Barbie’s House
In second grade I got a three-story Barbie house for my birthday. It was inside a blue plastic suitcase that would open all the way, and then stand up on end at an angle. I really had no interest in Barbie, per se, or the life I could give her with Ken or her Barbie friends. The house, however, fascinated me, even though there was far too much pink for my taste and too many little pieces like Barbie-sized hair brushes and purses.
I loved dumping all the Barbie house furniture out of the suitcase into a pile and starting over. I put the stove, refrigerator, sink and kitchen table in the attic just to imagine what it would feel like to look out the window and see the tops of the trees while doing dishes. The brown living room recliner seemed more useful in the bedroom for times when Barbie wanted to read. I also switched her bed with the dining room set just to keep things interesting.
Barbie’s house dwarfed my family’s real house. We lived in a distinctly blue-collar two-story rental on a corner lot surrounded by chestnut trees that were always dropping something that needed to be raked. We lived in the ground floor of the flat that had green siding on the top half, and brown siding on the bottom. We had a kitchen where the sun rose, a living room where the sun set, and two bedrooms with barely enough room for beds.
By seventh grade my Barbie suitcase was long forgotten, and I began moving furniture around our real house. It drove my mother crazy. She would leave for work at the factory in the morning with the couch under the windows, then come home in the afternoon and find it against the wall facing the door. I’d try the bookcase on the left side, then in the center of the room as a divider against the back of the love seat. The TV had to be plugged into a special outlet, so it never moved more than three feet to one side or the other of the corner.
Except for the TV, all the furniture was lightweight and easy to move. Even though the pieces were cheaply made, the tan and green plaid couch and end tables with drawers were an upgrade for my mom and me. I had just turned 13 when we went to Prange’s Department Store on a Saturday with money left over from my dad’s life-insurance after we paid for his funeral. I stayed home from school to accept delivery from the huge red and gray moving truck on a Tuesday.
We got a modern washer and dryer that year, too. We put the old-fashioned silver and wood wringer that sat on top of the big white ceramic barrel at the curb for the garbage men. My mom still preferred to string a plastic-coated rope between the chestnut trees than to use the new dryer next to the old stove in the basement. That stove came in handy during the holidays for cooking extra casseroles and keeping the mashed potatoes hot. Sometimes our basement smelled better than a restaurant.
At Christmas and Easter, too much food and too many people had to be stuffed into our tiny kitchen. There was always my red-headed sister, her Italian husband, and their three growing boys. Sometimes my uncle Lester (who was not really my uncle), would come from a place people called “the farm” (that was really a mental hospital). My aunt Anne and uncle Connie would often join us, along with aunt Louise who lived with them. Louise never married, but raising dogs in a kennel in her backyard kept her busy.
Louise chose to die with her dogs on Mother’s Day. She jumped into the river that ran behind their property. She left a note to say goodbye; everyone knew Louise never learned how to swim.