Brownie Points (15 page)

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I sat in my garage, getting ready to glue 500 vinyl records together to make an end table, when Ellie and Val slowed their car and began jotting notes. After four months in Utopia — and a record eleven code violations — it occurred to me that there might not be an actual punishment for these infractions.

I was still in the garage when Maya returned home from school, which explained the growling in my stomach. She tossed down her backpack and sat next to me. “Where’s your brother?” I asked.

“Detention,” Maya replied. “Gum chewing during study hall.”

“Ah,” I sighed knowingly. “When Girl Scouts go bad.”

Maya sat beside me in silence for a few moments. Looking at my record pile, she tilted her head. “What is this thing?”

“It’ll be a table when I’m done.”

“You’re so weird, Mom.”

“Thank you, Maya,” I said. “What’s on your mind? You’re usually on your second box of cookies by now.”

“Max McDoyle called me a latte today.”

“Context, child,” I said. “Give me the whole story.”

“We got these forms to fill out, and one of the questions was our race. So Max goes, ‘Too bad there’s no box for lattes like you.’ ”

“Lattes? What is he talking about?”

“Mom,” Maya said, rolling her eyes. “A latte, you know, a cup of coffee with a lot of milk in it, like at Starbucks.”

“Oh,” I said, catching my breath. “How did you respond?”

“I called him a retard,” she said, shrugging.

“Maya, don’t use that word,” I scolded.

“I already did,” she said.

“Well, don’t anymore. It’s cruel.”

“What about what he said? That wasn’t exactly nice.”

“He’s deranged. What form did you fill out anyway?”

Maya reached into her backpack and pulled out a dull green form from the Los Corderos County Board of Education Gifted and Talented Education Program. “I need to take some test so I can get into GATE. Most kids take it in, like, second grade, but we get to take it now ’cause we never did back then.”

Maya and Logan attended a Waldorf School in San Francisco, where they would never dream of testing children for the purpose of labeling them gifted and talented. I could just hear her second grade teacher saying that every child with a sense of smell and six taste buds was gifted.

I scanned the form. “Look, they have a box for mixed race. Or you can decline to state if you want.”

“What I really want to know is what they’re asking for,” she said. “Is it going to help me or hurt me?”

“On the test or in life?” I clarified.

“Both.”

“Well, for this test they just want to know for their own statistics, but that doesn’t mean you have to tell them. In life, it’ll be a mixed bag. There will be some people who make assumptions about you.”

“Like that I talk ghetto?”

I nodded. “Or you might be the first picked for the basketball team.”

“That’s a good thing,” Maya said.

“Only if they’ve seen you play,” I told her.

“If they’ve seen me play, they’ll definitely want me. I’m great at hoops.”

“Maya, you’re great at everything.”

She smiled with agreement. The mixed-race couples we knew in San Francisco warned us that kids started grappling with their identity in middle school. I always thought that raising my children in San Francisco, among contemporary painters, improvisational poets and gay linebackers, would mean that their worldview would be broader than other kids’. I believed that taking them to the marches for the rights of immigrants, gays and women would clue them in about our social and economic caste system. But in a way, it made it more narrow because neither Maya nor Logan had ever met a person who wasn’t in lockstep with our liberal beliefs.

“Didn’t Martin Luther King put an end to all that?” Maya asked. “Wasn’t all of that stuff in the south anyway?”

“No, Maya, it was everywhere, and there are still narrow-minded people out there, even in northern California, but we live in much more tolerant times.”

“Tolerant?” Maya asked indignantly. I said nothing, not sure of her objection. “I don’t need to be tolerated. People are lucky to have me around.”

“Poor choice of words.
Accepted
.”

“I don’t need to be accepted either. Who thinks they’re so in charge of the world that they get to say whether I’m accepted or not? Or
tolerated
? Puh-lease.” Maya sighed defiantly, clearly annoyed. “I’m going to check the box for African-American. Then when I ace that test, someone’s gonna have to look at my score andknow that a black kid did that.”

“Maya, not all white people are like that. I’m white and I know you and Logan are smart. Don’t write off all white people as the enemy.”

“Mom, you’re not really white.”

“What do you mean, I’m not
really
white?”

I remember when Jason and I were dating he said that he was surprised at how many well-meaning, otherwise intelligent liberals made the bonehead comment that he wasn’t “really” black. What they meant, of course, was that he spoke properly and didn’t dress like a rapper
.
What was most insulting was that this was supposed to be a commendation, like a “Get Out of Black Free” card in the game of life. Now, it was I who was being exempted from a racial classification.

“Maya, I
am
really white.”

“You married Daddy and he’s black, so you’re kind of black too,” she assured me.

Be sure to share that thought with some of your father’s cousins who were oh-so-thrilled to welcome me to the family.
“I’m not.”

“Not your skin, but …”

“My soul?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of not, Maya. I’m white, Daddy’s black and you’re biracial. And if anyone ever tells you you’re not really black or you’re not really white, then that person is really wrong.”

“Hey Logan!” Maya said as he approached the open garage door.

“Hey,” he said, sounding winded. When we caught a glance at him, we knew why he was breathless. He was glistening with a coat of sweat, but also thoroughly doused with milk. Logan told us that, as he was leaving the detention center, Max and Craig threw milk on him. They taunted him, saying that they can’t have Froot Loops without milk. Craig held Logan’s arms back while Max wound up to punch him in the stomach. But Logan surprised them all, including himself.

The Miracle Worker had taught him to block punches with whatever limbs were available, so Logan kicked his feet in the air, and knocked out one of Max’s front teeth. When Craig saw the blood pouring from his friend’s mouth, in shock, he let go of Logan’s arms. He’d been running since.

“Shit, Logan, you made two people bleed this week!” Maya said with admiration. “You’re like the face terminator.”

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The phone would ring soon enough with Olivia’s lawyer suing me for the cost of dental work. As I laughed at the thought, the phone rang.

That was fast.

“Hey, baby,” Jason said.

“Oh, hi honey.”

“Expecting someone better?” he teased.

“Not at all. Actually, I thought it might be Olivia.” I began whispering, “Jason, Logan kicked Max in the face today.”

“He did?”

“He did,” I confirmed.

“That’s m’boy!”

“It’s not funny. He knocked out a tooth.”

“Man, that must’ve been some kick,” Jason said, too proudly.

“This can’t go on. I mean, today, Logan was the, the —”

“Ass kicker,” Jason completed for me.

“Ass kicker, tooth kicker, whatever, but tomorrow may be a different story. We need to talk to Olivia and Jim about this right away! This can’t go on.” Jason was silent. “This
can’t
go on, right? We’re in agreement on this, aren’t we? Someone could get seriously hurt and chances are it’ll be Logan.”

“I wouldn’t bet against him,” Jason said.

“I’m serious.”

“All right, baby. Personally I think you’re making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be. Boys fight.”

“Logan wasn’t fighting,” I explained. “Craig Emmens held back Logan’s arms so Max could hit him and —”

“You tellin’ me our boy took on two guys?” Jason beamed.

“Jason, what I’m telling you is that Logan was simply defending himself, he wasn’t fighting.”

“Call it what you want, baby, but those boys got the message.”

“What message?”

“That Logan Taylor is nobody’s punching bag, and if they go after him again, they might lose an ear next time.”

“An ear?! Jason, you sound way too happy about this,” I said. “I’m not at all comfortable with what happened today. I wish we never moved to this awful place!”

“You said you were okay with it when I got the job.”

“I was full of shit! I was trying to be positive,” I said.

“Well, try it again. We’re here now, and from where I’m sitting Logan solved his own problem by standing up to those two. Go over there and talk to the mom if you want.”

“And say what?!” I asked.

“Tell her that you hope Logan doesn’t have to kick her son’s ass again.”

“Jason, I’m not going to say that.”

“Say whatever you want, Lisa. Next time I see McDoyle I’ll let him know what I think.”

“Don’t you get into any fights now, okay?” I said, softening. “Why did you call anyway?”

“Lettin’ you know I’ll be home late tonight.”

“Okay, if I’m asleep, check the fridge for your dinner plate.”

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The conversation with Olivia was quicker than the tooth-kicking incident itself. All in all, it lasted under a minute.

On the short walk, I scoped Marni’s new lawn display for Christmas, a not-so-virginal Mary lying provocatively on her side, giving Joseph a come hither look. She looked as though she were thinking, “Come on, lover, the baby’s asleep and we’ve got the whole manger to ourselves.”

Michelle displayed a traditional Santa Claus behind a team of reindeer, but Stacey put out the Val-approved Slim Santa flexing an impressive bicep as he held the bag of loot. The CC&Rs Enforcement Committee newsletter advised:

“In a time of epidemic childhood obesity, it is irresponsible for parents to uphold an overweight Santa Claus as a role model.”

As I approached the McDoyle home, I saw their Jeep Hawk pulling out of the garage. I waved my hands for Olivia to stop, so she rolled down her window. “Lisa, I really can’t chat right now. Max fell on his bike and knocked out a tooth. We need to get him to the dentist.”

“His bike?” I stammered.

She raised her eyebrows, annoyed. “Yes, Lisa, his bike.”

“Olivia, I know you’ve got to run, but we need to talk when you guys get back,” I said. “Max didn’t fall on his bike.”

“Oh, he didn’t?”

“No, he didn’t. Logan kicked him.”

Olivia burst into laughter. “Logan? Logan, the Girl Scout?”

I wanted to jump in the air and experience the sheer ecstasy of knocking out Olivia’s tooth. (Or at least a porcelain veneer.) “Yes, my son, Logan. Max
and
Craig were bullying him, and Logan kicked Max in the face! Very hard.”

Olivia laughed again, pityingly. “What some people won’t to do enhance their image. I don’t know what Logan told you, but he most certainly did not kick Max’s tooth out. He fell on his bike.” With that, Olivia rolled up her window and pulled away.