I followed Minh to the shiny white kitchen where Maria, the sullen girl I’d met earlier, was stirring a number of pots and pans on the big professional stovetop.
She was eating as she cooked, I saw—grabbing a hasty bite here and there as she worked on the meal. If I was the laundress and Minh was a kind of maid, Maria must be the cook for the Spaulding family.
Minh and I washed our hands and carefully got out the table linen and silverware, going into the adjoining formal dining room to set the table.
“Maria! Maria, is dinner almost finished?” Nancy Spaulding’s strident voice could be heard from the other end of the house as Minh and I reentered the kitchen.
Maria hastily put back the juicy pork chop she’d been about to bite into and called back in a respectful tone,
“Yes, Ms. Nancy—dinner’s just about ready to be served! I’ll have the little girls bring the plates out if you’d like to sit down.”
“Very well.”
Looking through the doorway that led from the kitchen to the dining room, I saw Nancy and Gary and Alexis all getting seated at one end of the huge table. It was big enough that all of us foster kids could have fit there too, with chairs to spare, but that clearly wasn’t how things were done in the Spaulding household.
As soon as they all got settled, Maria started making up the plates and sending them out by Minh and me. I saw her piling thick, juicy pork chops, mashed potatoes with cream gravy, piles of emerald green peas, and hot rolls onto each plate.
“This one’s for Ms. Nancy—be careful not to spill it,” she warned, giving the first plate to Minh, who carried it carefully into the dining room to place in front of Nancy herself.
She then handed me a plate for “Miss Alexis” which didn’t have the peas—apparently, the spoiled Alexis wouldn’t eat them. I put the plate in front of her and got only a disgusted look in return.
Returning to the kitchen, I saw Maria making up “Mr. Gary’s” plate. She loaded it with chops, peas, rolls and mashed potatoes. But before she poured the gravy into the potatoes, I saw her lean over the plate and spit right into the middle of them.
I stared in surprise and she looked up and caught me watching her.
“Listen, you keep that to yourself, you little puta,” she hissed at me. “Nobody needs to know and if you tell, I’ll make sure you never get nothing to eat ever!”
Dumbly, I nodded to show I understood.
“Good.” Looking satisfied, Maria poured a ladleful of gravy into the mashed potatoes, hiding the puddle of spittle. “Hope he fucking chokes on it,” I heard her mutter as she passed the plate to me.
I took the final plate out and then wondered what to do next. I found out soon enough when Minh and Maria came to stand in a line beside me. Theo materialized too, as silent as a ghost, and also joined the line.
Then we all just stood there and watched the Spauldings eat.
If this seems like unbelievable cruelty—well, it felt like it, too. My stomach was rumbling and the sight and smell of the hot buttered rolls, the juicy chops, and even the green peas, which weren’t normally my favorite, was absolute torture. But we had to stand there, not saying a word, and watching as the family devoured the food in front of us.
As they ate, they talked about their day and their plans, acting like we weren’t there at all. I heard all about how Alexis was going to college in the fall and how Nancy and Gary were going to miss their “Princess.”
The Princess, in turn, made snide remarks to her parents and complained about everything on her plate, barely picking at the pork chops and mashed potatoes and only eating the roll.
I had to gulp and look the other way when Gary Spaulding dug into his mashed potatoes with relish and polished them off before starting on his pork chop.
“Mmm-mmm!” he exclaimed, after taking a bite of it. “Maria, sweetie, I swear you’re the best cook we’ve ever had around here! These chops are so juicy and tender.”
It was the only time one of us had been addressed during the meal and Maria didn’t appear to enjoy the compliment a bit.
“Thank you, Mr. Gary,” she mumbled, dropping her eyes to her hands.
“Just delicious,” Gary Spaulding continued, but now he was looking at Maria instead of the food on his plate. “Mmm, you sure do give a man an appetite, sweetie.”
Maria’s face got red and she started to tremble—I was standing right beside her and I could feel her shaking.
“That’s enough,” Nancy Spaulding rapped out. “Let’s talk more about what Alexis should take with her to her dorm room. It’s too bad we can’t send someone with her to see to her needs.”