Shameless

-Mishiema

“Your father hasn’t called back. I’m worried now.”

The teenage girl went to the refrigerator and grabbed two bananas, one for her mother and one for herself. Her mother asked her to call her father’s cell phone again, so she did.

“Hi daddy. This is…oh, you already know who this is.” She gave a little giggle. “Anyways, mummy is freaking out so she wants you to call back. Love you, bye, and have fun!”

Her father was on a one-day business trip to Kansas City, and he was supposed to be on his way back.

The girl grabbed her banana and peeled it, slowly. The emptiness in her stomach made her feel weak and vulnerable. She didn’t like that feeling. She bit into the banana.

On the television, commercials for ice cream, tv shows, and cars aired. She ate her banana slowly and watched the screen with an aloof expression. Her mother began putting the bagels they had had for breakfast that morning into bags so they would stay fresh. The girl turned to watch her mother idly, still gnawing at her banana.

“I’m really worried.” Her mother joined her and ate her own banana.

By now, the girl was regretting not eating her banana even slower. The feeling in her stomach hadn’t subdued and she was getting annoyed with her stomach. She felt weak, like she couldn’t do anything if this atrocious feeling wouldn’t leave her. She had to get rid of it.

Protein, she thought. She had already had far too many carbs that day, so she needed other nutrients that would provide her energy. She climbed onto the counter and reached into the cabinet for the jar of reduced-fat peanut butter.

She worried about her weight. She didn’t need to, she was already sixteen pounds below the average weight for her height. But still, she worried. She didn’t want to end up fat like her sister.

Cautiously, she scraped a little from the swirl of peanut butter that was forming in the middle of the jar. She licked her butter knife and her mouth smiled in satisfaction. She loved reduced-fat peanut butter.

“Empty the dishwasher.”

“No. I cleaned the kitchen this morning.”

She never cleaned the kitchen, but today, she had felt at peace with the world and with her family, so she had cleaned the kitchen for her mother. She loved her mother, she really did, but she was sick of her mother trying to get her to become more lady-like.

Her mother seemed to think that this was a fair enough statement and bent down to retrieve the forks and knives to put away. The girl watched her mother for a moment and then scraped more peanut butter from the jar.

“Fine, you shameless little girl. Make your mother work.” Her mother said it playfully, not rudely or with disdain.

“I’m not as shameless as Ashley. I wrote her college speech for her at midnight, and what does she do? She goes to sleep. I’m fourteen, she’s twenty-one, and I’m writing her speeches while she sleeps.”

The teenage girl was intelligent, very intelligent. She was very different from her sister, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Her mother sighed sadly. “You shouldn’t have done that. It’s not helping her.”

“She’s a bum.”

“But you’re not supposed to do these things for her, it won’t help her.”

“She sleeps all the time. It’s disgusting!”

“Well, sleep is different to people. Next time, don’t write her speech for her.”

Her mother turned her attention to the dishes and the little girl turned her attention to the peanut butter jar.

The evening news blared from the television set. Apparently, the government had found the materials for making a bomb that had caused a heinous terrorist attack.

The girl licked her knife and dipped it into the jar again. The television continued showing the causes of the mass killings.

Slowly, she licked the peanut butter off the knife, deciding this would be her last scraping of peanut butter for the day. She slid off the counter, put her knife in the sink and put the peanut butter jar back into the cabinet.

On the television, the news reporter announced the death count again. The girl didn’t care.

She was shameless.