Joelle cleans; the Thanksgiving audit (pp. 746–747)
And at the same time felt sure in her guts’ pit that the woman could have sat there and cut out Joelle’s pancreas and thymus and minced them and prepared sweetbreads and eaten them chilled and patted her mouth without batting an eye. And unremarked by all who leaned her way.
Context
Earlier in the dinner Joelle had a "weird half-vision of Avril hiking her knife up hilt-first and plunging it into Joelle's breast," and every follicle on her body kept puckering and standing up; here the vision resolves into the audit's darkest finding. Joelle "could detect nothing fake about the lady's grace," and simultaneously knew in her gut that this woman could vivisect her, cook her, and dab her mouth — and that everyone leaning Avril's way would let it pass unremarked. That's the frame the whole system runs on: the graciousness isn't a mask over the menace, the graciousness is the menace, an omnipotence so smooth that violence and hospitality would look identical performed by the same serene hands.