The Help, Page 34

  “He was a real nice Martian, Mister King. Looked just like us, nose, mouth, hair up on his head, but sometime people looked at him funny

  and sometime, wel , I guess sometime people was just downright mean.”

  I could get in a lot a trouble tel ing her these little stories, especial y with Mister Leefolt. But Mae Mobley know these our “secret stories.”

  “Why Aibee? Why was they so mean to him?” she ask.

  “Cause he was green.”

  TWO TIMES THIS MORNING, Miss Leefolt’s phone rung and two times I missed it. Once cause I was chasing Baby Girl nekkid in the backyard and another

  cause I was using the bathroom in the garage and what with Miss Leefolt being three—yes, three—weeks late to have this baby, I don’t expect her to run for no phone. But I don’t expect her to snap at me cause I couldn’t get there, neither. Law, I should a known when I got up this morning.

  Last night Miss Skeeter and I worked on the stories until a quarter to midnight. I am bone tired, but we done finished number eight and that

  means we stil got four more to go. January tenth be the deadline and I don’t know if we gone make it.

  It’s already the third Wednesday a October, so it’s Miss Leefolt’s turn to host bridge club. It’s al changed up now that Miss Skeeter been

  thrown out. It’s Miss Jeanie Caldwel , the one who cal everybody honey, and Miss Lou Anne who replaced Miss Walter, and everybody’s real polite

  and stiff and they just agree with each other for two hours. They ain’t much fun listening to anymore.

  I’m pouring the last ice tea when the doorbel go ding-dong. I get to the door real quick, show Miss Leefolt I ain’t as slow as she accused me a being.

  When I open it, the first word that pop in my head is pink. I never even seen her before but I’ve had enough conversations with Minny to know

  it’s her. Cause who else around here gone fit extra-large bosoms in a extra-smal sweater?

  “Hel o there,” she say, licking her lipsticky lips. She raise her hand out to me and I think she giving me something. I reach out to take

  whatever it is and she give me a funny little handshake.

  “My name is Celia Foote and I am here to see Miss Elizabeth Leefolt, please.”

  I’m so mesmerized by al that pink, it takes a few seconds to hit me how bad this could turn out for me. And Minny. It was a long time ago, but

  that lie stuck.

  “I…she…” I’d tel her nobody’s home but the bridge table’s five feet behind me. I look back and al four a them ladies is staring at the door

  with they mouths open like they catching flies. Miss Caldwel whisper something to Miss Hil y. Miss Leefolt stagger up, slap on a smile.

  “Hel o, Celia,” Miss Leefolt say. “It’s certainly been a long time.”

  Miss Celia clears her throat and says kind a too loud, “Hel o, Elizabeth. I’m cal ing on you today to—” Her eyes flicker back to the table

  where the other ladies is setting.

  “Oh no, I’m interrupting. I’l just…I’l come on back. Another time.”

  “No, no, what can I do for you?” Miss Leefolt say.

  Miss Celia takes a deep breath in that tight pink skirt and for a second I guess we al think she gone pop.

  “I’m here to offer my help for the Children’s Benefit.”

  Miss Leefolt smile, say, “Oh. Wel , I…”

  “I got a real knack for arranging flowers, I mean, everybody back in Sugar Ditch said so, even my maid said so, right after she said I’m the

  worst cook she’s ever laid eyes on.” She giggle at this a second and I suck in my breath at the word maid. Then she snap back to serious. “But I can address things and lick stamps and—”

  Miss Hil y get up from the table. She lean in, say, “We real y don’t need any more help, but we’d be delighted if you and Johnny would attend

  the Benefit, Celia.”

  Miss Celia smile and look so grateful it’d break anybody’s heart. Who had one.

  “Oh thank you,” she say. “I’d love to.”

  “It’s on Friday night, November the fifteenth at the—”

  “—the Robert E. Lee Hotel,” Miss Celia finish. “I know al about it.”

  “We’d love to sel you some tickets. Johnny’l be coming with you, won’t he? Go get her some tickets, Elizabeth.”

  “And if there’s anything I can do to help—”

  “No, no.” Hil y smile. “We’ve got it al taken care of.”

  Miss Leefolt come back with the envelope. She fish out a few tickets, but then Miss Hil y take the envelope away from her.

  “While you’re here, Celia, why don’t you buy some tickets for your friends?”

  Miss Celia be frozen for a second. “Um, alright.”

  “How about ten? You and Johnny and eight friends. Then you’d have a whole table.”

  Miss Celia smiling so hard it starts to tremble. “I think just the two wil be fine.”

  Miss Hil y take out two tickets and hand the envelope back to Miss Leefolt, who goes in the back to put it away.

  “Lemme just get my check writ out. I’m lucky I have this big ole thing with me today. I told my maid Minny I’d pick up a hambone for her in

  town.”

  Miss Celia struggle to write that check on her knee. I stay stil as I can, hoping to God Miss Hil y didn’t hear what she just said. She hand the

  check to her but Miss Hil y al wrinkled up, thinking.

  “Who? Who’d you say your maid was?”

  “Minny Jackson. Aw! Shoot.” Miss Celia pop her hand over her mouth. “Elizabeth made me swear I’d never tel she recommended her and

  here I am blabbing my mouth off.”

  “Elizabeth…recommended Minny Jackson?”

  Miss Leefolt come back in from the bedroom. “Aibileen, she’s up. Go on and get her now. I can’t lift a nail file with my back.”

  I go real quick to Mae Mobley’s room but soon as I peek in, Mae Mobley’s done fal en asleep again. I rush back to the dining room. Miss

  Hil y’s shutting the front door closed.

  Miss Hil y set down, looking like she just swal owed the cat that ate the canary.

  “Aibileen,” Miss Leefolt say, “go on and get the salads ready now, we’re al waiting.”

  I go in the kitchen. When I come back out, the salad plates is rattling like teeth on the serving tray.

  “…mean the one who stole al your mama’s silver and…”

  “…thought everybody in town knew that Nigra was a thief…”

  “…I’d never in a mil ion years recommend…”

  “…you see what she had on? Who does she…”

  “I’m going to figure this out if it kil s me,” Miss Hil y say.

  MINNY

  CHAPTER 24

  I’M AT THE KITCHEN SINK waiting for Miss Celia to come home. The rag I’ve been pul ing on is in shreds. That crazy woman woke up this morning, squoze into the tightest pink sweater she has, which is saying something, and hol ered, “I’m going to Elizabeth Leefolt’s. Right now, while I got the nerve,

  Minny.” Then she drove off in her Bel Aire convertible with her skirt hanging out the door.

  I was just jittery until the phone rang. Aibileen was hiccupping she was so upset. Not only did Miss Celia tel the ladies that Minny Jackson is

  working for her, she informed them that Miss Leefolt was the one who “recommended” me. And that was al the story Aibileen heard. It’l take those

  cackling hens about five minutes to figure this out.

  So now, I have to wait. Wait to find out if, Number One, my best friend in the entire world gets fired for getting me a job. And Number Two, if

  Miss Hil y told Miss Celia those lies that I’m a thief. And Number Two and a half, if Miss Hil y told Miss Celia how I got back at her for tel ing those lies that I’m a thief. I’m not sorry for the Terrible Awful Thing I done to her. But now that Miss Hil y put her own maid in jail to r
ot, I wonder what that lady’s going to do to me.

  It’s not until ten after four, an hour past my time to leave, that I see Miss Celia’s car pul in. She jiggles up the walk like she’s got something to

  say. I hitch up my hose.

  “Minny, it’s so late!” she yel s.

  “What happened with Miss Leefolt?” I’m not even trying to be coy. I want to know.

  “Go, please! Johnny’s coming home any minute.” She’s pushing me to the washroom where I keep my things.

  “We’l talk tomorrow,” she says, but for once, I don’t want to go home, I want to hear what Miss Hil y said about me. Hearing your maid’s a

  thief is like hearing your kid’s teacher’s a twiddler. You don’t give them the benefit of the doubt, you just get the hel rid of em.

  But Miss Celia won’t tel me anything. She’s shooing me out so she can keep up her charade, so twisted it’s like kudzu. Mister Johnny

  knows about me. Miss Celia knows Mister Johnny knows about me. But Mister Johnny doesn’t know that Miss Celia knows he knows. And because

  of that ridiculousness, I have to leave at four-oh-ten and worry about Miss Hil y for the entire night.

  THE NEXT MORNING BEFORE WORK, Aibileen cal s my house.

  “I cal poor Fanny early this morning cause I know you been stewing about it al night.” Poor Fanny’s Miss Hil y’s new maid. Ought to cal her

  Fool Fanny for working there. “She heard Miss Leefolt and Miss Hil y done decided you made the whole recommendation thing up so Miss Celia

  would give you the job.”

  Whew. I let out a long breath. “Glad you ain’t gone get in trouble,” I say. Stil , now Miss Hil y cal ing me a liar and a thief.

  “Don’t you worry bout me,” Aibileen says. “You just keep Miss Hil y from talking to your boss lady.”

  When I get to work, Miss Celia’s rushing out to go buy a dress for the Benefit next month. She says she wants to be the first person in the

  store. It’s not like the old days when she was pregnant. Now she can’t wait to get out the door.

  I stomp out to the backyard and wipe down the lawn chairs. The birds al twitter up in a huff when they see me coming, making the camel ia

  bush rattle. Last spring Miss Celia was always nagging at me to take those flowers home. But I know camel ias. You bring a bunch inside, thinking

  how it’s so fresh it looks like it’s moving and as soon as you go down for a sniff, you see you’ve brought an army ful of spider mites in the house.

  I hear a stick break, then another, behind the bushes. I prickle inside, hold stil . We’re out in the middle of nowhere and nobody would hear

  us cal for miles. I listen, but I don’t hear anything else. I tel myself it’s just the old dregs of waiting for Mister Johnny. Or maybe I’m paranoid because I worked with Miss Skeeter last night on the book. I’m always jittery after talking to her.

  Final y, I go back to cleaning pool chairs, picking up Miss Celia’s movie magazines and tissues the slob leaves out here. The phone rings

  inside. I’m not supposed to answer the phone what with Miss Celia trying to keep up the big fat lie with Mister Johnny. But she’s not here and it

  might be Aibileen with more news. I go inside, lock the door behind me.

  “Miss Celia residence.” Lord, I hope it’s not Miss Celia cal ing.

  “This is Hil y Holbrook speaking. Who is this?”

  My blood whooshes down from my hair to my feet. I’m an empty, bloodless shel for about five seconds.

  I lower my voice, make it deep like a stranger. “This Doreena. Miss Celia’s help.” Doreena? Why I use my sister’s name!

  “Doreena. I thought Minny Jackson was Miss Foote’s maid.”

  “She…quit.”

  “Is that right? Let me speak to Missus Foote.”

  “She…out a town. Down at the coast. For a—a—” My mind’s pedaling a thousand miles an hour trying to come up with details.

  “Wel , when is she coming back?”

  “Looong time.”

  “Wel , when she gets back, you tel her I cal ed. Hil y Holbrook, Emerson three sixty-eight forty?”

  “Yes ma’am. I tel her.” In about a hundred years.

  I hold on to the counter edge, wait for my heart to stop hammering. It’s not that Miss Hil y can’t find me. I mean, she could just look up Minny

  Jackson on Tick Road in the phone book and get my address. And it’s not like I couldn’t tel Miss Celia what happened, tel her I’m not a thief.

  Maybe she’d believe me after al . But it’s the Terrible Awful that ruins it al .

  Four hours later, Miss Celia walks in with five big boxes stacked on top of each other. I help her tote them back to her bedroom and then I

  stand very stil outside her door to hear if she’l cal up the society ladies like she does every day. Sure enough, I hear her pick up the phone. But she just hangs it back up again. The fool’s listening for the dial tone again, in case someone tries to cal .

  EVEN THOUGH IT’S THE third week of October, the summer beats on with the rhythm of a clothes dryer. The grass in Miss Celia’s yard is stil a ful -blown green. The orange dahlias are stil smiling drunk up at the sun. And every night, the damn mosquitoes come out for their blood hunt, my sweat pads

  went up three cents a box, and my electric fan is broke dead on my kitchen floor.

  On this October morning, three days after Miss Hil y cal ed, I walk into work half an hour early. I’ve got Sugar seeing the kids to school. The

  coffee grinds go in the fancy percolator, the water goes in the pot. I lean my bottom against the counter. Quiet. It’s what I’ve been waiting for al night long.

  The Frigidaire picks up a hum where it left off. I put my hand on it to feel its vibration.

  “You’re awful early, Minny.”

  I open the refrigerator and bury my head inside. “Morning,” I say from the crisper. Al I can think is, Not yet.

  I fiddle with some artichokes, the cold spines prickling my hand. Bent over like this, my head pounds even harder. “I’m on fix you and Mister

  Johnny a roast and I’m on…fix some…” But the words go al high-pitched on me.

  “Minny, what happened?” Miss Celia has made her way around the refrigerator door without me even realizing it. My face bunches up. The

  cut on my eyebrow breaks open again, the hot blood stinging like a razor. Usual y my bruises don’t show.

  “Honey, set down. Did you take a spil ?” She props her hand on the hip of her pink nightgown. “Did you trip on the fan cord again?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, trying to turn so she can’t see me. But Miss Celia’s moving with me, bug-eyeing the cut like she’s never seen anything so

  awful. I had a white lady tel me once that blood looks redder on a colored person. I take a wad of cotton from my pocket, hold it to my face.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. “I banged it in the bathtub.”

  “Minny, that thing’s bleeding. I think you need you some stitches. Let me get Doctor Neal over here.” She grabs the phone from the wal , then

  bangs it back. “Oh, he’s up at the hunting camp with Johnny. I’l cal Doctor Steele, then.”

  “Miss Celia, I don’t need no doctor.”

  “You need medical attention, Minny,” she says, picking the phone back up.

  Do I real y have to say it? I grit my teeth to get it out. “Them doctors ain’t gone work on no colored person, Miss Celia.”

  She hangs the phone up again.

  I turn and face the sink. I keep thinking, This ain’t nobody’s business, just do your work, but I haven’t had a minute’s sleep. Leroy screamed at me al night, threw the sugar bowl upside my head, threw my clothes out on the porch. I mean, when he’s drinking the Thunderbird, it’s one thing,

  but… oh. The shame is so heavy I think it might pul me to the floor. Leroy, he wasn’t on the Thunderbird this time. This time he beat me stone-cold sober.

&nb
sp; “Go on out a here, Miss Celia, let me get some work done,” I say because I just need some time alone. At first, I thought Leroy had found out

  about my working with Miss Skeeter. It was the only reason I could come up with while he was beating me with his hand. But he didn’t say a thing

  about it. He was just beating me for the pure pleasure of it.

  “Minny?” Miss Celia says, eyeing the cut again. “Are you sure you did that in the bathtub?”

  I run the water just to get some noise in the room. “I told you I did and I did. Alright?”

  She gives me a suspicious look and points her finger at me. “Alright, but I’m fixing you a cup of coffee and I want you to just take the day off,

  okay?” Miss Celia goes to the coffee percolator, pours two cups, but then stops. Looks at me kind of surprised.

  “I don’t know how you take your coffee, Minny.”

  I rol my eyes. “Same as you.”

  She drops two sugars into both mugs. She gives me my coffee and then she just stands, staring out the back window with her jaw set tight. I

  start washing last night’s dishes, wishing she’d just leave me be.

  “You know,” she says kind of low, “You can talk to me about anything, Minny.”

  I keep washing, feel my nose start to flare.

  “I’ve seen some things, back when I lived in Sugar Ditch. In fact…”

  I look up, about to give it to her for getting in my business, but Miss Celia says in a funny voice, “We’ve got to cal the police, Minny.”

  I put my coffee cup down so hard it splashes. “Now look a here, I don’t want no police getting involved—”

  She points out the back window. “There’s a man, Minny! Out there!”

  I turn to where’s she’s looking. A man—a naked man—is out by the azaleas. I blink to see if it’s real. He’s tal , mealy-looking and white. He’s standing with his back to us, about fifteen feet away. His brown tangled hair is long like a hobo. Even from the back I can tel he’s touching himself.

  “Who is he?” Miss Celia whispers. “What’s he doing here?”

  The man turns to face front, almost like he heard us. Both our jaws drop. He’s holding it out like he’s offering us a po’boy sandwich.

  “Oh… God,” Miss Celia says.

  His eyes search the window. They land right on mine, staring a dark line across the lawn. I shiver. It’s like he knows me, Minny Jackson. He’s