| |
In which Parker Haddaway defends a respected physician before causing a scene.
––––––––
“Sadie couldn’t play with Barbie dolls.”
We were upstairs, at a table overlooking the international departures atrium, sipping on frosted orange shakes I’d bought us from The Varsity.
Parker raised one eyebrow and said, “Okay. Good to know.”
I took a sip of my shake and said, “When she moved to Hornby in first grade all the girls thought she was weird because her dad wouldn’t let her play with Barbie dolls. He’d been to some Christian conference on the sexualization of American children and learned they modeled Barbie after a German adult novelty doll. Sadie said he came home and tossed her Barbies in the garbage. Called them seven-foot harlots with a shoe fetish living in a dream house of sin.”
“Even Doctor Barbie?” Parker asked.
“Even Doctor Barbie.”
“But she worked so hard to get through Barbie medical school.”
“I know,” I said. “But to make up for it he bought her a roomful of those Bible inspired dolls that looked like Barbies, except they all wore ankle-length tunics.”
“You’re making this up,” Parker said.
“I swear. She had Mary, mother of Jesus. Ruth and Naomi. Rahab the prostitute ...”
“Wait, hold up,” Parker said, choking a little on her milkshake. “You’re telling me her dad wouldn’t let her play with Doctor Barbie, but Rahab the prostitute was okay?”
I laughed and said, “I’m not defending him.”
“Did he buy her Adam and Eve with removable fig leaves too?”
“I don’t recall.”
“What about Job with removable boils?”
“Maybe.”
Parker slid the salt shaker across the table and said, “Next time you see Sadie tell her I’m donating this to her collection.”
I examined the shaker and gave her a puzzled look, and she said, “Lot’s wife.”
I shook my head and laughed.
“Because she looked back and turned to salt.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“You can play with her for hours, then use her to preserve meat.”
“I get it.”
“She also adds flavor to bland vegetables.”
“I get it.”
“Okay,” Parker said, “so her weirdo dad deprived her of Barbies as a small child. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just saying Sadie was never very popular at school, because now it’s easy to get the impression everyone always loved her.
“Fine, but it still doesn’t make up for the fact she dumped you by text.”
At some point in the last ten minutes I’d gone from telling Parker about Sadie to defending Sadie in a courtroom where Parker was the judge, jury, and executioner, and a guilty verdict was a forgone conclusion. I knew what I said next wouldn’t help my case.
“Technically her dad dumped me for her by text.”
Parker spit orange shake over the rail onto the atrium floor. A man below yelled at us.
“You’re shitting me,” she said loud enough that people started to look at us.
“Yeah ... no.”
“Edwin Green, please tell me you’re shitting me. Even if you’re not, tell me you are, because I can’t live in a world where you’re trying to win back the girl who had her Barbie-phobic dad dump you by text.”
Against my better judgment, I pulled up the text on my phone and showed it to Parker. She read it and closed her eyes for a second, then screamed “Bitchwhore!” so loud everyone in the atrium stopped and looked our way. The people eating looked at us, the people ordering food looked at us, the people serving food looked at us, even people rushing to catch a flight stopped to look at us, and though I kept waiting for the normal buzz of a hundred conversations to resume, it never did. I suppose people in airports are always a little on edge, and it didn’t help matters that Parker wore a T-shirt that said “Fight Terrorism” above a picture of the Olsen twins, so I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward the Delta lounge before security showed up and I had to discuss Sadie Evans with them too.