“Aibee, watch me! Looky at me!” I focus my eyes, smile at Mae Mobley funning around.
And that’s when I see Miss Skeeter, back behind the pool, outside the fence. She got on her tennis skirt and her racquet in her hand. She staring at Miss Hilly and Miss Leefolt, tilting her head like she sorting something out. Miss Hilly and Miss Leefolt, they don’t see her, they still talking about Biloxi. I watch Miss Skeeter come in the gate, walk around the pool. Pretty soon, she standing right in front a them and they still don’t see her.
“Hey y’all,” Miss Skeeter say. She got sweat running down her arms. Her face is pink and swolled up in the sun.
Miss Hilly look up, but she stay stretched out on her pool chair, magazine in her hand. Miss Leefolt jump up off her chair and stand up.
“Hey, Skeeter! Why—I didn’t . . . we tried to call . . .” Her teeth just about chattering she smiling so big.
“Hey, Elizabeth.”
“Tennis?” Miss Leefolt ask, nodding her head like she a doll on a dashboard. “Who’re you playing with?”
“I was hitting balls on the backboard by myself,” Miss Skeeter say. She blow a thicket a hair off her forehead, but it’s stuck. She don’t move out the sun, though.
“Hilly,” Miss Skeeter say, “did Yule May tell you I called?”
Hilly smile kind a tight. “She’s off today.”
“I called you yesterday too.”
“Look, Skeeter, I didn’t have time. I have been at the campaign H.Q. since Wednesday addressing envelopes to practically every white person in Jackson.”
“Alright.” Miss Skeeter nod. Then she squint, say, “Hilly, are we . . . did I . . . do something to upset you?” and I feel my fingers jiggling again, twirling that dumb invisible pencil.
Miss Hilly close her magazine, put it on the concrete so she don’t get her grease on it. “This should be discussed at a later time, Skeeter.”
Miss Leefolt sit back down real quick. She pick up Miss Hilly’s
Good Housekeeping
, start reading it like she ain’t ever seen nothing so important.
“Alright.” Miss Skeeter shrug. “I just thought we could talk about . . . whatever this is before you go out of town.”
Miss Hilly bout to protest, but then she let out a long sigh. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth, Skeeter?”
“The truth about wh—”
“Look, I found that
paraphernalia
of yours.” I swallow hard. Miss Hilly trying to whisper but she really ain’t no good at it.
Miss Skeeter keep her eyes on Hilly. She real calm, don’t look up at me at all. “What paraphernalia do you mean?”
“In your satchel when I was hunting for the minutes? And Skeeter”—she flash her eyes up at the sky and back down—“I don’t know. I just do not know anymore.”
“Hilly, what are you talking about? What did you see in my satchel?”
I look out at the kids, Law, I almost forgot about em. I feel like I’m gone faint listening to this.
“Those
laws
you were carrying around? About what the—” Miss Hilly look back at me. I keep my eyes trained on the pool. “What those
other
people can and cannot do and frankly,” she hiss, “I think it’s downright pig-headed of you. To think you know better than our government? Than Ross Barnett?”
“When did I ever say a word about Ross Barnett?” Miss Skeeter say.
Miss Hilly wag her finger up at Miss Skeeter. Miss Leefolt staring at the same page, same line, same word. I got the whole scene fixed in the corner a my eye.
“You are not a politician, Skeeter Phelan.”
“Well, neither are you, Hilly.”
Miss Hilly stand up then. She point her finger to the ground. “I am about to be a politician’s wife, unless you have anything to do with it. How is William ever going to get elected in Washington, D.C., one day if we have integrational friends in our closet?”
“Washington?” Miss Skeeter roll her eyes. “William’s running for the local senate, Hilly. And he might not win.”
Oh Law. I finally let myself look at Miss Skeeter. Why you doing this? Why you pushing her hot button?
Oh, Miss Hilly mad now. She snap her head straight. “You know well 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 Hilly. Then, for one-half a second, Miss Skeeter glance at me, see the pleading in my eyes. Her shoulders ease back some. “Oh Hilly, 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 Hilly take this in a second. “But if you’re looking at those
laws
,” Miss Hilly 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 Hilly just watch her. Then Miss Skeeter grab Miss Hilly’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 Hilly’s palm over. “You have a blister from addressing all those envelopes.”
And real slow, I watch Miss Hilly’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 Hilly whisper through her teeth. I can’t hear much. “. . . piled so much money in this campaign, if William doesn’t win . . . been working day and . . .”
Miss Skeeter lay a hand on Miss Hilly’s shoulder, say something to her. Miss Hilly nod and give her a tired smile.
After while, Miss Skeeter tell them she got to go. She head off through the sunbathers, winding through the chairs and the towels. Miss Leefolt look over at Miss Hilly 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
A
BOUT A YEAR AFTER Treelore died, I started going to the Community Concerns Meeting at my church. I reckon I started doing it to fill time. Keep the evenings from getting so lonely. Even though Shirley Boon, with her big know-it-all smile, kind a irritate me. Minny don’t like Shirley neither, but she usually 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. Especially the younger ones, who ain’t built up a callus to it yet. They done had meetings all week over the killing. I hear folks was angry, yelling, crying. This the first one I come to since the shooting.
I walk down the steps to the basement. Generally, 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 Hilly. Thirty-five maids done said no and I feel like I’m selling something nobody want to buy. Something big and stinky, like Kiki Brown and her lemon smell-good polish. But what really makes me and Kiki the same is, I’m proud a what I’m selling. I can’t help it. We telling stories that need to be told.
I wish Minny could help me ask people. Minny know how to put a sell 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 tell 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 sell. 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.
All the wooden fold-chairs is full tonight. They’s over fifty people here, mostly womens.
“Sit down by me, Aibileen,” Bertrina Bessemer say. “Goldella, let the older folk have the chairs.”
Goldella jump up, motion me down. Least Bertrina still 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 fill 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’ll write my prayers too. This is worth the double time.
Yule May, Miss Hilly’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 college. Course we got plenty a smart people in our church with they college 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 all real quiet. “The prayers we are say—”
“Deacon Thoroughgood,” a deep voice boom through stillness. 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 will march peacefully down the streets of Jackson next Tuesday. And in August, I will 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’all just gonna sit around and pray about it?”
He look around at all a us in our chairs.
“Y’all think
prayer’s
going to keep white people from killing us?”
No one answer, not even the Deacon. Jessup just turn and leave. We all 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, everbody wondering what he thinking so that he can’t look in our faces. Then I see Yule May shaking her head, real small, 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 smell-good tonight.
Yule May nod at me, smile polite. She about forty and tall and thin. She done kept her figure nice. She still 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 College next year. Congratulations.”
“We hope so. We’ve still got a little more to save. Two at once’s a lot.”
“You went to a good bit a college yourself, didn’t you?”
She nod, say, “Jackson College.”
“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 tell then she know what I’m about to say. For a second, I can see the shame she swallow 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 Hilly’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 tell my stories about being a maid and she’d write them down? Edit them or . . . something like that?”
I nod. “We want a do all kind a stories. Good things and bad. She working with . . . another maid right now.”
Yule May lick her lips, look like she imagining it, telling what it’s like to work for Miss Hilly.
“Could we . . . talk about this some more? When I have more time?”