The two resign themselves to cleaning the mess before doing much else. With trepidation they realize that it is actually quite the garbage dump. They exchange glances, and Karen states. "I'll get the trash can." Then makes her way out of the door.
John picks through some of the clutter, then resigns herself to sorting through the dirty laundry and tossing it into the hamper. Karen returns shortly after and similarly starts tossing garbage. They work in relative silence for a bit, with only the sound of old makeup or broken toys entering the garbage as punctuation. Fifteen minutes later or so, John finishes with the laundry and turns her attention to the garbage as well.
It takes the pair a few hours to sort through the mess they pulled out. Despite the unexpected chore, their banter and jokes keep the mood light, and the time passes swiftly. As they sort through some of the remaining items, John shoots a hoop from across the room with some turquoise nail polish. The glass is heard shattering inside the garbage can.
"Hey! What are you doing, don't throw that away!" Karen scolds.
"What? Why not?"
"That was still full."
John's eyes grow wider, and she tosses her shoulders. "And?"
"And, you should be saving that stuff. Even if you don't want it, we could still donate it or something."
"Karen, when we fix this, none of this will even exist. We're just doing this so I don't get in trouble tomorrow."
Karen looks away as she rolls an idea around her head. "I... just don't think we should just trash something. We don't have the stone now, so we should act like we don't have the stone."
John sighs heavily.
"Just set it aside, and I'll take it." She holds up her hands in an effort to placate her.
John crosses her arms, then relents. "Fine, fine. I guess... I guess I'll go start a load of laundry then."
Karen shakes her head. "Yeah, and just dump it all in one load. Here, Give it to me. I'll sort it first."
She grabs the overloaded hamper, and stumbles out the door. John, naturally, seizes the opportunity to throw away a bunch of dolls and makeup he considers garbage, though does try to keep the nicer looking things off to the side. After a few minutes she plops down onto the bed, there's so much here. There's a lot that's not even garbage, it's just useless clutter. The sorts of items one might acquire from a hundred impulse purchases. A dozen different facial creams. A hundred different accessories. Novelty makeup that probably only saw use in a sleepover when Allison was a child. Bath beads and salts that will never be used. To her embarrassment, she found a couple of different lubricants as well.
She gets back to it and makes good progress while Karen is gone. She finds herself staring at the remaining clutter, the useless-not-useless things that she can't quite bring herself to throw away, but can't ever imagine using. She shrugs, then proceeds to shovel it right back under the bed. At least it's better than before, she concludes.
By the time Karen returns John is mostly done, though when she does return she stands in the door silently. John continues to push the stuff in place by the armloads before sitting on her butt, and looking up at Karen, smiling and out of breath. "Don't tell me you're going to lecture me about this?"
Karen sighs, then looks away from John. "No, It's something else."
John scoots backwards until her back is against the bed. "Everything OK?"
"I... This is kind of weird, but..." Karen sighs again, and looks back to John. "Look I found this in the bottom of your hamper." She holds out a little white stick.
"A toothbrush?"
"No you dummy, Do you see any bristles on this? Here!" Karen walks over to him, and passes her the item.
It's handle is much like a fat toothbrush with a pink accent color, though the opposite end looks like some sort of fibrous tape. She turns it around and reveals a round plastic cover over two pink lines. John's mouth goes dry. "Is this...?"
"It's a pregnancy test." Karen concludes.
"And..."
"Yeah, just look at the little chart. Two lines means..."
"Means pregnant? Means I'm pregnant?"
Karen looks away and shrugs, then nods. "Yeah, it seems like Allison is pregnant "
John's eyes grow wide as she leans her back against the bed. "I need a computer "
