The Help (57 page)

Then the Reverend hands me a box, wrapped in white paper, tied with light blue ribbon, same colors as the book. He lays his hand on it as a blessing. “This one, this is for the white lady. You tell her we love her, like she’s our own family.”

 

 

 

On THURSDAY, I wake up with the sun and go to work early. Today’s a big day. I get my kitchen work done fast. One a clock come and I make sure I got my ironing all set up in front a Miss Leefolt’s tee-vee, tuned to Channel Three. Li’l Man taking his nap and Mae Mobley at school.

I try and iron some pleats, but my hands is shaking and they come out all crooked. I spray it wet and start all over, fussing and frowning. Finally, the time comes.

In the box pops Dennis James. He start telling us what we gone discuss today. His black hair is sprayed down so heavy, it don’t even move. He is the fastest talking Southern man I ever heard. Make me feel like I’m on a roller-coaster way he make his voice go. I’s so nervous I feel like I’m on throw up right here on Mister Raleigh’s church suit.

“. . . and we’ll end the show with the book review.” After the commercial, he do something on Elvis Presley’s jungle room. Then he do a piece on the new Interstate 55 they gone build, going through Jackson all the way to New Orleans. Then, at 1:22 p.m., a woman come set next to him by the name a Joline French. She say she the local book reviewer.

That very second, Miss Leefolt walk in the house. She all dressed up in her League outfit and her noisy high heels and she head straight for the living room.

“I am so glad that heat wave is over I could jump for joy,” she say.

Mister Dennis chatting bout some book called
Little Big Man.
I try to agree with her but I feel real stiff in the face all of a sudden. “I’ll—I’ll just turn this thing off.”

“No, keep it on!” say Miss Leefolt. “That’s Joline French on the television set! I better call Hilly and tell her.”

She clomp to the kitchen and get on the phone with Miss Hilly’s third maid in a month. Ernestine ain’t got but one arm. Miss Hilly pickings getting slim.

“Ernestine, this is Miss Elizabeth . . . Oh, she’s not? Well, you tell her the minute she walks in that our sorority sister is on the television set . . . That’s right, thank you.”

Miss Leefolt rush back in the living room and set on the sofa, but it’s a commercial on. I get to breathing hard. What is she doing? We ain’t never watched the tee-vee together before. And here a all days she front and center like she be watching herself on screen!

All a sudden the Dial soap commercial over. And there be Mister Dennis with my book in his hand! White bird look bigger than life. He holding it up and poking his finger at the word
Anonymous.
For two seconds I’m more proud than I is scared. I want to yell—
That’s my book! That’s my book on the tee-vee!
But I got to keep still, like I’m watching something humdrum. I can’t barely breathe!

“. . . called
Help
with testimonies from some of Mississippi’s very own housekeepers—”

“Oh, I wish Hilly was home! Who can I call? Look at those cute shoes she’s got on, I bet she got those at The Papagallo Shoppe.”

Please shut up!
I reach down and turn it up a little, but then I wish I hadn’t. What if they talk about her? Would Miss Leefolt even recognize her own life?

“. . . read it last night and now my wife is reading it . . .” Mister Dennis talking like a auction man, laughing, eyebrows going up and down, pointing at our book. “. . . and it is truly touching. Enlightening, I’d say, and they used the made-up town of Niceville, Mississippi, but who knows?” He halfway cover his mouth, whisper real loud, “It could be Jackson!”

“Now, I’m not saying it is, it could be anywhere, but just in case, you need to go get this book and make sure you aren’t in it! Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha—”

I freeze, feel a tingle on my neck. Ain’t
nothing
in there that say Jackson. Tell me again it could be anywhere, Mister Dennis!

I see Miss Leefolt smiling at her friend on the tee-vee like the fool can see her, Mister Dennis be laughing and talking, but that sorority sister, Miss Joline, got a face on red as a stop sign.

“—a disgrace to the South! A disgrace to the good Southern women who’ve spent their lives taking care of their help. I know I personally treat my help like family and every one of my friends does the same—”

“Why is she frowning like that on tee-vee?” Miss Leefolt whine at the box. “Joline!” She lean forward and
tap-tap-tap
her finger on Miss Joline’s forehead. “Don’t frown! You don’t look cute that way!”

“Joline, did you read that ending? About the pie? If my maid, Bessie Mae, is out there listening, Bessie Mae, I have a new respect for what you do every day. And I’ll pass on the chocolate pie from now on!
Ha-Ha-Ha—
”

But Miss Joline holding up the book like she want to burn it. “Do not buy this book! Ladies of Jackson, do not support this slander with your husbands’ hard-earned—”

“Huh?” Miss Leefolt ask Mister Dennis. And then poof—we on to a Tide commercial.

“What were they talking about?” Miss Leefolt ask me.

I don’t answer. My heart’s pounding.

“My friend Joline had a book in her hand.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What was it called?
Help
or something like that?”

I press the iron point down in the collar a Mister Raleigh’s shirt. I got to call Minny, Miss Skeeter, find out if they heard this. But Miss Leefolt standing there waiting for my answer and I know she ain’t gone let up. She never do.

“Did I hear them say it was about Jackson?” she say.

I keep right on staring at my iron.

“I think they said Jackson. But why don’t they want us to buy it?”

My hands is shaking. How can this be happening? I keep ironing, trying to make what’s beyond wrinkled smooth.

A second later, the Tide commercial’s over and there’s Dennis James again holding up the book and Miss Joline’s still all red in the face. “That’s all for today,” he say, “but y’all be sure and pick up your copy of
Little Big Man
and
Help
from our sponsor, the State Street Bookstore. And see for yourself, is it or is it not about Jackson?” And then the music come on and he holler, “Good day, Mississippi!”

Miss Leefolt look at me and say, “See that? I told you they said it was about Jackson!” and five minutes later, she off to the bookstore to buy herself a copy a what I done wrote about her.

MINNY

chapter 30

A
FTER THE
People Will Talk
show, I grab the Space Command and punch the “Off ” button. My stories are about to come on, but I don’t even care. Doctor Strong and Miss Julia will just have to turn the world without me today.

I’ve a mind to call that Dennis James on the phone and say,
Who do you think you are, spreading lies like that?
You can’t tell the whole metro area our book is about Jackson! You don’t know what town we’ve written our book about!

I’ll tell you what that fool’s doing. He’s
wishing
it was about Jackson. He’s wishing Jackson, Mississippi, was interesting enough to write a whole book on and even though it is Jackson . . . well,
he
doesn’t know that.

I rush to the kitchen and call Aibileen, but after two tries the line’s still busy. I hang up. In the living room, I flip on the iron, yank Mister Johnny’s white shirt out of the basket. I wonder for the millionth time what’s going to happen when Miss Hilly reads the last chapter. She better get to work soon, telling people it’s not our town. And she can tell Miss Celia to fire me all afternoon and Miss Celia won’t. Hating Miss Hilly’s the only thing that crazy woman and I have in common. But what Hilly’ll do once that fails, I don’t know. That’ll be our own war, between me and Miss Hilly. That won’t affect the others.

Oh, now I’m in a bad mood. From where I’m ironing, I can see Miss Celia in the backyard in a pair of hoochie pink satin pants and black plastic gloves. She’s got dirt all over her knees. I’ve asked her a hundred times to quit digging dirt in her dress-up clothes. But that lady never listens.

The grass in front of the pool is covered in yard rakes and hand tools. All Miss Celia does now is hoe up the yard and plant more fancy flowers. Never mind that Mister Johnny hired a full-time yardman a few months ago, name of John Willis. He was hoping he’d be some kind of protection after the naked man showed up, but he’s so old he’s bent up like a paper clip. Skinny as one too. I feel like I have to check on him just to make sure he hasn’t stroked in the bushes. I guess Mister Johnny didn’t have the heart to send him home for somebody younger.

I spray more starch on Mister Johnny’s collar. I hear Miss Celia hollering instructions on how to plant a bush. “Those hydrangeas, let’s get us some more iron in the dirt. Okay, John Willis?”

“Yes’m,” John Willis hollers back.

“Shut up, lady,” I say. The way she hollers at him, he thinks she’s the deaf one.

The phone rings and I run for it.

 

 

 

“OH MINNY,” Aibileen says on the phone. “They figure out the town, ain’t no time fore they figure out the
people.
”

“He a fool is what he is.”

“How we know Miss Hilly even gone read it?” Aibileen says, her voice turning high. I hope Miss Leefolt can’t hear her. “Law, we should a thought this through, Minny.”

I’ve never heard Aibileen like this. It’s like she’s me and I’m her. “Listen,” I say because something’s starting to make sense here. “Since Mister James done made such a stink about it, we
know
she gone read it. Everbody in town gone read it now.” Even as I’m saying it, I’m starting to realize it’s true. “Don’t cry yet, cause maybe things is happening just the way they should.”

Five minutes after I hang it up, Miss Celia’s phone rings. “Miss Celia res—”

“I just talk to Louvenia,” Aibileen whisper. “Miss Lou Anne just come home with a copy for herself and a copy for her best friend, Hilly Holbrook.”

Here we go.

 

 

 

All NIGHT LONG, I swear, I can feel Miss Hilly reading our book. I can hear the words she’s reading whispering in my head, in her cool, white voice. At two a.m. I get up from the bed and open my own copy and try to guess what chapter she’s on. Is it one or two or ten? Finally I just stare at the blue cover. I’ve never seen a book such a nice color. I wipe a smudge off the front.

Then I hide it back in the pocket of my winter coat I’ve never worn, since I’ve read zero books after I married Leroy and I don’t want to make him suspicious with this one. I finally go back to bed, telling myself there’s no way I can guess how far Miss Hilly’s read. I do know, though, she hasn’t gotten to her part at the end. I know because I haven’t heard the screaming in my head yet.

By morning, I swear, I’m glad to be going to work. It’s floor-scrubbing day and I want to just get my mind off it all. I heave myself into the car and drive out to Madison County. Miss Celia went to see another doctor yesterday afternoon to find out about having kids and I about told her, you can have this one, lady. I’m sure she’ll tell me every last detail about it today. At least the fool had the sense to quit that Doctor Tate.

I pull up to the house. I get to park in front now since Miss Celia finally dropped the ruse and told Mister Johnny what he already knew. The first thing I see is Mister Johnny’s truck’s still home. I wait in my car. He’s never once been here when I come in.

I step into the kitchen. I stand in the middle and look. Somebody already made coffee. I hear a man’s voice in the dining room. Something’s going on here.

I lean close to the door and hear Mister Johnny, home on a weekday at 8:30 in the morning, and a voice in my head says run right back out the door. Miss Hilly called and told him I was a thief. He found out about the pie. He knows about the book. “Minny?” I hear Miss Celia call.

Real careful, I push the swinging door, peek out. There’s Miss Celia setting at the head of the table with Mister Johnny setting next to her. They both look up at me.

Mister Johnny looks whiter than that old albino man that lives behind Miss Walters.

“Minny, bring me a glass of water, please?” he says and I get a real bad feeling.

I get him the water and take it to him. When I set the glass down on the napkin, Mister Johnny stands up. He gives me a long, heavy look. Lord, here it comes.

“I told him about the baby,” Miss Celia whispers. “All the babies.”

“Minny, I would’ve lost her if it hadn’t of been for you,” he says, grabbing hold of my hands. “Thank God you were here.”

I look over at Miss Celia and she looks dead in the eyes. I already know what that doctor told her. I can see it, that there won’t ever be any babies born alive. Mister Johnny squeezes my hands, then he goes to her. He gets down on his kneecaps and lays his head down in her lap. She smoothes his hair over and over.

“Don’t leave. Don’t ever leave me, Celia,” he cries.

“Tell her, Johnny. Tell Minny what you said to me.”

Mister Johnny lifts his head. His hair’s all mussed and he looks up at me. “You’ll always have a job here with us, Minny. For the rest of your life, if you want.”

“Thank you, sir,” I say and I mean it. Those are the best words I could hear today.

I reach for the door, but Miss Celia says, real soft, “Stay in here awhile. Will you, Minny?”

So I lean my hand on the sideboard because the baby’s getting heavy on me. And I wonder how it is that I have so much when she doesn’t have any. He’s crying. She’s crying. We are three fools in the dining room crying.

 

 

 

“I’m TELLING YOU,” I tell Leroy in the kitchen, two days later. “You punch the button and the channel change and you don’t even have to get up from your chair.”