The Help

“I get these nightmares a lot, that I have to go back to Sugar Ditch and live? That’s why I lay down so much.” Then she nods real fast, like she’s been rehearsing this. “Cause I don’t sleep real well at night.”

I give her a stupid smile, like I really believe this, and go back to wiping the mirrors.

“Don’t do it too good. Leave some smudges.”

It’s always something, mirrors, floors, a dirty glass in the sink or the trash can full. “We’ve got to make it believable,” she’ll say and I find myself reaching for that dirty glass a hundred times to wash it. I like things clean, put away.

“I WISH I COULD TEND to that azalea bush out there,” Miss Celia says one day. She’s taken to laying on the couch while my stories are on, interrupting the whole time. I’ve been tuned in to The Guiding Light for twenty-four years, since I was ten years old and listening to it on Mama’s radio.

A Dreft commercial comes on and Miss Celia stares out the back window at the colored man raking up the leaves. She’s got so many azalea bushes, her yard’s going to look like Gone With the Wind come spring. I don’t like azaleas and I sure didn’t like that movie, the way they made slavery look like a big happy tea party. If I’d played Mammy, I’d of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress.

“And I know I could make that rose bush bloom if I pruned it back,” Miss Celia says. “But the first thing I’d do is cut down that mimosa tree.”

“What’s wrong with that tree?” I press the corner of my iron into Mister Johnny’s collar-point. I don’t even have a shrub, much less a tree, in my entire yard.

“I don’t like those hairy flowers.” She gazes off like she’s gone soft in the head. “They look like little baby hairs.”

I get the creepers with her talking that way. “You know about flowers?”

She sighs. “I used to love to tend to my flowers back in Sugar Ditch. I learned to grow things hoping I could pretty up all that ugliness.”

“Go head outside then,” I say, trying not to sound too excited. “Take some exercise. Get some fresh air.” Get out a here.

“No,” Miss Celia sighs. “I shouldn’t be running around out there. I need to be still.”

It’s really starting to irritate me how she never leaves the house, how she smiles like the maid walking in every morning is the best part of her day. It’s like an itch. Every day I reach for it and can’t quite scratch it. Every day, it itches a little worse. Every day she’s there.

“Maybe you ought to go make some friends,” I say. “Lot a ladies your age in town.”

She frowns up at me. “I’ve been trying. I can’t tell you the umpteen times I’ve called those ladies to see if I can help with the Children’s Benefit or do something from home. But they won’t call me back. None of them.”

I don’t say anything to this because ain’t that a surprise. With her bosoms hanging out and her hair colored Gold Nugget.

“Go shopping then. Go get you some new clothes. Go do whatever white women do when the maid’s home.”

“No, I think I’ll go rest awhile,” she says and two minutes later I hear her creeping around upstairs in the empty bedrooms.

The mimosa branch knocks against the window and I jump, burn my thumb. I squeeze my eyes shut to slow my heart. Ninety-four more days of this mess and I don’t know how I can take a minute more.

“MAMA, FIX ME SOMETHING TO EAT. I’m hungry.” That’s what my youngest girl, Kindra, who’s five, said to me last night. With a hand on her hip and her foot stuck out.

I have five kids and I take pride that I taught them yes ma’am and please before they could even say cookie.

All except one.

“You ain’t having nothing till supper,” I told her.

“Why you so mean to me? I hate you,” she yelled and ran out the door.

I set my eyes on the ceiling because that’s a shock I will never get used to, even with four before her. The day your child says she hates you, and every child will go through the phase, it kicks like a foot in the stomach.

But Kindra, Lord. It’s not just a phase I’m seeing. That girl is turning out just like me.

I’m standing in Miss Celia’s kitchen thinking about last night, what with Kindra and her mouth, Benny and his asthma, my husband Leroy coming home drunk two times last week. He knows that’s the one thing I can’t stand after nursing my drunk daddy for ten years, me and Mama working ourselves to death so he had a full bottle. I guess I ought to be more upset about all this, but last night, as an I’m sorry, Leroy came home with a sack of early okra. He knows it’s my favorite thing to eat. Tonight I’m going to fry up that okra in some cornmeal and eat like my mama never let me.

That’s not the only treat to my day either. It’s October first and here I am peeling peaches. Mister Johnny’s mama brought back two crates from Mexico, heavy as baseballs. They are ripe and sweet and like cutting through butter. I don’t take charity from white ladies because I know they just want me to owe them. But when Miss Celia told me to take a dozen peaches home I pulled out a sack and plopped twelve right in. When I get home tonight, I’m eating fried okra for supper and peach cobbler for dessert.

I’m watching the long, fuzzy peel fold down into Miss Celia’s basin, paying no mind at all to the driveway. Usually when I’m standing at her kitchen sink, I map out my getaway from Mister Johnny. The kitchen’s the best room for it because the front window looks out to the street. Tall azalea bushes hide my face, but I can see through enough to spot an approacher. If he came in the front door, the back door would escape me into the garage. If he came in the back, I could slip out the front. Another door in the kitchen leads out to the backyard, just in case. But what with the juice running down my hand and me nearabout drunk on the butter smell, I am lost in a peach- peeling reverie. I don’t even notice the blue truck pull in.

The man’s made it halfway up the walk by the time I look up. I catch a sliver of a white shirt, the variety of which I’m used to ironing every day, and the leg of a pair of khaki pants like I hang up in Mister Johnny’s closet. I choke on a yelp. My knife clatters in the sink.

“Miss Celia!” I dash into her bedroom. “Mister Johnny home!”

Miss Celia jumps out of bed faster than I’ve seen her move before. I turn around in an idiot circle. Where am I going? Which way do I go? What happened to my getaway plan? And then I snap into decision—the guest bathroom!

I slip in and keep the door cracked. I crouch up on the toilet seat so he can’t see my feet under the door. It’s dark in here and hot. I feel like my head’s on fire. Sweat drips off my chin and splats on the floor. I feel sick by the thick smell of gardenia soaps by the sink.

I hear footsteps. I hold my breath.

The footsteps stop. My heart is thumping like a cat in a clothes dryer. What if Miss Celia pretends she doesn’t know me so she won’t get in trouble? Acts like I’m a burglar? Oh, I hate her! I hate that stupid woman!

I listen, but all I can hear is my own panting. The thud-thud in my chest. My ankles hurt and creak, holding up my body like this.

My eyes grow sharper in the dark. After a minute, I see myself in the mirror over the sink. Crouched like a fool on top of a white lady’s toilet.

Look at me. Look what it’s come to for Minny Jackson to make a damn living.

MISS SKEETER

Chapter 5