Fancy White Trash by Marjetta Geerling

word, but I’m definitely thinking it. “I know she’s Steve’s.”
    â€œWanting her to be Steve’s is very different from knowing.” Shelby licks the back of her spoon and tosses it in the sink. “I’m just saying, better come clean soon. Jackson would be a good dad for her.”
    â€œYou don’t know everything!” Kait yells, and huffs out of the room, definitely not serene. I saw the tears in her eyes, and a weird knot forms in my stomach.
    â€œFive pounds, eleven ounces is a perfectly normal birth weight for a full-term baby,” Shelby tells me. “I looked it up.”
    I just shake my head at her and leave. It was easier when I thought Shelby was lying, but birth weight is a fact. That Jackson and Kait slept together and Stephanie was born nine months later is a fact. I really don’t like how this is all adding up. Jackson, Stephanie’s dad? It’s so horrible, it just might be true.
    Back in the living room, the boys have put on another movie, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s watching it. Kait is on the couch with Gustavo on the floor in front of her. He’s holding Stephanie while Kait gives him a shoulder massage. By the glazed expression on his face and the intense concentration on hers, they certainly have no idea that Indiana Jones is once again in a peck of trouble.
    â€œBrian?” I decide it must be awkward for him to watch my sister put the moves on her boss. Almost as awkward as it is for me to think about just what “other ways to satisfy a guy” means. “Do you want to see the eighth wonder of the world?”
    â€œRight here in Cottonwood?” His eyes lift at the corners when he smiles.
    â€œMm-hmm, follow me next door.” I lead, collecting Cody, and we go out the front and over to Cody’s house. I take a left through the family room and a right after the first bathroom.
    â€œMy room? That’s the big deal?” Cody has not said anything to Brian yet tonight outside of a quick hey when Brian walked in. I guess you could call that good behavior, so he’s not technically breaking his promise. He is careful to keep me between them.
    I take three strides across the small room. Cody’s bed is neatly made, as always, with the navy spread he picked out when he was twelve. His books from school are piled, largest to smallest, on his built-in desk next to his laptop, which is open but sleeping.
    Cody tries to distract me by saying, “I’ve got a whole week of Passion’s Promise on the DVR. Want to catch a few episodes?”
    But it doesn’t work. What are Friday afternoons for if not for catching up on all my soaps? “Already seen ’em,” I reply.
    â€œAnd you didn’t invite me over?” He tilts his head in that hurt way he has.
    â€œYou were pouting,” I remind him. Crossing the vaguely Navajo throw rug, I fling open the mirrored closet door. “Tada! Have you ever seen anything like it?”
    If you watch a lot of reruns of Swept Clean! or Organize Me! like I do, then you have seen this before. Cody’s closet is a marvel of order. Clothes are separated by type, arranged by color from darks to lights, and all hung on black hangers.
    â€œEverything looks good on black,” Cody says defensively, like we are going to judge him for his mono-color hangers.
    Even more impressive, at least to me, is the shoe organizer with every shoe clean and matched with its mate. Since I share my closet with Kait, and neither one of us is especially concerned with closet cleanliness, finding a matching pair of shoes is like a treasure hunt. Cody has organized and reorganized my closet, but it never lasts.
    â€œWow,” Brian says. “My mom would kill for a closet like that.” He kneels down and looks at the bottom row of pants. “Are they arranged by style, too?” Khakis to the left, jeans in the middle, dress pants to the right.
    Cody