The Help Read online

  Nobody says anything for a second. Then Miss Walter nod, like she explaining it al . “She’s upset cause the Nigra uses the inside bathroom

  and so do we.”

  Law, not this mess again. They al look over at me straightening the silver drawer in the sideboard and I know it’s time for me to leave. But

  before I can get the last spoon in there, Miss Leefolt give me the look, say, “Go get some more tea, Aibileen.”

  I go like she tel me to, even though they cups is ful to the rim.

  I stand around the kitchen a minute but I ain’t got nothing left to do in there. I need to be in the dining room so I can finish my silver

  straightening. And I stil got the napkin cabinet to sort through today but it’s in the hal , right outside where they setting. I don’t want a stay late just cause Miss Leefolt playing cards.

  I wait a few minutes, wipe a counter. Give Baby Girl more ham and she gobble it up. Final y, I slip out to the hal , pray nobody see me.

  Al four of em got a cigarette in one hand, they cards in the other. “Elizabeth, if you had the choice,” I hear Miss Hil y say, “wouldn’t you rather

  them take their business outside?”

  Real quiet, I open the napkin drawer, more concerned about Miss Leefolt seeing me than what they saying. This talk ain’t news to me.

  Everwhere in town they got a colored bathroom, and most the houses do too. But I look over and Miss Skeeter’s watching me and I freeze, thinking

  I’m about to get in trouble.

  “I bid one heart,” Miss Walter say.

  “I don’t know,” Miss Leefolt say, frowning at her cards. “With Raleigh starting his own business and tax season not for six months…things are

  real tight for us right now.”

  Miss Hil y talk slow, like she spreading icing on a cake. “You just tel Raleigh every penny he spends on that bathroom he’l get back when

  y’al sel this house.” She nod like she agreeing with herself. “Al these houses they’re building without maid’s quarters? It’s just plain dangerous.

  Everybody knows they carry different kinds of diseases than we do. I double.”

  I pick up a stack a napkins. I don’t know why, but al a sudden I want a hear what Miss Leefolt gone say to this. She my boss. I guess

  everbody wonder what they boss think a them.

  “It would be nice,” Miss Leefolt say, taking a little puff a her cigarette, “not having her use the one in the house. I bid three spades.”

  “That’s exactly why I’ve designed the Home Help Sanitation Initiative,” Miss Hil y say. “As a disease-preventative measure.”

  I’m surprised by how tight my throat get. It’s a shame I learned to keep down a long time ago.

  Miss Skeeter look real confused. “The Home…the what?”

  “A bil that requires every white home to have a separate bathroom for the colored help. I’ve even notified the surgeon general of Mississippi

  to see if he’l endorse the idea. I pass.”

  Miss Skeeter, she frowning at Miss Hil y. She set her cards down faceup and say real matter-a-fact, “Maybe we ought to just build you a

  bathroom outside, Hil y.”

  And Law, do that room get quiet.

  Miss Hil y say, “I don’t think you ought to be joking around about the colored situation. Not if you want to stay on as editor of the League,

  Skeeter Phelan.”

  Miss Skeeter kind a laugh, but I can tel she don’t think it’s funny. “What, you’d…kick me out? For disagreeing with you?”

  Miss Hil y raise a eyebrow. “I wil do whatever I have to do to protect our town. Your lead, Mama.”

  I go in the kitchen and don’t come out again til I hear the door close after Miss Hil y’s behind.

  WHEN I KNOW MISS HILLY GONE, I put Mae Mobley in her playpen, drag the garbage bin out to the street cause the truck’s coming by today. At the top a

  the driveway, Miss Hil y and her crazy mama near bout back over me in they car, then yel out al friendly how sorry they is. I walk in the house, glad I ain’t got two new broken legs.

  When I go in the kitchen, Miss Skeeter’s in there. She leaning against the counter, got a serious look on her face, even more serious than

  usual. “Hey, Miss Skeeter. I get you something?”

  She glance out at the drive where Miss Leefolt’s talking to Miss Hil y through her car window. “No, I’m just…waiting.”

  I dry a tray with a towel. When I sneak a look over, she’s stil got her worried eyes on that window. She don’t look like other ladies, being she

  so tal . She got real high cheekbones. Blue eyes that turn down, giving her a shy way about her. It’s quiet, except for the little radio on the counter, playing the gospel station. I wish she’d go on out a here.

  “Is that Preacher Green’s sermon you’re playing on the radio?” she ask.

  “Yes ma’am, it is.”

  Miss Skeeter kind a smile. “That reminds me so much of my maid growing up.”

  “Oh I knew Constantine,” I say.

  Miss Skeeter move her eyes from the window to me. “She raised me, did you know that?”

  I nod, wishing I hadn’t said nothing. I know too much about that situation.

  “I’ve been trying to get an address for her family in Chicago,” she say, “but nobody can tel me anything.”

  “I don’t have it either, ma’am.”

  Miss Skeeter move her eyes back to the window, on Miss Hil y’s Buick. She shake her head, just a little. “Aibileen, that talk in there…Hil y’s

  talk, I mean…”

  I pick up a coffee cup, start drying it real good with my cloth.

  “Do you ever wish you could…change things?” she asks.

  And I can’t help myself. I look at her head-on. Cause that’s one a the stupidest questions I ever heard. She got a confused, disgusted look

  on her face, like she done salted her coffee instead a sugared it.

  I turn back to my washing, so she don’t see me rol ing my eyes. “Oh no, ma’am, everthing’s fine.”

  “But that talk in there, about the bathroom—” and smack on that word, Miss Leefolt walk in the kitchen.

  “Oh, there you are, Skeeter.” She look at us both kind a funny. “I’m sorry, did I…interrupt something?” We both stand there, wondering what

  she might a heard.

  “I have to run,” Miss Skeeter says. “See you tomorrow, Elizabeth.” She open the back door, say, “Thanks, Aibileen, for lunch,” and she gone.

  I go in the dining room, start clearing the bridge table. And just like I knew she would, Miss Leefolt come in behind me wearing her upset

  smile. Her neck’s sticking out like she fixing to ask me something. She don’t like me talking to her friends when she ain’t around, never has. Always

  wanting to know what we saying. I go right on past her into the kitchen. I put Baby Girl in her high chair and start cleaning the oven.

  Miss Leefolt fol ow me in there, eyebal a bucket a Crisco, put it down. Baby Girl hold her arms out for her mama to pick her up, but Miss

  Leefolt open a cabinet, act like she don’t see. Then she slam it close, open another one. Final y she just stand there. I’m down on my hands and

  knees. Pretty soon my head’s so far in that oven I look like I’m trying to gas myself.

  “You and Miss Skeeter looked like you were talking awful serious about something.”

  “No ma’am, she just…asking do I want some old clothes,” I say and it sound like I’m down in a wel -hole. Grease already working itself up my

  arms. Smel like a underarm in here. Don’t take no time fore sweat’s running down my nose and ever time I scratch at it, I get a plug a crud on my

  face. Got to be the worst place in the world, inside a oven. You in here, you either cleaning or you getting cooked. Tonight I just know I’m on have

  that dream I’m stuck inside and the gas gets turned on. But I keep my he
ad in that awful place cause I’d rather be anywhere sides answering Miss

  Leefolt’s questions about what Miss Skeeter was trying to say to me. Asking do I want to change things.

  After while, Miss Leefolt huff and go out to the carport. I figure she looking at where she gone build me my new colored bathroom.

  CHAPTER 2

  YOU’D NEVER KNOW IT living here, but Jackson, Mississippi, be fil ed with two hundred thousand peoples. I see them numbers in the paper and I got to wonder, where do them peoples live? Underground? Cause I know just about everbody on my side a the bridge and plenty a white families too, and

  that sure don’t add up to be no two hundred thousand.

  Six days a week, I take the bus across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to where Miss Leefolt and al her white friends live, in a neighborhood

  cal Belhaven. Right next to Belhaven be the downtown and the state capital. Capitol building is real big, pretty on the outside but I never been in it. I wonder what they pay to clean that place.

  Down the road from Belhaven is white Woodland Hil s, then Sherwood Forest, which is miles a big live oaks with the moss hanging down.

  Nobody living in it yet, but it’s there for when the white folks is ready to move somewhere else new. Then it’s the country, out where Miss Skeeter

  live on the Longleaf cotton plantation. She don’t know it, but I picked cotton out there in 1931, during the Depression, when we didn’t have nothing to eat but state cheese.

  So Jackson’s just one white neighborhood after the next and more springing up down the road. But the colored part a town, we one big

  anthil , surrounded by state land that ain’t for sale. As our numbers get bigger, we can’t spread out. Our part a town just gets thicker.

  I get on the number six bus that afternoon, which goes from Belhaven to Farish Street. The bus today is nothing but maids heading home in

  our white uniforms. We al chatting and smiling at each other like we own it—not cause we mind if they’s white people on here, we sit anywhere we

  want to now thanks to Miss Parks—just cause it’s a friendly feeling.

  I spot Minny in the back center seat. Minny short and big, got shiny black curls. She setting with her legs splayed, her thick arms crossed.

  She seventeen years younger than I am. Minny could probably lift this bus up over her head if she wanted to. Old lady like me’s lucky to have her as

  a friend.

  I take the seat in front a her, turn around and listen. Everbody like to listen to Minny.

  “…so I said, Miss Walters, the world don’t want a see your naked white behind any more than they want a see my black one. Now, get in this

  house and put your underpants and some clothes on.”

  “On the front porch? Naked?” Kiki Brown ask.

  “Her behind hanging to her knees.”

  The bus is laughing and chuckling and shaking they heads.

  “Law, that woman crazy,” Kiki say. “I don’t know how you always seem to get the crazy ones, Minny.”

  “Oh, like your Miss Patterson ain’t?” Minny say to Kiki. “Shoot, she cal the rol a the crazy lady club.” The whole bus be laughing now cause

  Minny don’t like nobody talking bad about her white lady except herself. That’s her job and she own the rights.

  The bus cross the bridge and make the first stop in the colored neighborhood. A dozen or so maids get off. I go set in the open seat next to

  Minny. She smile, bump me hel o with her elbow. Then she relax back in her seat cause she don’t have to put on no show for me.

  “How you doing? You have to iron pleats this morning?”

  I laugh, nod my head. “Took me a hour and a half.”

  “What you feed Miss Walters at bridge club today? I worked al morning making that fool a caramel cake and then she wouldn’t eat a

  crumb.”

  That makes me remember what Miss Hil y say at the table today. Any other white lady and no one would care, but we’d al want a know if

  Miss Hil y after us. I just don’t know how to put it.

  I look out the window at the colored hospital go by, the fruit stand. “I think I heard Miss Hil y say something about that, bout her mama getting

  skinny.” I say this careful as I can. “Say maybe she getting mal-nutritious.”

  Minny look at me. “She did, did she?” Just the name make her eyes narrow. “What else Miss Hil y say?”

  I better just go on and say it. “I think she got her eye on you, Minny. Just…be extra careful around her.”

  “Miss Hil y ought to be extra careful around me. What she say, I can’t cook? She say that old bag a bones ain’t eating cause I can’t feed

  her?” Minny stand up, throw her purse up on her arm.

  “I’m sorry, Minny, I only told you so you stay out a her—”

  “She ever say that to me, she gone get a piece a Minny for lunch.” She huff down the steps.

  I watch her through the window, stomping off toward her house. Miss Hil y ain’t somebody to mess with. Law, maybe I should a just kept it to

  myself.

  A COUPLE MORNINGS LATER, I get off the bus, walk the block to Miss Leefolt’s house. Parked in front is a old lumber truck. They’s two colored mens inside, one drinking a cup a coffee, the other asleep setting straight up. I go on past, into the kitchen.

  Mister Raleigh Leefolt stil at home this morning, which is rare. Whenever he here, he look like he just counting the minutes til he get to go

  back to his accounting job. Even on Saturday. But today he carrying on bout something.

  “This is my damn house and I pay for what goddamn goes in it!” Mister Leefolt yel .

  Miss Leefolt trying to keep up behind him with that smile that mean she ain’t happy. I hide out in the washroom. It’s been two days since the

  bathroom talk come up and I was hoping it was over. Mister Leefolt opens the back door to look at the truck setting there, slam it back close again.

  “I put up with the new clothes, al the damn trips to New Orleans with your sorority sisters, but this takes the goddamn cake.”

  “But it’l increase the value of the house. Hil y said so!” I’m stil in the washroom, but I can almost hear Miss Leefolt trying to keep that smile

  on her face.

  “We can’t afford it! And we do not take orders from the Holbrooks!”

  Everthing get real quiet for a minute. Then I hear the pap-pap a little feetum pajamas.

  “Da-dee?”

  I come out the washroom and into the kitchen then cause Mae Mobley’s my business.

  Mister Leefolt already kneeling down to her. He’s wearing a smile look like it’s made out a rubber. “Guess what, honey?”

  She smile back. She waiting for a good surprise.

  “You’re not going to col ege so your mama’s friends don’t have to use the same bathroom as the maid.”

  He stomp off and slam the door so hard it make Baby Girl blink.

  Miss Leefolt look down at her, start shaking her finger. “Mae Mobley, you know you’re not supposed to climb up out of your crib!”

  Baby Girl, she looking at the door her daddy slammed, she looking at her mama frowning down at her. My baby, she swal owing it back, like

  she trying real hard not to cry.

  I rush past Miss Leefolt, pick Baby Girl up. I whisper, “Let’s go on in the living room and play with the talking toy. What that donkey say?”

  “She keeps getting up. I put her back in bed three times this morning.”

  “Cause somebody needs changing. Whooooweeee.”

  Miss Leefolt tisk, say, “Wel I didn’t realize…” but she already staring out the window at the lumber truck.

  I go on to the back, so mad I’m stomping. Baby Girl been in that bed since eight o’clock last night, a course she need changing! Miss Leefolt

  try to sit in twelve hours worth a bathroom mess without getting up!

  I lay Baby Girl on the changi
ng table, try to keep my mad inside. Baby Girl stare up at me while I take off her diaper. Then she reach out her

  little hand. She touch my mouth real soft.

  “Mae Mo been bad,” she say.

  “No, baby, you ain’t been bad,” I say, smoothing her hair back. “You been good. Real good.”

  I LIVE ON GESSUM AVENUE, where I been renting since 1942. You could say Gessum got a lot a personality. The houses al be smal , but every front yard’s different—some scrubby and grassless like a baldheaded old man. Others got azalea bushes and roses and thick green grass. My yard, I reckon it

  be somewhere in between.

  I got a few red camel ia bushes out front a the house. My grass be kind a spotty and I stil got a big yel ow mark where Treelore’s pickup sat

  for three months after the accident. I ain’t got no trees. But the backyard, now it looks like the Garden of Eden. That’s where my next-door neighbor,

  Ida Peek, got her vegetable patch.

  Ida ain’t got no backyard to speak of what with al her husband’s junk—car engines and old refrigerators and tires. Stuff he say he gone fix

  but never do. So I tel Ida she come plant on my side. That way I don’t have no mowing to tend to and she let me pick whatever I need, save me two

  or three dol ars ever week. She put up what we don’t eat, give me jars for the winter season. Good turnip greens, eggplant, okra by the bushel, al

  kind a gourds. I don’t know how she keep them bugs out a her tomatoes, but she do. And they good.

  That evening, it’s raining hard outside. I pul out a jar a Ida Peek’s cabbage and tomato, eat my last slice a leftover cornbread. Then I set

  down to look over my finances cause two things done happen: the bus gone up to fifteen cents a ride and my rent gone up to twenty-nine dol ars a

  month. I work for Miss Leefolt eight to four, six days a week except Saturdays. I get paid forty-three dol ars ever Friday, which come to $172 a

  month. That means after I pay the light bil , the water bil , the gas bil , and the telephone bil , I got thirteen dol ars and fifty cents a week left for my groceries, my clothes, getting my hair done, and tithing to the church. Not to mention the cost to mail these bil s done gone up to a nickel. And my

  work shoes is so thin, they look like they starving to death. New pair cost seven dol ars though, which means I’m on be eating cabbage and tomato

  til I turn into Br’er Rabbit. Thank the Lord for Ida Peek, else I be eating nothing.