are done. We have a girl in to serve on weekends, but you can help prepare meals for the family the rest of the time. Evenings, you can read to Garvey, maybe, since you’ve completed your primary studies.”
Mr. Sloat made a harrumphing sound, which, like his laughter, was unexpected. “Garvey don’t need anyone to read to him. Ain’t his eyes that’s wrecked.”
Lucy had no idea who Garvey was, but it didn’t seem like the time to ask. And it wouldn’t make any difference, anyway. The duties outlined by Mrs. Sloat were what she expected; the only things she wasn’t sure of were how hard it would be to meet their standards and how harshly they would punish her when she failed. There’d been stories circulating in the camp; internees returning to the cities wrote of poor treatment by their employers. Anti-Japanese sentiment was as strong as ever in some places.
“So...does that mean I have the job?”
“You’ll have the room off the kitchen. It’s small but it does have a nice bed. You’ll receive eight dollars per week. Mind, you’re getting your room and board. Mr. Sloat will keep your account for you.”
“All right.” Lucy doubted she would ever see any of the money, but this was a start.
“Is that all your things?”
They all turned to look at Lucy’s battered suitcase. She didn’t have enough to fill it, small as it was. After her mother’s death, their room was reassigned and she never found out what happened to their belongings, which were long gone by the time she was well enough to ask about them. She owned two donated dresses besides the one she wore. A strange little book given to her by Jeanne as a going-away present: The Little Prince, written by a Frenchman. It was about a little boy in a desert but apparently it was supposed to be about the war. Two textbooks—science and math—that Jeanne said she could keep.
Mr. Sloat pushed himself away from the table and got up in stages, his knees making a popping sound loud enough to hear across the parlor. He cleared his throat as he went out the front door. He was a man of ungainly sounds and coarse habits; Lucy wondered how Mrs. Sloat had ended up marrying so far beneath her. Well, she’d have plenty of time to figure that out.
For a moment neither Lucy nor Mrs. Sloat spoke, and Lucy could feel the tension in the room.
“I don’t know if you’ll enjoy this job.”
“I don’t expect to enjoy it.”
“I won’t tolerate laziness.”
“I’m not lazy.” Lucy suspected that Sister Jeanne had exaggerated her industry, but she’d work as hard as was required here.
Mrs. Sloat nodded. “You’ve been told, I expect, that Mr. Sloat and I have no children.”
Lucy had been told, more precisely, that Mrs. Sloat could not bear children, gossip that Sister Jeanne had managed to pick up somewhere. She suggested to Lucy that Mrs. Sloat might be sympathetic toward a young girl—might even, in time, become a surrogate mother figure. Half an hour with the woman convinced Lucy that would never happen.
“It’s good that you’re nearly grown,” Mrs. Sloat went on. “Eighteen—well, that’s more of a woman than a girl, isn’t it? I don’t care for children.”
She lifted the delicate teacup to her lips and took a dainty sip, closing her eyes and inhaling the tepid brew. In that moment Lucy realized that she might have underestimated Mrs. Sloat’s capacity for cruelty.
When she rose from her chair to take Lucy on a tour of the premises, Lucy saw that there was something wrong with her legs. Mrs. Sloat walked with a distinct limp, though Lucy could tell that she was attempting to hide it. Her hips made a sort of rolling swivel with each step, the foot coming down as though she was about to turn an ankle. Was one foot smaller than the other? One leg shorter? She touched the chair rail lightly with her fingertips as Lucy followed her down the hall. Her left foot made a percussive clack on the wood floors, followed by a much softer landing of the right foot. Clack drag, clack drag.
Lucy was reminded of a lame duck she’d seen at her father’s warehouse one day. One of his distributors kept the poor thing as a pet. It rode on the bed of the truck that was being loaded with crates of apricots, and it had a small dish of corn from which to peck. As her father and the merchant