Read Online Brownie Points by Jennifer Coburn - Free Book Online Page A

crest” stuck to his forehead. Michelle was tickled by this. “See how creative he is!”
    “Did you have fun?” I asked Logan, though it was clear he did. He had a bounce in his step that told the world two things: He was happy, and he was gay.
    “Did we have Girl Scouts in San Francisco?” he asked “’Cause this is the bomb!”
    Michelle chimed in. “Girl Scouts are everywhere. And you, my friend, are welcome to visit our troop any time you like,” she said, placing her finger on his nose, a gesture that would have earned me a Logan eye roll. “Now, go get your family crest to show your mother.”
    As Logan trotted off, Michelle bubbled again. “I had my little ones Pristine and Rain here for the first half of the meeting and Logan was adorable with them.”
    Maya sauntered over. She had quickly adopted the Utopia tween chick uniform that Ashley was also sporting that day: frayed jeans embroidered with flowers, white t-shirt and a pink crocheted half-sweater that tied just under her ribs. And what outfit would be complete without the pink Ugg boots? When I took her shopping, I simply let her pick what she liked. Never did I stop to question if her choices were truly what Maya liked, or what she was expected to like. I was torn between overanalyzing it and just thinking she looked adorable. “Hey Mom, wanna see my family crest?”
    “ Hello and how are you to you too, Miss Thing,” I said, giving her a quick kiss.
    Maya sighed, bored with my constant correction of her poor manners. “Hello. How are you? Now, wanna see my family crest?”
    I smiled. “More than life itself.”
    Maya returned with her crest while Logan helped clean the scrap paper off the tables. “Wow, that’s beautiful!” Maya’s family crest was sweet and colorful, but I had no idea what an ad for Juicy Couture had to do with our family values. Her crest was artfully done, but focused on teen pop culture, so I sort of thought she missed the point of the project. Then I looked around at the other girls’ family crests and Maya’s was pretty typical. I was quite sure that Paris Hilton was not a member of Ashley Brennan’s family, yet there she was prominently placed on her family crest. At least Bianca started with the right idea. In the center of her collage she painted the word “Friendship.” Then she lost track and surrounded the swirling thick pink letters with pictures of young models. I did find it somewhat heartening that Ashley chose models of different races for her friendship crest, but also wondered if she wasn’t simply pandering to my kids.Michelle was right. Logan’s family crest was remarkably different from the others. His was simple in concept and execution, but there was something haunting and powerful about the way it all came together. Apparently, Michelle gave the girls a copy of Rolling Stone to clip from, along with Teen People, Cosmo Girl and Jane. At the center of Logan’s family crest was a picture of Jimi Hendrix jumping in the air with his mouth wide open singing. Michelle told me that Logan convinced Rain to sell him her Firefighter Barbie’s red hat, then broke it down the seam and glued the front half onto Jimi’s head. Swirling from the center were Van Gogh-like thick layers of red, orange and yellow paint that were clearly meant to look like fire, but had too much fluidity to be truly representational. Under Jimi’s airborne legs, Logan pasted “Let me stand next to your fire,” in bomb-letter style.
    “This is incredible,” I remarked.
    “Like it?” Logan asked, not a real question, but rather an invitation for further comment.
    “I love it. You didn’t use a brush for the fire, did you?”
    Michelle placed her arm on Logan’s shoulder. “Tell your mother how you got those flames so wild.”
    “A spork,” Logan said proudly.
    “A spork?”
    “One of those combination spoon and forks,” Michelle explained.
    “No, I know what a spork is, I was just —” my words trailed off as