====================== The Cleaning Lady by Susan Casper ====================== Copyright (c)1988 Susan Casper First published in Twilight Zone, April 1988 Fictionwise Contemporary Humor --------------------------------- NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. If you did not purchase this ebook directly from Fictionwise.com then you are in violation of copyright law and are subject to severe fines. Please visit www.fictionwise.com to purchase a legal copy. Fictionwise.com offers a reward for information leading to the conviction of copyright violators of Fictionwise ebooks. --------------------------------- Mary took off her persian wool coat, revealing the baggy gingham dress underneath. The dress was a prize -- she'd searched long and hard for just the right shapeless housedress to go with the rolled white socks and black health shoes she wore. She hung the coat up in the foyer and tied a white scarf over her neatly bunned hair. Now she was ready to work. The living room was cluttered; too much furniture for its size, and too many scatter pillows. She clicked her tongue over the remnants of a party not completely cleared away. Bowls of dip hardened to a gluey worthless mass, and chunks of cheese had turned brown and stale and crumbly. "What a waste," she said to herself. She picked up the plates of stale food and walked down the hallway toward the two louvered half-doors that led to the kitchen. She would _never_ have left food out to spoil like that, no matter how tired she'd been the night before. It wasn't just the money either. Wasting food was _sinful_. Mary surveyed the kitchen and sighed. They had piled dirty dishes up in a neat stack on the drainboard, but that was as far as they had gone. Some people! Most people were terrible housekeepers; Mama had always said that, and she'd seen enough to know that it was true. She scraped the dishes off, loaded them into the dishwasher, and turned it on, and then took the coffee maker apart and cleaned it out by hand, drying the pieces with a paper towel. A closet beside the sink hid vacuum cleaner, feather duster and other necessary items. Mary loaded the smaller items into a bucket and carried them all upstairs. Humming cheerfully, she changed the sheets with bony hands that never completely lost the smell of ammonia. _Fitted sheets_. She sniffed derisively. Oh well. There was nothing quite as nice as fresh crisp hospital corners ... but you had to work with what was available. The tub brought on another bout of tongue clicking, and a long search for the cleanser. She could just _hear_ what Mama would have said to her if she'd left the tub looking like _that_. Even as a very small child, before Mama got sick and she had to take on the housework, it had been pounded into her skull: rinse out the tub after you take a bath. Mary sprinkled the cleanser generously over the tub. She scrubbed out the dried-on grey ring, took care of the rust on the drain, and polished the chrome until she could see herself in it. There was grout between the tiles, but she had brought along an old worn toothbrush for that. Systematically, she worked her way through the house, going from room to room. There was a lot of work to do. The house wasn't exactly _filthy_, she supposed, grudgingly, but it had been a long time since it had been gone over the way she was going over it now. A long time since it had been given a _proper_ cleaning. Most houses were like that today, Mary had found -- slovenly by Mary's standards, although nobody else seemed to care. People just didn't want to put in that kind of work any more. But Mary didn't mind the long hours or the hard physical labor. She liked it; she enjoyed the act of cleaning, and she whistled and sang to herself as she worked. She kept working until, finally, the house was in perfect order, cleaned from top to bottom. She took a last look around to make sure that there was nothing else left to do, and then she took off her white scarf, folded it neatly, and tucked it away in a large patch pocket. She put on her heavy coat and stepped out into the cold winter afternoon, stopping only long enough to make sure the door was firmly locked behind her. It was only a little past noon. Plenty of time to do another house. This was a quiet neighborhood full of small, well-manicured, semi-detached homes. Usually, in a neighborhood like this, both parents worked while the kids went to school. She sauntered along until she came to a house with a stone facade and dark blue trim. She mounted the steps and rang the bell. This was the hard part, the only part she didn't like. Someone peered out at her from behind venetian blinds, and a moment later the door was pulled open a crack. A woman stared suspiciously at her above the security chain. "Yes?" the woman asked. Mary smiled nervously and glanced back at the house number. "Is Mrs. Paulie here?" "You have the wrong house, Lady," the woman said. "I'm sorry. There's no one here by that name." The woman quickly shut the door in Mary's face. With a little shudder, Mary went back down the steps and started off up the street. A few blocks away, another house caught her eye. "This is the place," she said, "I just know it." Eagerly, she climbed the steps and rang the bell. No answer. She rang the bell again -- a good long loud ring -- just to be sure, and pressed her ear to the door to listen for a moment. Nobody home. She pulled a long thin wire and a nail file out of her pocket and fumbled around with the lock. A second later the door clicked open, and Mary slipped inside. She shouted loudly once, to be sure, then took off her coat and hung it in the closet by the door. She looked around with satisfaction. The place was a real mess. Humming happily, she pulled the white scarf out of her pocket and tied it on. There was a lot of work to be done. ----------------------- At www.fictionwise.com you can: * Rate this story * Find more stories by this author * Get story recommendations