Brownie Points by Jennifer Coburn Read Free Book Online Page B

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.”
    After a moment of silence that seemed like an eternity, Marni shrugged. “I’d cry too. Who wants shit thrown at them?”
    I could have wept with gratitude when Michelle agreed. “She should enroll those boys at Mr. Benjamin’s.”
    There was something deeply incongruous about Marni. I always pictured a documentary filmmaker as someone who wore torn camouflage pants, a ribbed undershirt and Doc Martins. It almost seemed as though Marni was purposely trying to soften her image with all the pearls and the sensible shoes. Every time she spoke, she had such a hard edge, though. And what was with the tattoo?
    “My God, Val, where do you draw the line, anyway? Ellie turned her front lawn into the National Cemetery on Memorial Day weekend and you didn’t say a word,” Marni reminded her.
    “That was done tastefully,” Val replied coolly.
    Michelle looked down, trying not to laugh. “Tastefully?!” Marni returned. “She put forty little white crosses on her lawn. I thought it was Klan homecoming week.”
    “Her display was patriotic,” Val said with the utmost seriousness. “Olivia’s was a self-serving, self-aggrandizing shrine to narcissism, glorifying nothing but herself and her Tasmanian devil child.”
    Oh my God! I thought that too, I thought better of saying aloud. You know, I could actually like Val Monroe if I wasn’t so scared of her.
    During a break from the game, I devoured Anna Dowell’s spinach dip and learned that Val and Olivia were once best of friends. Barb told me that both were among the first families to move to Utopia when it opened its angel-capped gates three years ago. Olivia was even part of the original CC&Rs Gestapo, but the two became bitter rivals when Kendrick and Max competed for the presidency of Cordero Elementary. “Olivia got upset because Val gave kids chocolate cupcakes with the words ‘Vote Monroe’ written in icing,” Barb whispered while refilling my wine glass. I couldn’t say I blamed her. Giving kids cupcakes was an obvious bribe. “Well, that wasn’t the end of it,” Barb continued in a hushed tone.
    Mindy Pritsky joined the conversation, checking over both shoulders before chiming in. “There were