The following version of this story was used to create this guide: Alexie, Sherman. "Clean, Cleaner, Cleanest." The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/clean-cleaner-cleanest.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the page number on which the quotation appears.

"Clean, Cleaner, Cleanest" begins with the narrator announcing that Marie was no longer bothered by the sex paraphernalia that guests of her motel left behind in their rooms. She was much more concerned, the narrator explains, with hypodermic needles from guests' drug use. She had been stuck once and had gotten an HIV test immediately after. Recently, Marie has noticed more needles in the rooms, and she feels sorry for the addicts who use them. She has been working at the motel for so long that she does not mind cleaning up people's most repulsive messes.

On a Tuesday morning, Marie enters a room to clean it. There is nobody inside, and the room is already tidy. She remembers a time when a naked man once walked out of the bathroom when she was cleaning, and she and fellow maid, Evie, had laughed about it. Evie had left for Reno years before and Marie misses her. Now, Marie cleans the room quickly, grateful to the guest who had been self-conscious of their messes. He had even left her a small tip. Marie cleans the room in 15 minutes.

The narrator explains that there used to be many more employees at the motel. Over the years, many women and some men had come and gone. Often, they quit upon encountering shocking messes in guests rooms – from animal sacrifices to suicides to murders. Marie had been assaulted by a number of fellow employees; her car and purse had both been stolen by other maids. Marie estimates that she has worked with hundreds of maids, but Evie was her favorite. Marie often confides in her priest, Father James, about the difficulties of her job.

In her second year working at the motel, Marie had had a relationship with the Naseem's (the owner) son. They met six times in one of the hotel rooms and had sex with towels underneath them so they would not mess up the bed. Without warning, Amir (Naseem's son) returned to Pakistan to live with his grandparents. Marie was relieved, because she had cheated on her husband. Father James told her how to perform her act of contrition to be forgiven.

The motel is now under new ownership, but Marie still works there. Her body has taken a beating over the years from so much cleaning. Father James compares it to working in a coal mine. One day, Marie uses the hotel computer to search for Evie. She sees that she is a housekeeper in a retirement home in Arizona. Seeing her photo on the computer, Marie cries and imagines what it would be like to call Evie.

On Marie's last day at the motel, the owner tells her she only needs to clean one room. She cleans it thoroughly, taking special care to make sure it is pristine. It takes her three hours to clean the room, and the owner pays her for two weeks' worth of work. At the end of her shift, she changes her clothes, gets in her car, and goes home to her husband. The two share a beer on the couch and watch the weather report on the news together.