Chapter Text
Gloria had been in a marriage for 17 years with a man who was her best friend, and they may not have been at their best moment in the marriage, and they may also have started to drift apart quite a bit to the point that those behaviors were starting to affect Sasha. Even so, Gloria was aware that they were both doing their part to fix things.
Richie decided (finally) try to learn Spanish and she was trying to leave work early to spend time with family (which was somewhat difficult considering her recent promotion to head of the Barbie design team), Things were going well, probably because all the problems was due to the deterioration of the relationship. No one had cheated on anyone (Gloria would never dare anything like that, she hated people who could break trust in a relationship like this) and nothing serious enough had happened to end the relationship abruptly or aggressively, after all they were still best friends.
"Ricky I'm sorry, I know today is taco Tuesday, but I must stay a little longer. A new girl arrived, and the CEO asked me personally to give her a small tour of the company, I cannot deny that" Gloria was justifying herself by the cell phone while checking the time, at any time the new employee should enter, the one she liked or not, she was going to have benefits with the boss. "I have to go, thank you for picking up Sasha today."
Gloria had heard the door open, when she turned time stopped for a few moments, a life-size Barbie was leaning on the frame of her door with blue eyes looking intensely in the direction of Gloria, a chill ran down her back and after that feeling she decided to get out of that stupid trance.
"You must be the new employee, a pleasure, I'm Gloria" Gloria approached the blonde hand hoping that she would shake it back.
"I'm Barbara, but you can tell me Barbie" the blonde returned her hand and looked a little nervous, though she hid it with a subtle friendly laugh.
"Finally, Barbie works at Mattel" Gloria tried to make a joke, but to some extent it seemed unreal and maybe that's why it sounded a little more sarcastic than she expected. A beautiful blonde with direct relationship with her boss, who was called Barbie and looked exactly as one was in front of her, her mind told her that she should be sororal with the situation, but another side of her was already making guesses, or her boss had an affair with one of the dolls that he created himself or were familiar in some way.
"Yes, it's a common joke, I'm basically a stereotypical Barbie. It's hard to convince people that I'm not an airhead" Barbie sounded nice with her statement and Gloria felt terrible about it.
"No, no, no. I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, I'm not doubting that you are fully qualified to work here or anything, I was just trying to break the ice" Actually Gloria completely doubted the blonde's abilities, the habit of living in a world dominated by the fact that a pretty face can get things much easier did not help her build a good image of how Barbie had bequeathed it there.
Finally, Gloria decided to abandon all those intrusive thoughts about Barbie and do what her boss had asked of her. The blonde didn't talk much, but she found it adorable that she was so curious and optimistic about everything she saw. Gloria felt terrible for thinking badly of Barbie, the girl was a walking sun, it was going to be nice to finally have another woman on the Barbie design team, especially if it was literally a Barbie.
"And that's all important in the company, I probably forget something because this building is huge, but you can consult me at any time if you want to know where something is" The whole tour took almost two hours and Gloria was already tired of walking around the building.
"The place is beautiful, I'm excited to start working with you, I love working with women" at the end of the sentence the blonde winked her eye which confused Gloria a bit, although she was bisexual she did not know whether to interpret that message in a feminist way or in a homosexual way, but considering that stereotypical Barbie was probably the most heterosexual being that touched the earth, She decided to take it as a feminist message.
"It's also a pleasure to work with you" While Gloria didn't wink, she felt lighter around the blonde, she was going to look at her resume and papers when she had some time at home, she wasn't sure why she didn't do it before but now she noticed it would be necessary.
Gloria arrived home after 8 p.m., greeted Richie and her daughter, and set out to spend quality time with her daughter, as much as possible.
"You decided to arrive" Sasha sounded somewhat inconsequential, although Gloria hated it, deep down she knew she couldn't blame her, between her entry into adolescence and tense moments with her father, maybe she was starting to take sides or something.
"Sorry, a new girl came into design and the boss asked me to show her the place, probably because I'm the only woman in that office, she looked nice and also her name is Barbie- Gloria could not completely get the blonde out of her head, she had accompanied her in her mind all the way home.
"No way, does she look like a Barbie? " Finally Sasha had shown some interest in something Gloria had said, which she saw as an opportunity.
"Surprisingly yes, there is probably a picture of she on her resume, do you want to see it? "that plan was killing two birds with one stone, she spent time with her daughter and reviewed Barbie's resume, deep down it was a bit scary because she feared that Sasha's real goal was to make fun of the blonde, but she was sure she had raised her as something better than that.
"I accept" Sasha settled on the sofa leaving a place next to her for her mother to sit with her laptop, which Gloria quickly did as she opened her emails looking for the one who had the resume.
"Here she is, Barbara Handler, 30 years old. Somehow in this photo she looks even more like a Barbie" It was stunning how the blonde could look so good in such a photo, no one comes out well in the presentation photos.
"She really looks like a Barbie. She didn't know that was humanly possible, who is her emergency contact number? Ken? " Sasha said it all jokingly, but Gloria had to admit that she was somewhat curious, and to her surprise, if Ken was her contact.
"There is no way, look at her contact, his name is Kenneth Carson" Gloria opened her mouth and looked at her daughter surprised.
"Mom, they hired a real Barbie, she even married Ken."
"I don't think they are married; their last names are different" Gloria continued to go down the document until she found the detail that confirmed her suspicions. "Yes, she is legally a single woman, it's probably just her boyfriend... which is still quite curious."
Reviewing the document Gloria noticed several things that made her feel worse, Barbie was fully qualified to work at Mattel, perhaps even much better than several of her male colleagues. Although she still had doubts about her relationship with the boss, maybe she was just thinking about it too much and he was just trying to be nice. Tomorrow Gloria would buy the blonde a coffee in the form of an apology, it was definitely a good idea to try to make friends with her, she looked like a good person after all.