Kat Greene Comes Clean

I make a peanut butter and banana sandwich and take it to my room, something I can’t do when Mom is home. Then I take out my phone to call Dad. I didn’t speak to him all weekend, and I miss him.

“HeWO?” It’s Henry, out of breath. He must have run for the phone. When you’re three, answering the phone is as exciting as meeting Elmo.

Knowing my brother is excited to hear my voice makes me smile. “I’m seeing you on Friday,” I remind him. “To babysit. I’m sleeping over too.”

When Dad asked if I’d stay with Henry while he and Barbara ran downstairs for an early dinner with neighbors, I’d said yes right away. There’d be pizza, Dad promised, and five dollars an hour. When Halle heard about the pizza, she agreed to come too. I didn’t mention the money, though. Maybe I’ll surprise her and buy us fro-yo next week on the way home from school.

“Computer,” I say, repeating the word correctly, the way Dad and Barbara asked me to. “Can you put him on the phone? I want to talk to him.”

The minute hand on the kitchen wall clock makes a full circle before my dad gets on the phone. “Kit-Kat! Are we still on for Friday night?”

I had planned to tell him about my idea (okay, Olympia’s idea) to talk to Mom about her problem. But now that I’m about to say it out loud, it feels wrong. I go with the first thing that pops into my brain instead. “She’s very happy for me because I got a ninety-eight on my French quiz,” I say. “Pretty good, huh?”

“C’est formidable,” Dad says, laughing. “You’re a real French scholar.”

“Merci beaucoup.” We chat for a few more minutes before I hang up and start my math homework. We’re doing positive and negative numbers this year, which I don’t understand. Dad used to help me when I was younger, but it was no use. No matter how many times he’d try to explain something to me, the concept would sail over my head like a let-go balloon. Now the math is harder, and Dad’s not around to help.

Next is English, a one-page description of our assigned Harriet the Spy characters. I chew on my pencil, hoping for something interesting to say about The Boy with the Purple Socks. I can’t think of a thing. Why does my character have to be so boring? I’d have plenty to say if I were Harriet, who spies on people and writes about them in her notebook. I mean, spying on people is fun. Last summer I caught the lady down the hall going to the garbage room in her underwear. I’m not sure if that counts as spying, though, because people who walk around in their underwear probably don’t care who sees them. Mom won’t go near the garbage room. She tips the porter extra to pick up our trash.

As I’m finishing up, I hear Mom at the door. “Where were you?” I ask, following her into the kitchen. She sets bags of Chinese takeout on the counter and goes over to the sink to wash her hands.

“I had an interview,” she says, reaching for the soap. “I think it went well.”

Hmmm, this is new. Mom hasn’t wanted to go back to work since she lost her job as a magazine editor. I remember how Dad kept bugging her to find a new one, but Mom wasn’t interested. “The magazine industry is dead,” she told my dad at dinner one night. “I might as well focus my energy on something else.” Too bad the “something else” turned out to be cleaning the apartment and worrying about germs.

Mom finishes her hand-washing routine, dries off on a clean dish towel, and slips on her rubber gloves. She wipes down the Chinese takeout containers before placing them on the table. “What kind of job did you interview for?” I ask once we’ve sat down to eat.

Mom passes me the kung pao chicken. “It wasn’t for a job,” she says. “I interviewed to be a contestant on Clean Sweep.”

“Nope. I didn’t want to say anything until it was definite, but the producers liked my application and asked me to come in for a chat.”

“My personal cleaning style,” Mom says, reaching for the chicken. “How often I clean, which products I use…That kind of thing. Basically, they want to see if I’d be a good fit for the show.”

A good fit? Isn’t it enough that Mom wants to be on Clean Sweep in the first place? I can’t imagine there’s a line around the block for people who want to scrub toilets on TV, but you never know. “Do a lot of people audition?” I ask, curious.

“More than you’d think,” Mom says. She spears a piece of broccoli. “The producers have to be selective in the screening process.”

“Oh.” I chew this over as I eat my chicken. I’m also wondering how many of the other contestants have a problem like Mom’s. Or maybe they just want to be on TV. “Do you think they’ll pick you?” I ask, picturing my mom in a sanitation worker’s uniform. It’s not the best image, but for twenty-five thousand dollars it’s not that bad.

Mom serves herself more chicken. “Getting chosen is a long shot, but I think there’s a good chance. I demonstrated my counter-wiping technique for the producers, and they told me I was remarkably quick and very thorough.”

I look up from my food. Mom is smiling with her whole face, not just her mouth. I guess Clean Sweep means more to her than I realized. “I hope you get picked, Mom,” I say, surprising myself by actually meaning it. “It would be cool.”

“It sure would,” Mom says, getting up to clear the table. “Very cool.”

Later, I crawl into bed to read Harriet the Spy under the covers. I’m so wound up about Clean Sweep—half hoping Mom will win, half worried she won’t—that I keep reading the same sentence over and over. Then I do what I couldn’t do last week. I find my laptop, open my email, and click on New.

TO: Olympia.Rabinowitz@VillageHumanity.org

SUBJECT: Hello

DATE: September 25, 9:32:24 PM EDT

FROM: Kat.Greene@VillageHumanity.org

Dear Olympia,

Thank you for your advice in rap session the other day. It was very helpful. I haven’t talked to the person about their problem yet (it’s my mom), but I will. I’m waiting until she finds out about being on TV. It’s a long story, but my mom might be on Clean Sweep. Have you seen it? It’s a game show where people clean stuff as fast as they can. The prize is $25,000 and a lifetime supply of cleaning products. I’m glad about the money, but not so glad about the cleaning products. Cleaning is kind of like my mom’s hobby, and I’m worried the show will only encourage her to do it more. Lately she can’t sit, or talk, or read, or shop—or do much of anything, really—without wanting to clean something. She says she can’t help it and that it calms her, but I find this hard to understand. I mean, there’s nothing “calming” about cleaning. It’s a lot of work!

One more thing. Okay, it’s more of a question than a thing. What will happen if my mom doesn’t win? I know she’ll be very disappointed. I will be too.

I’m sorry if this email sounds confusing and all jumbled up, but that’s how I feel right now. I wish I didn’t.

Sincerely,

Kat

I reread my email. There are other things I could have told Olympia. More important things. But I’m not ready to say them, at least not yet. I close my eyes and press Send.