“Campouts?!” Logan shouted, then burst into laughter. “I don’t want to go on campouts!”
“You’d have to go to several trainings, is that okay?” Julia asked. “That way it’ll keep wise guys like those frog boys from thinking they can simply sign up for a similar role.”
“I can do training sessions, no problem!” Logan said, barely able to contain himself.
“You’d be like the assistant troop leader,” Julia said.
“The—” Logan attempted. “The—” He began waving his hand to fan his face. “The—”
“This sounds very appealing to my brother,” Maya translated.
The kids jumped up screaming in celebration. Even Kendrick linked arms in the circle. Suddenly Logan stopped. “Wait a second,” he said.
Bless Logan that in his victory, he still found the composure to negotiate. “You have to take Michelle off probation. She’s the best Girl Scout leader.”
“Done,” said Julia.
“I’m legit?” Michelle asked.
“You’ll drop the case?” Lexie asked, looking in Wax’s direction.
Wax sighed and gave a shrug. “Bottom line, if the client is happy, I’m happy.” The screaming celebration resumed.
Julia sat up straight and placed her hands on her lap. “The reason I brought Kip,” she said, knowing that would cease all screaming. It worked like a pause button. The kids practically froze mid-air at the mention of his name. As they all turned their attention back to Julia, she continued. “The reason for Kip—”
“Thank you so much for Kip,” Maya said, still breathless from jumping.
“He’s not a gift, Maya,” Julia said.
“A loan?” Bianca asked.
“Sorry. The reason Kip came with us today is that he’s the president of the Los Corderos High School Gay Straight Alliance.” The three girls looked at Kip as though he were under a microscope, trying to determine whether he was gay himself, or just a cool straight kid. Leave it to Maya to ask. “So, Kip, does this mean you’re not taking me to the prom?”
Kip’s lips curled as he blushed slightly. “’Fraid not.” He shrugged. “We’ve been talking about you at our club, Logan, and we were thinking we could put your leadership skills to use. We want you to start a chapter at Los Corderos Middle School. You know, get people used to the idea that there are gay people and it’s not that big a deal.”
“A gay straight alliance at middle school?” Jason asked. “It’s a nice idea, but what kid’s going to join that?”
“I would, Daddy,” Maya said.
“I would too, Mr. Taylor,” Bianca agreed.
“Me too,” added Ashley.
We had expected nothing more. Everyone’s eyes were back on Kip when suddenly Kenny began shifting in his seat. “Um … I would too.”
“Good for you, Kenny!” Ashley said, patting him on the back. “Way to be a friend to Logan.”
“Thanks,” he answered tentatively. “But I wouldn’t just be doing it for Logan.”
The bottom dropped out of the room. “Kenny?” Bianca gasped. Then she snorted. “Mom’s gonna shit!”
Lexie jumped in, bringing us back to the case. “Listen, we need to end this cookie boycott, like yesterday. Can we get a press conference together in the next hour or so?”
“I never asked for O’Mally to do that, you know,” Logan told them.
“We know that,” said Julia. “But it would go a long way if you told the world it’s okay to buy cookies again.”
“Bring it on,” Logan said. “I’ll eat cookies on TV.”
“Ay, he’s ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille,” Jorge said.
“God knows we won’t have to go too far to get press here,” Michelle said.
“How quickly can you get your statement together?” Lexie asked, whipping out her laptop.
“Twenty minutes,” Wax answered.
“Twenty minutes?” I asked.
Wax asked for a moment to go over Logan’s statement with him, forming a conference that Jason quickly became a part of. “Lisa, get the press here, will you?” Lexie barked as if I were her secretary.
“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked.
Maya laughed, then walked to the intercom by the door. “Security?” she asked.
“Yeah,” a voice crackled.
“It’s Maya Taylor. Send them in.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Although they had agreed that Logan would speak to the media first, Lexie pushed her way to the front of our doorstep and opened our ad-hoc press conference. “Girl Scouts of America is delighted to announce that we’ve come to an agreement with the family of Logan Taylor, and we’re all very relieved to put this misunderstanding behind us.” Handing Logan a Thin Mint, she said, “Here Logan, have a cookie.”
“What was the agreement?!” barked the guy from BBC. Click, click, click. Click, click, click. Click, click, click.
As Logan opened his mouth, Lexie quickly slipped a Thin Mint in it. “We’re not at liberty to discuss the details of the agreement, but it satisfied the needs of all parties.”
“How do you feel, Logan?” Amy shouted at my son.
Click, click, click. Click, click, click. Click, click, click.
Logan smiled for the cameras, swallowed the last of his cookie and began, “Well, naturally I’m—”
Before he could complete the sentence, Val’s tank screeched in front of our home. She hopped out from the passenger seat, shaking her first and shouting, “Lisa, you cannot have a press conference on your front lawn! I’ve called the police and they’ll be here any minute to remove you people—by force,” she said, gesturing to the media. Then, noticing her kids on my doorstep, she squeaked, “Bianca? Kenny? What are you doing here?”
I had never been so happy to see police cars pulling up toward our house. Anything to distract Val from the fit she was about to pitch.
Two cars pulled in front of Marni’s house and began walking toward her door.
Yoo hoo, over here!
The officer knocked politely. I saw Marni pull back her curtain and then disappear. I wanted to shout to her that it was okay. No one died. There was no family tragedy. The police were simply at the wrong house. In a few moments they would be at my place, breaking up our unauthorized press conference.
Marni’s sprinklers began spouting water with a force I’d never seen. It was as if a hundred whales had been planted beneath her front lawn. “Get outta here or you’ll be sorry!” Marni shouted through the door. The officers reached for their guns. One unclipped a black device from his belt and began muttering code numbers, calling for support.
“Come out with your hands in the air and no one will get hurt, Miss Haas,” said an officer crouched at the front door.
Every reporter did a full about-face.
Logan’s fifteen minutes of fame had officially ended.
“I’m warning you motherfuckers!” Marni’s voice shouted. Somehow I doubted that she was delinquent on parking tickets. Even Val Monroe was silent as we all stood watching, agape. “I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid to use it!” Val fainted, collapsing onto my lawn.
At this point all of the reporters dropped to the ground as we rushed everyone into the house. “Come in the house!” I offered. A few looked my way, considering the offer, but were soon distracted by the action at the home of Marni … Miss Haas … whoever she was.
Marni’s garage door opened and her tank screeched out in reverse. Clearly driving in a panic, Marni tore down our street as fast as I’d ever seen anyone drive in a residential area.
Jason rushed to pick up Val, who was still lying on our front lawn. For the first time since I’d known her, Val looked vulnerable. As they reached the front door, Val opened her eyes. “What happened?”
Jason brought Val into the house and placed her on the couch, and told Maya to grab a glass of water.
“Morning everyone,” Finn, said yawning as he reached the group, now in the family room. “What�
�d I miss?”
Outside, Amy began talking into her little gray wire, whispering expletives every few seconds. After a minute or so, she turned to one of the cameramen from another station and said, “I’ll give you a thousand bucks to get in my car and film the police chase.”
“What’s going on?” the cameraman demanded.
“I’ll tell you when we’re on the road,” she said, eyeing her competitors.
“I’m not chasing any story unless I know what it is. I got a family. I’m not risking my life for my job.”
She sighed, exasperated. “That was the San Mateo Madam. ’Member when she jumped bail a few years ago? She must’ve been hiding out here in the ’burbs, posing as a housewife. Now get in the car!”
“I’m on it,” the cameraman said.
Reporters, cameras and microphones drained from our doorstep and out toward the gates of Utopia. They raced to their cars to chase down the new story.
As we all stood alone in shock, I asked, “The San Mateo Madam? I thought she was in prison.”
“Ay, you haven’t been keeping up with your People magazine, Li-li,” Jorge said. “She jumped bail before her trial.”
“She’s been on the lam?”
“Here in the land of sheep,” he said.
“So those women …” I stammered. “They weren’t lesbians.”
“More like whores, chica,” Jorge said. “You were so right about this place. Dulls-ville. I don’t know how you stand the boredom.”
Screech! Kaboom! Shatter, shatter, shatter.
Jason flinched. “Right now it sounds like she crashed into the gate. I gotta get down there and see if anyone’s hurt. Call 9-1-1.”
As it turned out, no one was seriously injured when Marni’s car crashed into the front gate of Utopia. Jason said that her car embedded in the golden iron bars looked like a piece of stubborn eggplant that wouldn’t go through the Cuisinart, but that she came out unscathed. The Utopian angel fell from the gate post and landed on Marni’s hood, its wing spearing the black metal like a toothpick through a cocktail sandwich. Marni jumped out of the car in nothing but her bathrobe, a towel turban and slippers and started running from the police she’d just drenched. That soggy footrace lasted about twenty yards.
Cameras filmed, reporters barked, phones rang. Not a soul came back to ask Logan about the deal he’d struck with Girl Scouts. The O’Mally folks and the gay guys went home the following day. Before each camp left our quiet little town, it had a few parting words for Los Corderos. Spitting into the camera, Bob O’Mally began, “There’s been a lot of yapping about whether Logan Taylor is gay or not. Any idiot knows that a fourteen-year-old kid can’t be gay because they’re just too damn young to know what the hell they are!”
Queer Nation, on the other hand, told a reporter from the Clarion that the organization had found the perfect site for this summer’s Volleyfest! “Los Corderos is a wonderful community,” said special events coordinator Chad Michaels. “The people of this town were marvelous hosts. Serious props to the Hyatt for making our weekend nothing short of fabulous.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
April
April’s Bunco game was canceled due to the fact that our hostess was in jail. The newspaper reported that the San Mateo Madam was in the midst of cutting a deal with the San Mateo district attorney and could be released with as minor a charge as reckless driving. At the urging of the National Organization for Women, the district attorney said he would be inclined to go easy on Marni and her girls if she handed over her little black book of clients. It was time for the johns to go down, NOW proclaimed.
The following week we found out that Martinique Haas, aka Marni Portman, did not have the loyalty and work ethic of Heidi Fleiss. She forfeited her database with the ease of a lip-gloss application, and the next morning some of the most powerful men in Northern California were headline news for their trysts with unnamed, fully exonerated call girls. Among them was the city manager of Los Corderos. Also on the list was a certain beastly plastic surgeon with a preference for Asian women who would pee on him, not to mention a predilection for a special full-figured dominatrix who called him Toadie.
News of Marni and the Beast hit the gossip circuit in mid-March, and I’m not sure who was more hurt by the Beast’s penchant for prostitutes, Val or Olivia. “You said you loved me!” Olivia shouted at the Beast as the police escorted him into their squad car. “What about my feet?!” She broke down in tears in front of the house, and needed to be scraped off the sidewalk by Michelle.
Jim McDoyle quickly moved out and filed for divorce, seeking full custody of their two devil boys. Val made a quiet trip to the Dominican Republic, where she performed a fairly painless Beastectomy.
Individual dramas in Utopia were like jelly beans in a glass jar. There were so many bright candies to chew on that it was impossible to count them all. In just two weeks, everyone had digested Marni’s prostitution ring and Logan’s lawsuit, and was hungry for something new. I just hoped for saner times in the place that billed itself as a serene oasis from city life.
I had taken up biking, spending my days at Kate’s studio, where she encouraged me to paint and I urged her to dimensionalize her work. As I rode my bicycle to her place, I slowed to enjoy the sun warming my skin and the scent of jasmine filling the air with the promise of summer. An older woman gave a short honk and shouted from her car window, “How’s the scout?”
No one seemed particularly bitter about the media shit storm Logan’s lawsuit brought to town. In fact, some people were downright pleased about it. A reporter from The Clarion wrote an editorial on the economic impact of Logan’s day in court. He gushed that between the revenue for hotels, restaurants and retail shops, the whole thing netted the city more than last year’s entire holiday season. “That doesn’t take into account the boon to the economy the Los Corderos Rosas Spa and Resort will bring when it opens its doors in next year,” read the piece.
I hadn’t seen Val since that fateful day when Marni crashed into the gates of Utopia. I knew that she would have a few choice words for me once our paths crossed. After all, here was a woman who’d waged war with another mom over a school election three years earlier. Part of me dreaded the confrontation with Val; another part just wanted to get it over with.
My doorbell rang a few days later. “Can I come in?” Val asked, glancing at the barricade I’d created with my arm.
“Oh,” I stammered self-consciously. “Sure, I guess so. Come in.”
“Thanks,” she said with humility in her voice I hadn’t heard before. The silence between us seemed to amplify the tapping of our shoes as we walked in to the kitchen. I found it remarkable that in the face of everything she’d gone through, she looked so pulled together. She wore a linen skirt with optimistic swirls of pink, and a matching top. If I were in her situation, I’d be lucky to swing a ponytail and a coat of ChapStick. Val still took the time to blow out her hair, paint her nails and curl her lashes. I wasn’t sure if this was something to be admired or pitied.
“Listen, Lisa, I owe you an apology. Several, actually.”
She sat at my kitchen counter, sipping a glass of water. “I’ve been a real bitch to you.” I didn’t protest. “I’m sure you know about everything that went on between Blake and Marni. The call girls and all that. And Olivia. I don’t know which one is worse, but anyway, I’ve had a lot of time these past few weeks to think about my relationships with people, and what I want for my kids, what’s important, and, I don’t know, I wanted to say I’m sorry, that’s all.”
It seemed false for me to say that it was okay. It wasn’t. I accepted her apology, but I wasn’t ready to throw my arms around her and join the CC&Rs Enforcement Committee either. Thankfully, I had two topics I could switch to quite easily: Kendrick and Bianca.
Val laughed at the irony of her situation. “I suppose you know that Kendrick’s gay.” I nodded, not wanting to tell her that he revealed this to us before he did
to his own mother. “How’s that for poetic justice?”
“He’s not doing this to spite you.”
“Lisa, I spent hours at the medical library trying to figure out how this happened, and you know what I came up with?”
She seemed human, beaten and healing.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said with a shrug. “He’s just gay.” She sniffed as her eyes became teary. “He’s here, he’s queer and I have to get used to it. Or so I’m told.” As I opened my mouth to speak, Val continued. “You’ll be pleased to know that while I was there, I tried to figure out why Bianca cuts herself. Turns out there is an explanation for that.”
Thank God.
“And treatment,” I offered.
“Oh, I know. Her therapist is right next to Maya’s karate studio. I’ve been dodging you guys for weeks now.” Her eyes filled with tears that spilled onto her cheeks as her voice cracked. “I didn’t want you to judge me. I was afraid that if you knew you were right, you’d feel superior to me.” She wiped her nose with the tissue I’d handed her. “Then I realized I had you confused with me. You’ve never been like that with anyone. It’s me who’s always tearing people down, posing as the moral gatekeeper of Utopia. How everyone must be laughing now.”
“Val, no one’s laughing at you,” I lied. Everyone had lunched on her misfortune. “I’m certainly not perfect. I came to Utopia having judged all of you before I’d even met you. No wonder you couldn’t stand me, the big city artist who was too cool to be bothered with anyone except a woman who turned out to be the San Mateo Madam.” Realizing that was probably not a good reference, I slapped my own mouth repentantly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up Marni.”
“Please, you’re the only one who will. No one else mentions her, as if I might forget that my husband, my ex-husband, is spending the next eighteen months in federal prison.” She wiped her nose again. “Turns out he defrauded insurance companies too. The investigator said the scam was so lame that it was worse than something Wile E. Coyote would’ve come up with.”
Brownie Points Page 19