​Morganne Howell
​

Barbie In Hill Country

Barbie keeps stride with Justin, who marches along the dirt road. His thick arms, swinging back and forth, are covered in tattoos of his life since she knew him last – a motorcycle, an open book, a date in roman numerals.
 
Above them, the sky is windless and bright. Sloping hills roll into the distance. No fences, or building structures, or grazing cattle interrupt the expansive fields to either side, which are covered in clumps of wiry bushes.
 
Since the trail junction, Barbie and Justin have followed the same road for miles, which brought them into a wide valley. Every twenty minutes or so, the road comes up a gentle ridge and then back down into a basin. Each time, Barbie expects the road to turn, curving back toward where they started.
 
And when it doesn’t, panic begins to swell in the back of her mind. She starts to feel claustrophobic from the inescapable space around her as if she were treading water without land in sight. After a final notification about an excessive heat watch, Barbie’s phone dies. Justin’s can’t find service.
 
Over the crunch of their steps on the unpaved gravel, Justin asks, “When did you start to go by Barbie?”
 
“It’s always been my name.” She tilts her oversized yellow metal cup upside down. “I’m out of water. We should probably turn around, right?”
 
“You were Barbara in elementary school,” Justin corrects her.
 
“Only by the teachers.” She assumes he has forgotten as much about her as she has forgotten about him. In Michigan, in the mid-1990s, they were in the same class. Barbie’s strongest memory from grade school is learning that she doesn’t look like a Barbie doll. She isn’t as pretty or slim or delicate. Justin wasn’t Ken-handsome either, but she remembers he wasn’t mean. Since high school, Justin has routinely showed up on her social media feeds, rotating into the visual backdrop of her online space.
 
“I remember the name that was on your cubby.” Justin looks forward again toward the endless trail. “Bar-bie,” he repeats, sounding out the letters.
 
Barbie’s forehead aches from the relentless sun. She’s tired of talking to people about her name and toys and her brown (not-blonde) ponytail. So tired, in fact, she cut it off. A week before, in front of her bathroom mirror, she tied her unruly hair in two pigtails, and chopped them above the band with kitchen scissors.
 
Her now-ex situationship, Paul Maloney, took one look and broke things off with her that morning, claiming it was because Barbie had been so distant during her busy tax season at work, wrapped up in her “regime of deadlines” and “formulaic day-to-day.” He stared at her with the same concerned disappointment of her college friends back in Ann Arbor, who stopped inviting her to the small music venues to see local bands on weeknights, after she repeatedly declined, choosing instead to study. At graduation, Barbie stood with the group to take smiling photos, and that was the last time she talked to any of them—free of their well-intentioned, and anxiety-inducing, invitations.
 
“It’s fine you know what you want, but I’m not it,” Paul Maloney said, standing in her kitchen. Stunned, she scrolled through four hours of short videos on her phone while continuously reaching for her missing hair. In one video, a woman talked authoritatively about how nobody will remember us in 100 years. Our great-grandchildren won’t remember our names. The woman in the video wanted to say that we lose sight of what’s important. Barbie’s takeaway, however, was that she needed to seize the day. She was gripped by the feeling.
 
And what did somebody do with short hair and newfound freedom? She bought iced coffee from the cafe at the corner. On her way out, she ran into Justin who 1) she hadn’t seen in person in years, and 2) now had c-a-r-p-e  d-i-e-m spelled down his forearm in gothic font. He’s more Ken-handsome than before. When he suggested they hang out, she said “that sounds great,” and “why not?” when he later texted to propose hiking.
 
“Barbie would be a good name for a character in a story.” Justin looks back at her and squints, sweat dripping down his forehead. In the heavy July sun, armpit stains bleed down the sides of his white t-shirt. The heat is firm and constant. Intermittently, he twitches his elbows out like wings and tugs at the middle where the fabric falls above the waistline of his athletic shorts.
 
His movement triggers a brief and vivid memory in Barbie. Alarmed, she says, “We’ve been here before. I think your directions were wrong.”
 
Barbie stops walking and casts her eyes behind them to a view that looks nearly identical to the path ahead. They’ve been walking for hours since Justin knew, absolutely, they needed to take the trail to the left, which gradually became this road.
 
“I hiked all the time as a kid,” he told her at the trail junction. “I was an Eagle Scout. We should take the left.”
 
At the time, she agreed because a) she didn’t know, and b) her horoscope app pushed a notification that morning that encouraged her to “find herself in the unknown.” She thought the universe was conspiring with her, but now she wonders how long she can survive without water. And why, if Justin was an Eagle Scout, did he not bring a bottle? Barbie tries to remember what else she knows about him, and she can’t think past the heat.
 
As they walk, Justin asks if she hikes frequently, and she shakes her head no, emphatically. She hardly has time for sit-ups in her living room. Justin explains that he hikes all the time, and talks about his desire to live in the great state of Texas permanently. He doesn’t want to leave, but he can’t afford to buy a house here. He blames all the newcomers to Austin, at which Barbie laughs and reminds him that she is one, having moved from Michigan less than a year ago. “See? Exactly. You’re the problem,” Justin jokes.
 
“We should turn around,” Barbie says finally. Her knees are aching. She keeps checking her phone. Each time she’s faced with the immobile back screen, her fear gets closer to overtaking the embarrassment of admitting to Justin that she’s worried.
 
She tells herself that she’s just afraid of change. She doesn’t want to be wrong. If the hike is a mistake, then her haircut might have been a mistake, and she might be disastrously off-track. She tells herself that everything seems scarier when you’re this far from home. They just need to make it back to the parking lot.
 
“In the novel I was writing–well, I wrote, I finished it–the protagonist second-guesses himself,” Justin says, nodding his head. “We need to keep going.”
 
“I just think,” Barbie’s mouth is dry saying the words. “We don’t have any more water, and I think we might be lost. And I’m actually so thirsty.” The skin on her forehead feels like baked parchment paper. Her headache, now tightening at her temples, makes thinking slow and tedious. The synthetic, moisture-wicking fabric of her cropped sports-bra is light on her body. There is no protection from the dry air chafing against her pickled neck. “I should have worn a hat,” she says. She shakes her head and her brain painfully compresses against her inner skull. Everything is happening in slow motion.
 
“Dramatic Barbie!” Justin smiles. “This takes us to a bigger hill.”
 
“I don’t see a bigger hill,” Barbie looks around, shielding her eyes.
 
“No, there is,” Justin corrects her. “You remind me of me when I was younger. For a long time, I thought I had a neurodegenerative disease because this inexperienced nurse at my college clinic said my numb toes might be a symptom. It was insane malpractice. She realized immediately she’d made a mistake after saying it, but then I’d heard it and I was convinced. It was only after starting to see my psychiatrist I let it go. He was able to explain how complex my brain can be and how we really do shape our own reality.”
 
While Justin talks, Barbie observes the figure on the back of his square calf, large and colorful, who drinks from a bottle containing the man’s own head. Finding water and shade is the only thing that matters. They will literally die looking for a hill. That’s what she remembers about him–he was stubborn and maybe stupid, which makes her angry. She wants to cry from frustration. It’s time to go.
 
Her throat stings. The dust in the air burns in her nostrils and smells like hot clay. Her thirst is quickly becoming the only thing she can think about. She listens to her heartbeats, ricocheting through her hazy vision like cannon fire. Blood pumps painfully against her forehead. Retracing the trail is the only idea she can muster.
 
“When I was writing that novel, I worked in the publishing industry,” Justin stops and puts his hands on his head. Barbie realizes he’s been talking and slows to stand next to him. Her leg muscles tremble.
 
Justin tilts back to look at the sky in contemplation. “The ladies in the industry, they were the gatekeepers of what got published. None of it had to do with merit, it was just their decision. It’s arbitrary.” He drops his hands down to his knees and bends over.
 
“Are you ok?” Barbie asks. “Are you de-hy-drated?” The syllables of the word stick on her tongue.
 
“I’m fine,” he straightens up and continues to walk, a pace ahead. “I could run a marathon right now if I wanted to.”
 
“That’s impossible.”
 
“No, it’s just mental discipline. I’m not trying to brag. When I was in creative writing classes in college or whatever, my teachers always said I was talented, but it doesn’t matter. To be a writer, you have to write every day, and so while I wrote my novel, I did. I made myself sit and stare at a blank page. I have that kind of discipline, but it doesn’t matter. Even if you write something that is a true quality, it isn’t going to make any money. The gatekeepers don’t choose literature based on merit, and I wasn’t writing a millennial-pink, book-group-book, you know?”
 
“Justin, I’m turning around. Do you want to come back with me?”
 
“Let’s find the hill and see which direction to take.”
 
“Then I’m going alone. It was nice to see you again.” She pivots and walks away from him, profoundly ready to be back in her normal life. This was a terrible idea.
 
Her gut is seething with resentment. Everything is catastrophic and it’s her own fault. She wasted her time with Paul Maloney and now she’s in trouble, alone, in the middle-of-nowhere. She has let this stupid man take her on a stupid, fucking hike. Justin just walked her to death in the desert, and she listened to his stupid, fucking stories as if they were old friends.
 
She walks faster and immediately feels out of breath. Her heart expands into her whole body. It feels heavy. Maybe Justin actually wants to be lost in the desert, just to prove he can save himself. He’s looking for something to define him–a novel, a writing career, an illness, Texas. Images of nurses handing Justin back a manuscript float through her bleary mind, as does Paul Maloney, standing in her kitchen holding giant, chopping scissors.
 
Barbie wants to cry, which makes the sharp pain in her forehead scatter her thoughts. Her life is ending as a supporting role in Justin’s story. She takes a deep, shuddering breath that rattles her ribcage. She imagines her family finding the last video on her phone and thinking she gave up because no one will remember her name in 100 years. Her mom will use her inheritance to start a small nonprofit in Barbie’s name that gives scholarships to math-oriented highschoolers to study accounting. Her college friends will post about it on her birthday and ask for donations in a link in their bio. Her name will be remembered in a piece of digital garbage that floats around the world wide web for eternity.
 
Meanwhile, Justin’s family will find a way to debut his posthumous novel, finally giving his life the meaning he’s desperately looking for. The unfairness weakens her legs.
 
She heaves a dry sob and the inside of her chest feels bruised.
 
The massive sky swamps Barbie, sealing her in from all sides. Her throat compresses and the tears that are seeded in the lining of her lungs tug free and rise into her nose. She bends forward and takes three giant, desperate deep breaths.
 
She slaps at her thighs, choking the tears back into her sternum. She can’t lose more body moisture to this godforsaken, fucking trail.
 
Around her, everything is plain and caked with silt. The grass is flat. The colors are beige, like the soil has been sapped of water over and over again. She stands solemnly and holds the power button on her dead phone. The screen turns on, and the battery icon shows a thin, red line.
 
Barbie spins around looking for Justin in the distance. She shouts his name.
 
Hope splits her open.
 
They might be okay.
 
The sky looks extra blue, imbued with a new future. She dims the brightness on her screen and puts the battery on low energy. Should she contact her parents or call the emergency line?
 
The pressure from the sides of her head knocks any thoughts out of focus before she can finish them.
 
If she texts? Can a call? She’s afraid. The phone will die again. “I’m lost, overland trail junction, went left. Help.” What else can she say?
 
She sends the message and it doesn’t deliver.
 
There’s no service.
 
Barbie closes her eyes and holds the phone to her forehead. The heat envelops her once more.
 
She turns to descend from a small crest of a rise in the land. Before returning back down into the next basin, she stops. From a distance, from the far hill, a figure moves toward her, kicking the occasional rock out of the way with his boot. Her vision is narrow and feels sore at the edges. As the male figure gets closer, he waves. Barbie can’t understand how Justin got in front of her. The trail never turned. She gets dizzy thinking about it. She can’t tell how long it’s been since she saw him last.
 
“We’re on a loop!” he shouts when he gets into earshot.
 
“What?” she shouts back, a little relieved to see him. At least she won’t be alone.
 
“It’s good you left me, actually. It gave me time to think, finally,” Justin says as he approaches, which makes Barbie snort and a pain shoots through her ears.
 
A mottled purple bruise has unfurled from under the neckline of Justin’s shirt, seeping up toward his chin, which Barbie notices looks like Michigan, with a thumb pressing on his Adam’s apple. His face looks blotchy red, like the heat has begun to melt him from the inside.
 
Barbie raises her palm in greeting, flexed in the shape of a mitten. Justin raises his eyebrows into his forehead, and mimics her, pointing to the tip of his pinky, and the location of their hometown. She laughs, stumbling to the side. He laughs too, reaching out to catch her. Barbie falls forward, her heart racing, skipping over itself to keep up. She kneels in the dirt, and holds up her palm again, wiggling her pinky, knowing that he, too, a delirious Michigander, will laugh harder.
 
“Tell me what you thought about,” Barbie says, catching her breath, while she picks her way to lie on the firm ground, dullness spreading through her chest. A patch of small yellow flowers sprouting between the gravel tickles the nape of her neck. Justin sits down cross-legged beside her, looking across the desert expanse. Maybe it’s best if they stay put and someone will find them. Maybe her phone will send their location.
 
“Well, the hills,” Justin says. She closes her eyes and his voice sounds very remote, muted by the flat blackness pushing down on her, slowing her heart. “The one I’m looking for–I don’t think it’s here actually.”
 
Barbie smiles again. “I’m sorry,” she says honestly. “I think you found it.” And then she can’t be sure she spoke the words out loud.

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Morganne Howell lives in Oakland, California. Her writing draws on the contemporary West. She has been previously published in ARTWIFE Magazine and the Skipjack Review.