Brownie Points (19 page)

On the first day, we would place three feet of the wall facing the busiest intersection of Los Corderos. The billboard would simply tease, “Girl Scouts of American …” Most people would see the fence-height cookie wall and think it must be cookie season once again. A few days later, however, we’d add another three feet in height and stretch the footprint to twenty feet. The billboard would now read, “Girl Scouts of American … Tear Down …”

Kate explained this to Wax and me as we sat in her studio on our first day working together. Her workspace was sparsely decorated with a table made from a barn door and a few stools she made from barrels. In the corner were rolls of canvas, long pieces of wood, a small saw and a vise. Her paint tubes and brushes were tossed haphazardly into colorful children’s beach buckets beside her other supplies. “Then when people are good and curious about what this cookie wall means, we’re going to completely fuck with them,” Kate told us. Wax urged her to go on. “We’re going to leave it alone for a week until people are going out of their minds waiting for the next installment.”

I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but I couldn’t see anyone caring that much about our wall. She disagreed. “Lisa, you can’t get to a supermarket, Pilates studio or dog salon without seeing that thing. I guarantee you, it’s going to be talked about,” she said.

“So then we’ll put up the last four feet of the wall and finish the billboard,” Kate said. With dramatic flair, she swooshed her hand overhead. “Girl Scouts of America … Tear down this wall.” She laughed. “I never thought I’d be quoting Ronald Reagan.”

Wax gave his wife a sympathetic pat on the back. “You’re bastardizing, not quoting.”

She sighed, relieved. “You’re right, dear.”

“You guys were smart to buy a home where you’re free to do what you want,” I said. “We’ve got a CC&Rs Enforcement Committee that will issue a warrant for your arrest if there’s a dead marigold in the yard.”

Wax looked baffled. “CC&Rs
Enforcement
Committee? That’s weird.”

“I know,” I said with a laugh. “Utopia is beyond weird. I’m not even allowed to work in my own garage unless the door is closed.”

“Why don’t you work here?” Kate asked, gesturing with her arm that there was plenty of room.

“Are you kidding?” I asked, elated.

“Yeah, I’m kidding,” Kate said. “I thought it would be fun to jerk y’round a bit. You stay put in that closed garage of yours.” She laughed. “Of course, Lisa. Bring your stuff over this afternoon. I’d love the company.”

™˜

Kate didn’t say much while we worked, instead preferring to hum along to Beatles albums she played on a record player plugged in to a thick orange extension cord that tethered us to the main house. I made several attempts to start conversations, but Kate always responded with a polite grunt that seemed to mean “that’s interesting.” When I asked her questions, she was often so absorbed in her work that she didn’t hear me. When she did hear me, she gave one-word responses. She never opened a dialog with me.

As Kate and I were finishing our project, Wax came into his wife’s studio holding several sheets of paper in his famous leathery hands. “Morning, Lisa,” he greeted me. “Girl Scouts filed a demurrer to Logan’s complaint.”

“A demurrer?” I asked.

“English,” Kate urged, never looking up from her work.

“Sorry, Lisa,” Wax said. “You know I filed the complaint last week. I’ve got to give credit to these speedy scouts. They whipped out a demurrer darned fast. Basically it means they’re asking the court to dismiss Logan’s claim.”

“What?!” I cried.

“Lisa, darlin’, you can’t let these things ruffle your feathers,” Wax said. “I expected them to file a demurrer. They filed their demurrer. I’ll file an opposition to it, they’ll reply, then we’ll probably have a hearing. All part of the game, Lisa.” He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “How’s Jason holding up?” Wax asked.

“Jason?” Was Wax having a senior moment and confusing my husband with my son?

“Yes, Lisa. I’m hoping he’s not letting those bullies down at City Hall worry him. I mean, legally they could fire him, but they’ll never do it. It’d be a PR disaster with Jason being the first African-American fire captain and all.”

Fire him? Fire him!? Was Jason in jeopardy of losing the job we’d moved here for?

™˜

Jason paced across our bedroom floor, his gaze fixed at his feet. “I didn’t tell you ’cause I didn’t want you to worry,” he explained.

“You didn’t want me to worry?!” I screamed, grateful that the kids were at Michelle’s. “You didn’t want me to worry about you losing your job?! What am I, a child who needs to be protected from the truth? I thought we were a team!”

“Look, baby, I didn’t want you to freak out,” Jason explained.

“What makes you think I’d freak out?!” I yelled, arms flailing.

“Lisa, I can handle this. Can you trust me on this? I am not gonna get fired.”

I sighed as I dropped onto the bed. What more could go wrong for us in this so-called Utopia?

I walked over to him and looked in his eyes. “We need to put an end to this, Jason,” I said, gripping his arms tightly. “He’ll listen to you. Tell him he can’t sue the Girl Scouts. He’ll be reasonable.”

Jason shook his head. “Baby, you seen that boy since this all began with Girl Scouts?” I knew what he meant. These girls were Logan’s lifeline. Jason looked at me intently. “Lisa, I took Logan to Dempsey’s to teach him how to fight. And now he’s teaching me the same thing.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The January Bunco game was poorly attended. I knew it was because I was hosting, though Michelle tried to convince me that people were just “super busy.” I’d like to believe that my home wasn’t being boycotted, but I’d never heard of a post-holiday rush. What could they be doing, double cardio funk classes to burn off the eggnog? When I posed this rhetorical question, Michelle replied, “The Ladies’ Club has been shut down since Christmas.”

“It has?” I asked, not sure why this struck me.

“Mold.”

“Mold?” I asked.

“A
lot
of mold.”

Only Marni, Michelle, Barb and Cara showed up, which made a Bunco game impossible. No one seemed terribly concerned. Barb confessed she never liked the game anyway, and Marni admitted she was only coming for the free wine. With that we laughed and uncorked a bottle.

“I think Logan kicks ass for suing the Girl Scouts,” Marni said. “Stick it to those Goody Two-Shoes.”

“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way,” Barb began, “but I hope Logan loses. It’s nothing personal, but if they let one boy in, they’ll have to let any boy in and then it would be just another co-ed kids’ club.”

Cara asked, “What’s wrong with that, Barb?”

“What’s wrong with it is that some girls are very shy and don’t need the pressure of having to look cool in front of boys,” she explained. “I’m not going to do anything to stand in your way, Lisa. I just want to be honest. I’m not for it, but we can agree to disagree on this one, okay?”

I nodded, wishing Olivia could be more like Barb.

“I love the cookie wall, though,” she continued.

“I took a ton of pictures of it for the website,” Michelle said, sipping the sulfite-free red wine she’d brought.

“Website?” I asked.

“I’ve been meaning to start a troop site forever,” Michelle said. “Guess whose kids taught me how to set it up?”

“Mine?” I squeaked.

Michelle nodded enthusiastically.

“And it discusses Logan’s case?” I asked, horrified.

“They didn’t tell you?” Michelle asked.

“Never mind that now,” I said, flipping open the laptop sitting on our countertop. “Show me the site.” The women peered over my shoulder as I tapped in the address.

A photo of Logan and the girls posing in front of the cookie wall immediately appeared on-screen. A few seconds later a rap beat began as a Photoshopped image of Ronald Reagan — with long cornrows and a grill — strutted onto the scene. The girls used a sound clip of the late president urging Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, made it repeat the phrase amid record-scratching noise, and added a backbeat that could hold its own at TRL. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Ghetto Ronnie began to bust a move and sing, “Yo, yo, yo, Girl Scouts of America, listen up here … .”

I snapped closed the laptop. “Michelle, this is a disaster!” I yelled.

“I’m sorry,” Michelle said, close to tears. “I’ll take it down right now.”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on all of the things I’d grown to love about Michelle over the last few months.

“Don’t worry, Lisa. I’m sure no one’s even seen it. It’s only been up a week,” Michelle assured me. “Besides, who cares about our little old Girl Scout troop?”

™˜

The Great Wall of Cookies had been up a little less than a week before it made the front cover of the
Los
Corderos Clarion.
I don’t know how in God’s name Val Monroe got herself quoted in the article, but she got as much ink as the mayor. There aren’t even CC&Rs in greater Los Corderos, yet the enforcer of McMansionville was asked to weigh in on this.

Both Kate and I thought that erecting a wall was such a clever idea, but no one understood what the heck we were trying to communicate. Logan smiled as he read the article aloud.

Los Corderos—If you’re driving down El Camino Real and suddenly get a hankering for Thin Mints, don’t blame the Girl Scouts. The ten-foot wall of cookie boxes isn’t a creative advertising campaign by the local troop. In fact, it’s a political protest by artist Katherine Parr and her assistant, Lisa Taylor. Both women are upset that Girl Scouts of America has rejected the membership of Logan Taylor, 14. Taylor is a boy.

Logan Taylor is the first male to seek membership to the all-girl organization since its inception in 1912. Organization officials declined to comment since Taylor has filed a lawsuit with the Superior Court of Los Corderos County alleging gender discrimination. Clare Parkins, attorney for Girl Scouts of America, said the organization permits males to serve as leaders and volunteers. “Girl Scouts employs men in every facet of the organization except for troop membership, which is designed exclusively for the empowerment of girls. Logan sounds like a delightful young man who would be an asset to any Boy Scout troop.”

“
What we have here is a wall of shame,” said Los Corderos community leader Valerie Monroe. “This is an eyesore and danger to anyone driving down El Camino Real. We should all be outraged that radicals like Katherine Parr and Lisa Taylor are using our peaceful community as a platform for their personal agenda.”

The issue came to the attention of the City Council Tuesday when an ad hoc group calling itself “Girls Are Girls” presented their case during the open forum. In a written statement, group president Olivia McDoyle said, “What part of the term Girl Scout makes it unclear that this organization is for girls? What’s wrong with America today is no one wants to play by the rules.”