Sethe nodded and shifted her elbow. "Your ma'am know you on the lookout for velvet?"The girl shook her hair out of her face. "My mama worked for these here people to pay for herpassage. But then she had me and since she died right after, well, they said I had to work for em topay it off. I did, but now I want me some velvet."They did not look directly at each other, not straight into the eyes anyway. Yet they slippedeffortlessly into yard chat about nothing in particular — except one lay on the ground.
"Boston," said Sethe. "Is that far?""Ooooh, yeah. A hundred miles. Maybe more.""Must be velvet closer by." "Not like in Boston. Boston got the best. Be so pretty on me. You evertouch it?" "No, miss. I never touched no velvet." Sethe didn't know if it was the voice, or Boston orvelvet, but while the white girl talked, the baby slept. Not one butt or kick, so she guessed her luckhad turned.
"Ever see any?" she asked Sethe. "I bet you never even seen any." "If I did I didn'tknow it. What's it like, velvet?" Amy dragged her eyes over Sethe's face as though she wouldnever give out so confidential a piece of information as that to a perfect stranger. "What they call you?" she asked.