remember Elizabeth? She had you in her wedding?”
My nostrils flare. I want to hit her, at the sound of Aibileen’s name.
“Let’s just say Aibileen ought to’ve been a little bit smarter and not put in the L-shaped crack in poor Elizabeth’s dining table.”
My heart stops. The goddamn crack. How stupid could I be to let that slip?
“And don’t think I’ve forgotten Minny Jackson. I have some big plans for that Nigra.”
“Careful, Hil y,” I say through my teeth. “Don’t give yourself away now.” I sound so confident, but inside I’m trembling, wondering what these
plans are.
Her eyes fly open. “That was not me WHO ATE THAT PIE!”
She turns and marches to her car. She jerks the door open. “You tel those Nigras they better keep one eye over their shoulders. They better
watch out for what’s coming to them.”
MY HAND SHAKES AS I dial Aibileen’s number. I take the receiver in the pantry and shut the door. The opened letter from Harper & Row is in my other hand. It feels like midnight, but it’s only eight thirty.
Aibileen answers and I blurt it out. “Hil y came here tonight and she knows. ”
“Miss Hil y? Knows what?”
Then I hear Minny’s voice in the background. “Hil y? What about Miss Hil y?”
“Minny’s…here with me,” Aibileen says.
“Wel , I guess she needs to hear this too,” I say, even though I wish Aibileen could tel her later, without me. As I describe how Hil y showed
up here, stormed into the house, I wait while she repeats everything back to Minny. It is worse hearing it in Aibileen’s voice.
Aibileen comes back onto the phone and sighs.
“It was the crack in Elizabeth’s dining room table…that’s how Hil y knew for sure.”
“Law, that crack. I can’t believe I put that in.”
“No, I should’ve caught it. I’m so sorry, Aibileen.”
“You think Miss Hil y gone tel Miss Leefolt I wrote about her?”
“She can’t tel her,” Minny hol ers. “Then she admitting it’s Jackson.”
I realize how good Minny’s plan was. “I agree,” I say. “I think Hil y’s terrified, Aibileen. She doesn’t know what to do. She said she was going to tel my mother on me.”
Now that the shock of Hil y’s words has passed, I almost laugh at this thought. That’s the least of our worries. If my mother lived through my
broken engagement, then she can live through this. I’l just deal with it when it happens.
“I reckon they’s nothing we can do but wait, then,” Aibileen says, but she sounds nervous. It’s probably not the best time to tel her my other
news, but I don’t think I can keep myself from it.
“I got a…letter today. From Harper and Row,” I say. “I thought it was from Missus Stein, but it wasn’t.”
“What then?”
“It’s a job offer at Harper’s Magazine in New York. As a…copy editor’s assistant. I’m pretty sure Missus Stein got it for me.”
“That’s so good!” Aibileen says, and then, “Minny, Miss Skeeter got a job offer in New York City!”
“Aibileen, I can’t take it. I just wanted to share it with you. I…” I’m grateful to at least have Aibileen to tel .
“What you mean, you can’t take it? This what you been dreaming of.”
“I can’t leave now, right when things are getting bad. I’m not going to leave you in this mess.”
“But…them bad things gone happen whether you here or not.”
God, to hear her say that, I want to cry. I let out a groan.
“I didn’t mean it like that. We don’t know what’s gone happen. Miss Skeeter, you got to take that job.”
I truly don’t know what to do. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t have even told Aibileen, of course she would tel me to go, but I had to tel
someone. I hear her whisper to Minny, “She say she ain’t gone take it.”
“Miss Skeeter,” Aibileen says back on the phone, “I don’t mean to be rubbing no salt on your wound but…you ain’t got a good life here in
Jackson. Your mama’s better and—”
I hear muffled words and handling of the receiver and suddenly it’s Minny on the phone. “You listen to me, Miss Skeeter. I’m on take care a
Aibileen and she gone take care a me. But you got nothing left here but enemies in the Junior League and a mama that’s gone drive you to drink.
You done burned ever bridge there is. And you ain’t never gone get another boyfriend in this town and everbody know it. So don’t walk your white butt to New York, run it.”
Minny hangs the phone up in my face, and I sit staring at the dead receiver in one hand and the letter in the other. Really? I think, actual y considering it for the first time. Can I really do this?
Minny is right, and Aibileen is too. I have nothing left here except Mother and Daddy and staying here for my parents wil surely ruin the
relationship we have, but…
I lean against the shelves, close my eyes. I’m going. I am going to New York.
AIBILEEN
CHAPTER 34
MISS LEEFOLT’S silver service got funny spots on it today. Must be cause the humidity’s so high. I go around the bridge club table, polishing each piece again, making sure they al stil there. Li’l Man, he’s started swiping things, spoons and nickels and hair pins. He stick em in his diaper to
hide. Sometimes, changing diapers can be like opening treasure.
The phone ring so I go in the kitchen and answer it.
“Got a little bit a news today,” Minny say on the phone.
“What you hear?”
“Miss Renfro say she know it was Miss Hil y who ate that pie.” Minny cackle but my heart go ten times faster.
“Law, Miss Hil y gone be here in five minutes. She better put that fire out fast.” It feel crazy that we rooting for her. It’s confusing in my mind.
“I cal one-arm Ernest—” but then Minny shuts up. Miss Celia must a walked in.
“Alright, she gone. I cal one-arm Ernestine and she say Miss Hil y been screaming in the phone al day. And Miss Clara, she know about
Fanny Amos.”
“She fire her?” Miss Clara put Fanny Amos’s boy through col ege, one a the good stories.
“Nuh-uh. Just sat there with her mouth open and the book in her hand.”
“Thank the Lord. Cal me if you hear more,” I say. “Don’t worry bout Miss Leefolt answering. Tel her it’s about my sick sister.” And Lord, don’t
You go getting me for that lie. Last thing I need is a sister getting sick.
A few minutes after we hang up, the doorbel ring and I pretend I don’t even hear. I’m so nervous to see Miss Hil y’s face after what she said
to Miss Skeeter. I can’t believe I put in that L-shaped crack. I go out to my bathroom and just set, thinking about what’s gone happen if I have to
leave Mae Mobley. Lord, I pray, if I have to leave her, give her somebody good. Don’t leave her with just Miss Taylor tel ing her black is dirty and her granmama pinching the thank-yous out a her and cold Miss Leefolt. The doorbel in the house ring again, but I stay put. I’m on do it tomorrow, I say
to myself. Just in case, I’m on tel Mae Mobley goodbye.
WHEN I COME BACK IN, I hear al the ladies at the table talking. Miss Hil y’s voice is loud. I hold my ear to the kitchen door, dreading going out there.
“—is not Jackson. This book is garbage, is what it is. I’l bet the whole thing was made up by some Nigra—”
I hear a chair scrape and I know Miss Leefolt about to come hunting for me. I can’t put it off no more.
I open the door with the ice tea pitcher in my hand. Round the table I go, keeping my eyes to my shoes.
“I heard that Betty character might be Charlene,” Miss Jeanie say with big eyes. Next to her, Miss Lou Anne’s staring off like she don’t care
<
br /> one way or the other. I wish I could pat her shoulder. I wish I could tel her how glad I am she’s Louvenia’s white lady, without giving nothing away, but I know I can’t. And I can’t tel nothing on Miss Leefolt cause she just frowning like usual. But Miss Hil y’s face, it’s purple as a plum.
“And the maid in Chapter Four?” Miss Jeanie going on. “I heard Sissy Tucker saying—”
“The book is not about Jackson! ” Miss Hil y kind a scream and I jump while I’m pouring. A drop a tea accidental y plops on Miss Hil y’s
empty plate. She look up at me and like a magnet, my eyes pul to hers.
Low and cool, she say, “You spil ed some, Aibileen.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Wipe it up.”
Shaking, I wipe it with the cloth I had on the handle a the pitcher.
She staring at my face. I have to look down. I can feel the hot secret between us. “Get me a new plate. One you haven’t soiled with your dirty
cloth.”
I get her a new plate. She study it, sniff real loud. Then she turn to Miss Leefolt and say, “You can’t even teach these people how to be
clean.”
I HAVE TO SIT LATE that night for Miss Leefolt. While Mae Mobley sleeping, I pul out my prayer book, get started on my list. I’m so glad for Miss Skeeter.
She cal me this morning and say she took the job. She moving to New York in a week! But Law, I can’t stop jumping ever time I hear a noise,
thinking maybe Miss Leefolt gone walk in the door and say she know the truth. By the time I get home, I’m too jumpy to go to bed. I walk through the
pitch-black dark to Minny’s back door. She setting at her table reading the paper. This is the only part a her day when she ain’t running around to
clean something or feed something or make somebody do right. The house be so quiet I figure something wrong.
“Where everbody?”
She shrug, “Gone to bed or gone to work.”
I pul out a chair and set down. “I just want a know what’s gone happen,” I say. “I know I ought a be thankful it ain’t al blowed up in my face yet,
but this waiting’s driving me crazy.”
“It’s gone happen. Soon enough,” Minny say, like we talking about the kind a coffee we drink.
“Minny, how can you be so calm?”
She looks at me, puts her hand on her tummy that’s popped out in the last two weeks. “You know Miss Chotard, who Wil ie Mae wait on?
She ask Wil ie Mae yesterday if she treats her bad as that awful lady in the book.” Minny kind a snort. “Wil ie Mae tel her she got some room to
grow but she ain’t too bad.”
“She real y ask her that?”
“Then Wil ie Mae tel her what al the other white ladies done to her, the good and the bad, and that white lady listen to her. Wil ie May say
she been there thirty-seven years and it’s the first time they ever sat at the same table together.”
Besides Louvenia, this the first good thing we heard. I try to enjoy it. But I snap back to now. “What about Miss Hil y? What about what Miss Skeeter say? Minny, ain’t you at least a little nervous?”
Minny put her newspaper down. “Look, Aibileen, I ain’t gone lie. I’m scared Leroy gone kil me if he find out. I’m scared Miss Hil y gone set
my house on fire. But,” she shake her head, “I can’t explain it. I got this feeling. That maybe things is happening just how they should.”
“Real y?”
Minny kind a laugh. “Lord, I’m starting to sound like you, ain’t I? Must be getting old.”
I poke her with my foot. But I try to understand where Minny’s coming from. We done something brave and good here. And Minny, maybe
she don’t want a be deprived a any a the things that go along with being brave and good. Even the bad. But I can’t pick up on the calm she feeling.
Minny looks back down at her paper but after a little while, I can tel she ain’t reading. She just staring at the words, thinking about something
else. Somebody’s car door slam next door and she jump. And I see it then, the worry she’s trying to hide. But why? I wonder. Why she hiding that
from me?
The more I look, the more I start to understand what’s going on here, what Minny’s done. I don’t know why I’m just now getting this. Minny
made us put the pie story in to protect us. Not to protect herself, but to protect me and the other maids. She knew it would only make it worse for
herself with Hil y. But she did it anyway, for everbody else. She don’t want anybody to see how scared she is.
I reach over and squeeze her hand. “You a beautiful person, Minny.”
She rol her eyes and stick her tongue out like I handed her a plate a dog biscuits. “I knew you was getting senile,” she say.
We both chuckle. It’s late and we so tired, but she get up and refil her coffee and fix me a cup a tea and I drink it slow. We talk late into the
night.
THE NEXT DAY, SATURDAY, we al in the house, the whole Leefolt family plus me. Even Mister Leefolt home today. My book ain’t setting on the bedside
table no more. For a while, I don’t know where she put it. Then I see Miss Leefolt’s pocketbook on the sofa, and she got it tucked inside. Means she
carried it with her somewhere. I peek over and see the bookmark’s gone.
I want to look in her eyes and see what she know, but Miss Leefolt stay in the kitchen most a the day trying to make a cake. Won’t let me in
there to help. Say it’s not like one a my cakes, it’s a fancy recipe she got out the Gourmet magazine. She hosting a luncheon tomorrow for her
church and the dining room’s stacked up with party serving stuff. She done borrowed three chafing dishes from Miss Lou Anne and eight settings a
Miss Hil y’s silver cause they’s fourteen people coming and God forbid any a them church folk got to use a regular ole metal fork.
Li’l Man be in Mae Mobley’s bedroom playing with her. And Mister Leefolt pacing round the house. Time to time he stop in front a Baby
Girl’s bedroom, then go to pacing again. Probably thinks he should be playing with his kids with it being Saturday, but I reckon he don’t know how.
So that don’t leave a whole lot a places for me to go. It’s only two o’clock but I already done cleaned the house down to the nubs, polished
the bathrooms, washed the clothes. I ironed everthing short a the wrinkles on my face. Been banned from the kitchen and I don’t like Mister Leefolt
thinking al I do is set around playing with the kids. Final y I just start wandering round too.
When Mister Leefolt dawdling around the dining room, I peek in and see Mae Mobley got a paper in her hand, teaching Ross something
new. She love to play school with her little brother.
I go in the living room, start dusting the books for the second time. I guess I ain’t gone get to tel her my in-case goodbye today, with this
crowd around.
“We’re gonna play a game,” I hear Mae Mobley cal out to her brother. “Now you sit up at the counter cause you’re at the Woolworf’s and
you’re colored. And you got to stay there no matter what I do or you go to jail.”
I go to her bedroom fast as I can, but Mister Leefolt’s already there, watching at the door. I stand behind him.
Mister Leefolt cross his arms up over his white shirt. Cock his head to the side. My heart’s beating a thousand miles a hour. I ain’t never
once heard Mae Mobley mention our secret stories out loud to anybody except me. And that’s when her mama ain’t home and they ain’t nobody but
the house to hear. But she so thick in what she doing, she don’t know her daddy’s listening.
“Okay,” Mae Mobley say and she guide his wobbly self up on the chair. “Ross, you gotta stay there at the Woolworf counter. No getting up.”
I want to speak, but I can’t get nothin
g to come out my mouth. Mae Mobley be tippy-toeing up behind Ross, pour a box a crayons on his
head, and they clatter down. Li’l Man frown, but she look at him stern, say, “You can’t move. You got to be brave. And no violets.” Then she stick her
tongue out at him and start pinging him with baby dol shoes and Li’l Man look at her like Why am I putting up with this nonsense? and he crawl off the chair with a whine.
“You lose!” she says. “Now come on, we’re playing Back-a-the-Bus and your name is Rosa Parks.”
“Who taught you those things, Mae Mobley?” Mister Leefolt say and Baby Girl whip her head around with eyes like she seed a ghost.
I feel my bones go soft on me. Everthing say go in there. Make sure she don’t get in trouble, but I can’t breathe enough to go. Baby Girl look
right at me standing behind her daddy, and Mister Leefolt turn around and see me, then turn back round to her.
Mae Mobley stare up at her daddy. “I don’t know.” She looks off at a board game laying on the floor, like she might get to playing it again. I
seen her do that, I know what she thinking. She think if she get busy with something else and ignore him, he might just go away.
“Mae Mobley, your daddy asked you a question. Where did you learn about things like that?” He bend down to her. I can’t see his face, but I
know he smiling cause Mae Mobley al shylike, al Baby Girl loves her daddy. And then she say loud and clear:
“Miss Taylor did. ”
Mister Leefolt straighten up. Goes into the kitchen and I’m fol owing. He turns Miss Leefolt around by the shoulders and says: “Tomorrow.
You go down to that school and put Mae Mobley in a different class. No more Miss Taylor.”
“What? I can’t just change her teacher—”
I hold my breath, pray, Yes, you can. Please.
“Just do it.” And like mens do, Mister Raleigh Leefolt walk out the door where he don’t have to give nobody no explanation about nothing.
ALL DAY SUNDAY, I can’t stop thanking God for getting Baby Girl away from Miss Taylor. Thank you God, thank you God, thank you God rings in my
head like a chant. On Monday morning, Miss Leefolt head off to Mae Mobley’s school, al dressed up, and I have to smile, knowing what she going
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