The Help

“I didn’t mean it like that. We don’t know what’s gone happen. Miss Skeeter, you got to take that job.”

I truly don’t know what to do. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t have even told Aibileen, of course she would tell me to go, but I had to tell someone. I hear her whisper to Minny, “She say she ain’t gone take it.”

“Miss Skeeter,” Aibileen says back on the phone, “I don’t mean to be rubbing no salt on your wound but . . . you ain’t got a good life here in Jackson. Your mama’s better and—”

I hear muffled words and handling of the receiver and suddenly it’s Minny on the phone. “You listen to me, Miss Skeeter. I’m on take care a Aibileen and she gone take care a me. But you got nothing left here but enemies in the Junior League and a mama that’s gone drive you to drink. You done burned ever bridge there is. And you ain’t never gone get another boyfriend in this town and everbody know it. So don’t walk your white butt to New York, run it.”

Minny hangs the phone up in my face, and I sit staring at the dead receiver in one hand and the letter in the other. Really? I think, actually considering it for the first time. Can I really do this?

Minny is right, and Aibileen is too. I have nothing left here except Mother and Daddy and staying here for my parents will surely ruin the relationship we have, but . . .

I lean against the shelves, close my eyes. I’m going. I am going to New York.

AIBILEEN

Chapter 34

MISS LEEFOLT’S silver service got funny spots on it today. Must be cause the humidity’s so high. I go around the bridge club table, polishing each piece again, making sure they all still there. Li’l Man, he’s started swiping things, spoons and nickels and hair pins. He stick em in his diaper to hide. Sometimes, changing diapers can be like opening treasure.

The phone ring so I go in the kitchen and answer it.

“Got a little bit a news today,” Minny say on the phone.

“What you hear?”

“Miss Renfro say she know it was Miss Hilly who ate that pie.” Minny cackle but my heart go ten times faster.

“Law, Miss Hilly gone be here in five minutes. She better put that fire out fast.” It feel crazy that we rooting for her. It’s confusing in my mind.

“I call one-arm Ernest—” but then Minny shuts up. Miss Celia must a walked in.

“Alright, she gone. I call one-arm Ernestine and she say Miss Hilly been screaming in the phone all day. And Miss Clara, she know about Fanny Amos.”

“She fire her?” Miss Clara put Fanny Amos’s boy through college, one a the good stories.

“Nuh-uh. Just sat there with her mouth open and the book in her hand.”

“Thank the Lord. Call me if you hear more,” I say. “Don’t worry bout Miss Leefolt answering. Tell her it’s about my sick sister.” And Lord, don’t You go getting me for that lie. Last thing I need is a sister getting sick.

A few minutes after we hang up, the doorbell ring and I pretend I don’t even hear. I’m so nervous to see Miss Hilly’s face after what she said to Miss Skeeter. I can’t believe I put in that L-shaped crack. I go out to my bathroom and just set, thinking about what’s gone happen if I have to leave Mae Mobley. Lord, I pray, if I have to leave her, give her somebody good. Don’t leave her with just Miss Taylor telling her black is dirty and her Granmama pinching the thank-yous out a her and cold Miss Leefolt. The doorbell in the house ring again, but I stay put. I’m on do it tomorrow, I say to myself. Just in case, I’m on tell Mae Mobley goodbye.

WHEN I COME back in, I hear all the ladies at the table talking. Miss Hilly’s voice is loud. I hold my ear to the kitchen door, dreading going out there.

“—is not Jackson. This book is garbage, is what it is. I’ll bet the whole thing was made up by some Nigra—”

I hear a chair scrape and I know Miss Leefolt about to come hunting for me. I can’t put it off no more.

I open the door with the ice tea pitcher in my hand. Round the table I go, keeping my eyes to my shoes.

“I heard that Betty character might be Charlene,” Miss Jeanie say with big eyes. Next to her, Miss Lou Anne’s staring off like she don’t care one way or the other. I wish I could pat her shoulder. I wish I could tell her how glad I am she’s Louvenia’s white lady, without giving nothing away, but I know I can’t. And I can’t tell nothing on Miss Leefolt cause she just frowning like usual. But Miss Hilly’s face, it’s purple as a plum.

“And the maid in Chapter Four?” Miss Jeanie going on. “I heard Sissy Tucker saying—”

“The book is not about Jackson!” Miss Hilly kind a scream and I jump while I’m pouring. A drop a tea accidentally plops on Miss Hilly’s empty plate. She look up at me and like a magnet, my eyes pull to hers.

Low and cool, she say, “You spilled some, Aibileen.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Wipe it up.”

Shaking, I wipe it with the cloth I had on the handle a the pitcher.

She staring at my face. I have to look down. I can feel the hot secret between us. “Get me a new plate. One you haven’t soiled with your dirty cloth.”

I get her a new plate. She study it, sniff real loud. Then she turn to Miss Leefolt and say, “You can’t even teach these people how to be clean.”

I HAVE TO SIT LATE that night for Miss Leefolt. While Mae Mobley sleeping, I pull out my prayer book, get started on my list. I’m so glad for Miss Skeeter. She call me this morning and say she took the job. She moving to New York in a week! But Law, I can’t stop jumping ever time I hear a noise, thinking maybe Miss Leefolt gone walk in the door and say she know the truth. By the time I get home, I’m too jumpy to go to bed. I walk through the pitch-black dark to Minny’s back door. She setting at her table reading the paper. This is the only part a her day when she ain’t running around to clean something or feed something or make somebody do right. The house be so quiet I figure something wrong.

“Where everbody?”

She shrug, “Gone to bed or gone to work.”

I pull out a chair and set down. “I just want a know what’s gone happen,” I say. “I know I ought a be thankful it ain’t all blowed up in my face yet, but this waiting’s driving me crazy.”

“It’s gone happen. Soon enough,” Minny say, like we talking about the kind a coffee we drink.

“Minny, how can you be so calm?”

She looks at me, puts her hand on her tummy that’s popped out in the last two weeks. “You know Miss Chotard, who Willie Mae wait on? She ask Willie Mae yesterday if she treats her bad as that awful lady in the book.” Minny kind a snort. “Willie Mae tell her she got some room to grow but she ain’t too bad.”

“She really ask her that?”

“Then Willie Mae tell her what all the other white ladies done to her, the good and the bad, and that white lady listen to her. Willie May say she been there thirty-seven years and it’s the first time they ever sat at the same table together.”

Besides Louvenia, this the first good thing we heard. I try to enjoy it. But I snap back to now. “What about Miss Hilly? What about what Miss Skeeter say? Minny, ain’t you at least a little nervous?”

Minny put her newspaper down. “Look, Aibileen, I ain’t gone lie. I’m scared Leroy gone kill me if he find out. I’m scared Miss Hilly gone set my house on fire. But,” she shake her head, “I can’t explain it. I got this feeling. That