Joelle cleans; the Thanksgiving audit (pp. 745–746)
The whole Thanksgiving table inclined very subtly toward Avril, very slightly and subtly, like heliotropes. Joelle found herself doing it too, the inclining.
Context
The physics of the system, caught by the outside eye. Avril's champagne glass "somehow never went down," she directed "every fourth comment" around the table "like a cycle of even inclusion," she put everyone at ease without seeming to work at it — and the entire table, Joelle included, tilted toward her the way flowers track the sun. It's the gravitational fact under all the graciousness: she is the center, and being the center is indistinguishable from control. Nobody looked directly at Dr. Incandenza except Joelle; everyone leaned Avril's way. The warmth is real and the orbit is total, and the scene's quiet horror is that you can't tell the two apart.