The Help

Chapter 22

“HOW OLD A YOU TODAY, big girl?”

Mae Mobley still in bed. She hold out two sleepy fingers and say, “Mae Mo Two.”

“Nuh-uh, we three today!” I move up one a her fingers, chant what my daddy used to say to me on my birthdays, “Three little soldiers, come out the doe, two say stop, one say go.”

She in a big-girl bed now since the nursery getting fixed up for the new baby. “Next year, we do four little soldiers, they looking for something to eat.”

Her nose wrinkle up cause now she got to remember to say she Mae Mobley Three, when her whole life she can remember, she been telling people she Mae Mobley Two. When you little, you only get asked two questions, what’s your name and how old you is, so you better get em right.

“I am Mae Mobley Three,” she say. She scramble out a bed, her hair in a rat’s nest. That bald spot she had as a baby, it’s coming back. Usually I can brush over it and hide it for a few minutes, but not for long. It’s thin and she’s losing them curls. It gets real stringy by the end a the day. It don’t trouble me that she ain’t cute, but I try to fix her up nice as I can for her mama.

“Come on to the kitchen,” I say. “We gone make you a birthday breakfast.”

Miss Leefolt off getting her hair done. She don’t care bout being there on the morning her only child wakes up on the first birthday she remember. But least Miss Leefolt got her what she want. Brung me back to her bedroom and point to a big box on the floor.

“Won’t she be happy?” Miss Leefolt say. “It walks and talks and even cries.”

Sho nuff they’s a big pink polky-dot box. Got cellophane across the front, and inside they’s the doll baby tall as Mae Mobley. Name Allison. She got blond curly hair and blue eyes. Frilly pink dress on. Evertime the commercial come on the tee-vee Mae Mobley run over to the set and grab the box on both sides, put her face up to the screen and stare so serious. Miss Leefolt look like she gone cry herself, looking down at that toy. I reckon her mean old mama never got her what she wanted when she little.

In the kitchen, I fix some grits without no seasoning, and put them baby marshmallows on top. I toast the whole thing to make it a little crunchy. Then I garnish it with a cut-up strawberry. That’s all a grit is, a vehicle. For whatever it is you rather be eating.

The three little pink candles I done brought from home is in my pocketbook. I bring em out, undo the wax paper I got em in so they don’t turn out bent. After I light em, I bring them grits over to her booster chair, at the white linoleum table in the middle a the room.

I say, “Happy birthday, Mae Mobley Two!”

She laugh and say, “I am Mae Mobley Three!”

“You sure is! Now blow out them candles, Baby Girl. Fore they run up in you grits.”

She stare at the little flames, smiling.

“Blow it, big girl.”

She blow em clean over. She suck the grits off the candles and start eating. After while, she smile up at me, say, “How old are you?”

“Aibileen’s fifty-three.”

Her eyes get real wide. I might as well be a thousand.

“Do you . . . get birthdays?”

“Yeah.” I laugh. “It’s a pity, but I do. My birthday be next week.” I can’t believe I’m on be fifty-four years old. Where do it go?

“Do you have some babies?” she ask.

I laugh. “I got seventeen of em.”

She ain’t quite got up to seventeen in her numbers yet, but she know this be a big one.

“That’s enough to fill up this whole kitchen,” I say.

Her brown eyes is so big and round. “Where are the babies?”

“They all over town. All the babies I done looked after.”

“Why don’t they come play with me?”

“Cause most of em grown. Lot of em already having babies a they own.”

Lordy, she look confuse. She doing her figuring, like she be trying to count it all up. Finally I say, “You one of em, too. All the babies I tend to, I count as my own.”

She nod, cross up her arms.

I start washing the dishes. The birthday party tonight just gone be the family and I got to get the cakes made. First, I’m on do the strawberry one with the strawberry icing. Every meal be strawberry, if it was up to Mae Mobley. Then I do the other one.

“Let’s do a chocolate cake,” say Miss Leefolt yesterday. She seven months pregnant and love eating chocolate.

Now I done planned this last week. I got everything ready. This too important to be occurring to me the day before. “Mm-hmm. What about strawberry? That be Mae Mobley’s favorite, you know.”

“Oh no, she wants chocolate. I’m going to the store today and get everything you need.”

Chocolate my foot. So I figured I’d just go on and make both. At least then she get to blow out two sets a candles.

I clean up the grits plate. Give her some grape juice to drink. She got her old baby doll in the kitchen, the one she call Claudia, with the painted-on hair and the eyes that close. Make a pitiful whining sound when you drop it on the floor.

“There’s your baby,” I say and she pats its back like she burping it, nods.

Then she say, “Aibee, you’re my real mama.” She don’t even look at me, just say it like she talking about the weather.

I kneel down on the floor where she playing. “Your mama’s off getting her hair fixed. Baby Girl, you know who your mama is.”

But she shake her head, cuddling that doll to her. “I’m your baby,” she say.

“Mae Mobley, you know I’s just teasing you, about all them seventeen kids being mine? They ain’t really. I only had me one child.”

“I know,” she say. “I’m your real baby. Those other ones you said are pretend.”

Now I had babies be confuse before. John Green Dudley, first word out a that boy’s mouth was Mama and he was looking straight at me. But then pretty soon he calling everybody including hisself Mama, and calling his daddy Mama too. Did that for a long time. Nobody worry bout it. Course when he start playing dress-up in his sister’s Jewel Taylor twirl skirts and wearing Chanel Number 5, we all get a little concern.

I looked after the Dudley family for too long, over six years. His daddy would take him to the garage and whip him with a rubber hose-pipe trying to beat the girl out a that boy until I couldn’t stand it no more. Treelore near bout suffocated when I’d come home I’d hug him so hard. When we started working on the stories, Miss Skeeter asked me what’s the worst day I remember being a maid. I told her it was a stillbirth baby. But it wasn’t. It was every day from 1941 to 1947 waiting by the screen door for them beatings to be over. I wish to God I’d told John Green Dudley he ain’t going to hell. That he ain’t no sideshow freak cause he like boys. I wish to God I’d filled his ears with good things like I’m trying to do Mae Mobley. Instead, I just sat in the kitchen, waiting to put the salve on them hose-pipe welts.

Just then we hear Miss Leefolt pulling into the carport. I get a little nervous a what Miss Leefolt gone do if she hear this Mama stuff. Mae Mobley nervous too. Her hands start flapping like a chicken. “Shhh! Don’t tell!” she say. “She’ll spank me.”

So she already done had this talk with her mama. And Miss Leefolt didn’t like it one bit.

When Miss Leefolt come in with her new hairdo, Mae Mobley don’t even say hello, she run back to her room. Like she scared her mama can hear what’s going on inside her head.

MAE MOBLEY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY GOES fine, least that’s what Miss Leefolt tell me the next day. Friday morning, I come in to see three-quarters of a chocolate cake setting on the counter. Strawberry all gone. That afternoon, Miss Skeeter come by to give Miss Leefolt some papers. Soon as Miss Leefolt waddle off to the bathroom, Miss Skeeter slip in the kitchen.

“We on for tonight?” I ask.

“We’re on. I’ll be there.” Miss Skeeter don’t smile much since Mister Stuart and her ain’t steady no more. I heard Miss Hilly and Miss Leefolt talking about it plenty.

Miss Skeeter get herself a Co-Cola from the icebox, speak in a low voice. “Tonight we’ll finish Winnie’s interview and this weekend I’ll start sorting it all out. But then I can’t meet again until next Thursday. I promised Mama I’d drive her to Natchez Monday for a DAR thing.” Miss Skeeter kind a narrow her eyes up, something she do when she thinking about something important. “I’ll be gone for three days, okay?”

“Good,” I say. “You need you a break.”

She head toward the dining room, but she look back, say, “Remember. I leave Monday morning and I’ll be gone for three days, okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” I say, wondering why she think she got to say this twice.

IT AIN’T BUT EIGHT THIRTY on Monday morning but Miss Leefolt’s phone already ringing its head off.

“Miss Leefolt res—”

“Put Elizabeth on the phone!”

I go tell Miss Leefolt. She get out a bed, shuffle in the kitchen in her rollers and nightgown, pick up the receiver. Miss Hilly sound like she using a megaphone not a telephone. I can hear every word.

“Have you been by my house?”

“What? What are you talk—?”

“She put it in the newsletter about the toilets. I specifically said old coats are to be dropped off at my house not—”

“Let me get my . . . mail, I don’t know what you’re—”

“When I find her I will kill her myself.”

The line crash down in Miss Leefolt’s ear. She stand there a second staring at it, then throw a housecoat over her nightgown. “I’ve got to go,” she says, scrambling round for her keys. “I’ll be back.”

She run all pregnant out the door and tumble in her car and speed off. I look down at Mae Mobley and she look up at me.

“Don’t ask me, Baby Girl. I don’t know either.”

What I do know is, Hilly and her family drove in this morning from a weekend in Memphis. Whenever Miss Hilly gone, that’s all Miss Leefolt talk about is where she is and when she coming back.

“Come on, Baby Girl,” I say after while. “Let’s take a walk, find out what’s going on.”

We walk up Devine, turn left, then left again, and up Miss Hilly’s street, which is Myrtle. Even though it’s August, it’s a nice walk, ain’t too hot yet. Birds is zipping around, singing. Mae Mobley holding my hand and we swinging our arms having a good ole time. Lots a cars passing us today, which is strange, cause Myrtle a dead end.

We turn the bend to Miss Hilly’s great big white house. And there they is.

Mae Mobley point and laugh. “Look. Look, Aibee!”

I have never in my life seen a thing like this. Three dozen of em. Pots. Right smack on Miss Hilly’s lawn. All different colors and shapes and sizes. Some is blue, some is pink, some is white. Some ain’t got no ring, some ain’t got no tank. They’s old ones, young ones, chain on top, and flush with the handle. Almost look like a crowd a people the way some got they lids open talking, some with they lids closed listening.

We move over into the drain ditch, cause the traffic on this little street’s starting to build up. People is driving down, circling round the little island a grass at the end with they windows down. Laughing out loud saying, “Look at Hilly’s house,” “Look at those things.” Staring at them toilets like they never seen one before.

“One, two, three,” Mae Mobley start counting em. She get to twelve and I got to take over. “Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one. Thirty-two commodes, Baby Girl.”

We get a little closer and now I see they ain’t just all over the yard. They’s two in the driveway side-by-side, like they a couple. They’s one up on the front step, like it’s waiting for Miss Hilly to answer the door.

“Ain’t that one funny with the—”

But Baby Girl done broke off from my hand. She running in the yard and get to the pink pot in the middle and pull up the lid. Before I know it, she done pulled down her panties and tinkled in it and I’m chasing after her with half a dozen horns honking and a man in a hat taking pictures.

Miss Leefolt’s car’s in the drive behind Miss Hilly’s, but they ain’t in sight. They must be inside yelling about what they gone do with this mess. Curtains is drawn and I don’t see no stirring. I cross my fingers, hope they didn’t catch Baby Girl making potty for half a Jackson to see. It’s time to go on back.

The whole way home, Baby Girl is asking questions bout them pots. Why they there? Where they come from? Can she go see Heather and play with them toilets some more?

When I get back to Miss Leefolt’s, the phone rings off the hook the rest a the morning. I don’t answer it. I’m waiting for it to stop long enough so I can call Minny. But when Miss Leefolt slam into the kitchen, she get to yapping on the phone a million miles a hour. Don’t take me long to get the story pieced together listening to her.

Miss Skeeter done printed Hilly’s toilet announcement in the newsletter alright. The list a them reasons why white folk and colored folk can’t be sharing a seat. And then, below that, she follow with the alert about the coat drive too, or at least that’s what she was supposed to do. Stead a coats though, it say something like “Drop off your old toilets at 228 Myrtle Street. We’ll be out of town, but leave them in front by the door.” She just get one word mixed up, that’s all. I spec that’s what she gone say, anyway.

TOO BAD FOR MISS HILLY there wasn’t no other news going on. Nothing on Vietnam or the draft. They already say all they can about the church blown up in Alabama, killing those poor colored girls. Next day, Miss Hilly’s house with all them pots makes the front page a the Jackson Journal. I got to say, it is a funny-looking sight. I just wish it was in color so you could compare all them shades a pink and blue and white. Desegregation of the toilet bowls is what they should a call it.

The headline say, COME ON BY, HAVE A SEAT! They ain’t no article to go with it. Just the picture and a little caption saying, “The home of Hilly and William Holbrook, of Jackson, Mississippi, was a sight to see this morning.”

And I don’t mean nothing going on just in Jackson, I mean nothing in the entire United States. Lottie Freeman, who work at the governor’s mansion where they get all the big papers, told me she saw it in the Living section a The New York Times. And in every one of em it read, “Home of Hilly and William Holbrook, Jackson, Mississippi.”

AT MISS LEEFOLT’S, they’s lots a extra talking on the telephone that week, lot a head-nodding like Miss Leefolt getting a earful from Miss Hilly. Part a me want a laugh about them pots, other part want a cry. It was a awful big risk for Miss Skeeter to take, turning Miss Hilly against her. She coming home tonight from Natchez, and I hope she call. I reckon now I know why she went.

On Thursday morning, I still ain’t heard from Miss Skeeter. I set up my ironing in the living room. Miss Leefolt come home with Miss Hilly and they set at the dining room table. I ain’t seen Miss Hilly over here since before the pots. I reckon she ain’t leaving the house so much. I turn the tee-vee set down low, keep my ear turned up.

“Here it is. Here’s what I told you about.” Miss Hilly got a little booklet opened up. She running her finger along the lines. Miss Leefolt shaking her head.

“You know what this means, don’t you? She wants to change these laws. Why else would she be carrying them around?”

“I can’t believe this,” say Miss Leefolt.

“I can’t prove she put those pots in my yard. But this”—she holds up the book and taps it—“this is solid proof she’s up to something. And I intend to tell Stuart Whitworth, too.”

“But they’re not steady anymore.”

“Well, he still needs to know. In case he has any inclination of patching things up with her. For the sake of Senator Whitworth’s career.”

“But maybe it really was a mistake, the newsletter. Maybe she—”

“Elizabeth.” Hilly cross her arms up. “I’m not talking about pots. I am talking about the laws of this great state. Now, I want you to ask yourself, do you want Mae Mobley sitting next to a colored boy in English class?” Miss Hilly glance back at me doing my ironing. She lower her voice but Miss Hilly never knew how to whisper good. “Do you want Nigra people living right here in this neighborhood? Touching your bottom when you pass on the street?”

I look up and see it’s starting to sink in on Miss Leefolt. She straighten up all prim and proper.

“William had a fit when he saw what she did to our house and I can’t soil my name hanging around her anymore, not with the election coming up. I’ve already asked Jeanie Caldwell to take Skeeter’s place in bridge club.”

“You kicked her out of bridge club?”

“I sure did. And I thought about kicking her out of the League, too.”

“Can you even do that?”

“Of course I can. But I’ve decided I want her to sit in that room and see what a fool she’s made of herself.” Miss Hilly nods. “She needs to learn that she can’t carry on this way. I mean, around us it’s one thing, but around some other people, she’s going to get in big trouble.”

“It’s true. There are some racists in this town,” Miss Leefolt say.

Miss Hilly nod her head, “Oh, they’re out there.”

After while, they get up and drive off together. I am glad I don’t have to see they faces for a while.

AT NOONTIME, Mister Leefolt come home for lunch, which is rare. He set down at the little breakfast table. “Aibileen, make me up some lunch, would you please.” He lift the newspaper, pop the spine to get it straight. “I’ll have some roast beef.”

“Yessir.” I set down a placemat and a napkin and some silverware for him. He tall and real thin. Won’t be too long fore he all bald. Got a black ring round his head and nothing on top.

“You staying on to help Elizabeth with the new baby?” he asks, reading his paper. Generally, he don’t ever pay me no mind.

“Yessir,” I say.

“Because I hear you like to move around a lot.”

“Yessir,” I say. It’s true. Most maids stay with the same family all they lives, but not me. I got my own reasons for moving on when they about eight, nine years old. Took me a few jobs to learn that. “I work best with the babies.”

“So you don’t really consider yourself a maid. You’re more of a nurse-type for the children.” He puts his paper down, looks at me. “You’re a specialist, like me.”

I don’t say nothing, just nod a little.

“See, I only do taxes for businesses, not every individual that’s filing a tax return.”

I’m getting nervous. This the most he ever talk to me and I been here three years.

“Must be hard finding a new job every time the kids get old enough for school.”

“Something always come along.”

He don’t say nothing to that, so I go head and get the roast out.

“Got to keep up good references, moving around to different clientele like you do.”

“Yessir.”

“I hear you know Skeeter Phelan. Old friend of Elizabeth’s.”

I keep my head down. Real slow, I get to slicing, slicing, slicing the meat off that loin. My heart’s pumping triple speed now.

“She ask me for cleaning tips sometimes. For the article.”

“That right?” Mister Leefolt say.

“Yessir. She just ask me for tips.”

“I don’t want you talking to that woman anymore, not for cleaning tips, not to say hello, you hear?”

“Yessir.”

“I hear about you two talking and you’ll be in a heap of trouble. You understand?”

“Yessir,” I whisper, wondering what this man know.

Mister Leefolt pick up his newspaper again. “I’ll have that meat in a sandwich. Put a little mayonnaise on it. And not too toasted, I don’t want it dry now.”

THAT NIGHT, me and Minny’s setting at my kitchen table. My hands started shaking this afternoon and ain’t quit since.

“That ugly white fool,” Minny say.

“I just wish I knew what he thinking.”

They’s a knock on the back door and Minny and me both look at each other. Only one person knock on my door like that, everbody else just come on in. I open it and there Miss Skeeter. “Minny here,” I whisper, cause it’s always safer to know when you gone walk in a room with Minny.

I’m glad she here. I got so much to tell her I don’t even know where to start. But I’m surprised to see Miss Skeeter got something close to a smile on her face. I guess she ain’t talk to Miss Hilly yet.

“Hello, Minny,” she say when she step inside.

Minny look over at the window. “Hello, Miss Skeeter.”

Fore I can get a word in, Miss Skeeter set down and start right in.

“I had some ideas while I was away. Aibileen, I think we should lead with your chapter first.” She pull some papers out a that tacky red satchel. “And then Louvenia’s we’ll switch with Faye Belle’s story, since we don’t want three dramatic stories in a row. The middle we’ll sort out later, but Minny, I think your section should definitely come last.”

“Miss Skeeter . . . I got some things to tell you,” I say.

Minny and me look at each other. “I’m on go,” Minny say, frowning like her chair gotten too hard to sit in. She head for the door, but on her way out, she give Miss Skeeter a touch on the shoulder, real quick, keep her eyes straight like she ain’t done it. Then she gone.

“You been out a town awhile, Miss Skeeter.” I rub the back a my neck.

Then I tell her that Miss Hilly pulled that booklet out and showed it to Miss Leefolt. And Law knows who else she passing it around town to now.

Miss Skeeter nod, say, “I can handle Hilly. This doesn’t implicate you, or the other maids, or the book at all.”

And then I tell her what Mister Leefolt say, how he real clear that I ain’t to talk to her no more about the cleaning article. I don’t want a tell her these things, but she gone hear em and I want her to hear em from me first.

She listen careful, ask a few questions. When I’m done, she say, “He’s full of hot air, Raleigh. I’ll have to be extra careful, though, when I go over to Elizabeth’s. I won’t come in the kitchen anymore,” and I can tell, this ain’t really hitting her, what’s happening. The trouble she in with her friends. How scared we need to be. I tell her what Miss Hilly say about letting her suffer through the League. I tell her she been kicked out a bridge club. I tell her that Miss Hilly gone tell Mister Stuart all about it, just in case he get any “inclination” to mend things with her.

Skeeter look away from me, try to smile. “I don’t care about any of that ole stuff, anyway.” She kind a laugh and it hurts my heart. Cause everbody care. Black, white, deep down we all do.

“I just . . . I rather you hear it from me than in town,” I say. “So you know what’s coming. So you can be real careful.”

She bite her lip, nod. “Thank you, Aibileen.”

Chapter 23

THE SUMMER rolls behind us like a hot tar spreader. Ever colored person in Jackson gets in front a whatever tee-vee set they can find, watches Martin Luther King stand in our nation’s capital and tell us he’s got a dream. I’m in the church basement watching. Our own Reverend Johnson went up there to march and I find myself scanning the crowd for his face. I can’t believe so many peoples is there—two-hundred-fifty thousand. And the ringer is, sixty thousand a them is white.

“Mississippi and the world is two very different places,” the Deacon say and we all nod cause ain’t it the truth.

We get through August and September and ever time I see Miss Skeeter, she look thinner, a little more skittish in the eyes. She try to smile like it ain’t that hard on her that she ain’t got no friends left.

In October, Miss Hilly sets at Miss Leefolt’s dining room table. Miss Leefolt so pregnant she can’t barely focus her eyes. Meanwhile, Miss Hilly got a big fur around her neck even though it’s sixty degrees outside. She stick her pinky out from her tea glass and say, “Skeeter thought she was so clever, dumping all those toilets in my front yard. Well, they’re working out just fine. We’ve already installed three of them in people’s garages and sheds. Even William said it was a blessing in disguise.”

I ain’t gone tell Miss Skeeter this. That she ended up supporting the cause she fighting against. But then I see it don’t matter cause Miss Hilly say, “I decided I’d write Skeeter a thank-you note last night. Told her how she’s helped move the project along faster than it ever would’ve gone.”

WITH MISS LEEFOLT SO BUSY making clothes for the new baby, Mae Mobley and me spend pretty much ever minute a the day together. She getting too big for me to carry her all the time, or maybe I’m too big. I try and give her a lot a good squeezes instead.

“Come tell me my secret story,” she whisper, smiling so big. She always want her secret story now, first thing when I get in. The secret stories are the ones I be making up.

But then Miss Leefolt come in with her purse on her arm, ready to leave. “Mae Mobley, I’m leaving now. Come give Mama a big hug.”

But Mae Mobley don’t move.

Miss Leefolt, she got a hand on her hip, waiting for her sugar. “Go on, Mae Mobley,” I whisper. I nudge her and she go hug her mama real hard, kinda desperate-like, but Miss Leefolt, she already looking in her purse for her keys, kind a wiggle off. It don’t seem to bother Mae Mobley so much, though, like it used to, and that’s what I can’t hardly look at.

“Come on, Aibee,” Mae Mobley say to me after her mama gone. “Time for my secret story.”

We go on in her room, where we like to set. I get up in the big chair and she get up on me and smile, bounce a little. “Tell me, tell me bout the brown wrapping. And the present.” She so excited, she squirming. She has to jump off my lap, squirm a little to get it out. Then she crawl back up.

That’s her favorite story cause when I tell it, she get two presents. I take the brown wrapping from my Piggly Wiggly grocery bag and wrap up a little something, like piece a candy, inside. Then I use the white paper from my Cole’s Drug Store bag and wrap another one just like it. She take it real serious, the unwrapping, letting me tell the story bout how it ain’t the color a the wrapping that count, it’s what we is inside.

“We doing a different story today,” I say, but first I go still and listen, just to make sure Miss Leefolt ain’t coming back cause she forgot something. Coast is clear.

“Today I’m on tell you bout a man from outer space.” She just loves hearing about peoples from outer space. Her favorite show on the tee-vee is My Favorite Martian. I pull out my antennae hats I shaped last night out a tinfoil, fasten em on our heads. One for her and one for me. We look like we a couple a crazy people in them things.

“One day, a wise Martian come down to Earth to teach us people a thing or two,” I say.

“Martian? How big?”

“Oh, he about six-two.”

“What’s his name?”

“Martian Luther King.”

She take a deep breath and lean her head down on my shoulder. I feel her three-year-old heart racing against mine, flapping like butterflies on my white uniform.

“He was a real nice Martian, Mister King. Looked just like us, nose, mouth, hair up on his head, but sometime people looked at him funny and sometime, well, I guess sometime people was just downright mean.”

I could get in a lot a trouble telling her these little stories, especially with Mister Leefolt. But Mae Mobley know these our “secret stories.”

“Why Aibee? Why was they so mean to him?” she ask.

“Cause he was green.”

TWO TIMES THIS MORNING, Miss Leefolt’s phone rung and two times I missed it. Once cause I was chasing Baby Girl nekkid in the backyard and another cause I was using the bathroom in the garage and what with Miss Leefolt being three—yes, three—weeks late to have this baby, I don’t expect her to run for no phone. But I don’t expect her to snap at me cause I couldn’t get there, neither. Law, I should a known when I got up this morning.

Last night Miss Skeeter and I worked on the stories until a quarter to midnight. I am bone tired, but we done finished number eight and that means we still got four more to go. January tenth be the deadline and I don’t know if we gone make it.

It’s already the third Wednesday a October, so it’s Miss Leefolt’s turn to host bridge club. It’s all changed up now that Miss Skeeter been thrown out. It’s Miss Jeanie Caldwell, the one who call everybody honey, and Miss Lou Anne who replaced Miss Walter, and everybody’s real polite and stiff and they just agree with each other for two hours. They ain’t much fun listening to anymore.

I’m pouring the last ice tea when the doorbell go ding-dong. I get to the door real quick, show Miss Leefolt I ain’t as slow as she accused me a being.

When I open it, the first word that pop in my head is pink. I never even seen her before but I’ve had enough conversations with Minny to know it’s her. Cause who else around here gone fit extra-large bosoms in a extra-small sweater?

“Hello there,” she say, licking her lipsticky lips. She raise her hand out to me and I think she giving me something. I reach out to take whatever it is and she give me a funny little handshake.

“My name is Celia Foote and I am here to see Miss Elizabeth Leefolt, please.”

I’m so mesmerized by all that pink, it takes a few seconds to hit me how bad this could turn out for me. And Minny. It was a long time ago, but that lie stuck.

“I . . . she . . .” I’d tell her nobody’s home but the bridge table’s five feet behind me. I look back and all four a them ladies is staring at the door with they mouths open like they catching flies. Miss Caldwell whisper something to Miss Hilly. Miss Leefolt stagger up, slap on a smile.

“Hello, Celia,” Miss Leefolt say. “It’s certainly been a long time.”

Miss Celia clears her throat and says kind a too loud, “Hello, Elizabeth. I’m calling on you today to—” Her eyes flicker back to the table where the other ladies is setting.

“Oh no, I’m interrupting. I’ll just . . . I’ll come on back. Another time.”

“No, no, what can I do for you?” Miss Leefolt say.

Miss Celia takes a deep breath in that tight pink skirt and for a second I guess we all think she gone pop.

“I’m here to offer my help for the Children’s Benefit.”

Miss Leefolt smile, say, “Oh. Well, I . . .”

“I got a real knack for arranging flowers, I mean, everybody back in Sugar Ditch said so, even my maid said so, right after she said I’m the worst cook she’s ever laid eyes on.” She giggle at this a second and I suck in my breath at the word maid. Then she snap back to serious. “But I can address things and lick stamps and—”

Miss Hilly get up from the table. She lean in, say, “We really don’t need any more help, but we’d be delighted if you and Johnny would attend the Benefit, Celia.”

Miss Celia smile and look so grateful it’d break anybody’s heart. Who had one.

“Oh thank you,” she say. “I’d love to.”

“It’s on Friday night, November the fifteenth at the—”

“—the Robert E. Lee Hotel,” Miss Celia finish. “I know all about it.”

“We’d love to sell you some tickets. Johnny’ll be coming with you, won’t he? Go get her some tickets, Elizabeth.”

“And if there’s anything I can do to help—”

“No, no.” Hilly smile. “We’ve got it all taken care of.”

Miss Leefolt come back with the envelope. She fish out a few tickets, but then Miss Hilly take the envelope away from her.

“While you’re here, Celia, why don’t you buy some tickets for your friends?”

Miss Celia be frozen for a second. “Um, alright.”

“How about ten? You and Johnny and eight friends. Then you’d have a whole table.”

Miss Celia smiling so hard it starts to tremble. “I think just the two will be fine.”

Miss Hilly take out two tickets and hand the envelope back to Miss Leefolt, who goes in the back to put it away.

“Lemme just get my check writ out. I’m lucky I have this big ole thing with me today. I told my maid Minny I’d pick up a hambone for her in town.”

Miss Celia struggle to write that check on her knee. I stay still as I can, hoping to God Miss Hilly didn’t hear what she just said. She hand the check to her but Miss Hilly all wrinkled up, thinking.

“Who? Who’d you say your maid was?”

“Minny Jackson. Aw! Shoot.” Miss Celia pop her hand over her mouth. “Elizabeth made me swear I’d never tell she recommended her and here I am blabbing my mouth off.”

“Elizabeth . . . recommended Minny Jackson?”

Miss Leefolt come back in from the bedroom. “Aibileen, she’s up. Go on and get her now. I can’t lift a nail file with my back.”

I go real quick to Mae Mobley’s room but soon as I peek in, Mae Mobley’s done fallen asleep again. I rush back to the dining room. Miss Hilly’s shutting the front door closed.

Miss Hilly set down, looking like she just swallowed the cat that ate the canary.

“Aibileen,” Miss Leefolt say, “go on and get the salads ready now, we’re all waiting.”

I go in the kitchen. When I come back out, the salad plates is rattling like teeth on the serving tray.

“. . . mean the one who stole all your mama’s silver and . . .”

“. . . thought everybody in town knew that Nigra was a thief . . .”

“. . . I’d never in a million years recommend . . .”

“. . . you see what she had on? Who does she . . .”

“I’m going to figure this out if it kills me,” Miss Hilly say.