Cleanup by Mary Guterson Darcy knew things. She knew, for instance, that Melissa and her husband rarely had sex. She knew this because Melissa kept her diaphragm in its little pink case in the drawer next to her bed along with a tube of diaphragm cream, and week after week that tube of cream remained exactly the same, partially crinkled in the same way, and nowhere near empty. She knew that Allison ate next to nothing, and never anything healthy. There hadn’t been a fruit or a vegetable in Allison’s kitchen in months. Just a continual supply of diet Cokes which Darcy continually shoved aside when wiping out the refrigerator, and every once in a while a take-out container of Chinese food or the occasional jar of dry roasted peanuts, salted. She knew that Leeann had terrible periods from the number of sanitary pads she found piled up in the bathroom trashcan. She knew that Carol felt the guiltiest of the lot for hiring Darcy. She knew this because Carol was always saying how Darcy shouldn’t worry about keeping the toilets too clean or mopping the floors every time because Carol knew what a pain in the ass it was to clean toilets and mop floors. After all, she’d done it herself all along and would be doing it now if it weren’t for the fact that they’d suddenly gotten very busy with the kids’ activities, and her husband wasn’t the type to help around the house, and what with Carol going back to school in social work, things had begun to fall behind....
If you liked this so far, read the whole thing in the current issue. Mary Guterson lives on Bainbridge Island, WA. This is her first fiction in print. |