The Help

I asked Miss Skeeter this favor a few days ago, to try and be nice to Miss Celia, steer her away from those ladies. Up to now, I’ve been telling Miss Skeeter not to dare call Miss Celia back. But now, it’s the only option I have.

“I think you and Miss Skeeter would get along just fine,” I say and I crank out a big smile.

“Oh no.” Miss Celia looks at me all wide-eyed, holding up those saloon-looking gowns. “Don’t you know? The League members can’t stand Skeeter Phelan anymore.”

My hands knuckle into fists. “You ever met her?”

“Oh, I heard all about it at Fanny Mae’s setting under the heating hood. They said she’s the biggest embarrassment this town’s ever seen. Said she was the one who put all those toilets on Hilly Holbrook’s front yard. Remember that picture that showed up in the paper a few months ago?”

I grind my teeth together to keep my real words in. “I said, have you ever met her?”

“Well, no. But if all those girls don’t like her, then she must be . . . well she . . .” Her words trail off like it’s just hitting her what she’s saying.

Sickedness, disgust, disbelief—it all wraps together in me like a ham roll. To keep myself from finishing that sentence for her, I turn to the sink. I dry my hands to the point of hurting. I knew she was stupid, but I never knew she was a hypocrite.

“Minny?” Miss Celia says behind me.

“Ma’am.”

She keeps her voice quiet. But I hear the shame in it. “They didn’t even ask me in the house. They made me stand out on the steps like a vacuum salesman.”

I turn around and her eyes are down to the floor.

“Why, Minny?” she whispers.

What can I say? Your clothes, your hair, your boobies in the size-nothing sweaters. I remember what Aibileen said about the lines and the kindness. I remember what Aibileen heard at Miss Leefolt’s, of why the League ladies don’t like her. It seems like the kindest reason I can think of.

“Because they know about you getting pregnant that first time. And it makes them mad you getting knocked up and marrying one a their mens.”

“They know about that?”

“And especially since Miss Hilly and Mister Johnny went steady for so long.”

She just blinks at me a second. “Johnny said he used to date her but . . . was it really for that long?”

I shrug like I don’t know, but I do. When I started working at Miss Walters’ eight years ago, all Miss Hilly talked about was how she and Johnny were going to get married someday.

I say, “I reckon they broke up right around the time he met you.”

I’m waiting for it to hit her, that her social life is doomed. That there’s no sense in calling the League ladies anymore. But Miss Celia looks like she’s doing high math, the way she’s got her brow scrunched up. Then her face starts to clear like she’s figured something out.

“So Hilly . . . she probably thinks I was fooling around with Johnny while they were still going steady then.”

“Probably. And from what I hear, Miss Hilly still sweet on him. She never got over him.” I’m thinking, any normal person would automatically fie on a woman biding for her husband. But I forgot Miss Celia is not a normal person.

“Well, no wonder she can’t stand me!” she says, grinning with all she’s got. “They don’t hate me, they hate what they think I did.”

“What? They hate you cause they think you white trash!”

“Well, I’m just going to have to explain it to Hilly, let her know I am not a boyfriend stealer. In fact, I’ll tell Hilly on Friday night, when I see her at the Benefit.”

She’s smiling like she just discovered the cure for polio, the way she’s worked out a plan to win Miss Hilly over.

At this point, I am too tired to fight it.

ON BENEFIT FRIDAY, I work late cleaning that house top to bottom. Then I fry up a plate of pork chops. The way I figure it, the shinier the floors, the clearer the windowpanes, the better my chances are of having a job on Monday. But the smartest thing I can do, if Mister Johnny’s got a say in this, is plant my pork chop in his hand.

He’s not supposed to be home until six tonight, so at four-thirty I wipe the counters one last time, then head to the back where Miss Celia’s been getting ready for the past four hours. I like to do their bed and bathroom last so it’s clean for when Mister Johnny gets home.

“Miss Celia, now what is going on in here?” I mean, she’s got stockings dangling from chairs, pocketbooks on the floor, enough costume jewelry for a whole family of hookers, forty-five pairs of high-heel shoes, underthings, overcoats, panties, brassieres, and a half-empty bottle of white wine on the chifforobe with no coaster under it.

I start picking up all her stupid silky things and piling them on the chair. The least I can do is run the Hoover.

“What time is it, Minny?” Miss Celia says from the bathroom. “Johnny’ll be home at six, you know.”

“Ain’t even five yet,” I say, “but I got to go soon.” I have to pick up Sugar and get us to the party by six- thirty to serve.

“Oh Minny, I’m so excited.” I hear Miss Celia’s dress swishing behind me. “What do you think?”

I turn around. “Oh my Lord.” I might as well be Little Stevie Wonder I am so blinded by that dress. Hot pink and silver sequins glitter from her extra-large boobies all the way to her hot pink toes.

“Miss Celia,” I whisper. “Tuck yourself in fore you lose something.”

Miss Celia shimmies the dress up. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Ain’t it just the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen? I feel like I’m a Hollywood movie star.”

She bats her fake-lashed eyes. She is rouged, painted, and plastered with makeup. The Butterbatch hairdo is poufed up around her head like an Easter bonnet. One leg peeks out in a high, thigh-baring slit and I turn away, too embarrassed to look. Everything about her oozes sex, sex, and more sex.

“Where you get them fingernails?”

“At the Beauty Box this morning. Oh Minny, I’m so nervous, I’ve got butterflies.”

She takes a heavy swig from her wineglass, kind of teeters a little in her high heels.

“What you had to eat today?”

“Nothing. I’m too nervous to eat. What about these earrings? Are they dangly enough?”

“Take that dress off, let me fix you some biscuits right quick.”

“Oh no, I can’t have my stomach poking out. I can’t eat anything.”

I head for the wine bottle on the gozillion-dollar chifforobe but Miss Celia gets to it before me, dumps the rest into her glass. She hands me the empty and smiles. I pick up her fur coat she’s got tossed on the floor. She’s getting pretty used to having a maid.

I saw that dress four days ago and I knew it looked hussified—of course she had to pick the one with the low neckline—but I had no idea what would happen when she stuffed herself inside it. She’s popping out like a corn cob in Crisco. With twelve Benefits under my belt, I’ve hardly seen so much as a bare elbow there, much less bosoms and shoulders.

She goes in the bathroom and dabs some more rouge on her gaudy cheeks.

“Miss Celia,” I say, and I close my eyes, praying for the right words. “Tonight, when you see Miss Hilly . . .”

She smiles into the mirror. “I got it all planned. When Johnny goes to the bathroom, I’m just going to tell her. That they were over with by the time me and Johnny started getting together.”

I sigh. “That ain’t what I mean. It’s . . . she might say some things about . . . me.”

“You want me to tell Hilly you said hi?” she says, coming out of the bathroom. “Since you worked all those years for her mama?”

I just stare at her in her hot pink getup, so full of wine she’s almost cross-eyed. She burps up a little. There really isn’t any use telling her now, in this state.