talk to you—”
But fore she can finish, Miss Leefolt come in the kitchen and catch Baby Girl playing with my comb in my pocketbook and say maybe Mae
Mobley ought to have her bath early today. I tel Miss Skeeter goodbye, go start the tub.
AFTER I SPENT A YEAR dreading it, November eighth final y come. I spec I sleep about two hours the night before. I wake up at dawn and put a pot a
Community coffee on the stovetop. My back hurts when I bend over to get my stockings on. Fore I walk out the door, the phone ring.
“Just checking on you. You sleep?”
“I did alright.”
“I’m on bring you a caramel cake tonight. And I don’t want you to do nothing but set in your kitchen and eat the whole thing for supper.” I try to
smile, but nothing come out. I tel Minny thank you.
Three years ago today, Treelore died. But by Miss Leefolt’s book it’s stil floor-cleaning day. Thanksgiving coming in two weeks and I got
plenty to do to get ready. I scrub my way through the morning, through the twelve o’clock news. I miss my stories cause the ladies is in the dining
room having a Benefit meeting and I ain’t al owed to turn on the tee-vee when they’s company. And that’s fine. My muscles is shivering they so tired.
But I don’t want a stop moving.
About four o’clock, Miss Skeeter come in the kitchen. Before she can even say hel o, Miss Leefolt rush in behind her. “Aibileen, I just found
out Missus Fredericks is driving down from Greenwood tomorrow and staying through Thanksgiving. I want the silver service polished and al the
guest towels washed. Tomorrow I’l give you the list of what else.”
Miss Leefolt shake her head at Miss Skeeter like ain’t she got the hardest life in town and walks out. I go on and get the silver service out the
dining room. Law, I’m already tired and I got to be ready to work the Benefit next Saturday night. Minny ain’t coming. She too scared she gone run
into Miss Hil y.
Miss Skeeter stil waiting on me in the kitchen when I come back in. She got a Miss Myrna letter in her hand.
“You got a cleaning question?” I sigh. “Go head.”
“Not real y. I just…I wanted to ask you…the other day…”
I take a plug a Pine-Ola cream and start rubbing it onto the silver, working the cloth around the rose design, the lip and the handle. God,
please let tomorrow come soon. I ain’t gone go to the gravesite. I can’t, it’l be too hard—
“Aibileen? Are you feeling alright?”
I stop, look up. Realize Miss Skeeter been talking to me the whole time.
“I’m sorry I’s just…thinking about something.”
“You looked so sad.”
“Miss Skeeter.” I feel tears come up in my eyes, cause three years just ain’t long enough. A hundred years ain’t gone be long enough. “You
mind if I help you with them questions tomorrow?”
Miss Skeeter start to say something, but then she stop herself. “Of course. I hope you feel better.”
I finish the silver set and the towels and tel Miss Leefolt I got to go home even though it’s half a hour early and she gone short my pay. She
open her mouth like she want to protest and I whisper my lie, I vomited, and she say go. Cause besides her own mother, there ain’t nothing Miss Leefolt scared of more than Negro diseases.
“ALRIGHT THEN. I’l be back in thirty minutes. I’l pul right up here at nine forty-five,” Miss Leefolt say through the passenger car window. Miss Leefolt dropping me off at the Jitney 14 to pick up what else we need for Thanksgiving tomorrow.
“You bring her back that receipt, now,” Miss Fredericks, Miss Leefolt’s mean old mama, say. They al three in the front seat, Mae Mobley
squeezed in the middle with a look so miserable you think she about to get a tetanus shot. Poor girl. Miss Fredericks supposed to stay two weeks
this time.
“Don’t forget the turkey, now,” Miss Leefolt say. “And two cans of cranberry sauce.”
I smile. I only been cooking white Thanksgivings since Calvin Coolidge was President.
“Quit squirming, Mae Mobley,” Miss Fredericks snap, “or I’l pinch you.”
“Miss Leefolt, lemme take her in the store with me. Help me with my shopping.”
Miss Fredericks about to protest, but Miss Leefolt say, “Take her,” and fore I know it, Baby Girl done wormed her way over Miss Fredericks’
lap and is climbing out the window in my arms like I am the Lord Savior. I pul her up on my hip and they drive off toward Fortification Street, and
Baby Girl and me, we giggle like a couple a schoolgirls.
I push open the metal door, get a cart, and put Mae Mobley up front, stick her legs through the holes. Long as I got my white uniform on, I’m
al owed to shop in this Jitney. I miss the old days, when you just walk out to Fortification Street and there be the farmers with they wheelbarrows
cal ing out, “Sweet potatoes, butter beans, string beans, okra. Fresh cream, buttermilk, yel ow cheese, eggs.” But the Jitney ain’t so bad. Least they
got the good air-condition.
“Alrighty, Baby Girl. Less see what we need.”
In produce, I pick out six sweet potatoes, three handfuls a string beans. I get a smoked ham hock from the butcher. The store is bright, lined
up neat. Nothing like the colored Piggly Wiggly with sawdust on the floor. It’s mostly white ladies, smiling, got they hair already fixed and sprayed for tomorrow. Four or five maids is shopping, al in they uniforms.
“Purple stuff!” Mae Mobley say and I let her hold the can a cranberry. She smile at it like it’s a old friend. She love the purple stuff. In dry
goods, I heave the two-pound bag a salt in the cart, to brine the turkey in. I count the hours on my hands, ten, eleven, twelve. If I’m on soak the bird for fourteen hours in the salt water, I’l put it in the bucket around three this afternoon. Then I’l come in to Miss Leefolt’s at five tomorrow morning and cook the turkey for the next six hours. I already baked two pans a cornbread, left it to stale on the counter today to give it some crunch. I got a apple pie ready to bake, gone do my biscuits in the morning.
“Ready for tomorrow, Aibileen?” I turn and see Franny Coots behind me. She go to my church, work for Miss Caroline on Manship. “Hey,
cutie, look a them fat legs,” she say to Mae Mobley. Mae Mobley lick the cranberry can.
Franny bend her head down, say, “You hear what happen to Louvenia Brown’s grandson this morning?”
“Robert?” I say. “Who do the mowing?”
“Use the white bathroom at Pinchman Lawn and Garden. Say they wasn’t a sign up saying so. Two white mens chased him and beat him
with a tire iron.”
Oh no. Not Robert. “He…is he…?”
Franny shake her head. “They don’t know. He up at the hospital. I heard he blind.”
“God, no.” I close my eyes. Louvenia, she is the purest, kindest person they is. She raised Robert after her own daughter died.
“Poor Louvenia. I don’t know why the bad have to happen to the goodest ones,” Franny say.
THAT AFTERNOON, I work like a crazy woman, chopping onions and celery, mixing up my dressing, ricing sweet potatoes, stringing the beans, polishing
silver. I heard folks is heading to Louvenia Brown’s tonight at five thirty to pray for Robert, but by the time I lift that twenty-pound turkey in the brine, I can’t barely raise my arms.
I don’t finish cooking til six o’clock that night, two hours later than usual. I know I ain’t gone have the strength to go knock on Louvenia’s door.
I’l have to do it tomorrow after I’m done cleaning up the turkey. I waddle myself from the bus stop, hardly able to keep my eyes open. I turn the
corner on Gessum. A big white Cadil ac’s parked in front a my house. And there be Miss Skeeter in a red
dress and red shoes, setting on my front
steps like a bul horn.
I walk real slow through my yard, wondering what it’s gone be now. Miss Skeeter stand up, holding her pocketbook tight like it might get
snatched. White peoples don’t come round my neighborhood less they toting the help to and fro, and that is just fine with me. I spend al day long
tending to white peoples. I don’t need em looking in on me at home.
“I hope you don’t mind me coming by,” she say. “I just…I didn’t know where else we could talk.”
I set down on the step and ever knob on my spine hurt. Baby Girl so nervous around her Granmama, she wet al over me and I smel like it.
The street’s ful a folks walking to sweet Louvenia’s to pray for Robert, kids playing bal in the street. Everbody looking over at us thinking I must be getting fired or something.
“Yes ma’am,” I sigh. “What can I do for you?”
“I have an idea. Something I want to write about. But I need your help.”
I let al my breath out. I like Miss Skeeter, but come on. Sure, a phone cal would a been nice. She never would a just shown up on some
white lady’s step without cal ing. But no, she done plopped herself down like she got ever right to barge in on me at home.
“I want to interview you. About what it’s like to work as a maid.”
A red bal rol a few feet in my yard. The little Jones boy run across the street to get it. When he see Miss Skeeter, he stop dead. Then he run
and snatch it up. He turn and dash off like he scared she gone get him.
“Like the Miss Myrna column?” I say, flat as a pan. “Bout cleaning?”
“Not like Miss Myrna. I’m talking about a book,” she say and her eyes is big. She excited. “Stories about what it’s like to work for a white
family. What it’s like to work for, say…Elizabeth.”
I turn and look at her. This what she been trying to ask me the past two weeks in Miss Leefolt kitchen. “You think Miss Leefolt gone agree to
that? Me tel ing stories about her?”
Miss Skeeter’s eyes drop down some. “Wel , no. I was thinking we wouldn’t tel her. I’l have to make sure the other maids wil agree to keep
it secret, too.”
I scrunch up my forehead, just starting to get what she’s asking. “Other maids?”
“I was hoping to get four or five. To real y show what it’s like to be a maid in Jackson.”
I look around. We out here in the wide open. Don’t she know how dangerous this could be, talking about this while the whole world can see
us? “Exactly what kind a stories you think you gone hear?”
“What you get paid, how they treat you, the bathrooms, the babies, al the things you’ve seen, good and bad.”
She looks excited, like this is some kind a game. For a second, I think I might be more mad than I am tired.
“Miss Skeeter,” I whisper, “do that not sound kind a dangerous to you?”
“Not if we’re careful—”
“Shhh, please. Do you know what would happen to me if Miss Leefolt find out I talked behind her back?”
“We won’t tel her, or anyone.” She lowers her voice some, but not enough. “These wil be private interviews.”
I just stare at her. Is she crazy? “Did you hear about the colored boy this morning? One they beat with a tire iron for accidentally using the
white bathroom?”
She just look at me, blink a little. “I know things are unstable but this is—”
“And my cousin Shinel e in Cauter County? They burn up her car cause she went down to the voting station.”
“No one’s ever written a book like this,” she say, final y whispering, final y starting to understand, I guess. “We’d be breaking new ground. It’s
a brand-new perspective.”
I spot a flock a maids in they uniforms walking by my house. They look over, see me setting with a white woman on my front step. I grit my
teeth, already know my phone gone be ringing tonight.
“Miss Skeeter,” and I say it slow, try to make it count, “I do this with you, I might as wel burn my own house down.”
Miss Skeeter start biting her nail then. “But I’ve already…” She shut her eyes closed tight. I think about asking her, Already what, but I’m kind a scared to hear what she gone say. She reach in her pocketbook, pul out a scrap a paper and write her telephone number on it.
“Please, wil you at least think about it?”
I sigh, stare out at the yard. Gentle as I can, I say, “No ma’am.”
She set the scrap a paper between us on the step, then she get in her Cadil ac. I’m too tired to get up. I just stay there, watch while she rol
real slow down the road. The boys playing bal clear the street, stand on the side frozen, like it’s a funeral car passing by.
MISS SKEETER
CHAPTER 8
I DRIVE DOWN Gessum Avenue in Mama’s Cadil ac. Up ahead, a little colored boy in overal s watches me, wide-eyed, gripping a red bal . I look into my rearview mirror. Aibileen is stil on her front steps in her white uniform. She hadn’t even looked at me when she said No ma’am. She just kept her eyes set on that yel ow patch of grass in her yard.
I guess I thought it would be like visiting Constantine, where friendly colored people waved and smiled, happy to see the little white girl
whose daddy owned the big farm. But here, narrow eyes watch me pass by. When my car gets close to him, the little colored boy turns and scats
behind a house a few down from Aibileen’s. Half-a-dozen colored people are gathered in the front yard of the house, holding trays and bags. I rub
my temples. I try to think of something more that might convince Aibileen.
A WEEK AGO, Pascagoula knocked on my bedroom door.
“There’s a long distance phone cal for you, Miss Skeeter. From a Miss…Stern, she say?”
“Stern?” I thought out loud. Then I straightened. “Do you mean… Stein? ”
“I…I reckon it could a been Stein. She talk kind a hard-sounding.”
I rushed past Pascagoula, down the stairs. For some stupid reason, I kept smoothing my frizzy hair down as if it were a meeting and not a
phone cal . In the kitchen, I grabbed the phone dangling against the wal .
Three weeks earlier, I’d typed out the letter on Strathmore white. Three pages outlining the idea, the details, and the lie. Which was that a
hard working and respected colored maid has agreed to let me interview her and describe in specifics what it’s like to work for the white women of
our town. Weighing it against the alternative, that I planned to ask a colored woman for help, saying she’d already agreed to it seemed infinitely more attractive.
I stretched the cord into the pantry, pul ed the string on the single bare bulb. The pantry is shelved floor to ceiling with pickles and soup jars,
molasses, put-up vegetables, and preserves. This was my old high school trick to get some privacy.
“Hel o? This is Eugenia speaking.”
“Please hold, I’l put the cal through.” I heard a series of clicks and then a far, far away voice, almost as deep as a man’s, say, “Elaine Stein.”
“Hel o? This is Skeet—Eugenia Phelan in Mississippi?”
“I know, Miss Phelan. I cal ed you.” I heard a match strike, a short, sharp inhale. “I received your letter last week. I have some comments.”
“Yes ma’am.” I sank down onto a tal tin can of King Biscuit flour. My heart thumped as I strained to hear her. A phone cal from New York
truly sounded as crackly as a thousand miles away ought to.
“What gave you this idea? About interviewing domestic housekeepers. I’m curious.”
I sat paralyzed a second. She offered no chatting or hel o, no introduction of herself. I realized it was best to answer her as instructed. “I
was…wel , I was raised b
y a colored woman. I’ve seen how simple it can be and—and how complex it can be between the families and the help.” I
cleared my throat. I sounded stiff, like I was talking to a teacher.
“Continue.”
“Wel ,” I took a deep breath, “I’d like to write this showing the point of view of the help. The colored women down here.” I tried to picture
Constantine’s face, Aibileen’s. “They raise a white child and then twenty years later the child becomes the employer. It’s that irony, that we love
them and they love us, yet…” I swal owed, my voice trembling. “We don’t even al ow them to use the toilet in the house.”
Again there was silence.
“And,” I felt compel ed to continue, “everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a
white family. Margaret Mitchel covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.” Sweat dripped down my chest, blotting the front
of my cotton blouse.
“So you want to show a side that’s never been examined before,” Missus Stein said.
“Yes. Because no one ever talks about it. No one talks about anything down here.”
Elaine Stein laughed like a growl. Her accent was tight, Yankee. “Miss Phelan, I lived in Atlanta. For six years with my first husband.”
I latched on to this smal connection. “So…you know what it’s like then.”
“Enough to get me out of there,” she said, and I heard her exhale her smoke. “Look, I read your outline. It’s certainly…original, but it won’t
work. What maid in her right mind would ever tel you the truth?”
I could see Mother’s pink slippers pass by the door. I tried to ignore them. I couldn’t believe Missus Stein was already cal ing my bluff. “The
first interviewee is…eager to tel her story.”
“Miss Phelan,” Elaine Stein said, and I knew it wasn’t a question, “this Negro actual y agreed to talk to you candidly? About working for a
white family? Because that seems like a hel of a risk in a place like Jackson, Mississippi.”
I sat blinking. I felt the first fingers of worry that Aibileen might not be as easy to convince as I’d thought. Little did I know what she would say
to me on her front steps the next week.
“I watched them try to integrate your bus station on the news,” Missus Stein continued. “They jammed fifty-five Negroes in a jail cel built for
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