The Help, Page 24

  is Wil iam ever going to get elected in Washington, D.C., one day if we have integrational friends in our closet?”

  “Washington?” Miss Skeeter rol her eyes. “Wil iam’s running for the local senate, Hil y. And he might not win.”

  Oh Law. I final y let myself look at Miss Skeeter. Why you doing this? Why you pushing her hot button?

  Oh, Miss Hil y mad now. She snap her head straight. “You know wel as I do, there are good, tax-paying white people in this town who would

  fight you to the death on this. You want to let them get in our swimming pools? Let them put their hands on everything in our grocery stores?”

  Miss Skeeter stare long and hard at Miss Hil y. Then, for one-half a second, Miss Skeeter glance at me, see the pleading in my eyes. Her

  shoulders ease back some. “Oh Hil y, it’s just a booklet. I found it at the darn library. I’m not trying to change any laws, I just took it home to read.”

  Miss Hil y take this in a second. “But if you’re looking at those laws,” Miss Hil y snap the leg a her bathing suit that’s crept up her behind, “I have to wonder, what else are you up to?”

  Miss Skeeter shift her eyes away, lick her lips. “Hilly. You know me better than anybody else in this world. If I was up to something, you’d

  have me figured out in half a second.”

  Miss Hil y just watch her. Then Miss Skeeter grab Miss Hil y’s hand and squeeze it. “I am worried about you. You disappear for an entire

  week, you’re working yourself to death on this campaign. Look at that.” Miss Skeeter turn Miss Hil y’s palm over. “You have a blister from

  addressing al those envelopes.”

  And real slow, I watch Miss Hil y’s body slump down, start to give in on itself. She look to make sure Miss Leefolt ain’t listening.

  “I’m just so scared,” Miss Hil y whisper through her teeth. I can’t hear much. “…piled so much money in this campaign, if Wil iam doesn’t

  win…been working day and…”

  Miss Skeeter lay a hand on Miss Hil y’s shoulder, say something to her. Miss Hil y nod and give her a tired smile.

  After while, Miss Skeeter tel them she got to go. She head off through the sunbathers, winding through the chairs and the towels. Miss

  Leefolt look over at Miss Hil y with big eyes, like she scared to ask any questions.

  I lean back in my chair, wave to Mae Mobley making twirlies in the water. I try to rub the headache out my temples. Across the way, Miss

  Skeeter look back at me. Everbody around us is sunning and laughing and squinting, not a soul guessing that the colored woman and the white

  woman with the tennis racquet is wondering the same thing: is we fools to feel some relief?

  CHAPTER 16

  ABOUT A YEAR AFTER Treelore died, I started going to the Community Concerns Meeting at my church. I reckon I started doing it to fil time. Keep the evenings from getting so lonely. Even though Shirley Boon, with her big know-it-al smile, kind a irritate me. Minny don’t like Shirley neither, but she usual y come anyway to get out the house. But Benny got the asthma tonight, so Minny ain’t gone make it.

  Lately, the meetings is more about civil rights than keeping the streets clean and who gone work at the clothing exchange. It ain’t

  aggressive, mostly people just talking things out, praying about it. But after Mr. Evers got shot a week ago, lot a colored folks is frustrated in this town. Especial y the younger ones, who ain’t built up a cal us to it yet. They done had meetings al week over the kil ing. I hear folks was angry,

  yel ing, crying. This the first one I come to since the shooting.

  I walk down the steps to the basement. General y, it’s cooler than up in the church, but it’s warm down here tonight. Folks is putting ice cubes

  in they coffee. I look around to see who’s here, reckoning I better ask some more maids to help us, now that it look like we squeaked by Miss Hil y.

  Thirty-five maids done said no and I feel like I’m sel ing something nobody want to buy. Something big and stinky, like Kiki Brown and her lemon

  smel -good polish. But what real y makes me and Kiki the same is, I’m proud a what I’m sel ing. I can’t help it. We tel ing stories that need to be told.

  I wish Minny could help me ask people. Minny know how to put a sel on. But we decided from the start, nobody needs to know Minny’s a

  part a this. It’s just too risky for her family. We felt like we had to tel folks it was Miss Skeeter, though. Nobody would agree if they didn’t know who the white lady was, wondering if they knew her or had worked for her. But Miss Skeeter can’t do the front sel . She’d scare em off before she even

  opened her mouth. So it’s up to me and it didn’t take but five or six maids before everbody already know what I’m on ask before I get three words

  out my mouth. They say it ain’t worth it. They ask me why I’d put my own self at risk when it ain’t gone do no good. I reckon peoples is starting to

  think old Aibileen’s basket ain’t got many pawpaws left in it.

  Al the wooden fold-chairs is ful tonight. They’s over fifty people here, mostly womens.

  “Sit down by me, Aibileen,” Bertrina Bessemer say. “Goldel a, let the older folk have the chairs.”

  Goldel a jump up, motion me down. Least Bertrina stil treating me like I ain’t crazy.

  I settle in. Tonight, Shirley Boon’s sitting down and the Deacon standing at the front. He say we need a quiet prayer meeting tonight. Say we

  need to heal. I’m glad for it. We close our eyes and the Deacon leads us in a prayer for the Everses, for Myrlie, for the sons. Some folks is

  whispering, murmuring to God, and a quiet power fil up the room, like bees buzzing on a comb. I say my prayers to myself. When I’m done, I take a

  deep breath, wait for the others to finish. When I get home tonight, I’l write my prayers too. This is worth the double time.

  Yule May, Miss Hil y’s maid, setting in front a me. Yule May easy to recognize from the back cause she got such good hair, smooth, no nap

  to it. I hear she educated, went through most a col ege. Course we got plenty a smart people in our church with they col ege degrees. Doctors,

  lawyers, Mr. Cross who own The Southern Times, the colored newspaper that come out ever week. But Yule May, she probably the most educated

  maid we got in our parish. Seeing her makes me think again about the wrong I need to right.

  The Deacon open his eyes, look out on us al real quiet. “The prayers we are say—”

  “Deacon Thoroughgood,” a deep voice boom through stil ness. I turn—everbody turn—and there’s Jessup, Plantain Fidelia’s grandson,

  standing in the doorway. He twenty-two, twenty-three. He got his hands in thick fists.

  “What I want to know is,” he say slow, angry, “what we plan to do about it.”

  Deacon got a stern look on his face like he done talked with Jessup before. “Tonight, we are going to lift our prayers to God. We wil march

  peaceful y down the streets of Jackson next Tuesday. And in August, I wil see you in Washington to march with Doctor King.”

  “That is not enough!” Jessup say, banging his fist on his hand. “They shot him in the back like a dog!”

  “Jessup.” Deacon raise his hand. “Tonight is for prayer. For the family. For the lawyers on the case. I understand your anger, but, son—”

  “Prayer? You mean y’al just gonna sit around and pray about it?”

  He look around at al a us in our chairs.

  “Y’al think prayer’s going to keep white people from kil ing us?”

  No one answer, not even the Deacon. Jessup just turn and leave. We al hear his feet stomping up the stairs and then over our heads out the

  church.

  The room is real quiet. Deacon Thoroughgood got his eyes locked a few inches above our heads. It’s strange. He ain’t a man not to look

  you in the eye. Everbody staring at him, everb
ody wondering what he thinking so that he can’t look in our faces. Then I see Yule May shaking her

  head, real smal , but like she mean it and I reckon the Deacon and Yule May is thinking the same thing. They thinking about what Jessup ask. And

  Yule May, she just answering the question.

  THE MEETING ENDS around eight o’clock. The ones who got kids go on, others get ourselves coffee from the table in the back. They ain’t much chatter.

  People quiet. I take a breath, go to Yule May standing at the coffee urn. I just want to get this lie off that’s stuck on me like a cocklebur. I ain’t gone ask nobody else at the meeting. Ain’t nobody gone buy my stinky smel -good tonight.

  Yule May nod at me, smile polite. She about forty and tal and thin. She done kept her figure nice. She stil wearing her white uniform and it fit

  trim on her waist. She always wear earrings, tiny gold loops.

  “I hear the twins is going to Tougaloo Col ege next year. Congratulations.”

  “We hope so. We’ve stil got a little more to save. Two at once’s a lot.”

  “You went to a good bit a col ege yourself, didn’t you?”

  She nod, say, “Jackson Col ege.”

  “I loved school. The reading and the writing. Cept the rithmatic. I didn’t take to that.”

  Yule May smiles. “The English was my favorite too. The writing.”

  “I been…writing some myself.”

  Yule May look me in the eye and I can tel then she know what I’m about to say. For a second, I can see the shame she swal ow ever day,

  working in that house. The fear. I feel embarrassed to ask her.

  But Yule May say it before I have to. “I know about the stories you’re working on. With that friend of Miss Hil y’s.”

  “It’s alright, Yule May. I know you can’t do it.”

  “It’s just…a risk I can’t afford to take right now. We so close to getting enough money together.”

  “I understand,” I say and I smile, let her know she off the hook. But Yule May don’t move away.

  “The names…you’re changing them, I heard?”

  This the same question everbody ask, cause they curious.

  “That’s right. And the name a the town, too.”

  She look down at the floor. “So I’d tel my stories about being a maid and she’d write them down? Edit them or…something like that?”

  I nod. “We want a do al kind a stories. Good things and bad. She working with…another maid right now.”

  Yule May lick her lips, look like she imagining it, tel ing what it’s like to work for Miss Hil y.

  “Could we…talk about this some more? When I have more time?”

  “A course,” I say, and I see, in her eyes, she ain’t just being nice.

  “I’m sorry, but Henry and the boys are waiting on me,” she says. “But may I cal you? And talk in private?”

  “Anytime. Whenever you feel like it.”

  She touch my arm and look me straight in the eyes again. I can’t believe what I see. It’s like she been waiting on me to ask her al this time.

  Then she gone out the door. I stand in the corner a minute, drinking coffee too hot for the weather. I laugh and mutter to myself, even though

  everbody gone think I’m even crazier for it.

  MINNY

  CHAPTER 17

  GO ON out a here so I can do my cleaning.”

  Miss Celia draws the covers up around her chest like she’s afraid I might jerk her out of bed. Nine months here and I stil don’t know if she’s

  sick in the body or fried up her wits with the hair coloring. She does look better than when I started. Her tummy’s got a little fat on it, her cheeks

  aren’t so hol ow as they were, out here starving her and Mister Johnny to death.

  For a while, Miss Celia was working in the backyard al the time but now that crazy lady’s back to sitting around the bed again. I used to be

  glad she stayed holed up in her room. Now that I’ve met Mister Johnny, though, I’m ready to work. And damn it, I’m ready to get Miss Celia in shape too.

  “You driving me crazy hanging around this house twenty-five hours a day. Get. Go chop down that poor mimosa tree you hate so much,” I

  say, because Mr. Johnny never did chop that thing down.

  But when Miss Celia doesn’t move from that mattress, I know it’s time to pul out the big guns. “When you gone tel Mister Johnny about me?”

  Because that always gets her moving. Sometimes I just ask it for my own entertainment.

  I can’t believe the charade has gone on this long, with Mister Johnny knowing about me, and Miss Celia walking around like a ding-a-ling,

  like she’s stil pul ing her trick. It was no surprise when the Christmas deadline came and she begged for more time. Oh I railed her about it, but then the fool started boo-hooing so I let her off the hook just so she’d shut up, told her it was her Christmas present. She ought to get a stocking chock-ful of coal for al the lies she’s told.

  Thank the Lord Miss Hil y hasn’t showed up here to play bridge, even though Mister Johnny tried to set it up again just two weeks ago. I know

  because Aibileen told me she heard Miss Hil y and Miss Leefolt laughing about it. Miss Celia got al serious, asking me what to cook if they come

  over. Ordered a book in the mail to learn the game, Bridge for the Beginner. Ought to cal it Bridge for the Brainless. When it came this morning in the mailbox, she didn’t read it for two seconds before she asked, “Wil you teach me to play, Minny? This bridge book doesn’t make a lick of

  sense.”

  “I don’t know how to play no bridge,” I said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “How you know what I can do?” I started banging pots around, irritated just by the looks of that stupid red cover. I final y got Mister Johnny out

  the way and now I have to worry about Miss Hil y coming over and ratting me out. She’l tel Miss Celia what I did for sure. Shoot. I’d fire my own self for what I did.

  “Because Missus Walters told me you used to practice with her on Saturday mornings.”

  I started scrubbing the big pot. My knuckles hit the sides, making a clanging noise.

  “Playing cards is the devil’s game,” I said. “And I got too much to do already.”

  “But I’l get al flustered with those girls over here trying to teach me. Won’t you just show me a little?”

  “No.”

  Miss Celia hummed out a little sigh. “It’s cause I’m such a bad cook, isn’t it? You think I can’t learn anything now.”

  “What you gone do if Miss Hil y and them ladies tel your husband you got a maid out here? Ain’t that gone blow your cover?”

  “I’ve already worked that out. I’l tel Johnny I’m bringing in some help for the day so it’l look proper and al for the other ladies.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Then I’l tel him I like you so much I want to hire you ful -time. I mean, I could tel him that…in a few months.”

  I started to sweat then. “When you think them ladies is coming over for your bridge party?”

  “I’m just waiting for Hil y to cal me back. Johnny told her husband I’d be cal ing. I left her two messages, so I’m sure she’l cal me back

  anytime now.”

  I stand there trying to think of something to stop this from happening. I look at the phone, pray it never rings again.

  THE NEXT MORNING, when I get in for work, Miss Celia comes out of her bedroom. I think she’s about to sneak upstairs, which she’s started to do again,

  but then I hear her on the kitchen telephone asking for Miss Hil y. I get a sick, sick feeling.

  “I was just cal ing again to see about getting a bridge game together!” she says al cheerful and I don’t move until I know it’s Yule May, Hil y’s

  maid, she’s talking to and not Miss Hil y herself. Miss Celia spel s out her telephone number like a floor-mopping jingle, “Emerson two-sixty-six-oh- />
  nine!”

  And half a minute later, she’s cal ing up another name from the back of that stupid paper, like she’s gotten into the habit of doing every other

  day. I know what that thing is, it’s the newsletter from the Ladies League, and from the looks of it she found it in the parking lot of that ladies’ club.

  It’s rough as sandpaper and wilted, like it sat through a rainstorm after blowing out of somebody’s pocketbook.

  So far, not one of those girls has ever cal ed her back, but every time that phone rings, she jumps on it like a dog on a coon. It’s always

  Mister Johnny.

  “Alright…just…tel her I cal ed again,” Miss Celia says into the phone.

  I hear her hang it up real soft. If I cared, which I don’t, I’d tel her those ladies ain’t worth it. “Those ladies ain’t worth it, Miss Celia,” I hear myself saying. But she acts like she can’t hear me. She goes back to the bedroom and closes the door.

  I think about knocking, seeing if she needs anything. But I’ve got more important things to worry about than if Miss Celia’s won the damn

  popularity contest. What with Medgar Evers shot on his own doorstep and Felicia clammering for her driver’s license, now that she’s turned fifteen

  —she’s a good girl but I got pregnant with Leroy Junior when I wasn’t much older than her and a Buick had something to do with it. And on top of al

  that, now I’ve got Miss Skeeter and her stories to worry about.

  AT THE END OF JUNE, a heat wave of a hundred degrees moves in and doesn’t budge. It’s like a hot water bottle plopped on top of the colored neighborhood, making it ten degrees worse than the rest of Jackson. It’s so hot, Mister Dunn’s rooster walks in my door and squats his red self right

  in front of my kitchen fan. I come in to find him looking at me like I ain’t moving nowhere, lady. He’d rather get beat with a broom than go back out in that nonsense.

  Out in Madison County, the heat official y makes Miss Celia the laziest person in the U. S. of A. She won’t even get the mail out the box

  anymore; I have to do it. It’s even too hot for Miss Celia to sit out at the pool. Which is a problem for me.

  See, I think if God had intended for white people and colored people to be this close together for so much of the day, he would’ve made us

  color-blind. And while Miss Celia’s grinning and “good morning” and “glad to see”-ing me, I’m wondering, how did she get this far in life without

  knowing where the lines are drawn? I mean, a floozy cal ing the society ladies is bad enough. But she has sat down and eaten lunch with me every

  single day since I started working here. I don’t mean in the same room, I mean at the same table. That little one up under the window. Every white woman I’ve ever worked for ate in the dining room as far away from the colored help as they could. And that was fine with me.

  “But why? I don’t want to eat in there al by myself when I could eat in here