Joelle meets Avril — the heliotrope table and the "howling fantods"

texture · ~Nov 2001, pre-Subsidized (the last pre-Subsidized Thanksgiving)

• When: the last pre-Subsidized Thanksgiving, ~Nov 2001, at HmH (per the archive's pre-Subsidized-Thanksgiving ruling)
• What: At Joelle's first Incandenza dinner, Avril ("Please do call me Avril, Joelle") runs the non-turkey table graciously, directing "every fourth comment" around in a cycle of inclusion, champagne-glass never sinking — and "the whole Thanksgiving table inclined very subtly toward Avril, very slightly and subtly, like heliotropes," Joelle catching herself doing it too. Yet "something about the woman made every follicle on Joelle's body pucker and distend": a "queerest indefensible feeling that Avril wished her ill," a half-vision of Avril plunging a knife into her breast. Orin notes "the Moms was herself originally from rural Québec." (Joelle later "survives Avril," scene 068.) Sets up Avril's belief the Joelle-JOI relationship was sexual (event 16).