So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me.<br />"Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie."<br />"I see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the same<br />name."<br />I thought about this, then said, "Okay, then her name is Sabrina."<br /><br />"Well, that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread,<br />kneading the dough<br />between her thick fingers. "What does she do?"<br />"Do?" I said.<br />"Yes." She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. "What<br />does she do?"<br />"She goes out with Ken," I said.<br />"And what else?"<br />"She goes to parties," I said slowly. "And shopping."<br />"Oh," Boo said, nodding.<br />"She can't work?"<br />"She doesn't have to work," I said.<br />"Why not?"<br />"Because she's Barbie."<br />"I hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town house<br />and the Corvette,"<br />Boo said cheerfully. "Unless Barbie has a lot of family money."<br />I considered this while I put on Ken's pants.<br />Boo started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top.<br />"You know what I<br />think, Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me.<br />"What?"<br />"I think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have a<br />productive and satisfying<br />career of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting its<br />position on the rack.<br />"But what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning the<br />house and going to PTA.<br />I couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots,<br />doing s.uch things.<br />Boo came over and plopped right down beside me. I always remember<br />her being on my level; she'd sit<br />on the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened to<br />the radio.<br />"Well," she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique.<br />"What do you want to<br />do when you grow up?"<br />I remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-<br />legged, holding my<br /><br />Ken and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother's<br />PTA and Boo's<br />strange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,<br />and led right to me.<br />"Well," I said abruptly, "I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where this came<br />from.<br />"Advertising," Boo repeated, nodding. "Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to go<br />to work every day,<br />coming up with ideas for commercials<br />and things like that."<br />"She works in an office," I went on. "Sometimes she has to work late."<br />"Sure she does," Boo said. "It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're Barbie."<br />"Because she wants to get promoted," I added. "So she can pay off the town house.<br />And the Corvette."<br />"Very responsible of her," Boo said.<br />"Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercials<br />and ideas?"<br />"She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckled<br />face so solemn, as if<br />she knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.