels. The door slams shut, and you can hear her race up the stairs. 

You groan, burying your face into the towel.

💌

In the afternoon, you all head to the beach. 

The rift between the pale stretch of beige and deep blue ocean swallows up the landscape as you all drive down the highway. “How do you put the top down?” Nikki’s head ducks below the dashboard, patting the smooth plastic underneath. 

“That’s a violation of Malibu’s safety driving code, we have to stop the vehicle first,” Midge notes from the backseat. 

You ignore her and push a silver button just above the cup holders and the engines kick into gear. A wave of warm briney air washes into the car, everyone puts on their sunglasses as the heat of the sun shines down on them from a cloudless sky. “Ooo, bad girl,” Nikki sits back and stretches her arms out, hair shaking in the winds. 

Barbie’s car pulls up from behind, a blistering streak of hot pink, and she’s looking at you with an innocent smile - despite her putting pedal to the metal. She shifts her gears with a dull click, and begins gaining down the highway. You nearly miss the L Summer flashes you as they pass. 

Midge fastens herself in with the extra seat belt from the middle chair. “RaQuElLe! SloW dOwN, FoR - OH CriPeS.” You floor it. The black convertible jumps forward and enters a steady speed, the wheels humming. You keep an eye on the speedometer, making sure you aren’t about to run the risk of getting a speeding ticket. Nikki turns up the volume and it drowns out Midge’s voice. Now playing: GLAM! by Allie X

💌

“Holy Macrame, I’m going to be sick.” Midge climbs out the car, wobbling with her head hanging to the floor. 

“Safe to say I think we won that one.” Summer announces and high fives Teresa in the back seat. Barbie has her hand on her hip and slides her sunglasses off,tapping her chin with the tip of it. “Hmmm… I think you’re right, Summer.” And she looks at you smug. Her hair falls perfectly over her shoulders despite it being blasted through, what felt like, terminal velocity. 

Is she - What is she… was that? No, no way. 

You snort. “Get those eyes checked, girls. Team Raqqqqquelle clearly won that one.” 

Barbie holds her hand out, “tie?”

“Tie.” 

💌

The hottest part of the day has passed and the tide has creeped up the shore, settling itself higher on the beach. Everyone’s gathered by the barbeque pit after a swim, the smell of fire smoke already careening in the air. Marshmallows were passed around as dinner was roasting in tin foil packets. If you weren’t hungry before, you’re starving now. 

Water drips from your long hair. You wrap a  beach towel close to your body, fighting off the chill. 

Barbie pops a marshmallow into her mouth and gets up. “I’m going for a swim, anyone joining?”

Everyone shakes their heads, but when she keeps her eyes on you, like an expectant puppy before you throw a stick, you can’t help but give in. “No way.” But she keeps staring. “Okay, fine.”  

“Be careful!” Midge calls and you wave your hand at her. “Swimming in the dark is dangerous!” 

💌

“Isn’t a nighttime swim so romantic?” Barbie gushes and hops lightly in place as a soft current rolls past them.

You give her a half shrug, staring out towards the city too. “I guess...” You don’t give away the fact that you’re freaking out about not being able to see the bottom of where you are standing. Especially when a stray bit of seaweed slips by your ankle. It was definitely seaweed. 

You don’t know why Barbie’s asked you to come along with her. Maybe it was for company? But she could have asked practically anyone else. You’re no stranger to the fact that you are at the bottom of the ‘Barbie Friendship’ list. Yet, Barbie’s been handing you olive branches ever since you kind of lost your way. 

The odd feeling sits with you. It feels undeserved. So you focus on the reflection of dim and distant city lights, a float like small candles along the ocean. Your body moves with the current too. 

Barbie says something, her voice is small, like she expects you to not catch it. But you do. And it’s louder than the crashing of waves along the coast. “Ken’s leaving Malibu.”

💌

You stomp-speed-walk your way over to your brother's place, rushing in uninvited. Ryan’s sitting in the living room, tuning his guitar while ignoring whatever ad was playing on his flat screen. 

“He’s leaving?!” You yell making your brother clutch onto the upholstery like a cat clinging for dear life from a curtain. Then, Ken walks into the room hauling a stack of cardboard boxes. “You're LEAVING?!” 

Ken almost drops everything as soon as he hears your voice. Even though you’ve heard the confirmation from three people now, you can’t come to terms with it. Ken leaving Malibu was like the strip not having your favourite froyo shop - if the froyo shop was one you went to every day but then suddenly stopped going to for years, fond memories but now you’re just used to the shop being there. 

“Do you know how upset this is making Barbie?” You say. The memories of Barbie in tears burn hot in your mind. 

“Well, yeah.” Ken wrings the back of his neck. “It wasn’t exactly my choice to make.” 

“What do you mean by ‘not your choice’?”

“We’ve been on the mend for a while now. Technically, we split up in February but none of us really knew how to really… break up, I guess? Everything we do and have done is so involved. And then I got the engineering apprenticeship at Grace’s technology institute. It was the perfect storm.” Ken cradles the clunky dismembered car engine in his hands. “These days it’s just me, and my beloved Schlond Poofa.” 

Ryan huffs indignantly, “oh yeah, your beloved Schlond Poofa just been working so hard helping you pack.” 

“Dude, you sit more than you help.” Ken rolls his eyes and stuffs the car part into a box of styrofoam peanuts. 

They broke up back in February… That explains the impromptu ‘business’ trip to London.You had intentions to parade through the strip with your newly purchased 10 inch gogo boots while she was a guest judge at a pop up runway, but she had to decline - which was very un-Barbie like.  Asides from that, you’re quite nervous with how well Barbie’s been hiding that fact for the past few months. It barely showed during events, hangouts, presentations, whatever the hell she was involved in. Until last night at least.