Brownie Points (13 page)

My heart sank at the word. “It’s the
mixing
you have a problem with?”

“Oh, don’t call the political correctness police now, Lisa, that’s not what I meant and you know it. But when you take away the lines between men and women, where does it end? Does the Ladies’ Gym have to start letting men into my cardio funk class?”

“This is about cardio funk? I’m surprised you’re concerned with such trivialities with all of the important things going on in your world like medieval birthday parties and ugly toes!” I stood up to leave. Olivia stood and met my gaze.

“Lisa, you need to take this seriously,” she admonished. “Boys can be very cruel at this age, and when they find out Logan’s a Girl Scout, I’m afraid of what they’ll do to him.”

That was it. Enraged, I slammed my hand onto the table, accidentally smashing the scone into several pieces. “Some boys are very cruel, Olivia, especially when they’re not raised by actual humans, but if I were you, I’d be very, very afraid for any kid who lays a finger on Logan. I swear, if that missing link of yours touches Logan again, your feet won’t be the only parts of you that need surgical enhancement.” I grabbed my purse, checked to see that it was actually my purse, then stormed off.

Chapter Thirteen

As I stomped back to my house, I swore I heard Darth Vader’s theme music accompanying me. I was feeling like a bit of a Storm Trooper that afternoon.
Logan, I am your mother.

“Hello, Lisa!” My neighbor shouted as I walked by. I realized that I was not imagining the dark side soundtrack. Barb’s husband was outside setting up a Star Wars-theme Thanksgiving feast on their front lawn, complete with Luke Skywalker carving the turkey with his lightsaber.

“Hey, Lisa,” chirped Michelle as her tank pulled up beside me. “Something wrong with your car?”

“Something’s wrong with my life,” I shot back.

Michelle’s pretty face scrunched. “Not a good time for bad news then.”

Great, now what?!
“I’m sorry, Michelle. I don’t mean to snap at you. What’s up?”

She explained that Girl Scouts of America rejected Logan’s application.

“The penis?” I asked.

“Yes.”

When Logan introduced the idea of joining Girl Scouts, I thought he was out of his mind, but I’d never seen him happier. Sure, he was bonding with his father on their Saturday trips to Dempsey’s, but it was at Girl Scouts where Logan finally gained a sense of belonging. “He’s going to be so disappointed,” I said to Michelle through her open window.

“Don’t tell him yet,” Michelle said. “I wrote a pretty strongly worded letter appealing their decision.”

“What did you say?”

“Just how much we love Logan and how the troop wouldn’t be the same without him.”

“Wow,” I said, smiling for the first time that day. “Do you really feel that way about him?”

“I feel that way about all of you,” Michelle said. “Hey, we need you again for Bunco next week.”

“Okay,” I said without thinking.
Oh shit, no, no, no. I don’t want to socialize with Val or Olivia
. “Oh, I’m sorry, I actually can’t make it that night.”

Michelle arched a brow. “What night can’t you make it?”

Shit! Busted.
“Um, Bunco night.”

“You mean Thursday?”

Relieved, I answered, “Yes, Thursday, I’ve got other plans that night.”

“Good!” Michelle shot smugly. “Bunco’s on Wednesday. See you there.” She blew a kiss and drove away, waving out the car window.

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“I’m not kidding,” Barb said, shoving another slice of spinach-dipped pita bread into her mouth. She struck me as someone who was equal parts earnest and fun. Her square face held thick brown eyebrows and a smile that only showed top teeth. There was something attractive about Barb. “Every day I load the dishwasher, unload it, sweep the floor, vacuum the rug, throw laundry in, fold it, pick crap off the floor, and just when I think it’s clean, these kids storm the place and mess it up again. I’m like that Greek guy who pushes the boulder up the mountain every day only to have it roll back down.” She didn’t seem bitter about her situation, but frustrated by the cyclical time drain.

After Barb Fields shared her thoughts on the Sisyphean futility of housework, the Bunco night conversation turned to Logan and his latest Girl Scout drama.

Olivia turned to me and blurted, “So I hear our first boy Girl Scout is no more.”

“Yeah, what happened?” Barb asked.

“The penis,” Michelle dropped casually while rolling the dice.

Logan joining the Girl Scouts was the talk of Utopia for a short while, but, thankfully, another scandal eclipsed his. The captain of the baseball team at Los Corderos High brought a stripper to the Harvest Dance at the school gym, and evidently she did a pole dance off the basketball post. Then Val made a stink about divots on the boys’ soccer field, and pretty soon everyone forgot about Logan the Girl Scout.

Sadly, Girl Scouts did not forget to respond to Michelle’s strongly worded letter, and told her that not only was Logan prohibited from joining the troop, he was no longer allowed to attend as a guest. The letter stated, in no uncertain terms, that the organization aimed to create an atmosphere where girls are uninhibited by the presence of boys. I fully endorsed the concept of girls feeling free to take risks, explore ideas and push boundaries. The thought of Logan inhibiting this was laughable.

What wasn’t quite as funny was the fact that Michelle was on probation with the Girl Scouts after she got into a shouting match with the president of Girl Scouts of America, who was Michelle’s childhood troop leader in Sacramento.

Val’s eyes narrowed on Olivia as she poured herself a glass of wine. “I hear the school is giving the GATE test again next month — for the kids who didn’t make it the first time around.”

“GATE?” I whispered to Michelle.

“Gifted and Talented,” she whispered back even softer.

“Perhaps this time Max won’t run out of the classroom and try to open the front gate to the school.”

“Val, that is really cruel,” Michelle said. “You know Max is autistic.”

Val was skeptical. “Please, anytime a kid doesn’t make good eye contact, they call it autism. All Max has is a plain old-fashioned case of bad genes.”

I had finally reached my limit with Utopia and its inane women. Okay, Marni was rad, Michelle was a love, Barb seemed cool and Cara was nice. But Val and Olivia were out of control. “Will you two stop it?!” I blurted. “What is wrong with you anyway? You’re still angry about some election that happened two years ago?! Please, Al Gore got over his disappointment faster than you two.” As I said this, an absurd image flashed through my mind: the former veep’s mother was viciously cane-jousting at Barbara Bush, who shouted back, “No recount, damn it. Georgie won!”

“It’s more than that,” Ellie said, in Val’s defense.

“Yeah, it’s much more than that,” Stacey said, placing a loyal hand on Val’s shoulder.

Marni placed her hand on her hip. “Oh yeah? Then what the fuck is it?”

With gentle inquisitiveness, Michelle resounded. “Val? Olivia?
What
the fuck is it?”

“What
is
it?” Stacey whispered to Val, relieving some of the tension in the room.

Just when I thought nothing in Utopia could shock me anymore, I got another surprise. After the women’s chorus of “What the fuck is it?” Cara rolled out a Bundt cake and we all had a perfectly delightful dice game. At the end of the evening, no one was any closer to knowing what the fuck it was, but we had the best time in months.

Chapter Fourteen

Michelle and a gaggle of Girl Scouts arrived at our house on Friday night to give Logan his send-off from the troop. As the leader, Michelle broke the news to him and he seemed to take it rather well. I hadn’t said a word about it, nor had he.

Logan and the girls gossiped about teachers and classmates, and I could see why they loved him. Logan was giving a French braid tutorial to Ashley, using Bianca and Maya as models. Bianca began lamenting that Jared Rinder never called her after the middle school Harvest Dance. The conversation was held in hushed tones while Michelle and I poured soda into plastic cups, but we managed to get the gist of it. When Jared tried to feel up Bianca in the parking lot, she politely declined. The boy seemed to take the rejection in stride, saying that it was Bianca’s personality he liked. Feeling her boobs was just a bonus. After my initial shock that thirteen-year-olds were on the boob-feeling track, I had a second wave of horror. How did they get outside to the parking lot? I was a chaperone at that dance and I didn’t see a single kid leave the school gym. Logan told Bianca, “You cannot be stressing about this jerk. You are so much better than that.” She smiled, not sure if he was right, but appreciative nonetheless.

“Maybe I should call and ask what’s up,” she suggested tentatively.

Logan held up his hand and shook his head adamantly. “Do not call, do not email, do not text, do not send smoke signals. This dog did you a favor by showing you who he is.” The girls nodded emphatically.

“He told everybody that I’m a prude,” Bianca said, dismayed.

“What’s he gonna tell them?” Logan replied. “That you find him so ugly and stupid that you wouldn’t let him touch you?”

Uh, hello. Don’t let the handsome, smart ones touch you either! You’re thirteen!!!

“He shouldn’t have said anything,” Ashley said.

“If he had any manners, he wouldn’t’ve,” Logan said to a rapt audience. “But he doesn’t, so be glad you didn’t let him near you.”

“Shouldn’t I call him on it?”

Logan replied, “Bianca, can you honestly tell me you’re not hoping he’s gonna deny it? Or maybe he did, but only because he was so hurt and frightened by his intense feelings and he’s so sorry, blah, blah, blah, boo hoo?”

The girls laughed. Bianca smiled, busted. I would have let the conversation continue a bit longer, but Michelle announced that pizza was on its way and drinks were on the counter. As the girls served themselves, Maya bumped into Bianca and spilled an entire cup of Cherry Coke onto her friend’s pants. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Maya said, rushing for napkins. “Here, let me help clean that.”

“Maya, honey,” I said, interrupting the futile clean-up effort. “She needs to borrow a pair of your jeans.” Without a word to even acknowledge my suggestion, they ran upstairs, cataloging Maya’s selection.

Maya returned downstairs to the party too quickly, though, because her friend started shouting for her to come back up. “These don’t fit!” she bellowed for all of us downstairs to hear.

Maya was fully immersed in conversation with the other girls, so I went up to the room to help Bianca find another pair of pants.

When I opened the door, I managed to suppress my gasp, but Bianca saw my look of revulsion at the sight of her legs. “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I should have knocked.” My eyes asked for an explanation.

“My cat,” she offered. “She’s kind of wild.”

“What kind of cat do you have, a cheetah?” I asked, trying to ease the tension a bit.

“We’re going to get her declawed pretty soon.”

I opened Maya’s drawers to look for another set of pants for Bianca and spoke with my back toward her. “You know, your cat scratches pretty neatly. And deep.” Turning to her, I said, “It almost looks like it was done by a razor.”

“Hmmm” was her reply. “Do you think I could borrow these?” Bianca asked, holding Maya’s favorite lavender sweatpants.

I nodded for her to put on the pants. “I once read that cutting is very common among girls your age. High achievers, especially. The article had a story about a high school girl who was a straight-A student, captain of the cheerleading team and president of the student council, and she said that cutting her palm helped settle her nerves. Her school counselor said that some girls organize their pain by cutting, sort of like sweeping it all into one spot.”

“Oh,” she said so dismissively that I almost believed her leg was scratched by a house pet. “These look okay?”

“The
pants
look fine, Bianca,” I said, pressing the point.

“Thanks,” she said before disappearing down the staircase.

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