The Happiness Maker Is Back
The Happiness Maker Is Back
Goldman Sachs is hosting an analysis conference where they’ve invited leaders within the toy industry to present trends and new product launches. Ruth and Elliot were asked to participate, and they agreed that it made sense to have Jack there, too, a nice way to round out their portion of the program. They especially want Jack to talk about his latest innovation, Talking Barbie, which will be coming out later that year.
Jack flew in two days early so he could have dinner and spend some time with Sheila, an old girlfriend who was at Vassar when he was at Yale. He’s sitting at the bar at the St. Regis, waiting for her to arrive. It’s been years since he’s seen her, and when she steps into the King Cole Bar, Jack almost doesn’t recognize her. And not just because she’s changed her hairstyle, wearing it shorter now with a wisp of bangs, but because she’s got a fella with her. Sheila is the executive secretary to the publisher of the New York Times , and the guy is a reporter who wants to interview Jack.
Jack’s flattered when the reporter says, “Sheila’s told me what a genius you are. She says you’re Mattel’s secret weapon—the man who invented Barbie.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” says Jack, sounding surprisingly humble, even to his own ears. “Ruth—that’s Ruth Handler, one of the owners—we worked together on Barbie and had a whole team helping us. The Handlers—Ruth and Elliot—have built a great organization. There’s lots of top-notch talent there…” As he gushes about Mattel, he feels something akin to a father’s pride. Aside from Rosenberg, whom he’s been butting heads with from the start, Jack loves the company. He eats, sleeps and breathes Mattel, and he wouldn’t trade his time there for anything in the world.
They talk some more over another round of drinks and a heap of oysters.
Slurping a Blue Point, the reporter flips through his notebook to a clean page. “So let’s talk about what Mattel is up to now.”
Jack takes this opportunity to plug their newest doll in the Barbie line: the Christie doll. Christie is Mattel’s second attempt to show their support for the civil rights movement. Their first effort was the Francie doll, a new Barbie friend that Negro girls could relate to. Good intentions but without nearly enough planning. Instead of designing the doll as a whole, they took shortcuts. They relied on the existing molds for the white Francie doll and merely used a darker shade of plastic. As soon as the dolls arrived, even those at Mattel had misgivings, and yet they put it on the market, offending countless customers and garnering so much hate mail that they discontinued the doll and went back to the drawing board. This time they did it right, giving the Christie doll her own molds, her own features, and her own hairstyle.
They just shipped the new dolls to retailers two weeks ago and the advertising is starting on Monday. Jack knows that Ruth and Elliot will be thrilled that he’s not only getting all this press for Mattel but also getting them free publicity for Christie.
—
Ruth and Elliot take a late-night flight, arriving the day before the conference so they’ll have time to visit with Ken and Suzie, who relocated to New York after the baby was born. That morning Ruth has ordered room service and is relaxing, enjoying her coffee while reading the New York Times . She sees that Robert Kennedy has just announced his bid for the presidency…Martin Luther King Jr. is preparing to lead a march in Memphis next week…More bloody accounts coming out of Vietnam…
When she turns to the business section, she’s stunned to see the headline above the fold: the brains behind barbie . Next to that she is even more shocked to see Jack’s headshot, the one taken for their company brochure. She’s confused as she continues reading about the brilliant, stupendous, charismatic —and every other buttery adjective—Jack Ryan, the boy wonder who attended Yale, worked at Raytheon, and created Mattel’s most successful toy, the Barbie doll, named after his wife. What?
Ruth drops the newspaper to her lap. She doesn’t know what to make of this article. This isn’t like Jack. He’s always given credit where credit is due. He has a big ego, but he’s fair. The problem is, Ruth also has a big ego, and creating this doll, being able to put her name on it, gives her legitimacy as a toymaker, and Jack’s just taken that away. It doesn’t matter that conference attendees will be impressed, that the timing in some ways is perfect; she feels slighted. Left out and left behind, just like she felt as a child whose mother didn’t want her. Even though Ruth knows the truth, that Barbie is as much her creation as, if not more so than, Jack’s. Hers versus Jack’s. The idea of ownership has never factored in before. Yes, she owns Mattel, but who owns Barbie?
She hears the shower turn on and calls to Elliot, saying she’ll be right back. With the Times in hand, she heads down to Jack’s room. Two knocks, three knocks, and he calls out, “Go away. I’m sleeping.”
“Jack, it’s me. Open up.”
He answers the door, wearing a black velvet monogrammed robe and a satin eye mask pushed up onto his forehead. “This better be important,” he says, gesturing her inside.
To her great relief, Jack doesn’t have a woman in his bed—a possibility that hadn’t occurred to her until that moment. She holds up the New York Times . “Since when did you create Barbie? She was my idea. She’s named after my daughter, too. Not just your wife.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t say that.”
“It’s right here. See for yourself.” She thrusts the paper at him.
Even if he were wide awake, he wouldn’t be able to read it. Jack has never read a newspaper in his life. Pulling the sleep mask off his forehead, flinging it onto the bed, he tries to recall what he told the reporter, wishing he knew what ended up in print. “I’m sorry, Ruth. He twisted my words. We were talking about the Christie doll. I swear, I hardly even mentioned Barbie.”
“Well, you sure as hell said enough.”
“Oh, c’mon, why would I do something like that?”
“I don’t know, Jack. You tell me.” She tosses the paper onto the bed and storms out.
Jack is shrinking, not only because Ruth thinks he wronged her but because he can’t read what they wrote about him. He wonders how quickly Ginger can get her hands on a copy of the Times . He tries to reach her but forgot that he’s given her a few days off while he’s out of town. He can’t get a hold of her at home, either. He’s on his own. All the words jump about the newsprint, a few familiar ones leaping out at him: Mattel. Jack Ryan. Yale. Raytheon. Missile. Barbie…Why can’t you just read like a normal person? His word blindness is a curse. It makes him hate himself, makes him revert to the dumb, short kid from elementary school. All he wants is to prove to the world that he’s good enough—better than good enough. He wants to be seen as a sublime engineer, a celebrated inventor. Instead, he’s staring at a bunch of words that are making him feel stupid. And if there’s one thing Jack can’t stand, it’s feeling stupid.
He sulks in his room for much of the afternoon, turning housekeeping away twice. Finally, he drags himself into the shower. There’s a cocktail reception for the conference starting soon, but he can’t bear to face Ruth and Elliot. Or anyone else. The only thing that will make him feel whole, make him feel like less of a loser, is a stiff drink and the attention of an attractive woman.
He heads downstairs and enters the hotel lounge, where he sees a pretty young woman sitting by herself at the end of the bar. The satin strap on her dark blue dress has slipped off her shoulder and she can’t be bothered to right it. Her blond hair looks professionally coiffed, done up in meticulous twists and complicated coils. He helps himself to the empty stool beside her and makes a little small talk. This one is a talker, all right. He buys her a drink and she opens up in the way only a stranger in a bar already two drinks in will do. Her name is Shelley. She’s twenty-six, from New Rochelle. She’s in the city for a friend’s wedding being held in the hotel.
“I snuck out before the reception started,” she says. “My ex-boyfriend is in there with his new girlfriend.”
“Ah, that’s tough,” says Jack sympathetically.
“No one told me he was bringing a date. I didn’t even know he had a new girlfriend.”
“And I thought I had a bad day,” he says. This girl’s misery supersedes his own. He needs to make this better. And he can.
Shelley continues, “I feel like such a fool. I thought he was coming alone. I thought we’d get back together tonight.” Tears collect in her eyes, but she blinks them away. “I spent all this money on this stupid dress, I got my hair done, my nails done. I’m such an idiot…”
“Well,” says Jack, “if it’s any consolation, I think you look ravishing.”
“You do?”
“I do. I noticed you as soon as I walked into the bar.”
They finish their drinks, he takes her to dinner and by the time he invites her up to his room, he’s not thinking about that newspaper article anymore. His only focus now is Shelley. He is tender with this girl as he slips off the dress she bought for her ex-boyfriend. He unpins her lustrous hair, stiff from too much hair spray. He goes slowly and takes his time with her. He doesn’t care about his own satisfaction. Tonight it’s all about her, about Shelley.
And as he is pleasing her, watching her back arch, seeing how she grips a fistful of sheets and takes in all that intensity, he feels his power coming back to him. Jack Ryan, the brilliant engineer, the premier toymaker, the happiness maker, is back. Outta sight, man, outta sight.