As I held the mug over the garbage bag, I remembered with a creeping sense of dread how the dishes got into the drainer. I’d done them about four years ago, before “Garbage Girl” happened. Before I’d totally given up. It was probably the last time I’d done anything constructive in this room. In this whole house. I’d learned my lesson well.
I had planned it as a surprise for Mom. She’d been working late all week, and I’d wanted to do something that would make her life a little easier, so she’d make mine easier too. And at that point in seventh grade, I needed an easier life more than just about anything else.
Carefully pushing aside all of Mom’s stuff that had started to take over the space—after the Auntie Jean episode I knew better than to throw anything away or move it more than a few inches from where she had put it—I managed to make enough room to cook dinner. Okay, cooking dinner might be an exaggeration, but I made a meal in that kitchen for the three of us to eat. This was before the sink stopped working and developed a permanent brown crust, and before mold had started its incessant march across all surfaces. Back when you could still eat something that had come into contact with the space and not watch for signs of botulism or trichinosis.
After school that day, I’d gone down to the grocery store on the corner and picked up one of those already cooked chickens that came in the little plastic containers. If nothing else, I knew how much Mom loved those containers with the clear plastic dome on top. For her, something as simple as a chicken container held endless possibilities. After the chicken was gone, it could be a container to take food over to a sick friend, or with a slit cut in the top, become a place to put receipts. Most likely, it would become just another piece in her ever-growing collection of useless plastic containers. It was like she used up all her energy thinking about possibilities for reusing stuff, so she never got around to actually doing it. As long as something could be labeled useful, it was allowed to stay, and if you thought about it hard enough, you could figure out a use for just about anything.
French bread and salad completed the meal. Phil hated salad or anything that was naturally green, but I’d tried to make it up to him by buying ice-cream sandwiches for dessert. Just as I was setting the bags on the counter, Phil came in from his room and started poking around in my bags.
“Get out of there,” I said, slapping his hand away. “It’s for dinner.”
“Whose dinner?”
“Our dinner. Yours, mine, and Mom’s.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion.” I pulled out the bag of salad and set it on a clear space on the counter. “I just thought it would be good for us to eat dinner together.”
Phil opened the cupboards and found a box of Cheez-Its that had hopefully been put in there not too long ago. After shoving a handful of crackers in his mouth, he said, “Bull.” Tiny crumbs of cracker flew out of his mouth in a dry, orange shower as he spoke.
“What?” I asked. He always thought he was so smart.
“Bull that you don’t want anything,” he said. “You’re totally fishing for something from her. What is it? You want a cat? Or a new bike?”
I made a show of concentrating on opening the salad and digging through the bottom cupboard for a cleanish bowl to put it in. “No.”
The bag crackled as he fished around the bottom for whatever crumbs were left. “Well, I’m not falling for your ‘let’s be a happy family’ act. You wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t want something from her.”
I sighed and wiped a dinner plate with a wet paper towel. “It’s just that I was thinking about trying to have some girls over here. For my birthday.”
Phil wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “Why would you want to do that?”
For someone in AP classes in high school, he could be such an idiot. Was it really that different for him? Did he not care that he could never have anyone over to play video games or hang around watching late-night TV? Didn’t it bother him that we always had to make excuses for why nobody could come in the house, and that we always had to figure out ways to meet people outside? Maybe boys just didn’t notice those things. Unfortunately, girls did.
“A couple of the girls in my class wanted to have a sleep-over. You know, have one over here because we always go to someone else’s house. I’ve been stalling them for months, but they’re starting to get suspicious.”
I secretly thought that Elaina from my class had a crush on Phil—God only knows why—and that’s why they all wanted to come over here. We weren’t even very good friends, but she was always asking if he was going out with somebody, or if he was going to be home after school. Elaina said once that she thought Phil’s curls were hot, and did I ever think he would grow his hair out. I gave her such a look that it never came up again. Luckily, he was in high school, and seventh-grade girls were totally off his radar.
Phil looked around the room. Knowing him, I figured whatever was going to come out of his mouth would be obnoxious. But he just nodded. “I can see how that would be a problem.”
Buoyed by his sudden understanding, I continued letting my thoughts form into words. “So I figured I’d be nice to Mom, you know, make it easy for her, and then see if she would let us clean up a little bit—it wouldn’t have to be perfect—but enough so I could have a couple of girls over just this once.”
“That way, they won’t have anything to say behind your back,” he said. He opened the fridge and stuck his head all the way in. “Did you get any soda?”
I leaned against the sink to look at him carefully. Because he was five years older than me, we didn’t do much together. He ran track at school so he was in pretty good shape, if you could think that about a brother. The fact that I wrinkled my nose made me realize you couldn’t actually think that about a brother. “No soda,” I said. “But there are ice-cream sandwiches in the freezer. They’re shoved way up in the corner.”
Phil opened the freezer and grabbed the box, sending a cascade of ziplock bags full of mysterious meat products onto the floor. “Crap,” he said, hopping around on one foot. “Those things are like bricks.”
I helped him pick up the bags and shoved them back into the freezer. We slammed the door quickly so nothing else could attempt an escape.
“Thanks,” he said. He unwrapped the top of a sandwich and took a bite. As he put the wrapper in our one trash can that lived under the sink, he looked me in the eye.
“About the whole Mom thing,” he said. He shut the door to the cabinet and looked around the room. I felt closer to him at this moment than I’d ever felt before. We never talked about what went on in the house. Not after what happened with Aunt Jean. “Yeah,” he said. “Good luck with that.” He shoved the last of the ice cream in his mouth and ducked out of the room.
I was sitting at the kitchen table when Mom got home. I’d managed to clear enough space for two place settings, complete with placemats and napkins. Phil had taken a plate of food to his room, but I didn’t care, as it didn’t look like he was going to be all that much help.