Page 108

Who picked up after her? I wondered.

As if she heard my thoughts, a maid came out

of the living room and marched down the corridor to

retrieve Gisselle's things. She was a young black

woman with beautiful, large brown eyes. I didn't think

she was much older than I.

"Good morning,." I said.

"Mornin'. You're the new girl who looks just

like Gisselle?" she asked.

"Yes. My name's Ruby."

"I'm Wendy Williams," she said. She scooped

up Gisselle's things, her eyes glued to me, and then

walked away.

I started down the corridor to the kitchen, but

when I reached the dining room, I saw my father

already seated at the long table. He was sipping coffee

and reading the business section of the newspaper.

The moment he saw me, he looked up and smiled. "Good morning. Come on in and sit down," he

called. It was a very big dining room, almost as big as a Cajun meeting hall, I thought. Above the long table hung a shoo-fly, a great, wide fan unfurled at dinnertime and pulled to and fro by a servant to provide a breeze and do what it was named for: shoo away flies . . . I imagined it was there just for decoration. I had seen them before in rich Cajun

homes where they had electric fans.

"Here, sit down," my father said, tapping the

place on his left. "From now on, this is your seat.

Gisselle sits here on my right and Daphne sits at the

other end."

"She sits so far away," I remarked, gazing down

the length of the rich, cherry wood table, polished so

much I could see my face reflected in its surface. My

father laughed.

"Yes, but that's the way Daphne likes it. Or

should I say, that's the proper seating arrangement.