The Elementals

by Michael McDowell

“I wish you wouldn’t use language like that in front of a thirteen-year-old girl.” “She can’t see me,” said Luker, who was invisible from where India sat, “and she doesn’t know who said it.”

“Maybe she was a burglar or something.” “Fat women make terrible burglars, India.

The girl looked up and nodded to Odessa; she had come to understand that Odessa’s making the beds in the morning was no chore, but a thing in which she took pride. It was indicative of their altered relationship that India now allowed the black woman, without demur, to wait on her. It showed, India considered perversely, the black woman’s superiority: anyone who could perform menial tasks in a menial’s capacity without loss of dignity was someone to be admired and wondered at.