“Cause Sugar at Miss Celia’s and you want a live to see third grade.”
Benny come in and squeeze me round the middle. He grin and show me the tooth he got missing, then run off.
“Kindra, turn that flame down fore you burn the house down!”
“We better go, Minny,” I say, cause this could go on all night. “We gone be late.”
Minny look at her watch. Shake her head. “Why Sugar ain’t home yet? Miss Celia ain’t never kept me this late.”
Last week, Minny started bringing Sugar to work. She getting her trained for when Minny have her baby and Sugar gone have to fill in for her. Tonight Miss Celia ask Sugar to work late, say she drive her home.
“Kindra, I don’t want a see so much as a bean setting in that sink when I get back. Clean up good now.” Minny give her a hug. “Benny, go tell Daddy he better get his fool self out a that bed.”
“Aww, Mama, why
“Go on, be brave. Just don’t stand too close when he come to.”
We make it out the door and down to the street fore we hear Leroy hollering at Benny for waking him up. I walk faster so she don’t go back and give Leroy what he good for.
“Glad we going to church tonight,” Minny sigh. We round Farish Street, start up the steps. “Give me a hour a not thinking about it all.”
Soon as we step in the church foyer, one a the Brown brothers slip behind us and he lock the door. I’m about to ask why, would a got scared if I had the time, but then the thirty-odd peoples in the room start clapping. Minny and me start clapping with em. Figure somebody got into college or something.
“Who we clapping for?” I ask Rachel Johnson. She the Reverend wife.
She laugh and it get quiet. Rachel lean in to me.
“Honey, we clapping for you.” Then she reach down and pull a copy a the book out a her purse. I look around and now everbody got a copy in they hands. All the important officers and church deacons are there.
Reverend Johnson come up to me then. “Aibileen, this is an important time for you and our church.”
“You must a cleaned out the bookstore,” I say, and the crowd laugh real polite-like.
“We want you to know, for your safety, this will be the only time the church recognizes you for your achievement. I know a lot of folks helped with this book, but I heard it couldn’t have been done without you.”
I look over and Minny’s smiling, and I know she in on it too.
“A quiet message has been sent throughout the congregation and all of the community, that if anyone knows who’s in the book or who wrote it, it’s not to be discussed. Except for tonight. I’m sorry”—he smile, shake his head—“but we just couldn’t let this go by without some kind of celebration.”
He hand me the book. “We know you couldn’t put your name in it, so we all signed our own for you.” I open up the front cover and there they is, not thirty or forty names, but hundreds, maybe five hundred, in the front pages, the back pages, along the rim a the inside pages. All the peoples in my church and folks from other churches too. Oh, I just break down then. It’s like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once. Then everbody get in a line and come by and hug me. Tell me I’m brave. I tell em there are so many others that are brave too. I hate to hog all the attention, but I am so grateful they don’t mention no other names. I don’t want em in trouble. I don’t think they even know Minny’s in there.
“There may be some hard times ahead,” Reverend Johnson say to me. “If it comes to that, the Church will help you in every way.”
I cry and cry right there in front a everbody. I look over at Minny, and she laughing. Funny how peoples show they feelings in different ways. I wonder what Miss Skeeter would do if she was here and it kind a makes me sad. I know ain’t nobody in town gone sign a book for her and tell her she brave. Ain’t nobody gone tell her they look after her.
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
“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
“. . . called
“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.”
“. . . 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
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—”
