The pancake house waitress appears just then with their paper place mats and a pot of coffee. Her antennae bob quietly over her gray curls as she stands for a moment ap-praising her chances of getting them to place an order. She looks at Alice’s eyes and says, “I’ll come back.”

Turtle stares at their new friend, the disheveled waitress.

Taylor looks down, studying her place mat, a line-drawing map of the Southwest noting features of interest and Queen Bee’s Houses of Pancakes in four states. They all seem to radiate out from Salt Lake City, the mother hive.

“I’m Alice,” Alice says finally, pouring everyone coffee.

“I’m the mother and grandmother of these two famous girls.”

The waitress rallies quickly. “I’m Barbie. No last name, I had it legally changed. I sign it like this, with the little trademark sign after it.” She picks up Alice’s ballpoint pen and writes a cheerfully looped, upward-slanting “Barbie TM” on Turtle’s napkin, directly beneath “I let my pet get wet.”

“Well, that’s real unique,” says Alice.

“I was born in 1959, exactly the same year that the first Barbie was developed and marketed by Mattel. Don’t you think that’s like too coincidental? The woman that invented her named the doll after her own daughter Barbara, and guess what. My name at birth was Barbara.” She looks wide-eyed around the table and blinks. Her eyelashes have remained amazingly long in spite of the disaster that’s occurred on the rest of her face.

“How’d you get fired?” Taylor inquires, trying for common ground.

“The manager said I spent too much time talking to you guys. He said I was ignoring the other people in my quadrant. That’s what he says, your quadrant, okay, like he’s the designer of the space module.”

“Well, that couple near us was having a bad fight,” Alice says helpfully. “I don’t think they wanted to be served.”

“I know.” Barbie makes her mouth into a specific pout.

“The poopy old manager says some stupid thing to me every single day. And the other waitrons don’t help, they take his side. They say I tell people too much about my hobby. This is, like, so stressful for me, that choice of words. Barbie is not a hobby, do you understand what I mean?”

Alice, Taylor, and Turtle say nothing, but she has their complete attention.

“This is a career for me, okay? I’ve changed my name, and I have worked so hard getting the wardrobe, I have thirteen complete ensembles and a lot of the mix-and-match parts.

To fit me, I mean, that I can wear. They have to be made special, or you can put things together from St. Vincent de Paul’s and the Goodwill, but it’s extremely creative. I study the originals very carefully. I think somebody ought to appreciate a person’s career goals, don’t you?”

Alice says, “Were you thinking maybe you could be Barbie in a nightclub act?”

Barbie dips a fresh napkin into her water glass and goes at her eyes again. “I haven’t totally thought out all the details, but something like that. I did the Barbie birthday party at a shopping center in Bakersfield. I was only nineteen at the time and they paid me two hundred dollars. But there’s only so many opportunities in Bakersfield, so I thought being a waitron at, like, a casino in Las Vegas, you know? You’re bound to meet somebody in high places. Life is full of surprises, right?”

Alice thinks of the sad outfit at the Delta Queen and can’t imagine the depths of this poor girl’s delusion. She is ready to adopt her on the spot. Their waitress sneaks back tentatively on her crepe soles, and looks relieved when they all order the breakfast special.

“There’s a very exciting development coming out this fall,” Barbie says, looking back and forth between Taylor and Turtle. “Mattel is launching its new line of ethnic Barbies. Hispanic and African-American.”

Alice realizes with an indignant shock that Barbie has been scrutinizing their skin color. Taylor is stirring her coffee and seems not to have noticed. “Here, Turtle, you can color your placemat,” Taylor suggests.

“I saw pictures of them,” Barbie continues, leaning forward confessionally. “I have access to some very exclusive advance information on this. They appear to be identical to the original model except I think maybe they used plastic from darker dye lots. Also the hair is very special.”

“Turtle has a Rastafarian Barbie,” Taylor says. “Talk about special hair. She has blond dreadlocks.”

Barbie goes blank. “I thought I knew every model on the market.”