The supper guests would be able to choose from large platters of honey-cured ham, cinnamon pork, fried chickens, roast turkeys, plus a variety of roasted, stewed, and hickory-dried beef. There would be sweet yams and molasses beans, three varieties of fresh greens, and a large crystal compote of seasonal fruit. Apart from the five kinds of bread, Storky would also oversee the baking of four different cakes, date-and-wahiut loaves, and ginger cookies. She would mix a double batch of raisin pudding and make a raspberry blancmange. The condiments, including the apple-and-date chutney, were also the products of Storky's busy kitchen.

In addition to her usual kitchen helper, Storky was given the authority to send to Niggertown for any extra women or men she needed to assist her both in the preparation of the supper and in the actual serving of the small feast, as well as the extra cleaners for the house.

The big house had two parlors on the second floor, which were swept and polished as thoroughly as any room on the ground floor. One was a modest-sized sitting room painted blue, in which the ladies could gather in privacy. The second was an adjoining parlor, where Melissa would lie and talk to the ladies.

Melissa was ten years old now, too young to attend a supper. But a couch was to be made up in that second upstairs parlor, where Melissa could receive family friends. She would be covered by a patchwork quilt-it was a "Star of the Night" pattern, a design passed on to her by her grandmother on her mother's side-which Melissa had pieced together with her own hands.

The biggest problem of this year's supper was what 93.

to do with Peter. Like Melissa, he was not old enough to be included in the actual party, and as he was not an heir of the Selby family, Rachel saw no reason why he should be included at all.

Albert Selby respected his wife's wishes that Peter should not have an active part hi the evening. But as the event was still five days away, Selby set himself the task of thinking of a way in which Peter should not be banished completely from the supper at the Star.

As preparations for the supper progressed in the big house, Claudia Tucker was making plans of her own in the overseer's cabin.

Qaudia had decided that the time had come for her to be alone in bed with Monk. In her eleven years of being married to Chad Tucker, Qaudia had never been to bed with another man-without Tucker being in bed with them, too-and she decided that now was the tune to do it.

Chad Tucker had gone to the upper fields this morning to supervise the new hoeing for green cotton. Qaudia was alone in the cabin now with Monk.

Sorting through the tin plates stacked on the shelf, Qaudia suddenly threw them all to the dirt floor in a loud clatter.

Monk looked up with surprise from the ax head he was soaking in a bucket of water.

"A pig wouldn't eat off these plates," Qaudia screamed, kicking at the pile with her bare foot. "They've got gobs of food stuck all over them. Gobs and gobs. And it's disgusting for a white lady to eat off them."

Monk continued to look at Qaudia in bewilderment. Since he had been accompanying Tucker around the plantation, he had not been doing his house chores. Although Monk had not been told explicitly that his role had changed in the Tuckers' household, he had understood that it had. Qaudia had been doing the cooking and washing and cleaning and slopping the pigs.

Coming to stand over Monk, Claudia put her hands on her hips and asked, "What do you think you're trying to get away with?"

94.Monk blinked.

"Don't try to be all sexy with me, nigger. Just because you're young and sexy don't mean I'm just going to let you get out of your work around here, 'cause I'm not!"

Looking at the plates spread on the floor, Monk said, "Master Tucker don't tells me-"

Pulling back her bare foot to kick him, Qaudia said, "Don't give me none of that 'Master Tucker' shit, nigger. I'm the mistress of this house. Don't you forget that."

Monk had not seen Qaudia in a bad mood like this for a very long time. He felt helpless. He did not know what had caused it. He had seen Claudia herself wash the plates this morning after breakfast.

"And stop looking up my skirt to see my pretty."

Monk's mouth fell open.

Planting both of her bare feet on the floor in front of him, Qaudia shrilled, "Okay, nigger. If you want to see my pretty, then look at it." She lifted her skirt. "Go ahead, look!"

Slowly, leaning back from her, Monk said slowly, "I'm sorry, Mistress Qaudia, ma'am. I'm sorry if you think I means trouble. I don't means no trouble with you, Miss Qaudia, ma'am."

"Don't lie to me. Say it! Say you want to screw that pretty little thing there." She pulled her dress over her head now and threw it to a corner.

Monk tried not to look at her flabby body. He tried to focus on her angry face. He shook his head, protesting, "No, Miss Qaudia, ma'am. You don't hears me right. I don't says nothing at all likes that."

"You don't have to say it. I sees it in your eyes, nigger. I sees in your eyes how you want me."

Monk looked quickly over his shoulder. He did not want Chad Tucker to catch them like this. Tucker might misunderstand.

Standing over him, Qaudia said, "Are you going to screw me or not?"

Looking up from the floor at her face-framed by her pendulous white breasts-Monk began to understand what she was doing. She was threatening him.

95.

"Nigger?" she said, arching one of her pencil-thin eyebrows.

He nodded.

"Nigger, I'm a white woman."

He nodded again.

"And anything I say is gospel truth, nigger. Understand that much?"

He nodded.

"If I say you want to screw me, you want to screw me."

He did not nod in agreement to that.

"And if I runs out of here yelling and screaming that you ripped off my dress and tried to rape me, you'd get your balls chopped off. Just tike that!" She snapped her fingers, then continued maliciously, "I'm a white lady, nigger, and what I say is true. Other white folks believe me. Not niggers. I'm a white lady. I'm white."

Monk murmured, "Yes, Miss Claudia, ma'am."

Qaudia continued in a softer voice, "Now, I want you to get off that goddamned floor, and I want you to drop down your pants and"-she looked quickly around the cabin-"and I want you to stand up on that chair over there by the table."

Monk hesitated.

"Get up."

Monk slowly rose to his feet, and his hands fumbled to untie the rope around his waist. His pants then fell to the floor in a white heap.

Walking quickly around him, Claudia slammed the cabin door and said, "Now, what did I tell you to do, nigger?"

"To get on that chair."

"Right. So hop to it."

Monk hurried and took one of the wooden chairs from under the plank table. Climbing up onto the seat, he watched Qaudia as she slowly walked toward him, her breasts swinging from side to side.

She studied his naked body and said, "I thought we'd go to bed, but I think now I likes it this way. Yes, being I has to teach you, boy, I think I likes it this way for the time being."

96.Standing in front of the chair, she reached to take Monk's maleness in her hands. Holding it, she said, "So you're the pecker that wants to go pushing into my pretty, are you?" She was looking at it as she spoke.

Monk stood quietly above her. He did not know if he was meant to answer her question. Gaudia had never talked to his penis before. Nor had her husband.

Moving her face closer to Monk's crotch, she asked, "Are you? Are you the prick that's after Claudie's little wet pretty? Are you?"

Monk was a healthy young man, and he could not control himself from becoming hard with her fondlings.

Smirking as she watched the penis grow in size, Claudia said, "I thought so. I thought you were after little Claudie's wet patch. But just to teach you a lesson..."

She quickly lifted Monk's penis, and opening her mouth wide, she lunged for his scrotum. Holding up his penis in one hand, using the other to stuff his soft brown sac into her mouth, Claudia buried her mouth into his crotch. When she had secured bis entire scrotum in her mouth, she slowly tightened her lips.

Monk felt Claudia's teeth clamp around the roots of his testicles. His penis wagged in hardness across Claudia's face, but he could still see the evilness in her eyes. They were open and staring up at him.

Suddenly releasing him, Claudia pulled back her head, and wiping her mouth on her bare arm, she said, "See how easy it'd be to nut you, boy?"

He nodded. His phallus was like a rod jutting out from his well-muscled body, but he still felt the sensation of her biting teeth.

She continued, "And niggers get nutted if a white lady like me says they tried to rape them." Cupping both hands under her breasts and arching her back at Monk, she added, "And if you don't lay me, boy, don't think I won't say that."

She suddenly turned, and with one quick swipe of her arm, she swept everything from the table. "We ain't got all day till that son-of-a-bitch gets home. So let's get going."

97.Monk stood on the chair, looking at the bare tabletop.

"And I want you to give me that pecker like you mean what you're doing." She climbed onto the board top.

Stepping from the chair to the table, Monk forced himself to say, "I means it, Miss Tucker, ma'am."

Claudia Tucker had him trapped.

By the night of the supper at the big house, Rachel Selby had finally agreed to a place for Peter in the evening's arrangement. She had consented that the six-year-old child could sit at the top of the stairs and look down at the guests for one hour. But not a minute longer.

Long before the first guests arrived, Peter had dressed himself in his white cotton nightshirt and come to his place.

Looking through the banister, he saw Storky bustling across the entry hall, her stiffly starched apron crackling as she made last minute touches-carrying blue bowls of flowers, rushing to replace a beeswax candle that had fallen from a pewter wall sconce, flourishing a feather duster to catch a spot that had been missed on the wainscoting, and shouting orders the entire time to the other black servants.

On the landing below Peter, Rachel swished past the wooden banister and called to Melissa, "Settle yourself on that couch, young lady. Stop fretting with those curls. Your hair is frightful enough the way it is."

Peter envied Melissa for having this opportunity to meet the guests, even if they would just be the women.

He hoped that he would be allowed to attend a supper when he was older.

His heart began to beat faster when he heard the clatter of wooden wheels on the driveway. He next heard Rachel calling, "Mr. Selby! Mr. Selby! I see those Greysons out front. You're the one who wanted them here, so go greet them yourself."

Selby appeared on the landing below Peter. It was the first time that Peter had seen him looking so distinguished, dressed in a black frock coat with a full cut 98.to its skirt, and polished high boots glistening over his white breeches. His goatee was freshly painted a deep red, and his long, silky hair was glistening white.

Seeing Peter, Selby poked his head out into the well and called, "Hey, Sonny! Don't fall asleep up there." The prospect of company always put Selby in a good mood.

Rachel snapped behind him. "Who are you talking to?"

"Just Sonny," Selby answered, winding his gold pocket watch.

There was the rustle of skirts, and Rachel demanded, "Is that child creeping down here already? I told you he should be locked in his bedroom."

Selby assured her, "Don't fret, Rachel. Don't fret. Everything is under control." Then, rucking his watch and fob into his waistcoat, he pulled it down into position over his white breeches and began to stroll slowly down the stairs to receive his first guests.

For the next hour Peter held onto the banister, listening to the carriages and wagons clatter to a stop in front of the house, and watched people arriving through the double doors. He saw the tops of everybody's heads, their hair partings, the lackluster patches of the men's toupees, the aerial view of women's fat chignons imprisoned in their hair nets. He strained his ears to catch snippets of their conversations, but he heard only the echoes of merry greetings and the swishing of silk skirts.

Peter soon forgot about going to bed. He leaned through the banister now to see a plump woman wearing a tall white wig that cascaded curls down over her shoulders.

Suddenly he heard a muttering behind him.

Turning, Peter saw Ta-Ta standing on the landing. She was dressed in the same ragged white Mother Hubbard that she had been wearing on the afternoon when Peter had last seen her hi the yard.

Ta-Ta did not acknowledge Peter huddled hi front of her on the top step. She stood frowning down at the guests hi the entry hall. She did not approve of what she was seeing. Ta-Ta's face was drawn and stony brown. But she was haughty.

99.

Wanting to escape from her, Peter quickly scooted down to the next step. He hated her for being here.

Continuing to ignore Peter, Ta-Ta pulled the skirt of her Mother Hubbard around her legs and sank to the step that Peter had vacated, as if he had done it for her.

Peter saw that he was caught. He could not move farther down the steps, because Rachel Selby might see him and then send him to bed. If he jumped to his feet and dashed past Ta-Ta, she might grab at him again.

Soon Ta-Ta began to speak, muttering words to herself that Peter could not understand. He tried to ignore her, until suddenly he felt a sharp dig between his shoulderblades.

Ta-Ta had poked him with her toe.

Looking over his shoulder, he frowned at her and turned back to look at the activity below.

Ta-Ta jabbed her toe into his back again, muttering this time to him.

Peter remained motionless on the edge of his step, wondering what he should do. He was upset that she had come and ruined this for him. But he also was frightened of her.

Ta-Ta's toe dug into Peter's back a third time, and she whispered, "Master Peter?"

How did she know his name?

Ta-Ta's whisper became louder. "Master Peter?"

Peter turned rigidly to look at her.

Gripping her skinny arms around her knees, Ta-Ta leaned forward and rasped, "Promises me on your mama's grave?"

Peter stared at her. His mama? He did not have a mama. He just had a man whom he called Father.

Reaching to her thick lips, Ta-Ta pinched them between her forefinger and thumb to mime an oath of silence. Then, shaking her frizzy head, she whispered, "No, no, no! Not a dragonard."

Dragonard. Peter had heard Ta-Ta say that word before. She had said that same funny-sounding word to him in the yard two weeks ago. Dragonard. He had forgotten it.