Chapter 2

It was like watching somebody come alive, watching a ower bloom, watching a rainbow cross the sky. It was the day that C.J. discovered Barbie. He was two and a half years old. One late fall afternoon, as I was doing some cleaning, I found a boxed Barbie in the depths of my closet and tossed her on my bed. WHAT DAT?! I wobbled and nearly fell off my stepladder at C.J.s shriek. Its Barbie, I said, regaining my balance. This particular Barbie was pretty fabulous. It was Mattels 50th Anniversary Bathing Suit Barbie. She was a modernized version of the original 1959 doll, with a two-piece, black-andwhite bikini trimmed with her signature color pink; pink hoop earrings; a long blonde ponytail; and a pink cell phone. I want to open she! C.J. declared. He held the box as he jumped up and down, up and down, up and down. Im sure he gave Barbie a concussion. I hesitated. I had been trained well by my mother; you dont open a boxed Barbie if you can at all help it. I was a little annoyed; I was going to open the box and take Barbie out, and my son

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was going to play with her for a few seconds and move on to something else bright and shiny. Then Id be left with a depreciated piece of plastic. But his face, his sweet excited face could convince me to do worse things. We opened her. In that instant, our lives changed forever in a way that we never expected. In our familys history there is now B.B. (Before Barbie) and A.B. (After Barbie). Never underestimate the power of an eleven-and-a-half-inch woman. Of course, at that exact moment, I wasnt aware that our lives were changing. I couldnt have predicted the magnitude of C.J.s actions or mine. I gured that C.J. would play with Barbie for a day, maybe two, and lose interestas he had with all of the other toys he had encountered in his short life. I was wrong; Barbie has been a constant in his life since that day. Oh, my son wasnt dabbling; he was hard-core from the start. C.J. had found his lifes passionand he wasnt even three. Matt arrived home from work at the police department to spy a big-busted blonde in his younger sons grip. He shot me a look that said, What the hell is that? I replied with a glance that whispered, Settle down. Well talk about it later. Matt changed out of his uniform and sat on the living room oor next to C.J., who was sitting criss-cross-applesauce and trying his hardest to put clothes back on a naked Barbie. What do you got there, buddy? Matt asked C.J. C.J.s eyes lit up and a huge grin crossed his face as he excitedly described the doll in great detail to his father. I smiled from my spot at the kitchen sink. Later that night, after C.J. and Chase were asleep, Matt shared with me the unease hed felt when he saw his son play-

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ing with a doll. Having grown up with no sisters, hed never even had a Barbie in his house before and couldnt remember ever touching one. It didnt feel right to him, though it didnt feel completely wrong either. After all, C.J. was just a child and Barbie was just a toy. It was the rst of thousands of conversations weve had in the privacy of our bedroom late at night as weve tried to gure out how best to parent a boy who, at times, is clearly more girl. My brother played with Barbies, I reasoned with Matt, reminding myself and trying to squash the indescribable feelings of unease we were irting with. And he turned out ne. Matt gave me a look that expanded on my last sentence. Fine and gay. Of course C.J.s zeal for Barbie reminded me of my brother, Michael. My brother and I had a bad Barbie habit as kids. While other kids we knew were committed to karate, baseball, piano, and dance, we were committed to playing with Barbies. We did it all the time, just as I assumed all brothers and sisters did. I didnt realize until much later in life that my familys denition of normal was different from other families. On any given weekend Michael and I would convert the entire oor of the front family room into a fabulous world for our Barbies. There was a wardrobe area and a styling area for accessories, hair, and makeup. We arranged the miniature furniture to create a spacious four-bedroom, one-story, ranch-style home, since we werent fortunate enough to possess the Dream House or even the Malibu Beach House. We

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convinced ourselves that ours was way better anyway, because it was custom-built, our lot size was bigger, and we could keep our brown plastic horse in our backyard. Sometimes wed create a mall, and our Barbies, Kens, Skippers, and Midges would all go shopping and eat in the food court, where some one-off Barbie who had suffered some sort of disgurement (such as a bad haircut, a lost limb, or general disrepair) would take their order and serve them lunch from Hot Dog on a Stick. I called my brother. Guess what C.J. found when I was cleaning out my closet? I asked. Your vibrator? No, you idiot, he found one of my Barbies. You still have Barbies?! How come you never get them out when I come over? he said, his feelings genuinely hurt, as if I sat my thirtysomething-year-old ass around playing Barbies all day every day and then hid them when he visited. Its one Barbie. Mom just gave it to me. Its the ftiethanniversary Barbie, I said, trying to get to the point. How come she didnt get me one? This is just like when we were kids; you always got the Barbies and I didnt. I got footballs. I hate footballs. This isnt about you. C.J. found the Barbie and loves her. Hes obsessed, I explained. Oh, my brother said quietly. What do you think it means? I dont know, I said, although I knew exactly what I thought it meant: my two-and-a-half-year-old son was gay.

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