Chapter 1: Every Barbie Loves Pink
My name is
Stacy Tomas L. I was married to my husband, Tim, for 6 years. We decided not to
have children, it was our prerogative, an equal agreement. I work as a realtor
and am doing very well financially; my husband owns a small construction
company. Though I loved my husband, he became obsessed with that Barbie movie
after we had gone to see it. “Honey, I want to make some changes to our house,”
he told me when I was enjoying a cup of coffee and reading one of my favorite
romance books.
“Why?” I asked. “Are you bored with the way
the house looks?”
He
hesitated, “No, I think it would look better with a different paint job
though,” he responded as we were having breakfast. I sipped on my coffee while
eating a donut, I set my book down next to the bread-and-butter plate that I
use for my donut. He looked at some architectural plans he drew out on paper, I
only assumed it was for his work. After I finished my glazed donut and my
coffee I stood up; put my coffee mug on the counter by the sink. I looked out
the kitchen window, and noticed a van belonging to a painter’s company, it was
parked at the front of the house. My house is one of the luxurious models that
I bought with my first three sales.
Of course,
we’re still paying the mortgage but that’s understandable. It's a 30-year
mortgage. As far as I’m concerned, my life was perfect until we had gone to see
that movie. My husband wanted to paint the front of the house, but I had no
idea the horror he had planned for me. Our house is painted the standard earth
tone colors, beige, brown and rust red trimming, it is the basic colors of the
model homes we bought in this community. It has stairs going up to the front
door with handrails on both sides. Two columns decorate the front and a
couple of planters are set beside the columns. The inside of the house is
spacious, with a luxurious staircase leading to the second story. Everything in
the lower level of the house is open and spacious. There are four bedrooms and
two and a half baths, and the half bath is downstairs. The master bedroom is
every woman’s dream, a large walk-in closet, a spacious bathtub separated from
the shower, two sinks and a large mirror; the house has tile flooring, which is
the way I wanted it. After work, I arrived home and to my horror I stared in
awe at the front of the house. “What the Fuck,” I mouthed. Even though the
painters hadn’t quite finished the paint job, I could tell that the color was
not to my liking. “Tim, where are you?” I called out. Tim walked into the
Livingroom; I sat on the brown sectional couch. “Hey, so how do you like it?” He
is referring to the outside of the house. I sighed, “Um, I hope this is a phase you’re
going through because you know how I feel about Pepto-Bismol pink,” I said
setting my arms akimbo, my brows bristled, clearing I was confused.
“I decided
to make our house a real-life Barbie house.” I was floored.
“What?” I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I wanted to do something different, and I
think you’ll like it. Every Barbie loves pink, right?” He gave me a hug. “So,
he thinks I am a Barbie? As if.” I thought he was joking; he must be
kidding.
“Um, if
this is a joke, it’s not a good one, I’m sure that the HOA won’t think so,” I reminded
him. He shrugged. Later I the evening while we were getting ready for bed, he
started fondling with my hair. “Honey have you ever thought about dying your
hair blonde?” I was brushing my teeth, and I gave him a sidelong glance. I
rinsed my mouth and tapped it dry with the towel. We both got in bed. “I will
be going to visit my mom in Utah, do you want to come?” He pondered. ‘Um, no, I
have some construction work that needs to be done, sorry babe.”
“Okay, I’ll
be gone for a week, you’ll be fine?” I asked. He nodded. “I’ll miss you but
when you get back, I’ll have a nice surprise for you,” he said with a coy smile
on his face. “Well, no more dramatic surprises,” I said, and I turned off the
light. The next day after work I got in the tub to relax and wash away the
stress of the day. The paint job was halted, so I assumed that he was going to
get the painters to repaint the house back to its original colors. After I got
out of the tub, I blew dry my hair, got dressed in my pajamas and went
downstairs. My husband was on his laptop in the kitchen, ordering a few things
for the house I suppose. “Can’t wait to show her the new casa De Loren,” he
smiled. Yes, my last name is Loren. A few days later, I left to visit my mother
in Utah. “Honey are you and Tim doing well?” she asked me. My mother had
noticed my distrait expression. I fronted a smile, “Yes we’re fine mom, it’s
just that he’s been acting weird.”
“What do
you mean,” she asked, as she poured herself some tea. “Well, it seems like Tim
suddenly became a bit obsessed with pink. I don’t know, maybe something else is
going on with him.” I told her what he did to the house. “Well, maybe he’s
trying to get your attention.” Stacy grimaced and rolled her eyes. “Well,
that’s some way of getting my attention.”
“Buy some
pink underwear, that might placate him.” My mother joked. She thought it was
silly but something about this whole thing seemed weird. The week at
my mom’s was pleasant, my mother lives in a community where all the one-story
homes have a quarter of an acre lot, and beautiful landscape. There is no HOA,
but everyone takes care of their homes. I have been contemplating a move to
Utah maybe in the future, maybe in the same community as my mother. My drive
back to California was pleasant but I had wished my husband was with me. “I
hope he did well while I was gone,” I thought. I called him a few times
while I was at my mother’s house to see how he was doing.
“Hey babe, I’m on my way home. What have you
been up to?”
“I’m fine
honey, I can’t wait to show you something,” he said, with a giddy tone.
“Well, I
hope it’s a new paint job on our house.”
“Yes,
that’s taken care of. I can’t wait till you’re here,” he said. She smiled.
“Well, I can’t wait too,” I blew him a silent kiss and hung up. When I arrived
a couple of hours later, the house was back to normal. I smiled and breathed a
sigh of relief. I walked into the house. I was shocked. The jarred expression
on my face turned into anger. “What the Fuck?’ I mouthed. The walls were pink,
the couch was replaced with a pink sectional. The lamps in the room had
Victorian style pink lamp shades. A pink coffee table sits on top of a tacky
pink faux fur throw carpet at the center of the floor. I wanted to hurl; I was
beside myself. I walked into the kitchen, and it too was painted pink, the
table was replaced with a retro style 50’s pink table and chairs. She gasped. “At
least he didn’t paint the cabinets pink.” The cabinets are white in color,
the trimming was white as well. She slowly toured the rest of her house; some
rooms were left unchanged. “He probably didn’t have enough time to paint them,”
she said to herself. As she ascended the stairs, the handrail was painted pink
but the carpet on the stairs was still white. The upstairs does have carpet in
the rooms, but they too remained white. “He must’ve had help to paint this,
no way he did this by himself,” I thought to myself as I looked at the wall
in the hallway, it was painted pink. I let out an exasperated sigh. When I
opened my bedroom door, I walked in to see a décor of pink everywhere. My
bedspread was pink with cute floral print on it, the walls were pink, there was
a pink faux fur throw carpet on the floor much like the one downstairs, and
pink rose petals leading into the bathroom. The tub had already been filled. He
used pink bubble bath soap in the water.
“Oh my
God,” I mouthed.
“Where is
he,” I said tightly. Anger seethed in my eyes as I searched for my husband.
“Tim, where are you!”
“Hey babe
your home,” he said with a big smile. He gave me a hug, but I pulled away.
“What the
Fuck is all this?” I pointed around the room.
“I changed
some things in the house, I hope you love it. I do. That Barbie movie really
inspired me,” he said. I just stared at him, jarred. “What the Hell is wrong
with you?”
“I don’t
know what you mean.” He looked at me perplexed. “I feel fine, and I bought you
some new clothes too,” he walked over to the closet, I followed. I stood there
with my arms crossed, trepidation loomed over me. A look of dismay shadowed my
face when he opened the double doors of the closet. Almost all my clothes were
gone, replaced by pink suits, and pink dresses, even pink heels. I was
speechless.
“What have you done?” I mustered up to say
after a long silence. “I can see you’re surprised,” he said.
“Surprised,
I’m furious?” I shouted; my face flushed. “Who gave you the right to get rid of
my clothes?”
“Babe, I
thought you felt as passionate about that Barbie movie as I did,” he said, with
a perplexed look on his face. I stood there, with my arms akimbo and a livid
look on my face.
“Well, if
you’re going to be critical about this then you should leave this house,” he
said, angrily. “What! Fuck you! I bought this house, not you. Look I don’t know
what the Hell is going on with you, but you were once a rational, loving, and
respectable husband three weeks ago; I don’t buy the whole obsession over the
movie and now you want to change everything to mimic Barbie lifestyle, it’s
stupid! Tell me what’s really going on,” I demanded. He was silent and walked
out of the room. I followed downstairs. “I feel that we needed a change,
frankly you’ve become boring, for the past three years, we have fallen into the
same rut and,” he paused. “And what?”
“And I want
something different,” he said. I thought that maybe this was his way of
expressing his displeasure with what he called a boring life. But to go this
far, just to get my attention, this goes beyond normal. Then it occurred to me
that maybe he had met someone who was into the whole trendy pink thing.
Probably a young, blonde. I pondered. “Alright, who is it?” I asked, suspecting
that he’d been cheating on me. He said nothing and grabbed his keys from the
key bowl and walked to the garage. I heard the garage door open, and he left. I
was alone in a Pepto-Bismol pink house. Thank God that the outside was painted
back to normal, or I would’ve heard from the HOA. He was gone for the night and
at this point I did not care. I thought about what he said. “Has
our life gotten boring? NO, he’s insane. Someone else has been feeding him lies
and turning him into someone I don’t recognize.” I did not sleep well and the next morning, I
grabbed one of the pink suits in the closet and put it on. It had pink
embroidered flowers on it. I looked in the full-length mirror, sighed and shook
my head. I headed to the office. Everyone stared at me. My heels matched my
clothes, even my clutch purse. I felt embarrassed. “Um, Stacy I like your new
outfit,” said Lindsey, a new young intern. Lindsey has light brown hair, blue
eyes and can pass for a Barbie herself. I stared at her.
“You know, you and I are almost the same size,
would you like to have my suit? I’ve got a bunch of pink clothes in my closet,
if you like, you can come on by later and take your pick.” Lindsey looked at me
confused.
“Sure, if that’s okay?” I nodded and smiled. Later, in the evening Lindsey
stopped by. When Lindsey walked into her house, she was shocked to see the
Barbie-like interior of the house. I am genuinely a conservative woman, so she
was jarred by the look of the house’ interior. I grimaced and rolled my eyes. I
understand the expression on my co-worker’s face, it’s jarring, exactly how I
felt when I first saw the house. “Yes, my husband went a little,” I paused.
“Overboard with the paint job, but this whole mess will be remedied soon, I
hope.”
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