Brownie Points (3 page)

“Baby, let’s not start on that today. This is a day to celebrate.”

Trying to reintroduce the dismissed subject, I joked. “We could make this his coming-out party.”

Jason sighed, annoyed that I wouldn’t let this go. “How many times do I have to tell you, it’s too soon to tell on that sort of thing.”

“I can tell,” I said.

“He’s thirteen. Lots of boys his age are —”

“Gay, Jason,” I interrupted. “Gay, gay, gay. Get used to it already. The kid is gay and the sooner you accept it, the better off we’ll all be.”

“Has he ever told you he’s gay?”

“Don’t you remember the hat he made for Opening Day at the races?” I said, recalling his creation — the wide rim decorated as a horse track complete with plastic model thoroughbreds and jockeys. The center of the hat was made from silk red roses and blue first-place ribbons. It was the height of gaudy chic. He won the award for best hat, and a tight-faced socialite paid him a hundred dollars for it.

“He’s a businessman,” Jason dismissed. “Look, baby, you’re an artist. Of course our kids are going to be creative. There are plenty of straight —”

“Straight male hat makers?”

“I was going to say straight artists,” Jason corrected me.

He pulled me in to lean against him. “He’s not a hat maker. He made one hat, one time.”

“Trust me, Jason, there will be more hats in our future,” I said, laughing.

“Don’t be so quick to slap a label on the kid,” Jason said. “A boy doesn’t need his own mother calling him gay.”

“It’s not an insult, you know.”

“I know that,” Jason snapped. “Come on, today’s a day to celebrate. We got a new life here. A fresh start.”

I imagined Jason starring in a Windex commercial where fathers could wipe away the gay from their sons.

“Since when do you have a problem with gay people?” I asked.

“I don’t,” Jason dismissed. “Some of your best friends are gay.”

I surrendered for the moment, but felt the emptiness that came every time Jason failed to admit the reality of our son’s orientation. I needed the closure of Jason knowing, acknowledging and accepting. I needed him to say, “Of course he’s gay and that’s cool with me.” Jorge once accused me of “shoving Logan out of the closet,” a criticism that stung the way only truth could.

“Okay,” I told Jason, quietly reminding myself to relax and let life unfold on its own.

With that, Maya came running down the stairs as Logan slid down the banister next to her, sitting on the rail with his hands outstretched as if to say,
ta-da!
“Look what we found in your bedroom,” Maya said, handing Jason and me a booklet of swatches entitled “The Fabric of Utopia.”

Chapter Two

Maya’s disappointment in being excluded from Max’s birthday party was short-lived. As I was unpacking the kitchen the following day, our neighbor Michelle stopped by to deliver a plate of brownies and an invitation to her daughter Ashley’s
American Idol
birthday party. “What’s this?” I asked as the compact Ivory Girl handed me a thumb drive. She followed me into the house and placed her brownie plate on the kitchen counter, beside the scone platter, muffin basket and cupcake tray that had arrived earlier.

“Ashley thought it would be cute to make a music video with the party details,” Michelle explained. “She’s always loved to sing.” Michelle pushed her well-tamed brown spiral curls behind her ear despite the fact that she was wearing a tortoiseshell headband. In her white safari dress, Michelle pulled off that East Coast prep school look I used to admire so much when I was a kid. I never quite looked as if I should be crunching brown leaves under my loafers while strolling through an ivy-laden campus in Connecticut, though. I looked more like one of the scholarship kids at Yeshiva High.

Apparently, birthday parties were thrown at a whole new level in Utopia. I like to think of myself as hipper-than-thou, but I fell into the party trap just like most parents in our San Francisco circle. We kept up with the Joneses and hosted laser tag and bowling parties. Jason thought I was crazy for putting together a Salvador Dalí party at my studio when the kids were nine. Guests painted surreal self-portraits and played pin the mustache on Mona Lisa. (Only Logan’s friend Josh seemed to mind that this was more Dada than Dalí.) We even had a surprise visit from Jorge dressed as Dalí. He presented the kids with a melting clock birthday cake that had candles that looked like fingers.

As Michelle gave me the lowdown on the Los Corderos birthday scene, I discovered that my Dalí party was strictly minor league. Birthday parties were an arms race for mothers. The more parents spent, the greater their familial security. Of course, there was always the threat of mutually assured destruction when a Cirque du Soleil party conflicted with a celebratory recreation of Hogwarts’ Triwizard Tournament. Michelle explained that guest lists were more political than the local mayoral race.

“Is there anything special Ashley would like?”

“No gifts, please. Ashley has way too much junk already and we’re trying to downsize big time. Simple living so others can simply live and all that.”

“Really?” I asked, intrigued. Michelle said she lived a few houses from us, yet she drove her Chevy Militia to deliver a high-tech invitation to a party modeled after a television show. Was this what Gandhi had in mind when he coined the phrase about simple living? Or was it that Michelle employed a minimalist approach to accessorizing? I gave myself another mental swat, remembering that I was most critical of others when I felt like shit about my own life.

“Oh gosh yes!” Michelle exclaimed, seemingly delirious that anyone had asked her to expand on her family’s new lifestyle. “We told Ashley that the real gift of friendship is not about their presents, but their
presence
.” Michelle lifted her eyebrows to ask if I got it. “We’re setting up a full stage in the backyard so the girls can sing songs for Ashley, you know, changing the words to pop songs and making them about her.”

What? Maya’s never even met Ashley!

Reading the panic on my face, she added, “I guess since Maya’s never met Ashley, that might be tough.” Michelle shifted weight from one tanned leg to the other as she considered a solution. “Why doesn’t Maya come over tomorrow? That way the girls can meet and Maya will get some ideas for her song. Or tell her to check out Ashley’s Facebook. She’ll feel like she’s known Ash forever.” She reached into her purse and handed me a boppy little calling card with a photo of Ashley, her private phone number, and email and Facebook addresses. She grabbed my cell phone, scanned an image from the cards and informed me that I now had all of Ashley’s info. Turning to leave, Michelle caught a glimpse of a vase I had just unpacked and set on the kitchen counter. “Oh my gosh! How cute is that?”

“Do you like it?!” I asked, beaming.

“Like it? I love it. Where did you get it?” Michelle asked.

“I made it.”

“Get out of town!” she said. “How did you ever come up with an idea like that?”

I appreciated the feedback because I still could feel the sting of broken glass cutting my fingertips when I made it. I wore gloves for the construction, but got a few serious nicks moving it to the drying shelf. That was truly one of my least marketable ideas. As pretty as the clusters of broken glass looked when they were glued to the flower vase, no one was all that interested in buying a piece that basically said
Have some posies then bleed.

“Turned out to be a pretty bad one, actually,” I said. “I have some variations of this one where I used window screen to contain the glass.”

“You do?!”

I nodded my head. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No thanks, I’m on a fruit cleanse,” Michelle offered.

“Oh, um, I don’t have any fruit,” I apologized. “I haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping yet. We ate out last night and just had Cheerios this morning. Hey, are there any good restaurants in Los Corderos?”

“The Peppermill is amazing,” Michelle reported. “They’ve got these stuffed nacho thingies that are just, oh my gosh, don’t even get me thinking about it while I’m on this cleanse. I can only eat bananas today and I would kill for something that crunches!”

I didn’t want to tell her that we ate at the Peppermill last night and the only thing I found amazing was how identical it was to the one in Palo Alto. It wasn’t just the menu and the décor. The entire wait staff, including our perky server Vienna, seemed to be lifted from the Peppermill’s southern counterpart.

Bravely picking up my vase, Michelle said, “Do you do a lot of crafts?”

“I’m a sculptor, actually,” I told her. “It’s what I do for a living.”

Frankly, I was starved for the validation, seeing how our move promised only to decrease my visibility among the movers and shakers of the San Francisco art scene.

Putting the vase down reverently, Michelle said, “That is too cool. We have something in common, then. I’m a bit of an artist myself.”

“You are?” I asked, torn.

“I don’t have all these artsy ideas, but when I’m doing crafts with the girls, I feel like I’m in my bliss spot, you know?” Oh my God, she’s read
The Answer.
Well, why should she be any different than forty-seven million other people on the planet? I just thought I was done hearing about people’s “bliss spot” last spring.

“Girls?” I stammered because I didn’t want to go near her bliss spot.

“I’m the Girl Scout leader for Ashley’s troop,” Michelle said with eyebrows raised in excitement. “Maya’s planning to join, right?”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” I said. “We haven’t really thought about it. She’s really into karate right now. Hey, is there a fencing school anywhere nearby?”

“A school?” Michelle tilted her head, puzzled. “I don’t think so, but we have a million contractors and they’re not too expensive. Before you do anything, make sure you check your CC&R guidelines because Val Monroe won’t think twice about making you tear it down if it’s an inch over code. Last month she—”

“No, no, no. I don’t need to build a fence. I mean sword fighting, that kind of fencing.”

“Oh, right,” she giggled. “Gosh, I can’t think of any.” She placed her index finger thoughtfully on her cheek and offered, “We have a shooting range.” Switching gears entirely, she asked if I wanted to sub for her Bunco group the following week. “Wendy McFarlane is out of town and we need someone to fill in for her,” she said.

“Your
what
group?”

“Bunco,” Michelle repeated, amused by my ignorance of the New World. “It’s a dice game, but really just an excuse for us girls to get together, drink wine, and gossip.” I’m sure she felt like the Indian Squanto inviting the Pilgrims to the first Thanksgiving feast.

“I don’t know how to play,” I said, half hoping Michelle would tell me she’d teach me. The other half of me wasn’t so sure I wanted to meet a group of new people because if I did it would mean that we were really here to stay.

“It’s so simple, it’s boring,” she said. “It’s really a social thing. You’ll catch on to the dice part in, like, three minutes, tops. Next Wednesday night, seven-thirty at my place.”

“Which one’s yours?”

“I’ve got marigolds in front,” Michelle said.

Who didn’t?

“What do your door wreaths look like?” I asked.

“Pink and blue summer flowers,” Michelle said.

I didn’t ask exactly what “summer flowers” were because I remembered that we’d be at their home that weekend for Ashley’s
American Idol
party. Surely the invitation would offer a house number. “Hey, why don’t you make two wreaths out of vinyl records and hang them on the doors for Ashley’s party?”

“That’s too cute, Lisa!” Michelle said. “Do you think the kids will know what they are?”

I shrugged and waved, dismissing her concern. “Do it with CDs then. Same idea.”

Michelle hugged me at the door and told me how excited she was to have a new friend in the neighborhood. I both envied and resented women like her. I would never presume that someone wanted to be friends until we’d had four lunches, she’d invited me to her home, and we’d engaged in at least one heated debate about unionizing migrant farm workers. Women like Michelle assumed that other people wanted them as friends, and welcomed the opportunity to sing to their kids. It must be nice to walk around feeling that way regardless of whether or not it was accurate. “Remember, a song that says Ashley to her,” she chirped before leaving.

™˜

“How am I supposed to sing a song about a girl I’ve never met?” Maya asked at dinner that evening. Jason and Logan shot amused glances at one another, knowing Maya would likely get through this dilemma the way she did everything else — with aplomb.

“Did she bring those brownies?” Jason asked. “They were good. Like fudge.”

Logan gestured to our kitchen counter, which now looked like a bakery display case. We had cinnamon rolls, apple fritters, cake, petit fours, brownies, muffins and biscotti. “What’s the deal with this place and baked goods?”

“They’re a suburban Trojan horse,” I explained. “They use the brownies to get in the front door so they can check out how we live. The natives will attack tomorrow.”