Joelle cleans; the Thanksgiving audit (pp. 744–745)

This is the audit's method in one image: the thing displayed and the thing unsayable, side by side, and the silence enforced by everyone's flawless manners. A spotless dish for a dog no one will name; organized sports — tennis, punting, baton — "never once mentioned" at a table full of athletes; and Dr. Incandenza getting up to freshen his drink again and again and finally not returning, his absence "unmentioned, almost unnoticed." The family's grief and drinking and losses aren't hidden by lying — they're hidden by graciousness, by a politeness so total it makes whole subjects structurally unmentionable. What Joelle is watching is secrets kept not behind closed doors but out in the open, camouflaged by charm.