AT ONE O’CLOCK, Miss Celia comes in the kitchen and says she’s ready for her first cooking lesson. She settles on a stool. She’s wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.
“What you know how to cook already?” I ask.
She thinks this over, wrinkling her forehead. “Maybe we could just start at the beginning.”
“Must be something you know. What your mama teach you growing up?”
She looks down at the webby feet of her stockings, says, “I can cook corn pone.”
I can’t help but laugh. “What else you know how to do sides corn pone?”
“I can boil potatoes.” Her voice drops even quieter. “And I can do grits. We didn’t have electric current out where I lived. But I’m ready to
learn right. On a real stovetop.”
Lord. I’ve never met a white person worse off than me except for crazy Mister Wal y, lives behind the Canton feed store and eats the cat
food.
“You been feeding your husband grits and corn pone ever day?”
Miss Celia nods. “But you’l teach me to cook right, won’t you?”
“I’l try,” I say, even though I’ve never told a white woman what to do and I don’t real y know how to start. I pul up my stockings, think about it.
Final y, I point to the can on the counter.
“I reckon if there’s anything you ought a know about cooking, it’s this.”
“That’s just lard, ain’t it?”
“No, it ain’t just lard,” I say. “It’s the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.”
“What’s so special about”—she wrinkles her nose at it—“pig fat?”
“Ain’t pig, it’s vegetable.” Who in this world doesn’t know what Crisco is? “You don’t have a clue of al the things you can do with this here
can.”
She shrugs. “Fry?”
“Ain’t just for frying. You ever get a sticky something stuck in your hair, like gum?” I jackhammer my finger on the Crisco can. “That’s right,
Crisco. Spread this on a baby’s bottom, you won’t even know what diaper rash is.” I plop three scoops in the black skil et. “Shoot, I seen ladies rub
it under they eyes and on they husband’s scaly feet.”
“Look how pretty it is,” she says. “Like white cake frosting.”
“Clean the goo from a price tag, take the squeak out a door hinge. Lights get cut off, stick a wick in it and burn it like a candle.”
I turn on the flame and we watch it melt down in the pan. “And after al that, it’l stil fry your chicken.”
“Alright,” she says, concentrating hard. “What’s next?”
“Chicken’s been soaking in the buttermilk,” I say. “Now mix up the dry.” I pour flour, salt, more salt, pepper, paprika, and a pinch of cayenne
into a doubled paper sack.
“Now. Put the chicken parts in the bag and shake it.”
Miss Celia puts a raw chicken thigh in, bumps the bag around. “Like this? Just like the Shake ’n Bake commercials on the tee-vee?”
“Yeah,” I say and run my tongue up over my teeth because if that’s not an insult, I don’t know what is. “Just like the Shake ’n Bake.” But then I
freeze. I hear the sound of a car motor out on the road. I hold stil and listen. I see Miss Celia’s eyes are big and she’s listening too. We’re thinking the same thing: What if it’s him and where wil I hide?
The car motor passes. We both breathe again.
“Miss Celia,” I grit my teeth, “how come you can’t tel your husband about me? Ain’t he gone know when the cooking gets good?”
“Oh, I didn’t think of that! Maybe we ought to burn the chicken a little.”
I look at her sideways. I ain’t burning no chicken. She didn’t answer the real question, but I’l get it out of her soon enough.
Real careful, I lay the dark meat in the pan. It bubbles up like a song and we watch the thighs and legs turn brown. I look over and Miss
Celia’s smiling at me.
“What? Something on my face?”
“No,” she says, tears coming up in her eyes. She touches my arm. “I’m just real grateful you’re here.”
I move my arm back from under her hand. “Miss Celia, you got a lot more to be grateful for than me.”
“I know.” She looks at her fancy kitchen like it’s something that tastes bad. “I never dreamed I’d have this much.”
“Wel , ain’t you lucky.”
“I’ve never been happier in my whole life.”
I leave it at that. Underneath al that happy, she sure doesn’t look happy.
THAT NIGHT, I CALL AIBILEEN.
“Miss Hil y was at Miss Leefolt’s yesterday,” Aibileen says. “She ask if anybody knew where you was working.”
“Lordy, she find me out there, she ruirn it for sure.” It’s been two weeks since the Terrible Awful Thing I did to that woman. I know she’d just
love to see me fired on the spot.
“What Leroy say when you told him you got the job?” Aibileen asks.
“Shoot. He strut around the kitchen like a plumed rooster cause he in front a the kids,” I say. “Act like he the only one supporting the family
and I’m just doing this to keep my poor self entertained. Later on though, we in bed and I thought my big old bul for a husband gone cry.”
Aibileen laughs. “Leroy got a lot a pride.”
“Yeah, I just got to make sure Mister Johnny don’t catch up with me.”
“And she ain’t told you why she don’t want him to know?”
“Al she say is she want him to think she can do the cooking and the cleaning herself. But that ain’t why. She hiding something from him.”
“Ain’t it funny how this worked out. Miss Celia can’t tel nobody, else it’l get back to Mister Johnny. So Miss Hil y won’t find out, cause Miss
Celia can’t tel nobody. You couldn’t a fixed it up better yourself.”
“Mm-hmm” is al I say. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, since Aibileen’s the one who got me the job. But I can’t help but think that I’ve just
doubled my trouble, what with Miss Hil y and now Mister Johnny too.
“Minny, I been meaning to ask you.” Aibileen clears her throat. “You know that Miss Skeeter?”
“Tal one, used to come over to Miss Walters for bridge?”
“Yeah, what you think about her?”
“I don’t know, she white just like the rest of em. Why? What she say about me?”
“Nothing about you,” Aibileen says. “She just…a few weeks ago, I don’t know why I keep thinking about it. She ask me something. Ask do I
want to change things. White woman never asked—”
But then Leroy stumbles in from the bedroom wanting his coffee before his late shift.
“Shoot, he’s up,” I say. “Talk quick.”
“Naw, never mind. It’s nothing,” Aibileen says.
“What? What’s going on? What that lady tel you?”
“It was just jabber. It was nonsense.”
CHAPTER 4
MY FIRST WEEK at Miss Celia’s, I scrub the house until there isn’t a dust rag or a stripped sheet or even a run stocking left to wipe with. Second week, I scrub the house again because it’s like the dirt grew back. Third week, I am satisfied and settle in my ways.
Every day, Miss Celia looks like she just can’t believe I’ve come back to work. I’m the only thing that interrupts al that quiet around her. My
house is always ful of five kids and neighbors and a husband. Most days when I come in to Miss Celia’s, I am grateful for the peace.
My housekeeping tasks fal on the same day for every job I take: on Monday, I oil up the furniture. Tuesday, I wash and iron the damn sheets,
the day I hate. Wednesday is for scrubbing the bathtub real good even though I wipe it down every morning. Thursday is for polishing floors and
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sucking rugs, minding the antique ones with a hand broom so they don’t thread. Friday is heavy cooking for the weekend and what-have-you. And
every day is mopping, washing clothes and ironing shirts so they don’t go getting out of hand, and general y keeping things clean. Silver and
windows, they’re as needed. Since there aren’t any kids to look after, there’s ample time left for Miss Celia’s so-cal ed cooking lesson.
Miss Celia never does any entertaining, so we just fix whatever she and Mister Johnny are having for supper: pork chops, fried chicken,
roast beef, chicken pie, lamb rack, baked ham, fried tomatoes, mashed potatoes, plus the vegetables. Or at least I cook and Miss Celia fidgets,
looking more like a five-year-old than the rich lady paying my rent. When the lesson’s over, she rushes back to laying down. In fact, the only time
Miss Celia walks ten feet is to come in the kitchen for her lesson or to sneak upstairs every two or three days, up in the creepy rooms.
I don’t know what she does for five minutes on the second floor. I don’t like it up there though. Those bedrooms should be stacked ful of kids
laughing and hol ering and pooping up the place. But it’s none of my business what Miss Celia does with her day, and ask me, I’m glad she’s
staying out of my way. I’ve fol owed ladies around with a broom in one hand and a trash can in the other trying to keep up with their mess. As long
as she stays in that bed, then I’ve got a job. Even though she has zero kids and nothing to do al day, she is the laziest woman I’ve ever seen.
Including my sister Doreena who never lifted a royal finger growing up because she had the heart defect that we later found out was a fly on the X-ray machine.
And it’s not just the bed. Miss Celia won’t leave the house except to get her hair frosted and her ends trimmed. So far, that’s only happened
once in the three weeks I’ve been working. Thirty-six years old and I can stil hear my mama tel ing me, It ain’t nobody’s business. But I want to know what that lady’s so scared of outside this place.
EVERY PAYDAY, I give Miss Celia the count. “Ninety-nine more days til you tel Mister Johnny bout me.”
“Gol y, the time’s going by quick,” she’l say with kind of a sick look.
“Cat got on the porch this morning, bout give me a cadil ac arrest thinking it was Mister Johnny.”
Like me, Miss Celia gets a little more nervous the closer we get to the deadline. I don’t know what that man wil do when she tel s him.
Maybe he’l tel her to fire me.
“I hope that’s enough time, Minny. Do you think I’m getting any better at cooking?” she says, and I look at her. She’s got a pretty smile, white
straight teeth, but she is the worst cook I have ever seen.
So I back up and teach her the simplest things because I want her to learn and learn it fast. See, I need her to explain to her husband why a
hundred-and-sixty-five-pound Negro woman has keys to his house. I need him to know why I have his sterling silver and Miss Celia’s zil ion-karat
ruby earrings in my hand every day. I need him to know this before he walks in one fine day and cal s the police. Or saves a dime and takes care of business himself.
“Get the ham hock out, make sure you got enough water in there, that’s right. Now turn up the flame. See that little bubble there, that means
the water’s happy.”
Miss Celia stares down into the pot like she’s looking for her future. “Are you happy, Minny?”
“Why you ask me funny questions like that?”
“But are you?”
“Course I’s happy. You happy too. Big house, big yard, husband looking after you.” I frown at Miss Celia and I make sure she can see it.
Because ain’t that white people for you, wondering if they are happy enough.
And when Miss Celia burns the beans, I try and use some of that self-control my mama swore I was born without. “Alright,” I say through my
teeth, “we’l do another batch fore Mister Johnny get home.”
Any other woman I’ve worked for, I would’ve loved to have had just one hour of bossing them around, see how they like it. But Miss Celia, the
way she stares at me with those big eyes like I’m the best thing since hairspray in the can, I almost rather she’d order me around like she’s
supposed to. I start to wonder if her laying down al the time has anything to do with her not tel ing Mister Johnny about me. I guess she can see the
suspicious in my eye too, because one day, out of the blue she says:
“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 wel at night.”
I give her a stupid smile, like I real y 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 ful . “We’ve got to make it believable,” she’l 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 col ar-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 al 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 stil .”
It’s real y 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 tel you the umpteen times I’ve cal ed those ladies to see if I can help with the Children’s Benefit
or do something from home. But they won’t cal 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’l go rest awhile,” she says and two minutes later I hear her creeping around upstairs in the empty bedrooms.
The mimosa branc
h 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.
Al except one.
“You ain’t having nothing til supper,” I told her.
“Why you so mean to me? I hate you,” she yel ed and ran out the door.
I set my eyes on the ceiling because that’s a shock I wil never get used to, even with four before her. The day your child says she hates you,
and every child wil 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 ful bottle. I guess I ought to be more upset about al 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 basebal s. 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 pul ed 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 al to the driveway. Usual y 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. Tal
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
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