The help

[ملکه برفی]

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Miss Leefolt come home with her hair all teased up. She got a permanent and she smell like pneumonia.

"Guess what Mae Mobley done today?" I say. "Went to the bathroom in the toilet bowl."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" She give her girl a hug, something I don't see enough of. I know she mean it, too, cause Miss Leefolt do not like changing diapers.

I say, "You got to make sure she go in the pot from now on. It's real confusing for her if you don't."

Miss Leefolt smile, say, "Alright."

"Let's see if she do it one more time fore I go home." We go in the bathroom. I get her diapers off and put her up on that toilet. But Baby Girl, she shaking her head.

"Come on, Mae Mobley, can't you go in the pot for your mama?"

"Noooo."

Finally I put her back down on her feet. "That's alright, you did real good today."

But Miss Leefolt, she got her lips sticking out and she hmphing and frowning down at her. Before I can get her diaper on again, Baby Girl run off fast as she can. Nekkid little white baby running through the house. She in the kitchen. She got the back door open, she in the garage, trying to reach the knob to my bathroom. We run after her and Miss Leefolt pointing her finger. Her voice go about ten pitches too high. "This is not your bathroom!"

Baby Girl wagging her head. "My bafroom!"

Miss Leefolt snatch her up, give her a pop on the leg.

"Miss Leefolt, she don't know what she do--"

"Get back in the house, Aibileen!"

I hate it, but I go in the kitchen. I stand in the middle, leave the door open behind me.

"I did not raise you to use the colored bathroom!" I hear her hiss-whispering, thinking I can't hear, and I

think, Lady, you didn't raise your child at all.

"This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You'll catch diseases! No no no!" And I hear her pop her again and again on her bare legs.

After a second, Miss Leefolt potato-sack her inside. There ain't nothing I can do but watch it happen. My heart feel like it's squeezing up into my throat-pipe. Miss Leefolt drop Mae Mobley in front a the tee-vee and she march to her bedroom and slam the door. I go give Baby Girl a hug. She still crying and she look awful confused.

"I'm real sorry, Mae Mobley," I whisper to her. I'm cussing myself for taking her out there in the first place. But I don't know what else to say, so I just hold her.

We set there watching Li'l Rascals until Miss Leefolt come out, ask ain't it past time for me to go. I tuck my bus dime in my pocket. Give Mae Mobley one more hug, whisper, "You a smart girl. You a good girl."

On the ride home, I don't see the big white houses passing outside the window. I don't talk to my maid friends. I see Baby Girl getting spanked cause a me. I see her listening to Miss Leefolt call me dirty, diseased.

The bus speeds up along State Street. We pass over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and my jaw so tight I could break my teeth off. I feel that bitter seed growing inside a me, the one planted after Treelore died. I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming--and it come in ever white child's life--when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites.

We turn on Farish and I stand up cause my stop be coming. I pray that wasn't her moment. Pray I still got time.

THINGS is REAL QUIET the next few weeks. Mae Mobley's wearing big-girl panties now. She don't hardly ever have no accidents. After what happen in the garage, Miss Leefolt take a real interest in Mae Mobley's bathroom habits. She even let her watch her on the pot, set the white example. A few times, though, when her mama's gone, I still catch her trying to go in mine. Sometimes she do it fore I can tell her no.

"Hey, Miss Clark." Robert Brown, who do Miss Leefolt's yard, come up on her back steps. It's nice and cool out. I open the screen door.

"How you doing, son?" I say and pat him on the arm. "I hear you working ever yard on the street."

"Yes ma'am. Got two guys mowing for me." He grin. He a handsome boy, tall with short hair. Went to high school with Treelore. They was good friends, played baseball together. I touch him on the arm, just needing to feel it again.

"How your Granmama?" I ask. I love Louvenia, she is the sweetest person living. She and Robert came to the funeral together. This makes me remember what's coming next week. The worst day a the year.

"She stronger than me." He smile. "I be by your house on Saturday to mow."

Treelore always did my mowing for me. Now Robert does it without my even asking, never will take any money for it. "Thank you, Robert. I appreciate it."

"You need anything, you call me, alright, Miss Clark?"

"Thank you, son."

I hear the doorbell ring and I see Miss Skeeter's car out front. Miss Skeeter been coming over to Miss Leefolt's ever week this month, to ask me the Miss Myrna questions. She ask about hard water stains and I tell her cream of tartar. She ask how you unscrew a lightbulb that done broke off in the socket and I tell her a raw potato. She ask me what happen with her old maid Constantine and her mama, and I go cold. I thought if I told her a little, a few weeks ago, about Constantine having a daughter, she'd leave me alone about it after that. But Miss Skeeter just keep on asking me questions. I could tell she don't understand why a colored woman can't raise no white-skin baby in Mississippi. Be a hard, lonely life, not belonging here nor there.

Ever time Miss Skeeter finish asking me about how to clean the-this or fix the-that or where Constantine, we get to talking about other things too. That's not something I done a whole lot with my bosses or they friends. I find myself telling her how Treelore never made below a B+ or that the new church deacon get on my nerves cause he lisp. Little bits, but things I ordinarily wouldn't tell a white person.

Today, I'm trying to explain to her the difference between dipping and polishing the silver, how only the tacky houses do the dip cause it's faster, but it don't look good. Miss Skeeter cock her head to the side, wrinkle her forehead. "Aibileen, remember that . . .

idea Treelore had?"

I nod, feel a prickle. I should a never shared that with a white woman.

Miss Skeeter squint her eyes like she did when she brung up the bathroom thing that time. "I've been thinking about it. I've been wanting to talk to you--"

But fore she can finish, Miss Leefolt come in the kitchen and catch Baby Girl playing with my comb in my pocketbook and say maybe Mae Mobley ought to have her bath early today. I tell Miss Skeeter goodbye, go start the tub.

AFTER I SPENT a YEAR dreading it, November eighth finally come. I spec I sleep about two hours the night before. I wake up at dawn and put a pot a Community coffee on the stovetop. My back hurts when I bend over to get my hose on. Fore I walk out the door, the phone ring.

"Just checking on you. You sleep?"

"I did alright."

"I'm on bring you a caramel cake tonight. And I don't want you to do nothing but set in your kitchen and eat the whole thing for supper." I try to smile, but nothing come out. I tell Minny thank you.

Three years ago today, Treelore died. But by Miss Leefolt's book it's still floor-cleaning day. Thanksgiving coming in two weeks and I got plenty to do to get ready. I scrub my way through the morning, through the twelve o'clock news. I miss my stories cause the ladies is in the dining room having a Benefit meeting and I ain't allowed to turn on the teevee when they's company. And that's fine. My muscles is shivering they so tired. But I don't want a stop moving.

About four o'clock, Miss Skeeter come in the kitchen. Before she can even say hello, Miss Leefolt rush in behind her. "Aibileen, I just found out Missus Fredericks is driving down from Greenwood tomorrow and staying through Thanksgiving. I want the silver service polished and all the guest towels washed. Tomorrow I'll give you the list of what else."

Miss Leefolt shake her head at Miss Skeeter like ain't she got the hardest life in town and walks out. I go on and get the silver service out the dining room. Law,

I'm already tired and I got to be ready to work the Benefit next Saturday night. Minny ain't coming. She too scared she gone run into Miss Hilly.

Miss Skeeter still waiting on me in the kitchen when I come back in. She got a Miss Myrna letter in her hand.

"You got a cleaning question?" I sigh. "Go head."

"Not really. I just . . . I wanted to ask you . . . the other day . . ."

I take a plug a Pine-Ola cream and start rubbing it onto the silver, working the cloth around the rose design, the lip and the handle. God, please let tomorrow come soon. I ain't gone go to the gravesite. I can't, it'll be too hard-

"Aibileen? Are you feeling alright?"

I stop, look up. Realize Miss Skeeter been talking to me the whole time.

"I'm sorry I's just . . . thinking about something."

"You looked so sad."

"Miss Skeeter." I feel tears come up in my eyes, cause three years just ain't long enough. A hundred years ain't gone be long enough. "You mind if I help you with them questions tomorrow?"

Miss Skeeter start to say something, but then she stop herself. "Of course. I hope you feel better."

I finish the silver set and the towels and tell Miss Leefolt I got to go home even though it's half a hour early and she gone short my pay. She open her mouth like she want to protest and I whisper my lie, I vomited, and she say go. Cause besides her own mother, there ain't nothing Miss Leefolt scared of more than Negro diseases.

"ALRIGHT THEN. I'll be back in thirty minutes. I'll pull right up here at nine forty-five," Miss Leefolt say through the passenger car window. Miss Leefolt dropping me off at the Jitney 14 to pick up what else we need for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

"You bring her back that receipt, now," Miss Fredericks, Miss Leefolt's mean old mama, say. They all three in the front seat, Mae Mobley squeezed in the middle with a look so miserable you think she about to get a tetanus shot. Poor girl. Miss Fredericks supposed to stay two weeks this time.

"Don't forget the turkey, now," Miss Leefolt say. "And two cans of cranberry sauce."

I smile. I only been cooking white Thanksgivings since Calvin Coolidge was President.

"Quit squirming, Mae Mobley," Miss Fredericks snap, "or I'll pinch you."

"Miss Leefolt, lemme take her in the store with me. Help me with my shopping."

Miss Fredericks about to protest, but Miss Leefolt say, "Take her," and fore I know it, Baby Girl done wormed her way over Miss Fredericks' lap and is climbing out the window in my arms like I am the Lord Savior. I pull her up on my hip and they drive off toward Fortification Street, and Baby Girl and me, we giggle like a couple a schoolgirls.

I push open the metal door, get a cart, and put Mae

I push open the metal door, get a cart, and put Mae Mobley up front, stick her legs through the holes. Long as I got my white uniform on, I'm allowed to shop in this Jitney. I miss the old days, when you just walk out to Fortification Street and there be the farmers with they wheelbarrows calling out, "Sweet potatoes, butter beans, string beans, okra. Fresh cream, buttermilk, yellow cheese, eggs." But the Jitney ain't so bad. Least they got the good air-condition.

"Alrighty, Baby Girl. Less see what we need."

In produce, I pick out six sweet potatoes, three handfuls a string beans. I get a smoked ham hock from the butcher. The store is bright, lined up neat. Nothing like the colored Piggly Wiggly with sawdust on the floor. It's mostly white ladies, smiling, got they hair already fixed and sprayed for tomorrow. Four or five maids is shopping, all in they uniforms.

"Purple stuff!" Mae Mobley say and I let her hold the can a cranberry. She smile at it like it's a old friend. She love the purple stuff. In dry goods, I heave the two-pound bag a salt in the cart, to brine the turkey in. I count the hours on my hands, ten, eleven, twelve. If I'm on soak the bird for fourteen hours in the salt water, I'll put it in the bucket around three this afternoon. Then I'll come in to Miss Leefolt's at five tomorrow morning and cook the turkey for the next six hours. I already baked two pans a cornbread, left it to stale on the counter today to give it some crunch. I got a apple pie ready to bake, gone do my biscuits in the

morning.

"Ready for tomorrow, Aibileen?" I turn and see Franny Coots behind me. She go to my church, work for Miss Caroline on Manship. "Hey, cutie, look a them fat legs," she say to Mae Mobley. Mae Mobley lick the cranberry can.

Franny bend her head down, say, "You hear what happen to Louvenia Brown's grandson this morning?"

"Robert?" I say. "Who do the mowing?"

"Use the white bathroom at Pinchman Lawn and Garden. Say they wasn't a sign up saying so. Two white mens chased him and beat him with a tire iron."

Oh no. Not Robert. "He . . . is he . . . ?"

Franny shake her head. "They don't know. He up at the hospital. I heard he blind."

"God, no." I close my eyes. Louvenia, she is the purest, kindest person they is. She raised Robert after her own daughter died.

"Poor Louvenia. I don't know why the bad have to

"Poor Louvenia. I don't know why the bad have to happen to the goodest ones," Franny say.

[ملکه برفی]

THAT AFTERNOON, I work like a crazy woman, chopping onions and celery, mixing up my dressing, ricing sweet potatoes, stringing the beans, polishing silver. I heard folks is heading to Louvenia Brown's tonight at five-thirty to pray for Robert, but by the time I lift that twenty-pound turkey in the brine, I can't barely raise my arms.
I don't finish cooking till six o'clock that night, two hours later than usual. I know I ain't gone have the strength to go knock on Louvenia's door. I'll have to do it tomorrow after I'm done cleaning up the turkey. I waddle myself from the bus stop, hardly able to keep my eyes open. I turn the corner on Gessum. A big white Cadillac's parked in front a my house. And there be Miss Skeeter in a red dress and red shoes, setting on my front steps like a bullhorn.
I walk real slow through my yard, wondering what it's gone be now. Miss Skeeter stand up, holding her pocketbook tight like it might get snatched. White peoples don't come round my neighborhood less they toting the help to and fro, and that is just fine with me. I
spend all day long tending to white peoples. I don't need em looking in on me at home.
"I hope you don't mind me coming by," she say. "I just . . . I didn't know where else we could talk."
I set down on the step and ever knob on my spine hurt. Baby Girl so nervous around her Granmama, she wet all over me and I smell like it. The street's full a folks walking to sweet Louvenia's to pray for Robert, kids playing ball in the street. Everbody looking over at us thinking I must be getting fired or something.
"Yes ma'am," I sigh. "What can I do for you?"
"I have an idea. Something I want to write about. But I need your help."
I let all my breath out. I like Miss Skeeter, but come on. Sure, a phone call would a been nice. She never would a just shown up on some white lady's step without calling. But no, she done plopped herself down like she got ever right to barge in on me at home.
"I want to interview you. About what it's like to work as a maid."
A red ball roll a few feet in my yard. The little Jones boy run across the street to get it. When he see Miss Skeeter, he stop dead. Then he run and snatch it up. He turn and dash off like he scared she gone get him.
"Like the Miss Myrna column?" I say, flat as a pan. "Bout cleaning?"
"Not like Miss Myrna. I'm talking about a book," she say and her eyes is big. She excited. "Stories about what it's like to work for a white family. What it's like to work for, say . . . Elizabeth."
I turn and look at her. This what she been trying to ask me the past two weeks in Miss Leefolt kitchen. "You think Miss Leefolt gone agree to that? Me telling stories about her?"
Miss Skeeter's eyes drop down some. "Well, no. I was thinking we wouldn't tell her. I'll have to make sure the other maids will agree to keep it secret, too."
I scrunch up my forehead, just starting to get what she's asking. "Other maids?"
"I was hoping to get four or five. To really show what it's like to be a maid in Jackson."
I look around. We out here in the wide open. Don't she know how dangerous this could be, talking about this while the whole world can see us? "Exactly what kind a stories you think you gone hear?"
"What you get paid, how they treat you, the bathrooms, the babies, all the things you've seen, good and bad."
She looks excited, like this is some kind a game. For a second, I think I might be more mad than I am tired.
"Miss Skeeter," I whisper, "do that not sound kind a dangerous to you?"
"Not if we're careful--"
"Shhh, please. Do you know what would happen to me if Miss Leefolt find out I talked behind her back?"
"We won't tell her, or anyone." She lowers her voice some, but not enough. "These will be private interviews."
I just stare at her. Is she crazy? "Did you hear about the colored boy this morning? One they beat with a tire iron for accidentally using the white bathroom?"
tire iron for accidentally using the white bathroom?"
She just look at me, blink a little. "I know things are unstable but this is--"
"And my cousin Shinelle in Cauter County? They burn up her car cause she went down to the voting station."
"No one's ever written a book like this," she say, finally whispering, finally starting to understand, I guess. "We'd be breaking new ground. It's a brandnew perspective."
I spot a flock a maids in they uniforms walking by my house. They look over, see me setting with a white woman on my front step. I grit my teeth, already know my phone gone be ringing tonight.
"Miss Skeeter," and I say it slow, try to make it count, "I do this with you, I might as well burn my own house down."
Miss Skeeter start biting her nail then. "But I've already . . ." She shut her eyes closed tight. I think about asking her, Already what, but I'm kind a scared to hear what she gone say. She reach in her pocketbook, pull out a scrap a paper and write her telephone number on it.
"Please, will you at least think about it?"
I sigh, stare out at the yard. Gentle as I can, I say, "No ma'am."
She set the scrap a paper between us on the step, then she get in her Cadillac. I'm too tired to get up. I just stay there, watch while she roll real slow down the road. The boys playing ball clear the street, stand on the side frozen, like it's a funeral car passing by.
MISS SKEETER
chapter 8
I DRIVE DOWN Gessum Avenue in Mama's Cadillac. Up ahead, a little colored boy in overalls watches me, wide-eyed, gripping a red ball. I look into my rearview mirror. Aibileen is still on her front steps in her white uniform. She hadn't even looked at me when she said No ma'am. She just kept her eyes set on that yellow patch of grass in her yard.
I guess I thought it would be like visiting Constantine, where friendly colored people waved and smiled, happy to see the little white girl whose daddy owned the big farm. But here, narrow eyes watch me pass by. When my car gets close to him, the little colored boy turns and scats behind a house a few down from Aibileen's. Half-a-dozen colored people are gathered in the front yard of the house, holding trays and bags. I rub my temples. I try to think of something more that might convince Aibileen.
A WEEK AGO, Pascagoula knocked on my bedroom door.
"There's a long distance phone call for you, Miss Skeeter. From a Miss . . . Stern, she say?"
"Stern?" I thought out loud. Then I straightened. "Do you mean . . . Stein?"
"I . . . I reckon it could a been Stein. She talk kind a hard-sounding."
I rushed past Pascagoula, down the stairs. For some stupid reason, I kept smoothing my frizzy hair down as if it were a meeting and not a phone call. In the kitchen, I grabbed the phone dangling against the wall.
Three weeks earlier, I'd typed out the letter on Strathmore white. Three pages outlining the idea, the details, and the lie. Which was that a hardworking and respected colored maid has agreed to let me interview her and describe in specifics what it's like to work for the white women of our town. Weighing it against the alternative, that I planned to ask a colored woman for help, saying she'd already agreed to it seemed infinitely more attractive.
I stretched the cord into the pantry, pulled the string on the single bare bulb. The pantry is shelved floor to ceiling with pickles and soup jars, molasses, put-up vegetables, and preserves. This was my old high school trick to get some privacy.
"Hello? This is Eugenia speaking."
"Please hold, I'll put the call through." I heard a series of clicks and then a far, far away voice, almost as deep as a man's, say, "Elaine Stein."
"Hello? This is Skeet--Eugenia Phelan in Mississippi?"
"I know, Miss Phelan. I called you." I heard a match strike, a short, sharp inhale. "I received your letter last week. I have some comments."
"Yes ma'am." I sank down onto a tall tin can of King Biscuit flour. My heart thumped as I strained to hear her. A phone call from New York truly sounded as crackly as a thousand miles away ought to.
"What gave you this idea? About interviewing domestic housekeepers. I'm curious."
I sat paralyzed a second. She offered no chatting or hello, no introduction of herself. I realized it was best to answer her as instructed. "I was . . . well, I was raised by a colored woman. I've seen how simple it can be and--and how complex it can be between the families and the help." I cleared my throat. I sounded stiff, like I was talking to a teacher.
"Continue."
"Well," I took a deep breath, "I'd like to write this showing the point of view of the help. The colored women down here." I tried to picture Constantine's face, Aibileen's. "They raise a white child and then twenty years later the child becomes the employer. It's that irony, that we love them and they love us, yet . . ." I swallowed, my voice trembling. "We don't even allow them to use the toilet in the house."
Again there was silence.
"And," I felt compelled to continue, "everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it." Sweat dripped down my chest, blotting the front of my cotton blouse.
"So you want to show a side that's never been examined before," Missus Stein said.
"Yes. Because no one ever talks about it. No one talks about anything down here."
Elaine Stein laughed like a growl. Her accent was
tight, Yankee. "Miss Phelan, I lived in Atlanta. For six years with my first husband."
I latched on to this small connection. "So . . . you know what it's like then."
"Enough to get me out of there," she said, and I heard her exhale her smoke. "Look, I read your outline. It's certainly... original, but it won't work. What maid in her right mind would ever tell you the truth?"
I could see Mother's pink slippers pass by the door. I tried to ignore them. I couldn't believe Missus Stein was already calling my bluff. "The first interviewee is . . . eager to tell her story."
"Miss Phelan," Elaine Stein said, and I knew it wasn't a question, "this Negro actually agreed to talk to you candidly? About working for a white family? Because that seems like a hell of a risk in a place like Jackson, Mississippi."
I sat blinking. I felt the first fingers of worry that Aibileen might not be as easy to convince as I'd thought. Little did I know what she would say to me on her front steps the next week.
"I watched them try to integrate your bus station on the news," Missus Stein continued. "They jammed fifty
five Negroes in a jail cell built for four."
I pursed my lips. "She has agreed. Yes, she has."
"Well. That is impressive. But after her, you really think other maids will talk to you? What if the employers find out?"
"The interviews would be conducted secretly. Since, as you know, things are a little dangerous down here right now." The truth was, I had very little idea how dangerous things were. I'd spent the past four years locked away in the padded room of college, reading Keats and Eudora Welty and worrying over term papers.
"A little dangerous?" She laughed. "The marches in Birmingham, Martin Luther King. Dogs attacking colored children. Darling, it's the hottest topic in the nation. But, I'm sorry, this will never work. Not as an article, because no Southern newspaper would publish it. And certainly not as a book. A book of interviews would never sell."
"Oh," I heard myself say. I closed my eyes, feeling all the excitement drain out of me. I heard myself say again, "Oh."
"I called because, frankly, it's a good idea. But . . . there's no possible way to take it to print."
"But . . . what if . . ." My eyes started darting around the pantry, looking for something to bring back her interest. Maybe I should talk about it as an article, maybe a magazine, but she said no-
"Eugenia, who are you talking to in there?" Mother's voice cut though the crack. She inched the door open and I yanked it closed again. I covered the receiver, hissed, "I'm talking to Hilly, Mother--"
"In the pantry? You're like a teenager again--"
"I mean--" Missus Stein let out a sharp tsk. "I suppose I could read what you get. God knows, the book business could use some rattling."
"You'd do that? Oh Missus Stein . . ."
"I'm not saying I'm considering it. But... do the interview and I'll let you know if it's worth pursuing."
I stuttered a few unintelligible sounds, finally coming out with, "Thank you. Missus Stein, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help."
"Don't thank me yet. Call Ruth, my secretary, if you need to get in touch." And she hung up.

[ملکه برفی]

I lug an Old SATCHEL to bridge club at Elizabeth's on Wednesday. It is red. It is ugly. And for today, at least, it is a prop.
It's the only bag in Mother's house I could find large enough to carry the Miss Myrna letters. The leather is cracked and flaking, the thick shoulder strap leaves a brown mark on my blouse where the leather stain is rubbing off. It was my Grandmother Claire's gardening bag. She used to carry her garden tools around the yard in it and the bottom is still lined with sunflower seeds. It matches absolutely nothing I own and I don't care.
"Two weeks," Hilly says to me, holding up two fingers. "He's coming." She smiles and I smile back. "I'll be right back," I say and I slip into the kitchen, carrying my satchel with me.
Aibileen is standing at the sink. "Afternoon," she says
quietly. It was a week ago that I visited her at her house.
I stand there a minute, watching her stir the iced tea, feeling the discomfort in her posture, her dread that I might be about to ask for her help on the book again. I pull a few housekeeping letters out and, seeing this, Aibileen's shoulders relax a little. As I read her a question about mold stains, she pours a little tea in a glass, tastes it. She spoons more sugar in the pitcher.
"Oh, fore I forget, I got the answer on that water ring question. Minny say just rub you a little mayonnaise on it." Aibileen squeezes half a lemon in the tea. "Then go on and throw that no-good husband out the door." She stirs, tastes. "Minny don't take too well to husbands."
"Thanks, I'll put that down," I say. As casually as I can, I pull an envelope from my bag. "And here. I've been meaning to give you this."
Aibileen stiffens back into her cautious pose, the one she had when I walked in. "What you got there?" she says without reaching for it.
"For your help," I say quietly. "I've put away five dollars for every article. It's up to thirty-five dollars now."
Aibileen's eyes move quickly back to her tea. "No thank you, ma'am."
"Please take it, you've earned it."
I hear chairs scraping on wood in the dining room, Elizabeth's voice.
"Please, Miss Skeeter. Miss Leefolt have a fit if she find you giving me cash," Aibileen whispers.
"She doesn't have to know."
Aibileen looks up at me. The whites of her eyes are yellowed, tired. I know what she's thinking.
"I already told you, I'm sorry, I can't help you with that book, Miss Skeeter."
I set the envelope on the counter, knowing I've made a terrible mistake.
"Please. Find you another colored maid. A young'un. Somebody... else."
"But I don't know any others well enough." I am tempted to bring up the word friends, but I'm not that naive. I know we're not friends.
Hilly's head pops through the door. "Come on, Skeeter, I'm fixing to deal," and she disappears.
"I'm begging you," Aibileen says, "put that money away so Miss Leefolt don't see it."
I nod, embarrassed. I tuck the envelope in my bag, knowing we're worse off than ever. It's a bribe, she thinks, to get her to let me interview her. A bribe disguised as goodwill and thanks. I'd been waiting to give her the money anyway, once it added up to something, but it's true, my timing today had been deliberately planned. And now I've scared her off for good.
"Darling, just try it on your head. It cost eleven dollars. It must be good."
Mother has me cornered in the kitchen. I glance at the
door to the hall, the door to the side porch. Mother comes closer, the thing in hand, and I'm distracted by how thin her wrists look, how frail her arms are carrying the heavy gray machine. She pushes me down into a chair, not so frail after all, and squeezes a noisy, farty tube of goo on my head. Mother's been chasing me with the Magic Soft & Silky Shinalator for two days now.
She rubs the cream in my hair with both hands. I can practically feel the hope in her fingers. A cream will not straighten my nose or take a foot off my height. It won't add distinction to my almost translucent eyebrows, nor add weight to my bony frame. And my teeth are already perfectly straight. So this is all she has left to fix, my hair.
Mother covers my dripping head with a plastic cap. She fastens a hose from the cap into a square machine.
"How long does this take, Mother?"
She picks up the booklet with a sticky finger. "It says here, 'Cover with the Miracle Straightening Cap, then turn on the machine and wait for the miraculous--' "
"Ten minutes? Fifteen?"
I hear a click, a rising rumble, then feel a slow, intense warmth on my head. But suddenly there's a pop! The tube is loose from the machine and jerking around like a mad firehose. Mother shrieks, grabs at it and misses. Finally, she snatches it and reattaches it.
She takes a deep breath and picks up the booklet again. "The Miracle Cap must remain on the head for two hours without removal or results--"
"Two hours?"
"I'll have Pascagoula fix you a glass of tea, dear." Mother pats me on the shoulder and swishes out through the kitchen door.
For two hours, I smoke cigarettes and read Life magazine. I finish To Kill a Mockingbird. Finally, I pick up the Jackson Journal, pick through it. It's Friday, so there won't be a Miss Myrna column. On page four, I read: Boy blinded over segregated bathroom, suspects questioned. It sounds . . . familiar. I remember then. This must be Aibileen's neighbor.
Twice this week, I've gone by Elizabeth's house hoping she wouldn't be home, so I could talk to Aibileen, try to find some way to convince her to help me. Elizabeth was hunched over her sewing machine, intent on getting a new dress ready for the Christmas
season, and it is yet another green gown, cheap and frail. She must've gotten a steal at the bargain bin on green material. I wish I could go down to Kennington's and charge her something new but just the offer would embarrass her to death.
"So, do you know what you're wearing for the date?" Hilly'd asked the second time I came by. "Next Saturday?"
I'd shrugged. "I guess I have to go shopping."
Just then Aibileen brought a tray of coffee out and set it on the table.
"Thank you." Elizabeth nodded to her.
"Why, thank you, Aibileen," Hilly said, sugaring her cup. "I tell you, you make the best colored coffee in town."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Aibileen," Hilly continued, "how do you like your new bathroom out there? It's nice to have a place of your own, now isn't it?"
Aibileen stared at the crack in the dining table. "Yes ma'am."
"You know, Mister Holbrook arranged for that bathroom, Aibileen. Sent the boys over and the equipment, too." Hilly smiled.
Aibileen just stood there and I wished I wasn't in the room. Please, I thought, please don't say thank you.
"Yes ma'am." Aibileen opened a drawer and reached inside, but Hilly kept looking at her. It was so obvious what she wanted.
Another second passed with no one moving. Hilly cleared her throat and finally Aibileen lowered her head. "Thank you, ma'am," she whispered. She walked back into the kitchen. It's no wonder she doesn't want to talk to me.
At noon, Mother removes the vibrating cap from my head, washes the goo from my hair while I lean back in the kitchen sink. She quickly rolls up a dozen curlers, puts me under her hair dryer hood in her bathroom.
An hour later, I emerge pink and soreheaded and thirsty. Mother stands me in front of the mirror, pulling
out curlers. She brushes out the giant circular mounds on my head.
We stare, dumbfounded.
"Ho-ly shit," I say. All I'm thinking is, The date. The blind date is next weekend.
Mother smiles, shocked. She doesn't even scold me for cursing. My hair looks great. The Shinalator actually worked.

[ملکه برفی]

chapter 9
ON SATURDAY, the day of my date with Stuart Whitworth, I sit for two hours under the Shinalator (results, it seems, only last until the next wash). When I'm dry, I go to Kennington's and buy the flattest shoes I can find and a slim black crepe dress. I hate shopping, but I'm glad for the distraction, to not have to worry about Missus Stein or Aibileen for an afternoon. I charge the eighty-five dollars to Mother's account since she's always begging me to go buy new clothes. ("Something flattering for your size.") I know Mother would profoundly disapprove of the cleavage the dress enables me to have. I've never owned a dress like this.
In the Kennington's parking lot I start the car, but cannot drive for the sudden pains in my stomach. I grip the white padded steering wheel, telling myself for the tenth time that it's ridiculous to wish for something I'll never have. To think I know the color blue his eyes are from a black-and-white photograph. To consider something a chance that is nothing but paper and filament and postponed dinners. But the dress, with my new hair, it actually looks pretty good on me. And I can't help but hope.
IT WAS FOUR MONTHS AGO when Hilly showed me
the picture, out back by her swimming pool. Hilly was tanning in the sun, I was fanning in the murky shade. My heat rash had flared in July and hadn't subsided.
"I'm busy," I said. Hilly sat on the edge of the pool, saggy and post-pregnant fat, inexplicably confident in her black swimsuit. Her stomach was paunchy, but her legs, as always, were thin and pretty.
"I haven't even told you when he's coming," she said. "And he comes from such a good family." She was, of course, talking about her own. He was William's second cousin removed. "Just meet him and see what you think."
I looked down at the picture again. He had clear open eyes, light brown curly hair, was the tallest in a group of men by a lake. But his body was half-hidden by the others. He must not have all his limbs.
"There's nothing wrong with him," Hilly said. "Ask Elizabeth, she met him at the Benefit last year while you were up at school. Not to mention, he dated Patricia van Devender for forever."
"Patricia van Devender?" Most Beautiful at Ole Miss, two years in a row?
"Plus he started his own oil business over in
"Plus he started his own oil business over in Vicksburg. So if it doesn't work out, it's not like you'll be running into him every day in town."
"Alright," I finally sighed, more than anything to get Hilly off my back.
IT's PAST THREE O'CLOCK BY the time I get back home from buying the dress. I'm supposed to be at Hilly's at six to meet Stuart. I check the mirror. The curls are starting to fray on the ends, but rest of my hair is still smooth. Mother was thrilled when I told her I wanted to try the Shinalator again and wasn't even suspicious of why. She doesn't know about my date tonight and if she somehow finds out, the next three months will be full of excruciating questions like "Did he call?" and "What did you do wrong?" when it doesn't work out.
Mother's downstairs in the relaxing room with Daddy, hollering at the Rebel basketball team. My brother, Carlton, is on the sofa with his shiny new girlfriend. They drove up this afternoon from LSU. She has a dark straight pontytail and wears a red blouse.
When I get Carlton alone in the kitchen, he laughs, yanks my hair like we're kids again. "So how are you, sister?"
I tell him about the job at the paper, that I'm editor of the League newsletter. I also tell him he better be moving back home after law school. "You deserve some of Mother's time too. I'm taking more than my fair share here," I say through gritted teeth.
He laughs like he understands, but how could he really? He's three years older than me and greatlooking, tall with wavy blond hair, finishing LSU law school, protected by a hundred and seventy miles of badly paved roads.
When he goes back to his girlfriend, I search for Mother's car keys, but I can't find them anywhere. It's already a quarter to five. I go and stand in the doorway, try to catch Mother's attention. I have to wait for her to finish firing questions at Ponytail Girl about her people and where she's from, but Mother will not let up until she finds at least one person they have in common. After that, it's what sorority the girl was in at Vanderbilt, and she finally concludes by asking what her silver pattern is. It's better than a horoscope, Mother always says.
Ponytail Girl says her family pattern is Chantilly, but she'll be picking out her own new pattern when she gets married. "Since I consider myself an
independent thinker and all." Carlton pets her on the head and she nudges against his hand like a cat. They both look up at me and smile.
"Skeeter," Ponytail Girl says to me across the room, "you're so lucky to come from a Francis the First family pattern. Will you keep it when you get married?"
"Francis the First is just dreamy," I beam. "Why, I pull those forks out all the time just to look at them."
Mother narrows her eyes at me. I motion her to the kitchen, but another ten minutes pass until she comes in.
"Where in the world are your keys, Mama? I'm late for Hilly's. I'm staying there tonight."
"What? But Carlton's home. What's his new friend going to think if you leave for something better to do?"
I've put off telling her this because I knew, whether Carlton was home or not, it would turn into an argument.
"And Pascagoula made a roast and Daddy's got the
wood all ready for a fire tonight in the relaxing room."
"It's eighty-five degrees outside, Mama."
"Now look. Your brother is home and I expect you to behave like a good sister. I don't want you leaving until you've had a nice long visit with this girl." She's looking at her watch while I remind myself I'm twentythree years old. "Please, darling," she says and I sigh and carry a damn tray of mint juleps out to the others.
"Mama," I say back in the kitchen at five twenty-eight. "I've got to go. Where are your keys? Hilly's waiting on me."
"But we haven't even had the pigs in a blanket yet."
"Hilly's got . . . a stomach bug," I whisper. "And her help doesn't come in tomorrow. She needs me to watch the kids."
Mother sighs. "I guess that means you're going to church with them too. And I thought we could all go tomorrow as a family. Have Sunday dinner together."
"Mama, please," I say, rummaging through a basket where she keeps her keys. "I can't find your keys anywhere."
anywhere."
"You can't take the Cadillac overnight. That's our good Sunday church car."
He's going to be at Hilly's in thirty minutes. I'm supposed to dress and do my makeup at Hilly's so Mother won't suspect anything. I can't take Daddy's new truck. It's full of fertilizer and I know he'll need it at dawn tomorrow.
"Alright, I'll take the old truck, then."
"I believe it has a trailer on it. Go ask your daddy."
But I can't ask Daddy because I can't go through this in front of three other people who will look all hurt that I'm leaving, so I grab the old truck keys and say, "It doesn't matter. I'm just going straight to Hilly's," and I huff outside only to find that not only does the old truck have a trailer hitched to it, but a half-ton tractor on top of that trailer.
So I drive into town for my first date in two years in a red 1941 Chevrolet four-on-the-floor with a John Deere motor grader hooked behind me. The engine sputters and churns and I wonder if the truck will make it. Chunks of mud spray behind me off the tires. The engine stalls on the main road, sending my dress and
bag flying onto the dirty floor. I have to restart twice.
At five forty-five, a black thing streaks out in front of me and I feel a thunk. I try to stop but braking's just not something you can do very quickly with a 10,000pound piece of machinery behind you. I groan and pull over. I have to go check. Remarkably, the cat stands up, looks around stunned, and shoots back into the woods as quickly as it came.
At three minutes to six, after doing twenty in a fifty with horns honking and teenagers hollering at me, I park down the street from Hilly's house since Hilly's cul-desac doesn't provide adequate parking for farm equipment. I grab my bag and run inside without even knocking, all out of breath and sweaty and windblown and there they are, the three of them, including my date. Having highballs in the front living room.
I freeze in the entrance hall with all of them looking at me. William and Stuart both stand up. God, he's tall, has at least four inches over me. Hilly's eyes are big when she grabs my arm. "Boys, we'll be right back. Y'all just sit tight and talk about quarterbacks or something."
Hilly whisks me off to her dressing room and we both start groaning. It's just so goddamn awful.
"Skeeter, you don't even have lipstick on! Your hair
looks like a rat's nest!"
"I know, look at me!" All traces of the Shinalator's miracle are gone. "There's no air-conditioning in the truck. I had to ride with the damn windows down."
I scrub my face and Hilly sits me in her dressing room chair. She starts combing my hair out the way my mother used to do, twisting it into these giant rollers, spraying it with Final Net.
"Well? What did you think of him?" she asks.
I sigh and close my unmascaraed eyes. "He looks handsome."
I smear the makeup on, something I hardly even know how to do. Hilly looks at me and smudges it off with a tissue, reapplies it. I slip into the black dress with the deep V in the front, the black Delman flats. Hilly quickly brushes out my hair. I wash my armpits with a wet rag and she rolls her eyes at me.
"I hit a cat," I say.
"He's already had two drinks waiting on you."
I stand up and smooth my dress down. "Alright," I say, "give it to me. One to ten."
Hilly looks me up and down, stops on the dip in the front of the dress. She raises her eyebrows. I've never shown cleavage before in my life; kind of forgot I had it.
"Six," she says, like she is surprised herself.
We just look at each other a second. Hilly lets out a little squeal and I smile back. Hilly's never given me higher than a four.
When we come back into the front living room, William's pointing his finger at Stuart. "I'm going to run for that seat and by God, with your daddy's--"
"Stuart Whitworth," Hilly announces, "I'd like to introduce Skeeter Phelan."
He stands up, and for a minute my head is perfectly quiet inside. I make myself look, like self-inflicted torture, as he takes me in.
"Stuart here went to school over at the University of Alabama," William says, adding, "Roll Tide."
"Nice to meet you." Stuart flips me a brief smile. Then he takes a long slurp of his drink until I hear the ice clink against his teeth. "So where we off to?" he asks William.
We take William's Oldsmobile to the Robert E. Lee Hotel. Stuart opens my door and sits beside me in the back, but then leans over the seat talking to William about deer season the rest of the ride.
At the table, he pulls out my chair for me and I sit, smile, say thank you.
"You want a drink?" he asks me, not looking my way.
"No, thanks. Just water, please."
He turns to the waiter and says, "Double Old Kentucky straight with a water back."
I guess it's some time after his fifth bourbon, I say, "So Hilly tells me you're in the oil business. That must be interesting."
"The money's good. If that's what you really want to
know."
"Oh, I didn't . . ." But I stop because he's craning his neck at something. I look up and see he's staring at a woman who's at the door, a busty blonde with red lipstick and a tight green dress.
William turns to see what Stuart's looking at, but he swings back around quickly. He shakes his head no, very slightly, at Stuart and I see, heading out the door, it's Hilly's old boyfriend, Johnny Foote, with his new wife, Celia. They leave and William and I glance at each other, sharing our relief that Hilly didn't see them.
"Lord, that girl's hot as Tunica blacktop," Stuart says under his breath and I suppose that's when I just stop caring what happens.
At some point, Hilly looks at me to see what's going on. I smile like everything's fine and she smiles back, happy to see it's all working out. "William! The lieutenant governor just walked in. Let's go speak before he sits down."
They go off together, leaving us, the two lovebirds sitting on the same side of the table, staring at all the happy couples in the room.
"So," he says, hardly turning his head. "You ever go to
any of the Alabama football games?"
I never even made it to Colonel Field and that was five thousand yards from my bed. "No, I'm not really a football fan." I look at my watch. It's hardly seven fifteen.
"That so." He eyes the drink the waiter has handed him like he'd really enjoy downing it. "Well, what do you do with your time?"
"I write a . . . domestic maintenance column for the Jackson Journal."
He wrinkles his brow, then laughs. "Domestic maintenance. You mean . . . housekeeping?"
I nod.

[ملکه برفی]

"Jesus." He stirs his drink. "I can't think of anything worse than reading a column on how to clean house," he says, and I notice that his front tooth is the slightest bit crooked. I long to point this imperfection out to him, but he finishes his thought with, "Except maybe writing it."

I just stare at him.

"Sounds like a ploy to me, to find a husband. Becoming an expert on keeping house."

"Well, you must be a genius. You've figured out my whole scheme."

"Isn't that what you women from Ole Miss major in? Professional husband hunting?"

I watch him, dumbfounded. I may not've had a date in umpteen years, but who does he think he is?

"I'm sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant?"

He blinks at me, then laughs for the first time all night.

"Not that it's any of your business," I say, "but I had to start somewhere if I plan on being a journalist." I think I've actually impressed him. But then he throws back the drink and the look is gone.

We eat dinner, and from his profile I can see his nose is a little pointy. His eyebrows are too thick, and his light brown hair too coarse. We say little else, to each other at least. Hilly chats, throwing things our way like,

"Stuart, Skeeter here lives on a plantation just north of town. Didn't the senator grow up on a peanut farm?"

Stuart orders yet another drink.

When Hilly and I go to the bathroom, she gives me a hopeful smile. "What do you think?"

"He's . . . tall," I say, surprised she hasn't noticed that not only is my date inexplicably rude, but drop-dead drunk.

The end of the meal finally comes and he and William split the check. Stuart stands up and helps me with my jacket. At least he has nice manners.

"Jesus, I've never met a woman with such long arms," he says.

"Well, I've never met anybody with such a drinking problem."

"Your coat smells like--" He leans down and sniffs it, grimacing. "Fertilizer."

He strides off to the men's room and I wish I could

disappear.

The car ride, all three minutes of it, is impossibly silent. And long.

We go back inside Hilly's house. Yule May comes out in her white uniform, says, "They all fine, went to bed good," and she slips out through the kitchen door. I excuse myself to the bathroom.

"Skeeter, why don't you drive Stuart home?" William says when I come out. "I'm bushed, aren't you, Hilly?"

Hilly's looking at me like she's trying to figure out what I want to do. I thought I'd made it obvious when I stayed in the bathroom for ten minutes.

"Your . . . car's not here?" I ask the air in front of Stuart.

"I don't believe my cousin's in a position to drive." William laughs. Everyone's quiet again.

"I came in a truck," I say. "I'd hate for you to . . ."

"Shoot," William says, slapping Stuart on the back. "Stuart doesn't mind riding in a truck, do you, buddy?"

"William," Hilly says, "why don't you drive and, Skeeter, you can ride along."

"Not me, I'm too boozed up myself," William says even though he just drove us home.

Finally, I just walk out the door. Stuart follows me, doesn't comment that I didn't park in front of Hilly's house or in Hilly's driveway. When we get to my truck, we both stop, stare at the fifteen-foot tractor hooked behind my vehicle.

"You pulled that thing all by yourself?"

I sigh. I guess it's because I'm a big person and have never felt petite or particularly feminine or girly, but that tractor. It just seems to sum up so much.

"That is the funniest damn looking thing I have ever seen," he says.

I step away from him. "Hilly can take you," I say. "Hilly will drive you." He turns and focuses on me for what, I'm pretty sure, is the first time all night. After several long moments of standing there being looked at, my eyes fill with tears. I'm just so tired.

"Ah, shit," he says and his body loosens. "Look, I told Hilly I wasn't ready for any damn date."

"Don't . . ." I say, backing away from him, and I head back to the house.

SUNDAY MORNING I GET up EARLY, before Hilly and William, before the kids and the church traffic. I drive home with the tractor rumbling behind me. The fertilizer smell gives me a hangover even though I had nothing but water last night.

I'd gone back in Hilly's house last night, Stuart trailing behind me. Knocking on Hilly's bedroom door, I asked William, who already had a mouth full of toothpaste, would he mind driving Stuart home. I'd walked upstairs to the guest room before he even answered.

I step over Daddy's dogs on the porch, go into my parents' house. As soon as I see Mother, I give her a hug. When she tries to let go, I can't let her.

"What is it, Skeeter? You didn't catch Hilly's stomach bug, did you?"

"No, I'm fine." I wish I could tell her about my night. I feel guilty for not being nicer to her, for not needing her until my own life turns bad. I feel bad for wishing Constantine was here instead.

Mother pats my windblown hair down since it must be adding at least two inches to my height. "You sure you're not feeling bad?"

"I'm alright, Mama." I am too tired to resist. I ache like someone kicked me in the stomach. With boots on. It won't go away.

"You know," she says, smiling, "I think this might be the one for Carlton."

"Good, Mama," I say. "I'm really glad for him."

AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK the next morning, the phone rings. Luckily, I'm in the kitchen and pick it up.

"Miss Skeeter?"

I stand very still, then look out at Mother examining her checkbook at the dining room table. Pascagoula is pulling a roast out of the oven. I go into the pantry and shut the door.

"Aibileen?" I whisper.

She's quiet a second and then she blurts it out. "What if--what if you don't like what I got to say? I mean, about white peoples."

"I--I . . . this isn't about my opinion," I say. "It doesn't matter how I feel."

"But how I know you ain't gone get mad, turn around on me?"

"I don't . . . I guess you'll just have to . . . trust me." I hold my breath, hoping, waiting. There is a long pause.

"Law have mercy. I reckon I'm on do it."

"Aibileen." My heart is pounding. "You have no idea how much I appreciate--"

"Miss Skeeter, we gone have to be real careful."

"We will, I promise."

"And you gone have to change my name. Mine, Miss Leefolt's, everbody's."

"Of course." I should've mentioned this. "When can we meet? Where can we meet?"

"Can't do it in the white neighborhood, that's for sure. I guess . . . we gone have to do it over at my house."

"Do you know any other maids who might be interested?" I ask, even though Missus Stein has only agreed to read one. But I have to be ready, on the slim chance she likes it.

Aibileen is quiet a moment. "I guess I could ask Minny. But she ain't real keen on talking to white peoples."

"Minny? You mean . . . Missus Walters' old maid," I say, feeling suddenly how incestuous this is turning. I wouldn't just be peering into Elizabeth's life, but Hilly's too.

"Minny got her some stories. Sho nuff."

"Aibileen," I say. "Thank you. Oh, thank you."

"Yes ma'am."

"I just . . . I have to ask you. What changed your mind?"

Aibileen doesn't even pause. "Miss Hilly," she says.

I go quiet, thinking of Hilly's bathroom plan and accusing the maid of stealing and her talk of diseases. The name comes out flat, bitter as a bad pecan.

[ملکه برفی]

MINNY
chapter 10
I WALK INTO WORK with one thing on my mind. Today is the first day of December and while the rest of the United States is dusting off their manger scenes and pulling out their old stinky stockings, I've got another man I'm waiting on. And it's not Santy Claus and it's not the Baby Jesus. It's Mister Johnny Foote, Jr., who will learn that Minny Jackson is his maid on Christmas Eve.
I am waiting on the twenty-fourth like a court date. I don't know what Mister Johnny's going to do when he finds out I'm working here. Maybe he'll say, Good! Come clean my kitchen anytime! Here's some money! But I'm not that stupid. This secret-keeping is way too fishy for him to be some smiling whitey wanting to give me a raise. There's a good chance I might not have a job come Christmas Day.
It's eating me up, not knowing, but what I do know is, a month ago, I decided there had to be a more dignified way to die than having a heart attack squatting on top of a white lady's toilet lid. And after all that, it wasn't even Mister Johnny that came home, it was just the damn meter man.
But there wasn't much relief when it was over. What scared me worse was Miss Celia. Afterwards, during her cooking lesson, she was still shaking so bad, she couldn't even measure the salt in a spoon.
MONDAY COMES and I can'T stop thinking about Louvenia Brown's grandson, Robert. He got out of the hospital this weekend, went to live with Louvenia, what with his parents already dead and all. Last night, when I went over there to take them a caramel cake, Robert had a cast on his arm and bandages over his eyes. "Oh, Louvenia," was all I could say when I saw him. Robert was laid up on the sofa asleep. They'd shaved half his head to operate. Louvenia, with all her troubles, still wanted to know how each and every person in my family was doing. And when Robert started to stir, she asked if I wouldn't mind going on home because Robert wakes up screaming. Terrified and remembering all over again that he's blind. She thought it might bother me. I can't stop thinking about it.
"I'm going to the store after while," I say to Miss Celia. I hold the grocery list out for her to see. Every Monday we do this. She gives me the grocery cash and when I get home I push the receipt in her face. I want her to see that every penny of change matches the paper. Miss Celia just shrugs but I keep those tickets safe in a drawer in case there's ever any question.
Minny cooking:
1. Ham with pineapples
2. Black-eyed peas
3. Sweet potatoes
4. Apple pie
5. Biscuits
Miss Celia cooking:
1. Butter beans
"But I did butter beans last week."
"Learn those, everything else come easy."
"I guess it's better anyway," she says. "I can sit down and be still when I'm shelling."
Almost three months and the fool still can't boil coffee. I pull out my pie dough, want to get it ready before I go
I pull out my pie dough, want to get it ready before I go to the store.
"Can we do a chocolate pie this time? I love chocolate pie."
I grit my teeth. "I don't know how to cook no chocolate pie," I lie. Never. Never again after Miss Hilly.
"You can't? Gosh, I thought you could cook anything. Maybe we ought to get us a recipe."
"What else kind a pie you thinking about?"
"Well, what about that peach pie you did that time?" she says, pouring a glass of milk. "That was real good."
"Them peaches from Mexico. Peaches ain't in season around here yet."
"But I saw them advertised in the paper."
I sigh. Nothing is easy with her, but at least she's off the chocolate. "One thing you got to know, things is best when they in season. You don't cook pumpkins in the summer, you don't cook peaches in the fall. You
can't find it selling on the side a the road, it ain't in. Let's just do us a nice pecan pie instead."
"And Johnny loved those pralines you did. He thought I was the smartest girl he'd ever met when I gave him those."
I turn back to my dough so she can't see my face. Twice in a minute she's managed to irritate me. "Anything else you want Mister Johnny to think you did?" Besides being scared out of my wits, I am sick and tired of passing off my cooking for somebody else's. Except my kids, my cooking's the only thing I'm proud of.
"No, that's all." Miss Celia smiles, doesn't notice I've stretched my pie crust to where five holes rip through. Just twenty-four more days of this shit. I am praying to the Lord and the devil on the side that Mister Johnny doesn't come home before then.
EVERY OTHER DAY, I hear Miss Celia on the phone in her room, calling and calling the society ladies. The Benefit was three weeks ago and here she is already gunning up for next year. She and Mister Johnny didn't
go or I would've heard plenty about it.
I didn't work the Benefit this year, first time in a decade. The money's pretty good, but I just couldn't risk running into Miss Hilly.
"Could you tell her Celia Foote called again? I left her a message a few days back . . ."
Miss Celia's voice is chipper, like she's peddling something on the tee-vee. Every time I hear it, I want to jerk the phone out of her hand, tell her to quit wasting her time. Because never mind she looks like a hussy. There's a bigger reason why Miss Celia doesn't have any friends and I knew it the minute I saw that picture of Mister Johnny. I've served enough bridge club luncheons to know something about every white woman in this town. Mister Johnny dumped Miss Hilly for Miss Celia back in college, and Miss Hilly never got over him.
I Walk in THE CHURCH on Wednesday night. It's not but half full since it's only a quarter to seven and the choir doesn't start singing until seven thirty. But
Aibileen asked me to come early so here I am. I'm curious what she has to say. Plus Leroy was in a good mood and playing with the kids so I figure, if he wants them, he can have them.
I see Aibileen in our usual pew, left side, fourth from the front, right by the window fan. We're prime members and we deserve a prime spot. She's got her hair smoothed back, a little roll of pencil curls around her neck. She's wearing a blue dress with big white buttons that I've never seen before. Aibileen has white lady clothes out the wazoo. White ladies love giving her their old stuff. As usual, she looks plump and respectable, but for all her prim and proper, Aibileen can still tell a dirty joke that'll make you tinkle in your pants.
I walk up the aisle, see Aibileen frown at something, creasing her forehead. For a second I can see the fifteen-odd years between us. But then she smiles and her face goes young and fat again.
"Lord," I say as soon as I'm settled in.
"I know. Somebody got to tell her." Aibileen fans her face with her hanky. It was Kiki Brown's morning for cleaning and the whole church is gaudied up with her lemon smell-good she makes and tries to sell for twenty-five cents a bottle. We have a sign-up sheet for cleaning the church. Ask me, Kiki Brown ought to sign a little less and the men ought to sign a lot more. Far
as I know, no man has signed that sheet once.
Besides the smell, the church looks pretty good. Kiki shined the pews to where you could pick your teeth looking at them. The Christmas tree's already up, next to the altar, full of tinsel and a shiny gold star on top. Three windows of the church have stained glass--the birth of Christ, Lazarus raised from the dead, and the teaching of those fool Pharisees. The other seven are filled with regular clear panes. We're still raising money for those.

[ملکه برفی]

"How Benny's asthma?" Aibileen asks.

"Had a little spell yesterday. Leroy dropping him and the rest a the kids by in a while. Let's hope the lemon don't kill him."

"Leroy." Aibileen shakes her head and laughs. "Tell him I said he better behave. Or I put him on my prayer list."

"I wish you would. Oh Lord, hide the food."

Hoity-toity Bertrina Bessemer waddles toward us. She leans over the pew in front of us, smilling with a big, tacky blue-bird hat on. Bertrina, she's the one who called Aibileen a fool for all those years.

"Minny," Bertrina says, "I sure was glad to hear about your new job."

"Thank you, Bertrina."

"And Aibileen, I thank you for putting me on your prayer list. My angina sure is better now. I call you this weekend and we catch up."

Aibileen smiles, nods. Bertrina waddles off to her pew.

"Maybe you ought a be a little pickier who you pray for," I say.

"Aw, I ain't mad at her no more," says Aibileen. "And look a there, she done lost some weight."

"She telling everybody she lost forty pounds," I say.

"Lord a mercy."

"Only got two hundred more to go."

Aibileen tries not to smile, acts like she's waving away the lemon smell.

"So what you want me to come early for?" I ask. "You miss me or something?"

"Naw, it's no big deal. Just something somebody said."

"What?"

Aibileen takes a breath, looks around for anybody listening. We're like royalty here. Folks are always hemming in on us.

"You know that Miss Skeeter?" she asks.

"I told you I did the other day."

She quiets her voice, says, "Well, remember how I slipped up and told her about Treelore writing colored things down?"

"I remember. She want a sue you for that?"

"No, no. She nice. But she had the gall to ask if me and some a my maid friends might want a put down on paper what it's like to tend for white people. Say she writing a book."

"Say what?"

Aibileen nods, raises her eyebrows. "Mm-hmm."

"Phhh. Well, you tell her it's a real Fourth of July picnic. It's what we dream a doing all weekend, get back in they houses to polish they silver," I say.

"I told her, let the regular old history books tell it. White people been representing colored opinions since the beginning a time."

"That's right. You tell her."

"I did. I tell her she crazy," Aibileen says. "I ask her, what if we told the truth? How we too scared to ask for minimum wage. How nobody gets paid they Social Security. How it feel when your own boss be calling you . . ." Aibileen shakes her head. I'm glad she doesn't say it.

"How we love they kids when they little . . ." she says and I see Aibileen's lip tremble a little. "And then they

turn out just like they mamas."

I look down and see Aibileen's gripping her black pocketbook like it's the only thing she has left in this world. Aibileen, she moves on to another job when the babies get too old and stop being color-blind. We don't talk about it.

"Even if she is changing all the names a the help and the white ladies," she sniff.

"She crazy if she think we do something dangerous as that. For her."

"We don't want a bring all that mess up." Aibileen wipes her nose with a hankie. "Tell people the truth."

"No, we don't," I say, but I stop. It's something about that word truth. I've been trying to tell white women the truth about working for them since I was fourteen years old.

"We don't want a change nothing around here," Aibileen says and we're both quiet, thinking about all the things we don't want to change. But then Aibileen narrows her eyes at me, asks, "What. You don't think it's a crazy idea?"

"I do, I just . . ." And that's when I see it. We've been friends for sixteen years, since the day I moved from Greenwood to Jackson and we met at the bus stop. I can read Aibileen like the Sunday paper. "You thinking about it, ain't you," I say. "You want a talk to

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Miss Skeeter."

She shrugs and I know I'm right. But before Aibileen can confess, Reverend Johnson comes and sits down in the pew behind us, leans between our shoulders. "Minny, I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to tell you congratulations on your new job."

I smooth my dress down. "Why, thank you, Reverend Minister."

"You must of been on Aibileen's prayer list," he says, patting Aibileen on the shoulder.

"Sure was. I told Aibileen, at this rate, she needs to start charging."

The Reverend laughs. He gets up and treads slowly to the pulpit. Everything goes still. I can't believe Aibileen wants to tell Miss Skeeter the truth.

Truth.

It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life.

Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling.

Reverend Johnson raises his hands and speaks in a soft, deep voice. The choir behind him begins to hum "Talking to Jesus" and we all stand up. In half a minute I'm sweating.

"Think you might be interested? In talking to Miss Skeeter?" whispers Aibileen.

I look back and there's Leroy with the kids, late as usual. "Who, me?" I say and my voice is loud against the soft music. I tamp it down, but not by much.

"Ain't no way I'm gonna do something crazy as that."

FOR NO REASON but to irritate me, we get a heat wave in December. In forty degrees, I sweat like iced tea in August and here I woke up this morning to eighty-three on the dial. I've spent half my life trying not to sweat so much: Dainty Lady sweat cream, frozen potatoes in my pockets, ice pack tied to my head (I actually paid a doctor for that fool advice), and I still

soak my sweat pads through in five minutes. I tote my Fairley Funeral Home fan every place I go. Works good and it was free.

Miss Celia takes to the week of warm weather, though, and actually goes outside and sits by the pool in these tacky white sunglasses and a fuzzy bathrobe. Thank the Lord she's out of the house. At first I thought maybe she was sick in the body, but now I'm wondering if she's sick in the head. I don't mean the talking to yourself variety you see in old ladies like Miss Walters where you know it's just the old timers disease, but the capital C crazy where you get hauled to Whitfield in a straitjacket.

I catch her slipping upstairs to the empty bedrooms almost every day now. I hear her sneaky little feet walking down the hall, passing over that little squeak in the floor. I don't think much of it--heck, it's her house. But then one day, she does it again, and then again, and it's the fact that she's so darn sneaky about it, waiting until I turn on the Hoover or get busy on a cake, that makes me suspicious. She spends about seven or eight minutes up there and then pokes her little head around to make sure I don't see her come down again.

"Don't go getting in her business," Leroy says. "You just make sure she tells her mister you cleaning his house." Leroy's been on the damn Crow the past couple of nights, drinking behind the power plant after his shift. He's no fool. He knows if I'm dead, that

his shift. He's no fool. He knows if I'm dead, that paycheck won't be showing up on its own.

After she makes her trip upstairs, Miss Celia comes to the kitchen table instead of going back to bed. I wish she'd get on out of here. I'm pulling chicken off the bone. I've got the broth boiling and the dumplings already cut. I don't want her trying to help with this.

"Just thirteen more days before you tell Mister Johnny about me," I say, and like I knew she would, Miss Celia gets up from the kitchen table and heads for her bedroom. But before she makes it out the door she mutters, "Do you have to remind me of that fact every day of my life?"

I stand up straighter. That's the first time Miss Celia's ever gotten cross with me. "Mm-hmm," I tell her, not even looking up because I will remind her until Mister Johnny's shook my hand and said nice to meet you, Minny.

But then I look over and see Miss Celia still standing there. She's holding on to the doorframe. Her face has gone flat white, like cheap wall paint.

"You been fooling with the raw chicken again?"

"No, I'm . . . just tired."

But the pricks of sweat on her makeup--that now's gone gray--tell me she's not fine. I help her to bed and bring her the Lady-a-Pinkam to drink. The pink label has a picture of a real proper lady on it with a turban on her head, smiling like she feels better. I hand Miss Celia the spoon to measure it out, but that tacky woman just drinks it straight from the bottle.

Afterward, I wash my hands. Whatever it is she's got, I hope it ain't catching.

THE DAY AFTER Miss CELIA'S face goes funny is change-the-damn-sheets day and the day I hate the most. Sheets are just too personal a thing for folks who aren't kin to be fooling with. They are full of hair and scabs and snot and the signs of jelly-rolling. But it's the blood stains that are the worst. Scrubbing those out with my bare hands, I gag over the sink. That goes for blood anywhere and anything with a suspicious resemblance. A stepped-on strawberry can hang me over the toilet bowl for the rest of the day.

Miss Celia knows about Tuesdays and usually she

moves out to the sofa so I can do my work. A cold front started in this morning, so she can't go out to the swimming pool, and they say the weather's going to get worse. But at nine, then ten, then eleven the bedroom door's still closed. Finally, I knock.

"Yes?" she says. I open the door.

"Morning, Miss Celia."

"Hey, Minny."

"It's Tuesday."

Not only is Miss Celia still in bed, she's curled up on top of the covers in her nightgown without a drop of her makeup on.

"I got to get them sheets washed and ironed and then I got to get to this old chiffarobe you done let go dry as Texas. And then we cooking--"

"No learning lesson today, Minny." She isn't smiling either, like she usually does when she sees me.

"You feeling bad?"

"Fetch me some water, will you?"

"Yes'm." I go in the kitchen and fill up a glass from the sink. She must be feeling bad because she's never asked me to serve her anything before.

When I walk back in the bedroom though, Miss Celia's not in bed and the bathroom door's closed. Now why'd she ask me to go get her water if she's got the means to get up and go to the bathroom? At least she's out of my way. I pick Mister Johnny's pants up off the floor, toss them over my shoulder. Ask me, this woman doesn't take enough exercise, sitting around the house all day. Oh now, Minny, don't go on that way. If she's sick, she's sick.

"You sick?" I holler outside the bathroom door.

"I'm . . . fine."

"While you in there, I'm on go head and change these sheets."

"No, I want you to go on," she says through the door. "Go on home for the day, Minny."

I stand there and tap my foot on her yellow rug. I don't want to go on home. It's Tuesday, change-the-damnsheets day. If I don't do it today, that makes Wednesday change-the-damn-sheets day too.

"What Mister Johnny gone do if he come home and the house's a mess?"

"He's at the deer camp tonight. Minny, I need you to bring me the phone over--" her voice breaks into a trembly wail. "Drag it on over and fetch my phone book that's setting in the kitchen."

"You sick, Miss Celia?"

But she doesn't answer so I go get the book and stretch the phone over to the bathroom door and tap on it.

"Just leave it there." Miss Celia sounds like she's crying now. "I want you to go on home now."

"But I just gots--"

"I said go home, Minny!"

I step back from that closed door. Heat rises up my face. And it stings, not because I haven't been yelled at before. I just haven't been yelled at by Miss Celia yet.

THE NEXT MORNING, Woody Asap on Channel Twelve is waving his white scaly hands all over the state map. Jackson, Mississippi, is frozen like an ice pop. First it rained, then it froze, then anything with more than a half-inch extending broke off to the ground by this morning. Tree branches, power lines, porch awnings collapsed like they'd plumb given up. Outside's been dunked in a shiny clear bucket of shellac.

My kids glue their sleepy faces to the radio and when the box says the roads are frozen and school is closed, they all jump around and whoop and whistle and run outside to look at the ice with nothing on but their long johns.

"Get back in this house and put some shoes on!" I holler out the door. Not one of them does. I call Miss Celia to tell her I can't drive in the ice and to find out if she's got power out there. After she yelled at me like I was a nigger in the road yesterday, you'd think I

wouldn't give a hoot about her.

When I call, I hear, "Yeeello."

My heart hiccups.

"Who is this? Who's calling here?"

Real careful I hang up that phone. I guess Mister Johnny's not working today either. I don't know how he made it home with the storm. All I know is, even on a day off, I can't escape the fear of that man. But in eleven days, that's all going to be over.

MOST Of THE TOWN THAWS in a day. Miss Celia's not in bed when I walk in. She's sitting at the white kitchen table staring out the window with an ugly look on her face like her poor fancy life is just too hot a hell to live in. It's the mimosa tree she's eyeing out there. It took the ice pretty hard. Half of the branches broke off and all the spindly leaves are brown and soggy.

"Morning, Minny," she says, not even looking my way.

But I just nod. I have nothing to say to her, not after the way she treated me day before yesterday.

"We can finally cut that old ugly thing down now," says Miss Celia.

"Go ahead. Cut em all down." Just like me, cut me down for no reason at all.

Miss Celia gets up and comes over to the sink where I'm standing. She grabs hold of my arm. "I'm sorry I hollered at you like I did." Tears brim up in her eyes when she says it.

"Mm-hmm."

"I was sick and I know that's no excuse, but I was feeling real poor and . . ." She starts sobbing then, like the worst thing she's ever done in her life is yell at her maid.

"Alright," I say. "Ain't nothing to boo-hoo over."

And then she hugs me tight around the neck until I kind of pat her on the back and peel her off. "Go on,

set down," I say. "I'll fix you some coffee."

I guess we all get a little snippy when we're not feeling good.

BY THE NEXT MONDAY, the leaves on that mimosa tree have turned black like it burned instead of froze. I come in the kitchen ready to tell her how many days we have left, but Miss Celia's staring at that tree, hating it with her eyes the same way she hates the stove. She's pale, won't eat anything I put in front of her.

All day, instead of laying up in bed, she works on decorating the ten-foot Christmas tree in the foyer, making my life a vacuuming hell with all the needles flying around. Then she goes in the backyard, starts clipping the rose bushes and digging the tulip bulbs. I've never seen her move that much, ever. She comes in for her cooking lesson afterward with dirt under her nails but she's still not smiling.

"Six more days before we tell Mister Johnny," I say.
She doesn't say anything for a while, then her voice comes out flat as a pan. "Are you sure I have to? I was thinking maybe we could wait."
I stop where I am, with buttermilk dripping off my hands. "Ask me how sure I am again."
"Alright, alright." And then she goes outside again to take up her new favorite pastime, staring down that mimosa tree with the axe in her hand. But she never takes a chop.
Wednesday night all I can think is just ninety-six more hours. Knowing I might not have a job after Christmas gnaws at my stomach. I'll have a lot more to worry about than just being shot dead. Miss Celia's supposed to tell him on Christmas Eve, after I leave, before they go over to Mister Johnny's mama's house. But Miss Celia's acting so strange, I wonder if she's going to try and back out. No ma'am, I say to myself all day. I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.
When I walk in Thursday morning though, Miss Celia's not even home. I can't believe she's actually left the house. I sit at the table and pour myself a cup of coffee.
I look out at the backyard. It's bright, sunny. That black mimosa tree sure is ugly. I wonder why Mister Johnny
doesn't just go ahead and cut that thing down.
I lean in a little closer to the windowsill. "Well look a there." Down around the bottom, some green fronds are still hanging on, perking up a little in the sun.
"That old tree just playing possum."

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I pull a pad out of my pocketbook where I keep a list of what needs to be tended to, not for Miss Celia, but my own groceries, Christmas presents, things for my kids. Benny's asthma has gotten a little better but Leroy came home last night smelling like Old Crow again. He pushed me hard and I bumped my thigh on the kitchen table. He comes home like that tonight, I'll fix him a knuckle sandwich for supper.

I sigh. Seventy-two more hours and I'm a free woman. Maybe fired, maybe dead after Leroy finds out, but free.

I try to concentrate on the week. Tomorrow's heavy cooking and I've got the church supper Saturday night and the service on Sunday. When am I going to clean my own house? Wash my own kids' clothes? My oldest girl, Sugar, is sixteen and pretty good about keeping things neat, but I like to help her out on the weekends the way my mama never helped me. And Aibileen. She called me again last night, asked if I'd

help her and Miss Skeeter with the stories. I love Aibileen, I do. But I think she's making a king-sized mistake trusting a white lady. And I told her, too. She's risking her job, her safety. Not to mention why anyone would want to help a friend of Miss Hilly's.

Lord, I better get on with my work.

I pineapple the ham and get it in the oven. Then I dust the shelves in the hunting room, vacuum the bear while he stares at me like I'm a snack. "Just you and me today," I tell him. As usual he doesn't say much. I get my rag and my oil soap, work my way up the staircase, polishing each spoke on the banister as I go. When I make it to the top, I head into bedroom number one.

I clean upstairs for about an hour. It's chilly up here, no bodies to warm it up. I work my arm back and forth, back and forth across everything wood. Between the second and third bedrooms, I go downstairs to Miss Celia's room before she comes back.

I get that eerie prickle, of being in a house so empty. Where'd she go? After working here all this time and her only leaving three times and always telling me when and where and why she's leaving, like I care anyway, now she's gone like the wind. I ought to be happy. I ought to be glad that fool's out of my hair. But being here by myself, I feel like an intruder. I look down at the little pink rug that covers the bloodstain by

the bathroom. Today I was going to take another crack at it. A chill blows through the room, like a ghost passing by. I shiver.

Maybe I won't work on that bloodstain today.

On the bed the covers, as usual, have been thrown off. The sheets are twisted and turned around the wrong way. It always looks like a wrestling match has gone on in here. I stop myself from wondering. You start to wonder about people in the bedroom, before you know it you're all wrapped up in their business.

I strip off one of the pillowcases. Miss Celia's mascara smudged little charcoal butterflies all over it. The clothes on the floor I stuff into the pillowcase to make it easier to carry. I pick up Mister Johnny's folded pants off the yellow ottoman.

"Now how'm I sposed to know if these is clean or dirty?" I stick them in the sack anyway. My motto on housekeeping: when in doubt, wash it out.

I tote the bag over to the bureau. The bruise on my thigh burns when I bend down to pick up a pair of Miss Celia's silky stockings.

"Who are you?"

I drop the sack.

Slowly, I back away until my bottom bumps the bureau. He's standing in the doorway, eyes narrowed. Real slow, I look down at the axe hanging from his hand.

Oh Lord. I can't get to the bathroom because he's too close and he'd get in there with me. I can't make it past him out the door unless I pummel him, and the man has an axe. My head throbs hot I'm so panicked. I'm cornered.

Mister Johnny stares down at me. He swings the axe a little. Tilts his head and smiles.

I do the only thing I can do. I wrinkle my face as mean as I can and pull my lips across my teeth and yell: "You and your axe better

[ملکه برفی]

get out a my way."

Mister Johnny looks down at the axe, like he forgot he had it. Then back up at me. We stare at each other a second. I don't move and I don't breathe.

He sneaks a look over at the sack I've dropped to see what I was stealing. The leg of his khakis is poking out

the top. "Now, listen," I say, and tears spring up in my eyes. "Mister Johnny, I told Miss Celia to tell you about me. I must a asked her a thousand times--"

But he just laughs. He shakes his head. He thinks it's funny he's about to chop me up.

"Just listen to me, I told her--"

But he's still chuckling. "Calm down, girl. I'm not going to get you," he says. "You surprised me, that's all."

I'm panting, easing my way toward the bathroom. He still has the axe in his hand, swinging it a little.

"What's your name, anyway?"

"Minny," I whisper. I've still got five feet to go.

"How long have you been coming, Minny?"
"Not long." I jiggle my head no.
"How long?"
"Few . . . weeks," I say. I bite down on my lip. Three months.
He shakes his head. "Now, I know it's been longer than that."
I look at the bathroom door. What good would it do to be in a bathroom where the door won't even lock? When the man's got an axe to hack the door down with?
"I swear I'm not mad," he says.
"What about that axe?" I say, my teeth gritted.
He rolls his eyes, then he sets it on the carpet, kicks it to the side.
"Come on, let's go have us a talk in the kitchen."
He turns and walks away. I look down at the axe, wondering if I should take it. Just the sight of it scares me. I push it under the bed and follow him.
In the kitchen, I edge myself close to the back door,
check the knob to make sure it's unlocked.
"Minny, I promise. It's fine that you're here," he says.
I watch his eyes, trying to see if he's lying. He's a big man, six-two at least. A little paunch in the front, but strong looking. "I reckon you gone fire me, then."
"Fire you?" He laughs. "You're the best cook I've ever known. Look what you've done to me." He frowns down at his stomach that's just starting to poke out. "Hell, I haven't eaten like this since Cora Blue was around. She practically raised me."
I take a deep breath because his knowing Cora Blue seems to safen things up a little. "Her kids went to my church. I knew her."
"I sure do miss her." He turns, opens the refrigerator, stares in, closes it.
"When's Celia coming back? You know?" Mister Johnny asks.
"I don't know. I spec she went to get her hair done."
"I thought for a while there, when we were eating your
food, she really did learn how to cook. Until that Saturday, when you weren't here, and she tried to make hamburgers."
He leans against the sink board, sighs. "Why doesn't she want me to know about you?"
"I don't know. She won't tell me."
He shakes his head, looks up at the black mark on the ceiling from where Miss Celia burned up the turkey that time. "Minny, I don't care if Celia never lifts another finger for the rest of her life. But she says she wants to do things for me herself." He raises his eyebrows a little. "I mean, do you understand what I was eating before you got here?"
"She learning. Least she . . . trying to learn," but I kind of snort at this. Some things you just can't lie about.
"I don't care if she can cook. I just want her here"--he shrugs--"with me."
He rubs his brow with his white shirtsleeve and I see why his shirts are always so dirty. And he is sort of handsome. For a white man.
"She just doesn't seem happy," he says. "Is it me? Is it the house? Are we too far away from town?"
"I don't know, Mister Johnny."
"Then what's going on?" He props his hands down on the counter behind him, grabs hold. "Just tell me. Is she"--he swallows hard--"is she seeing somebody else?"
I try not to, but I feel kind of sorry for him then, seeing he's just as confused as I am about all this mess.
"Mister Johnny, this ain't none a my business. But I can tell you Miss Celia ain't having no relations outside a this house."
He nods. "You're right. That was a stupid thing to ask."
I eye the door, wondering when Miss Celia's going to be home. I don't know what she'd do if she found Mister Johnny here.
"Look," he says, "don't say anything about meeting me. I'm going to let her tell me when she's ready."
I manage my first real smile. "So you want me to just go on like I been doing?"
"Look after her. I don't like her in this big house by herself."
"Yessuh. Whatever you say."
"I came by today to surprise her. I was going to cut down that mimosa tree she hates so much, then take her into town for lunch. Pick out some jewelry for her Christmas present." Mister Johnny walks to the window, looks out, and sighs. "I guess I'll go get lunch in town somewhere."
"I fix you something. What you want?"
He turns around, grinning like a kid. I start going through the refrigerator, pulling things out.
"Remember those pork chops we had that time?" He starts nibbling on his fingernail. "Will you make those for us this week?"
"I fix em for supper tonight. Got some in the freezer. And tomorrow night you having chicken and dumplings."
"Oh, Cora Blue used to make us those."
"Sit up there at the table and I'm on do you a good BLT to take with you in the truck."
"And will you toast the bread?"
"A course. Can't have no proper sandwich on no raw bread. And this afternoon I'll make one a Minny's famous caramel cakes. And next week we gone do you a fried catfish . . ."
I pull out the bacon for Mister Johnny's lunch, get the skillet out to fry. Mister Johnny's eyes are clear and wide. He's smiling with every part of his face. I fix his sandwich and wrap it in waxed paper. Finally, somebody I get the satisfaction of feeding.
"Minny, I have to ask, if you're here . . . what in the world is Celia doing all day?"
I shrug. "I ain't never seen a white woman sit there like she do. Most of em is busy-busy, running errands, acting like they busier than me."
"She needs some friends. I asked my buddy Will if
"She needs some friends. I asked my buddy Will if he'd get his wife to come out and teach her to play bridge, get her in a group. I know Hilly's the ringleader of all that stuff."
I stare at him, like if I kept real still, maybe it wouldn't be true. Finally I ask, "That Miss Hilly Holbrook you talking about?"
"You know her?" he asks.
"Mm-hmm." I swallow the tire iron that's rising up in my throat at the thought of Miss Hilly hanging around this house. Miss Celia finding out the truth about the Terrible Awful. There's no way those two could be friends. But I bet Miss Hilly would do anything for Mister Johnny.
"I'll call Will tonight and ask him again." He pats me on my shoulder and I find myself thinking about that word again, truth. And Aibileen's telling Miss Skeeter all about it. If the truth gets out on me, I'm done. I crossed the wrong person, and that's all it takes.
"I'm going to give you my number at the office. Call me if you ever run into trouble, alright?"
"Yessuh," I say, feeling my dread erase any relief I had coming to me today.
MISS SKEETER
chapter 11
IT'S TECHNICALLY WINTER in most of the nation, but already there is gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands in my mother's house. Signs of spring have come too early. Daddy's in a cotton-planting frenzy, had to hire ten extra field workers to till and drive tractors to get the seed in the ground. Mother's been studying The Farmer's Almanac, but she's hardly concerned with planting. She delivers the bad news to me with a hand on her forehead.
"They say this'll be the most humid one in years." She sighs. The Shinalator never did much good after those first few times. "I'd pick up some more spray cans down at Beemon's, the new extra-heavy kind."
She looks up from the Almanac, narrows her eyes at me. "What are you dressed that way for?"
I have on my darkest dress, dark stockings. The black scarf over my hair probably makes me look more like Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia than Marlene Dietrich. The ugly red satchel hangs from my shoulder.
"I have some errands to run tonight. Then I'm meeting... some girls. At church."
"On a Saturday night?"
"Mama, God doesn't care what day of the week it is," I say and make for the car before she can ask any more questions. Tonight, I'm going to Aibileen's for her first interview.
My heart racing, I drive fast on the paved town roads, heading for the colored part of town. I've never even sat at the same table with a Negro who wasn't paid to do so. The interview has been delayed by over a month. First, the holidays came and Aibileen had to work late almost every night, wrapping presents and cooking for Elizabeth's Christmas party. In January, I started to panic when Aibileen got the flu. I'm afraid I've waited so long, Missus Stein will have lost interest or forgotten why she even agreed to read it.
I drive the Cadillac through the darkness, turning on Gessum Avenue, Aibileen's Street. I'd rather be in the old truck, but Mother would've been too suspicious and Daddy was using it in the fields. I stop in front of an abandoned, haunted-looking house three down from Aibileen's, as we planned. The front porch of the spooky house is sagging, the windows have no panes. I step into the dark, lock the doors and walk quickly. I keep my head lowered, my noisy heels clicking on the pavement.
A dog barks and my keys jangle to the pavement. I glimpse around, pick them up. Two sets of colored people sit on porches, watching, rocking. There are no streetlights so it's hard to say who else sees me. I
keep walking, feeling as obvious as my vehicle: large and white.
I reach number twenty-five, Aibileen's house. I give one last look around, wishing I wasn't ten minutes early. The colored part of town seems so far away when, evidently, it's only a few miles from the white part of town.
I knock softly. There are footsteps, and something inside slams closed. Aibileen opens the door. "Come on in," she whispers and quickly shuts it behind me and locks it.
I've never seen Aibileen in anything but her whites. Tonight she has on a green dress with black piping. I can't help but notice, she stands a little taller in her own house.
"Make yourself comfortable. I be back real quick."
Even with the single lamp on, the front room is dark, full of browns and shadows. The curtains are pulled and pinned together so there's no gap. I don't know if they're like that all the time, or just for me. I lower myself onto the narrow sofa. There's a wooden coffee table with hand-tatted lace draped over the top. The floors are bare. I wish I hadn't worn such an expensive-looking dress.
A few minutes later, Aibileen comes back with a tray holding a teapot and two cups that don't match, paper napkins folded into triangles. I smell the cinnamon cookies she's made. As she pours the tea, the top to the pot rattles.
"Sorry," she says and holds the top down. "I ain't never had a white person in my house before."
I smile, even though I know it wasn't meant to be funny. I drink a sip of tea. It is bitter and strong. "Thank you," I say. "The tea is nice."
She sits and folds her hands in her lap, looks at me expectantly.
"I thought we'd do a little background work and then just jump right in with the questions," I say. I pull out my notebook and scan the questions I've prepared. They suddenly seem obvious, amateur.
"Alright," she says. She is sitting up very straight, on the sofa, turned toward me.
"Well, to start, um, when and where were you born?"
She swallows, nods. "Nineteen o-nine. Piedmont Plantation down in Cherokee County."
"Did you know when you were a girl, growing up, that one day you'd be a maid?"
"Yes ma'am. Yes, I did."
I smile, wait for her to elucidate. There is nothing.
"And you knew that . . . because . . . ?"
"Mama was a maid. My granmama was a house slave."
"A house slave. Uh-huh," I say, but she only nods. Her hands stay folded in her lap. She's watching the words I'm writing on the page.
"Did you . . . ever have dreams of being something else?"
"No," she says. "No ma'am, I didn't." It's so quiet, I can hear both of us breathing.
"Alright. Then . . . what does it feel like, to raise a white child when your own child's at home, being . . ." I swallow, embarrassed by the question, ". . . looked after by someone else?"
"It feel . . ." She's still sitting up so straight it looks painful. "Um, maybe . . . we could go on to the next one."
"Oh. Alright." I stare at my questions. "What do you like best about being a maid and what do you like least?"
She looks up at me, like I've asked her to define a dirty word.
"I--I spec I like looking after the kids best," she whispers.
"Anything . . . you'd like to add . . . about that?"
"No ma'am."
"Aibileen, you don't have to call me 'ma'am.' Not here."
"Yes ma'am. Oh. Sorry." She covers her mouth.
Loud voices shout in the street and both our eyes dart toward the window. We are quiet, stock-still. What would happen if someone white found out I was here on a Saturday night talking to Aibileen in her regular clothes? Would they call the police, to report a suspicious meeting? I'm suddenly sure they would. We'd be arrested because that is what they do. They'd charge us with integration violation--I read about it in the paper all the time--they despise the whites that meet with the coloreds to help with the civil rights movement. This has nothing to do with integration, but why else would we be meeting? I didn't even bring any Miss Myrna letters as backup.
I see open, honest fear on Aibileen's face. Slowly the voices outside dissipate down the road. I exhale but Aibileen stays tense. She keeps her eyes on the curtains.
I look down at my list of questions, searching for something to draw this nervousness out of her, out of myself. I keep thinking about how much time I've lost already.
"And what . . . did you say you disliked about your job?"
Aibileen swallows hard.
"I mean, do you want to talk about the bathroom? Or about Eliz--Miss Leefolt? Anything about the way she pays you? Has she ever yelled at you in front of Mae Mobley?"
Aibileen takes a napkin and dabs it to her forehead. She starts to speak, but stops herself.
"We've talked plenty of times, Aibileen . . ."
She puts her hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry, I--" She gets up and walks quickly down the narrow hall. A door closes, rattling the teapot and the cups on the tray.
Five minutes pass. When she comes back, she holds a towel to her front, the way I've seen Mother do after she vomits, when she doesn't make it to her toilet in time.
"I'm sorry. I thought I was . . . ready to talk."
I nod, not sure what to do.
"I just . . . I know you already told that lady in New York I's gone do this but . . ." She closes her eyes. "I'm
sorry. I don't think I can. I think I need to lay down."
"Tomorrow night. I'll . . . come up with a better way. Let's just try again and . . ."
She shakes her head, clutches her towel.
On my drive home, I want to kick myself. For thinking I could just waltz in and demand answers. For thinking she'd stop feeling like the maid just because we were at her house, because she wasn't wearing a uniform.
I look over at my notebook on the white leather seat. Besides where she grew up, I've gotten a total of twelve words. And four of them are yes ma'am and no ma'am.
PATSY CLINE'S VOICE DRIFTS out of WJDX radio. As I drive down the County Road, they're playing "Walking After Midnight." When I pull into Hilly's driveway, they're on "Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray." Her plane crashed this morning and everyone from New York to Mississippi to Seattle is in mourning,
singing her songs. I park the Cadillac and stare out at Hilly's rambling white house. It's been four days since Aibileen vomited in the middle of our interview and I've heard nothing from her.
I go inside. The bridge table is set up in Hilly's antebellum-style parlor with its deafening grandfather clock and gold swag curtains. Everyone is seated-Hilly, Elizabeth, and Lou Anne Templeton, who has replaced Missus Walters. Lou Anne is one of those girls who wears a big eager smile--all the time, and it never stops. It makes me want to stick a straight pin in her. And when you're not looking, she stares at you with that vapid, toothy smile. And she agrees with every single little thing Hilly says.
Hilly holds up a Life magazine, points to a spread of a house in California. "A den they're calling it, like wild animals are living