Don’t Call Her a Doll
Don’t Call Her a Doll
Charlotte is drowning. Even with Mia, a sample maker who does all the sewing for her, the workload is too much for one person. Especially since Mattel keeps sending her back to Tokyo to oversee the production of Barbie’s initial outfits: a zebra-striped swimsuit, a navy blue and white sundress with a front pleat, and a white wool fleece coat with stylish pockets and a martingale belt.
Ruth has promised to hire another designer. She and Charlotte have already interviewed several candidates but Ruth decided they were NMM—Not Mattel Material.
“We need someone who’s tough like us,” says Ruth. “Someone I can’t make cry.”
“That’s asking a lot,” Charlotte laughs. “You make half the men around here cry. But,” she says, “I might just have the right person for this job.”
It’s her former student Stevie Klein, though the last time Charlotte saw her, Stevie was indeed on the verge of crying, beating back tears. Just three months before graduation, Stevie had sat in Charlotte’s office saying she was dropping out of school. Charlotte suspected Stevie’s reason but didn’t want to shame her into admitting it. The truth was that Stevie was pregnant, a pregnancy that she would lose a few weeks later, along with the man who’d impregnated her. But degreed or not, Stevie Klein had been Charlotte’s most promising student at Chouinard.
Stevie stood out from the beginning because she was left-handed. At first Charlotte couldn’t imagine how Stevie would overcome such a disadvantage, which ranged from minor to severe. With only right-handed school desks, Stevie sat sideways, forced to write almost upside down, the underpart of her forearm all the way to her elbow smudged with pencil lead. There were no left-handed needle threaders, and no left-handed scissors, either, so it was harder for Stevie to cut a straight line. To create a classic herringbone stitch, she had to work in reverse, from right to left. Even the numbers on her tape measure were upside down when she held the base in her left hand. Yet, with all these strikes against her, Stevie excelled, turning her weaknesses into her greatest strengths. It might have taken her longer to cut her patterns, but they were more precise than anyone else’s. She didn’t just measure a model once; she measured twice to make sure her readings were accurate. Perhaps it was because Stevie was left-handed that Charlotte noticed how innovative she was and that she possessed a rare type of ingenuity. In Basic Sewing class, Stevie created bound-button holes and preferred double darts over a single dart, even though they were more time-consuming. She would hand stitch her zippers, making them virtually invisible, and Stevie had been the first of Charlotte’s students to master the princess seam. She had a flair for the dramatic, inherently understood that different fabrics behaved differently. She knew the emotional properties of colors, and no one had to teach Stevie Klein that form follows function. Plus, she’s one tough cookie.
—
Stevie is standing behind a long counter at a diner on Pico Boulevard where she’s been waitressing for the past year, unable to find work in her field no matter how hard she’s tried. Coming off an eight-hour shift, she’d sketch new ideas over dinner before sitting down at her sewing machine till late at night, working up new designs to take out into the world. On breaks, she’d change out of her uniform in a tiny bathroom stall, put on one of her own designs and rush to an interview. On her days off, she’d knock on every door she could find, offering herself up as an intern, as an apprentice—willing to work for free just to gain some experience. But without a degree, no one’s taken her seriously. Her roommate and former classmate, Vivian Ross, landed a paid internship with Rudi Gernreich at R.G. Designs. She’d tried putting in a good word for Stevie, but nothing came of it.
Now Stevie is staring at the last dregs of catsup dripping from one upside-down bottle into the waiting mouth of another when she looks up and sees her old instructor, Mrs.Johnson. She’s accompanied by a short man and an even shorter woman, or maybe they just appear that way since Charlotte, like Stevie, is unusually tall for a woman. At first Stevie thinks they’ve just happened into the diner for an early lunch, but no, they’ve come to see her, and their timing is good, because after she finishes with this last catsup bottle Stevie can finally take her break.
When she steps out from behind the counter, the short man gives her the once-over and whistles through his teeth. “My oh my.”
“Down, boy.” Mrs.Johnson smacks him on the shoulder.
“Pay no attention to him,” says the other woman.
“Does he bite?” asks Stevie, and when the man grins, scanning her body, she calls him on it, “Hey, Short Stuff—my eyes are up here.”
“Ha-ha.” The man laughs, delighted by this. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”
Stevie plants her hands on her hips. “Buddy, you have no idea.”
“Ooh, I like her,” the woman says as if Stevie’s not standing right there.
At this point, Stevie is formally introduced to Jack and Ruth. All of them, including Charlotte—formerly Mrs.Johnson—are now on a first-name basis. They take a booth in the back, the one with the torn-up turquoise seat cushions. Stevie doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, and while they’re making small talk about the traffic on Sepulveda Boulevard, Jack plucks sugar cubes from a little dish next to the salt and pepper shakers and begins building an igloo.
“Charlotte here tells me you were her best student,” says Ruth, tapping a pack of cigarettes against the table.
“She was,” says Charlotte. “She’s a natural-born designer.”
This is somewhat true. Stevie caught the design bug early, mostly out of necessity. When she was growing up, her father sold World Book Encyclopedias and money was tight. Not wanting to wear secondhand clothes, she convinced her parents to buy her a used Singer sewing machine, a big clunky one with a treadle base that she still has to this day. With the help of a neighbor lady, Stevie taught herself to sew. She had a feel for it almost immediately and became a good seamstress and then an excellent one.
Still, Stevie can’t take in Charlotte’s praise and continues to blame herself for messing up her career in such a spectacular way. Foolish girl, she thought she was in love. But the universe had a different plan and she learned her lesson. Never put a man first; never let them take you off course. Because of a man, she never graduated, and her dream of being a fashion designer has been packed away, along with her final project: a wedding gown she’ll never wear.
The other waitress heads their way with coffees. She has a bad case of knock-knees and walks with a seesaw-ish back and forth stride that sends every cup sloshing on her tray. How she never spills a single drop is a miracle and the sign of a woman devoted to a lifetime of waiting tables. It’s enough to make Stevie cry, as if seeing her future self.
“So what brings you down here?” she asks.
Ruth leans forward and clasps her hands, revealing an enormous emerald ring on her finger. “We’re coming to you with a terrific opportunity.”
“It’s all top secret. Completely under wraps,” says Jack, who’s still working on his igloo, which is now beginning to take on the shape of a castle, complete with a tower and steep walls. When he gets to the last cube, he fetches another dish of sugar from a nearby table, meticulously placing one block and then the next.
“What I’m offering you,” says Ruth, “is a chance to design an entire line of clothing. And accessories. All high-end fashion, from casual to formal wear.”
“Wait—you’re offering me a job? A design job?” Stevie’s eyebrow rises as she tries to keep a check on her expectations. If this is a joke, she’s not finding it funny. Stevie looks at Charlotte for confirmation.
“We’d be working together along with him .” Charlotte gives Jack a hitchhiker’s thumb, frowning playfully. “Technically, he’d be your boss, but you’d be working directly with me.”
“We can’t give you any other details just yet,” says Ruth, picking a fleck of tobacco off her tongue. “You’re going to have to trust me—and Charlotte. And take a leap of faith.”
“But one thing we can tell you”—Jack pauses, leans in conspiratorially, looking both ways as if about to cross a street—“you’d be designing clothes,” he whispers, “for a doll.”
So it is a joke. Stevie collapses back in her seat.
“I know what you’re thinking,” says Charlotte. “I felt the same way at first, but this isn’t just another doll. She’s not like anything you’ve ever seen before.”
“But that’s all we can share with you right now.” Jack brings a finger to his lips, his eyes crinkling as he smiles. “We’ve probably said too much already.”
“It really is an exciting opportunity,” says Ruth. “I wouldn’t waste your time—or mine—if it wasn’t. And we’ll start you off at $200 a week.”
Stevie suppresses the urge to gasp. She isn’t sure she’s heard correctly. Ruth’s offering her $200 a week? To design a line of clothing? For a doll? She looks at Charlotte to see if they’re serious. My God, they are. At the diner she’s only making 65￠ an hour plus tips, and that isn’t enough to live on. Vivian had to cover Stevie’s half of their rent last month, and her greatest fear is being forced back into her parents’ home. She has a cavity that needs filling, and just that morning she paid for three gallons of gasoline with nickels and dimes. Her car—an old clunker—is prone to overheating and needs a new battery.
Stevie hopes her face doesn’t give her away when she says, “I’ll need to think about it.” But at $200 a week, there’s nothing to think about.
—
The following Monday at 08:00 hours Mattel speak, the office officially opens. A line is forming out the door with a hundred or more employees waiting to be let inside. Some drink coffee from thermoses and smoke cigarettes; some make small talk with those around them while others keep to themselves, reading their morning newspapers. Mattel has almost eight hundred people on its payroll. They range from young to middle-aged, a mix of men and women, some Mexicans, some Negros, and Orientals. When it comes to Mattel’s hiring practices, discrimination is not a factor. Qualifications are all that matter. One by one, each person shows the armed guard their badge, even though he knows most of them by name. The women open their pocketbooks so he can take a look inside before allowing them to proceed.
An hour later, at 09:00 hours, Stevie reports to Mattel for her first day of work. After turning onto Rosecrans Avenue, she arrives at a large one-story white building in a desolate industrial area out by the airport. Pulling into the parking lot, she sees the dreaded haze of steam rising from the hood of her car. As her windshield clears, she hears a thunderous roar and looks up to see an airplane overhead, coming in for landing, so low in the sky she can make out the TWA on its tail.
Charlotte asked Stevie to arrive an hour later than normal. There’s no line now so she walks right into the building, where she’s stopped by the uniformed guard. He rifles through her pocketbook, cluttered with Life Savers wrappers, used tissues, a lipstick, her empty wallet and whatever else has settled to the bottom. The guard nods to the woman behind a plate glass window, who asks for Stevie’s driver’s license, returning it after a quick glance. Finally, a heavy metal door opens, and Stevie is advanced through a turnstile to the lobby. There’s classical music playing, which seems odd given that she’s staring at a display case filled with toys: a ukulele, a carousel, a honeybee with wheels, and several plastic guns.
A perky receptionist with auburn hair and freckles appears out of nowhere and, without warning, snaps a Polaroid of Stevie. While fanning it to speed up the developing process, she rings for Charlotte. The receptionist glances at the Polaroid and her smile dips ever so slightly as she holds up what is quite possibly the worst photograph ever taken of Stevie. Her face looks distorted; her nose is too long while her mouth and cheeks appear squished in. It’s like her face is a piece of chewing gum stuck on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
The receptionist slides the photo into a clear sleeve of a badge, which she hands to Stevie. “You’ll need to have this on you at all times.”
Stevie wants to ask for a do-over, but that seems vain, and so she slips the lanyard badge about her neck and follows the receptionist down a hallway where Charlotte is waiting for the handoff.
“What’s with all the security around this place?” Stevie asks.
“Oh, you’d be surprised how competitive the toy business is. A lot of industrial espionage goes on.”
“Ooh”—Stevie pretends to nibble her fingernails—“sounds very sinister.”
“Don’t laugh. There are spies everywhere.”
This is true, and Mattel is even more cautious than other toy companies because Jack and several others are former aerospace engineers. Now the details of the toys they’re making are as secretive and guarded as any military operation.
Charlotte gives Stevie the grand tour, starting with a long-paneled wall she calls Mahogany Row. “This is where Ruth and Elliot sit. Jack’s office is back there, too, next to Ruth’s.” They walk through a maze of workstations, separated by brightly colored partitions. There’s a series of slanted drafting tables, strewn with T squares, mechanical pencils and compasses. Charlotte points out where the engineers and developers sit. The model makers, next to them, are testing the sound bars for a xylophone, their tinny nursery rhyme competing with Chopin’s piped-in Etude in C Minor. The sales and public relations departments are across from them, next to the legal and accounting departments.
“And here—here we are.” Charlotte does a little pivot, welcoming Stevie to an area in the very back corner. “You’ll sit over there,” she says, pointing at a workstation that appears to be a dumping ground for unwanted folders, boxes, a beat-up desk blotter, staplers and other stray office supplies. “Don’t worry,” says Charlotte. “We’ll get someone to clear all that out.” She pauses before a doorway and motions for Stevie to follow her. “And I’m right in here.”
Charlotte’s office is packed with stacks of fashion magazines, pattern books and fabric swatches of every imaginable shade from the same Standard Color Reference of America they used at Chouinard. Bolts of fabric are tucked off to the side, leaning against the wall next to a sewing machine. Her desk is cluttered with pencils, pincushions, measuring tapes and ashtrays. In short, everything Stevie would expect to find in a fashion designer’s office. Nothing about any of it feels toylike to her.
Charlotte pulls out the customary confidentiality forms that have become standard practice for anyone who comes within ten feet of Barbie. Once Stevie signs them all, she finally meets the doll, which is not the chubby, cherub-like toy she’d been expecting.
Observing Stevie’s reaction, Charlotte says, “So now you understand why I came to you.” Proudly she holds Barbie up to the light. “You put in two years designing clothes for her, and you’ll be able to write your own ticket.” Charlotte exchanges the doll for an oversized sketchpad. “Now, these are just preliminary,” she says, flipping to the first page, “but I want to give you an idea of the kind of clothes we’re talking about.”
Charlotte points to drawings of several dresses, and the sketches are as sophisticated and detailed as any designer flats she’s ever seen. She almost forgets they’re talking about doll clothes. Stevie is beginning to see a real angle for herself, and as she wedges the possibility open just a sliver more, she’s flooded with a dream she thought she’d let go of. But now, after almost a year of rejection, the designer inside her is being nudged awake. This doll she’s dressing is basically a woman—albeit a miniaturized woman, but still a woman. She won’t really be making doll clothes; rather, she’ll be creating a line of haute couture for a teeny-tiny person. And she’s being paid to do so. She’s already jumping ahead, imagining how she’ll use Barbie’s clothes in her portfolio when she applies at real design firms. Though it’s been a circuitous route, she feels light and ebullient with the prospect of finally being back on track with her career.
Charlotte turns the page on her sketchpad and Stevie looks at the finely drawn undergarments and laughs.
“Is something funny?” asks Charlotte.
Stevie is still laughing. “It’s just, I mean, c’mon—a bra and girdle? For a doll?”
Charlotte’s not laughing. She leans forward. “Let me give you some advice—never ever refer to Barbie as an inanimate object. Or call her a doll . Ruth will go berserk if she hears that.”
—
It doesn’t take long for Stevie to fall into a routine at work. By week two, she knows the drill. Each morning at 08:00 hours she arrives, sees that Ruth’s pink Thunderbird is already there, the engine cooled, no longer ticking. Taking her place in a long line of coworkers, she waits to have her pocketbook inspected and flash her badge. She pushes through the turnstile, greeted by a blast of classical music, then heads to the galley kitchen, where she waits in another line for the coffeemaker. More often than not, Ginger will cut in front of everyone. “Jack needs coffee,” she’ll say by way of explanation, and the line will part for her like the Red Sea.
By 09:00 hours, the place is a madhouse. Mattel’s engineers and developers, encouraged by their fearless leader, Jack, behave more like a bunch of teenage boys. From their workstations they fire slingshots at each other, lob toy hand grenades over their cubicles and soar paper airplanes carrying flirtatious messages to the nearby secretaries. Squirt gun fights are frequent, and at some point every morning, Gina in sales will sneeze three times in a row, followed by a chorus of gazoontites coming from all directions.
Because their offices are in the middle of nowhere, Mattel has a cafeteria for its employees. Everyone eats there, even Ruth and Elliot. It isn’t free, but for a buck or two you can get a full lunch. Women wearing lab coats and hairnets scoop out the day’s offering, which is always some sort of Mexican cuisine, loaded with jalapenos and chilis. Almost everyone keeps a stash of Rolaids in their desk drawer to combat the inevitable heartburn. At 14:00 hours, Elliot changes the soothing classical music to marching tunes, believing that “On, Wisconsin!” and “Stars and Stripes Forever” will ward off the afternoon slump.
When the clock hits 17:00 hours, it’s quitting time and Stevie heads to the nearby beach with Mia, their sample maker, and Patsy from accounting, whom she’s become friendly with. Sitting with the other women on oversized blankets, they watch the guys play volleyball. The men take off their shirts, baring their suntanned muscles as they show off, spiking and diving into the sand, hoping to impress the ladies.
One day, an engineer they call Twist—his real name is Anthony Wheeler—scores a point and gives Stevie a smile and a wink as he dusts sand off his chest and broad shoulders. He’s very handsome, but Stevie’s not interested, still too raw from her breakup with Russell.
She can’t believe how close she came to making the same mistake her mother made. Stevie’s done the math. Her parents married just seven and half months before she was born, and while she’s always known they love her, she often wonders if they ever loved each other. She can’t remember a time when they didn’t sleep in separate beds, in separate rooms. Other than Tonight Starring Jack Paar and Perry Mason , they seem to have no shared interests. Her father can be gruff, which bothers Stevie more than it does her mother. He’s not a violent man, just a deeply unhappy one, no matter how hard her mother tries to please him. She pulls off minor miracles in the kitchen, making a cheap cut of meat tender and savory. She can turn a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup into a zesty spaghetti sauce. Her specialty, though, is desserts: chocolate pudding, lemon tarts, devil’s food cake made with buttermilk. Stevie expected her parents to divorce once she was on her own. After all, they’re both still young and attractive, and Stevie could picture them remarrying, finding genuine love the second time around. But they’re still together and fairly miserable. When asked why she doesn’t leave, Stevie’s mother said, “Where am I gonna go?” She has no money, no means of supporting herself. She’s trapped, and Stevie vows she’ll never let that happen to her.
Russell did her a great favor by walking away, though she’s still scarred by it and terrified of getting pregnant again before she’s ready. So now, when handsome Twist is giving her the eye, she merely smiles back to be polite. She allowed a man to derail her career once before; she won’t let it happen again.
Stevie is still new to the company and isn’t yet aware of just how much interoffice canoodling goes on at Mattel. There’s Blythe in inventory, who was caught performing fellatio on Herky from sales in the men’s room. Leah in reception is having an affair with Alex in production, who is also having a thing on the side with Connie in payroll. After hours, Phil from the mailroom has done it on the conference room table with Millie from shipping. And, of course, there’s Jack, who has the uncanny ability to make each girl in his harem think she’s special. Ruth knows about all the hanky-panky going on but doesn’t say anything because, after all, she, too, is sleeping with one of the owners, who just so happens to be her husband.