Brownie Points

by Jennifer Coburn

  Maya and Jason burst into laughter over something on the television. Didn’t they notice how strange our home looked? Didn’t it bother them?

  “We need new furniture for this space,” he said, scanning the room again.

  “I know,” I said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I promise you, Logan, we’ll make this place feel like home.”

  Logan used his hands to create a frame and held it over the fireplace. “What do you think of something cozy like Grandma Zoë’s hexagon quilt?”

  Ah yes, the acid trip quilt, as my father called it, because my mother sewed the entire thing by hand while on one very long LSD trip. According to who you believed, it took anywhere from six days to six months to make it. I’ll give her this: She didn’t miss a stitch and it is unique. At first glance it simply looks like a random pattern of colorful patches, but if you stare at it for a while it becomes Madonna and Child. Not Mary and Jesus, but the Material Girl and Baby Lourdes as they appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair.

  Returning to Logan, I asked, “Not a mirror? I always like mirrors over a mantle.”

  “For what, to open up the room?” Logan snorted. “Please, we need to soften the space, not make it look even bigger.”

  I stood back and absorbed what he was saying. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “And can we get a little color, puh-lease?” Logan asked, more animated than he’d been. “It looks so much like a hospital in here that I almost grabbed a scalpel and removed Maya’s spleen today.”

  I laughed. “Logan, do the kids at school appreciate your sense of humor?”

  “Oh yeah, totally, Mom,” Logan said, dripping with sarcasm. “When they jump on you and start punching, it’s their special little way of saying we love your sense of humor.”

  Oblivious to our conversation, our counterparts erupted in laughter. “No way!” Jason bellowed. “No way she’s going to eat that! I don’t care how much money they give her, that girl is not gonna put maggots in her mouth.”

  “I am so barfing!” Maya screamed. “If she eats bugs I am going to completely vomit my whole dinner out on the floor.”

  Logan rolled his eyes. Under his breath, he muttered, “And she’s the popular one.”

  ™˜

  The following evening it was time for Michelle’s monthly Bunco game. There was something intimidating about walking into a group of women who all knew each other. Being the new kid on the block may have been easy for Maya, but I feared my fate would be similar to Logan’s. Grown women don’t throw punches, though. They’re much worse.

  I felt a bit guilty leaving Logan that evening since he was sick and stayed home from school that day. He did seem much better by the afternoon, and Jason assured me he would take good care of our son while I played dice with the Utopian housewives. I thought about bailing out at the last minute, but Bunco required a group divisible by four players.

  “Play nice with the ladies,” Jason teased as he walked me to the garage. It was easy for him to be flippant about forging friendships when his job provided a built-in fraternity. In the two weeks we had lived in Los Corderos, Jason had been invited to join the department bowling team, went to poker night at Jim’s house and spoke at a City Council meeting. Not that testifying about public funding for fire prevention was some big social brouhaha, but it gave him exposure to interesting people who were passionate about issues and public affairs. I was invited to the dice game only because Wendy McFarlane’s mother broke her hip.

  When I entered Michelle’s house, it was like a tsunami of color coordination. I was nearly knocked off my feet by the wave of hunter green and wheat that started in the family room and built in intensity through the hallway and foyer. The dark wood trim and almond plush carpet gave the home the feel of an overpriced men’s clothing store. As I made my way into the family room, I noticed that the wallpaper on the lower half of the family room walls was the same paisley pattern as the window valences. It was also the very same paisley pattern that our next door neighbor used. Our neighbor went one step further and used the pattern to cover her side tables and make a puffy frame for her family portrait. It made me wonder if there was a secret Utopia fabric warehouse where this stuff was sold by the mile. Then I remembered where I saw the pattern. It was in the swatch book that Maya and Logan brought down from the bedroom on our first day in Utopia. It was called “Crazy for Paisley,” which prompted the kids to come up with silly names for the others, like “Just Ducky” for the mallard print and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Marble!” for the faux finish.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” Michelle said warmly, instantly filling me with guilt for my unkind thoughts about her décor. I was going to stop being such a judgmental bitch. So what if not everyone had the same taste as me? Wasn’t my whole beef with Utopia that it was more homogenized than whole milk?

  “Thanks for inviting me,” I said. Michelle wore an oversized white cotton button-down shirt tied in a knot at the bottom. Her pants were soft denim Capris that looked both comfortable and pulled-together. I suddenly felt like I should have put a bit more thought into my outfit.

  As we walked through the gauntlet of family photos, I heard snippets of women’s voices.

  “She’s got dance and soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays, and art and karate on the other days until softball starts,” one said.

  “How’s it going with Pristine’s new show-and-tell coach?” another asked.

  Then a voice of reason. “Isn’t all of this stressful for a kid?”

  “That’s why we do yoga on Sunday nights,” explained the first woman, who turned out to be the infamous Val Monroe.

  My instinct was to about-face and run for the door, but I couldn’t bear to hurt Michelle’s feelings. She was indeed ditsy with her fruit cleanses and American Idol birthday parties, but she started to win me over when she appreciated my ill-conceived broken-glass vases. When she clapped wildly for Maya singing at Ashley’s party, she had me. We’d never be best friends, but she was a decent person, and there was no need to be rude to her just because her life was perfect and mine was quickly spiraling down the crapper.

  When I saw the other women, I realized I definitely should have made more of an effort to look good. Olivia traded in her queen costume for a floral Ann Taylor skirt, cream twin set and pearls. Several adopted a similar look. Then there was Val’s group, the Junta Moms, who appeared to have been lifted from the pages of a Lilly Pulitzer catalog. They showcased their oh-so-whimsical nature with pants trimmed with striped and polka-dotted ribbon that was also used for their tops. One mother added a matching headband that was not only covered in ribbon, but had loopy bows crowning it as well. She looked as if a gift table had exploded on her. Kindness, kindness, Lisa. A very nice gift table. The only other person in a t-shirt was Stacey, who sported a rhinestone-encrusted sage green “Flow” tank top from the Answer store.

  Before the game began, I discreetly pulled Olivia aside, hoping we could put our heads together and stop Max’s bullying of Logan. I decided the best approach was diplomacy rather than accusing her vile son of being the warmongering jackass he undoubtedly was. Instead, I told her I wanted to discuss the “tension” between our boys. As we walked off to a corner of the room, I overheard Barb encouraging Michelle to stop smelling the brownies she baked and just eat one already. Michelle opened her eyes and looked peaceful holding the brownie under her nose. “I have eaten a cookie in my mind,” she told the women. “I am now full and satisfied.”

  “About the boys,” I broached with Olivia.

  “Don’t they just grow up so quickly?” she said, nodding sweetly. “Jim and I were looking at photos and we were amazed at how big they’ve gotten. How did it happen?”

  “You fed them,” I clipped. “About the tension between our sons, I was hoping we could put our heads together and come up with some—”

  Olivia stopped me with a crossing guard gesture. “Lisa, I love these ladies like my very own sorority sisters, but where we par
t company is that I do not micromanage my boys’ lives. We don’t need to call for a parent summit every time there’s an unkind word between them. Whatever tension our boys are having will work itself out.”

  Clearly she did not understand the seriousness of the problem. “Max is hitting Logan at school,” I explained.

  “Then Logan should hit him right back!” Olivia demanded. “Good and hard too. You need to trust me on this one, honey. I have three boys and this is what they do. They beat each other within inches of their lives, then they’re best friends the next day. It’s healthy for them to get all that testosterone out of their systems. It’s no good if they get all clogged up.”

  My mouth moved, but no words came out immediately. Finally, I managed to speak. “I don’t want your son unclogging himself on mine.”

  She laughed. Olivia McDoyle actually laughed. Not a Cruella de Vil evil cackle, but an honest-to-goodness amused, albeit somewhat condescending, chuckle. “Lisa, try not to worry so much. What doesn’t kill them makes them stronger,” she said, holding my shoulder as if she were dispensing words of wise consolation.

  Michelle rang a crystal bell, signaling it was time to start the game.

  “How’d it go?” Barb asked as I returned from my corner.

  “That woman is out of her mind,” I said without filtering.

  “You should’ve seen her before the Paxil,” she said with a wink as we walked to our tables of four.

  My neighbor from across the street, Marni, was sporting so many pearls it almost looked as if she were wearing a housewife costume. In a flash she gave me a moment of hope that there was more to her than met the eye. When she helped Michelle and reached for coffee cups, she revealed a small tattoo of a cute yellow chick on her lower back that appeared to have writing beneath it. Intrigued, I tried to read it, but when her arms came down, so did the curtain.

  Bunco was—as Michelle had explained—a ridiculously easy dice game that women used as an excuse to get together. Though it was a game of chance, I did notice Val trying to increase her odds of rolling “two-sies” by rolling faster. It made sense. The more often she rolled the dice the better her chances of getting the combinations she needed. “So, how are you finding Utopia?” Val asked, her eyes focused intensely on the dice.

  “It’s great,” I lied.

  “It’s a perfect place to raise kids,” she said as if it were a fact rather than her opinion.

  “In many ways,” I replied, but she did not press further.

  “And your husband is the new fire captain.”

  I nodded and smiled. “Yes, he’s very excited about the position.”

  “He must be,” she said.

  “What about you, Val? What do you do?” I asked.

  “What doesn’t Val do?” Stacey answered for her. “She’s the room mom in all four of her children’s classes, runs the hospital auxiliary and heads the CC&Rs committee.”

  Val gave a slight laugh that suggested she was both pleased with the public relations while also a bit contemptuous of Stacey’s idol worship. “My kids are a full-time job.”

  “Totally,” Stacey said, nodding emphatically.

  Ellie Post, not wanting to let too long go by before she fanned Val with her verbal palm leaf, said, “There’s so much we can give them at this age.”

  “Absolutely,” I said, but must not have been entirely convincing because Ellie told me, “We’ve got the rest of our lives to do our own thing.” They all nodded.

  I agreed that mothers had their hands full raising children, and that in doing so their time was invested well. But these women seemed to jump on the evangelical bandwagon so quickly without any regard for how I might have felt about the issue. It was as if they wanted to make their positions known before I had any time to establish mine.

  “Oh,” I said. “I kind of feel like doing our own thing is giving something to the kids.” Shut up, Lisa. Don’t think you’re going to end the Mommy Wars with an argument they’ve already heard and rejected. “I mean, I totally want to be there for my children, but I want them to see me doing other things too.” Olive branch, think olive branch. “Like you, Val. I’m sure your kids think it’s great that you run that hospital auxiliary.”

  “Oh, please,” Val dismissed. “The head of plastic surgery is retiring next year and if I don’t do my time at the hospital, Blake will never get the gig. That’s how that damn hospital gets half its volunteer hours, all of us wives jockeying for our husbands. Between the charity events and parties at the house, I feel like I earn most of his salary.” The others giggled knowingly.

  I wondered who jockeyed for the female doctors. There were women physicians at Los Corderos General, weren’t there? There weren’t any women firefighters, I realized. Instead, I said, “Well, it’s good that the hospital gets such great support from the community.”

  Val dismissed my comment with a shrug. “Michelle says you do ceramics.”

  “Sculpture, actually,” I said.

  “We’re always looking for raffle prizes for the auxiliary events,” Val said as Stacey and Ellie nodded at what a great idea it was to give away my nonexistent glazed fruit bowls. “Like you said, it’s for a good cause.”

  Your husband’s career advancement?

  “Totally,” Ellie agreed.

  “It’ll give you great exposure if you decide you want to sell your pottery someday,” Val said. “I know I’m always looking for artsy little gifts.”

  “Who isn’t?” asked Stacey.

  “I actually do sell my sculptures,” I said. “I got a pretty good write-up on the last —”

  “Bunco!” someone at the next table shouted.

  My last show did get a good write-up in the Examiner, but the reality was I was never going to achieve the level of success I’d hoped to when I quit my job in advertising so many years ago. I sometimes wonder if Jason resents — or at least regrets — encouraging me to pursue sculpting full time. Though neither of us ever said it aloud, we both hoped that I would become the next big thing in the art world. I wasn’t even the next little thing. If I’d gone virtually unnoticed in San Francisco, I was guaranteed invisibility out here. I had ten years to make a successful career and never did. Now it was Jason’s turn to launch his career in a big way.

  “That was a quick round,” Val said. Women began getting up, smoothing their unwrinkled skirts with manicured hands, and moving to other tables. I looked around to see if there was a rhyme or reason to the rotation.

  “We stay here,” Val said. “Looks like Marni and Michelle are headed our way. Let’s kick their butts, shall we?”

  “Hello ladies, have a seat,” Val said.

  When Michelle asked how Logan and Maya found their first few days at school, Val lifted her eyebrow. “Maya has a brother?”

  “A twin,” I said. “Logan. He’s, um —” the other black kid at school — “quite similar looking.”

  “Hmmm.” Val pondered and looked at the others to see if they knew Logan. “Does he play soccer?”

  “That’s the one with the kicking, right?” I said lightly, trying to dismiss the whole topic of which sports my son played. Before discovering his passion for fencing, Logan dabbled in modern dance, jazz and tap. If anyone got kicked it was quite by accident.

  Ever the hostess, Michelle interjected, “Marni makes documentary films, Lisa. You two probably have a lot in common, being artists and all.”

  “Really?” Marni said, smiling for the first time. “What do you do?”

  “Mostly I do sculptures with junk, but sometimes if I get a wild idea, I’ll run with that too. Last year I made a love seat from tires.”

  “That doesn’t sound very comfortable,” Val said.

  Oh yes, great goddess of making people feel comfortable.

  “I removed the wheel so the hard material isn’t part of it,” I explained, not because I thought she cared, but because I was nervous. “I cut the tire into strips of rubber, then laid them over a couch frame I built. In
the end it was really comfortable, and pretty cool looking, if I do say so.”

  “I saw something like that once,” Marni said.

  “You did?” I fretted. “Where did you see it?” Here I was condemning Utopia’s cookie cutter architecture and carbon copy decorating while all the while I was making furniture sold at IKEA!

  “Some gallery in the city,” she said.

  “San Francisco?!” I asked, somewhat urgently. “Was it the Four Circles Gallery by any chance?”

  “I can’t remember the name, but it was a cute little place near the Castro District. They had all kinds of life-size statues made out of —” Marni paused as the light bulb lit. “Made out of scrap metal. Is that your stuff?!”

  “Yes,” I said, nearly collapsing with relief. “Yes, that’s my stuff. I can’t believe it! What are the odds?”

  “You did a fencer, right?” Marni asked. “He had a shield made from a garbage can lid and a sword made from pipe, right?”

  “Now I have died and gone to Utopia!” I said. “I can’t tell you how many people I’ve ever met who’ve seen my stuff. Actually, I can. It’s zero.”

  “None who’d tell you about it, anyway,” Val interjected.

  In my mind, I heard the sound a video game makes when the game’s over. I looked over at the two other tables and envied the good time those women seemed to be having. Ellie and Stacey joined Mindy and Sophia, who were relaxed and laughing. Cara, Olivia, Anna and Barb seemed to be having a similarly pleasant exchange. I wondered if I was I stuck with Val as a partner the entire evening. “So, what kind of documentary films do you make?” I asked Marni.

  “We’re working on one about this, um, commune up in the mountains. They’re sort of naturalists, survivalists.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “Is it a religious group?”

  Marni smirked. “Oh no, they’re quite secular.”

  Bored with talk of Marni’s secular naturalists, Val jumped in. “Did you hear about Olivia’s royal disaster of a birthday party for Max? Apparently they brought in horses to have a jousting match, which is an even bigger violation of the CC&Rs than that ridiculous castle she created on her front lawn. Anyway, before it started, one of the horses took a huge dump in their backyard.” Val was oblivious to the fact that everyone looked horrified by her gleeful report. “So then that half-wit boy of hers picks up a pile off poo and throws it at Craig Emmens. Before you know it there’s a shit fight among the boys and some little sissy starts crying because his new shirt got soiled.”