Just concentrate on the stain until your memory is completely erased. Practice really does make perfect. If you could call it that.

Ignore how it feels when the only real talent you have is for hiding the truth. You have a God-given knack for committing a terrible sin. It's your calling. You have a natural gift for denial. A blessing.

If you could call it that.

Even after sixteen years of cleaning people's houses, I want to think the world is getting better and better, but really I know it's not. You want there to be some improvement in people, but there won't be. And you want to think there's something you can get done.

Cleaning this same house every day, all that gets better is my skill at denying what's wrong.

God forbid I should ever meet who I work for in person.

Please don't get the idea I don't like my employers. The caseworker has gotten me lots worse postings. I don't hate them. I don't love them, but I don't hate them. I've worked for lots worse.

Just ask me how to get urine stains out of drapes and a tablecloth.

Ask me what's the fastest way to hide bullet holes in a living-room wall. The answer is toothpaste. For larger calibers, mix a paste of equal parts starch and salt.

Call me the voice of experience.

Five lobsters is how many I figure they'll take to learn the tricky details of getting the back open. The carapace, I figure. Inside's the brain or the heart you're supposed to be hunting for. The trick is to put the lobsters in the water and then turn up the heat. The secret is to go slow. Allow at least thirty minutes for the water to reach a hundred degrees. This way, the lobsters are supposed to die a painless death.

My daily planner tells me to keep busy, polishing the copper the best way, with half a lemon dipped in salt.

These lobsters we have to practice with are called Jumbos since they're around three pounds apiece. Lobsters under a pound are called Chickens. Lobsters missing a claw are called Culls. The ones I take out of the refrigerator packed in wet seaweed will need to boil about half an hour. This is more stuff you learn in Home Economics.

Of the two large forward claws, the larger claw lined with what look like molars is called the Crusher. The smaller claw lined with incisors is called the Cutter. The smaller side legs are called the Walking Legs. On the underside of the tail are five rows of small fins called Swimmerets. More Home Economics. If the front row of swimmerets is soft and feathery, the lobster is female. If the front row is hard and rough, the lobster is male.

If the lobster is female, look for a bony heart-shaped hollow between the two rear walking legs. This is where the female will still be carrying live sperm if she's had sex within the past two years.

The speakerphone rings while I'm setting the lobsters, three male and two female, no sperm, in the pot on the stove.

The speakerphone rings as I turn up the heat just another notch.

The speakerphone rings while I wash my hands.

The speakerphone rings while I go pour myself a cup of coffee and mix in cream and sugar.

The speakerphone rings while I take a handful of seaweed from the lobster bag and sprinkle it in on top of the lobsters in the pot. One lobster lifts a crusher claw for a stay of execution. Crusher claws and cutter claws, they're all rubber-banded.

The speakerphone rings while I go wash and dry my hands again.

The speakerphone rings, and I answer it.

Gaston House, I say.

"Gaston Residence!" the speakerphone yells at me. "Say it, Gaston Residence! Say it the way we told you how!"

What they teach you in Home Economics is it's correct to call a house a residence only in printing and engraving. We've gone over this a million times.

I drink a little coffee and fiddle with the heat under the lobsters. The speakerphone keeps yelling, "Is anyone there? Hello? Have we been cut off?"

This couple I work for, at one party they were the only guests who didn't know to lift the doily with the finger bowl. Since then, they've been addicted to learning etiquette. They still say it's pointless, it's useless, but they're terrified of not knowing every little ritual.

The speakerphone keeps yelling, "Answer me! Damn it! Tell me about the party tonight! What kind of food are we going up against? We've been worried sick all day!"

I look in the cabinet over the stove for the lobster gear, the nutcrackers and nutpicks and bibs.

Thanks to my lessons, these people know all three acceptable ways to place your dessert silver. It's my doing that they can drink iced tea the right way with the long spoon still in the glass. This is tricky, but you have to hold the spoon handle between your index and middle fingers, against the edge of the glass opposite your mouth. Be careful to not poke your eye out. Not a lot of people know this way. You see people taking the wet spoon out and looking for a place to set it and not wreck the tablecloth. Or worse, they just put it anywhere and leave a wet tea stain.

When the speakerphone goes silent, then and only then do I start.

I ask the speakerphone, Are you listening?

I tell the speakerphone, Picture a dinner plate.

Tonight, I say, the spinach souffleacute; will be at the one-o'clock position. The beets thing will be at four o'clock. A meat thing with slivered almonds was going to be on the other half of the plate in the nine-o'clock position. To eat it, the guests would have to use a knife. And there are going to be bones in the meat.

This is the best posting I've ever had, no kids, no cats, no-wax floors, so I don't want to botch it. If I didn't care, I'd start telling who I work for to do any monkey business I could imagine. Like: You eat the sorbet by licking it out of the bowl, dog-dish fashion.

Or: Pick up the lamb chop with your teeth and shake your head vigorously, side to side.

And what's terrible is they'd probably do this. It's because I've never steered them wrong, they trust me.

Except for teaching them etiquette, my toughest challenge is living down to their expectations.

Ask me how to repair stab holes in nightgowns, tuxedos, and hats. My secret is a little clear nail polish on the inside of the puncture.

Nobody teaches you all the job skills you need in Home Economics, but over enough time, you pick them up. In the church district where I grew up, they teach you the way to make candles drip less is soak them in strong salt water. Store candles in the freezer until ready to use. That's their kind of household hint. Light candles with a strand of raw spaghetti. Sixteen years I've been cleaning for people in their homes, and never has anybody asked me to walk around with a piece of spaghetti on fire in my hand.

No matter what they stress in Home Economics, it's just not a priority in the outside world.

For example, no one teaches you that green-tinted moisturizer will help hide red, slapped skin. And any gentleman who's ever been backhanded by a lady with her diamond ring should know a styptic pencil will stop the bleeding. Close the gash with a dab of Super Glue and you can be photographed at a movie premier, smiling and without stitches or a scar.

Always keep a red washcloth around for wiping up blood, and you'll never have a stain to presoak.

My daily planner tells me I'm sharpening a butcher knife.

About the dinner tonight, I keep briefing who I work for about what to expect.

The important part is not to panic. Yes, there's going to be a lobster they'll have to deal with.

There's going to be a single saltcellar. A game course will be served after the roast. The game is going to be squab. It's a kind of bird, and if there's anything more complicated to eat than a lobster, it's a squab. All those little bones you have to dismantle, everybody dressed up for their dissection. Another wine will come after the aperitif, the sherry with the soup course, the white wine with the lobster, the red with the roast, another red wine with the greasy ordeal of the squab. By this time, the table will be spotted with everybody's piddling island archipelagoes of dressings and sauces and wine sprayed across the white tablecloth.