The Help (62 page)

“Thank you, Miss Skeeter. For this, for
ever
thing.”

She smile, take a deep breath like she fighting back tears.

“I can’t believe you gone be a New Yorker tomorrow,” I say.

“Actually, I’m going to go to Chicago first. Only for one night. I want to see Constantine, her grave.”

I nod. “I’m glad.”

“Mother showed me the obituary. It’s right outside of town. And then I’ll go to New York the next morning.”

“You tell Constantine Aibileen say hello.”

She laugh. “I’m so nervous. I’ve never been to Chicago or New York. I’ve never even been on an airplane before.”

We set there a second, listening to the storm. I think about the first time Miss Skeeter came to my house, how awkward we was. Now I feel like we family.

“Are you scared, Aibileen?” she asks. “Of what might happen?”

I turn so she can’t see my eyes. “I’m alright.”

“Sometimes, I don’t know if this was worth it. If something happens to you . . . how am I going to live with that, knowing it was because of me?” She presses her hand over her eyes, like she don’t want to see what’s gone happen.

I go to my bedroom and bring out the package from Reverend Johnson. She take off the paper and stare at the book, all the names signed in it. “I was gone send it to you in New York, but I think you need to have it now.”

“I don’t . . . understand,” she say. “This is for me?”

“Yes ma’am.” Then I pass on the Reverend’s message, that she is part of our family. “You need to remember, ever one a these signatures means it was worth it.” She read the thank-yous, the little things they wrote, run her fingers over the ink. Tears fill up her eyes.

“I reckon Constantine would a been real proud a you.”

Miss Skeeter smile and I see how
young
she is. After all we written and the hours we spent tired and worried, I ain’t seen the girl she still is in a long, long time.

“Are you sure it’s alright? If I leave you, with everything so . . .”

“Go to New York, Miss Skeeter. Go find your life.”

She smile, blinking back the tears, and say,
“Thank you.”

 

 

 

THAT NIGHT I lay in bed thinking. I am so happy for Miss Skeeter. She starting her whole life over. Tears run down my temples into my ears, thinking about her walking down them big city avenues I seen on tee-vee with her long hair behind her. Part a me wishes I could have a new start too. The cleaning article, that’s new. But I’m not young. My life’s about done.

The harder I try to sleep, the more I know I’m on be up most a the night. It’s like I can feel the buzz all over town, of people talking about the book. How can anybody sleep with all them bees? I think about Flora Lou, how if Hilly wasn’t telling people the book ain’t Jackson, Miss Hester would a fired her. Oh Minny, I think. You done something so good. You taking care a everbody except yourself. I wish I could protect you.

It sounds like Miss Hilly’s barely hanging on by a thread. Ever day another person say they know it was her that ate that pie and Miss Hilly just fight harder. For the first time in my life, I’m actually wondering who gone win this fight. Before now, I’d always say Miss Hilly but now I don’t know. This time, Miss Hilly just might lose.

I get a few hours sleep before dawn. It’s funny, but I hardly feel tired when I get up at six. I put on my clean uniform I washed in the tub last night. In the kitchen, I drink a long, cool glass a water from the faucet. I turn off the kitchen light and head for the door and my phone ring. Law, it’s early for that.

I pick up and I hear
wailing.

“Minny? That you? What—”

“They fired Leroy last night! And when Leroy ask why, his boss say Mister William
Holbrook
told him to do it. Holbrook told him it’s Leroy’s nigger
wife
the reason and Leroy come home and try to kill me with his bare hands!” Minny panting and heaving. “He throw the kids in the yard and lock me in the bathroom and say he gone light the house on fire with me locked inside!”

Law, it’s
happening.
I cover my mouth, feel myself falling down that black hole we dug for ourselves. All these weeks a hearing Minny sound so confident and now...

“That
witch
,” Minny scream. “He gone kill me cause a her!”

“Where you now, Minny, where the kids?”

“The gas station, I run here in my bare feet! The kids run next door . . .” She panting and hiccupping and growling. “Octavia coming to get us. Say she gone drive fast as she can.”

Octavia’s in Canton, twenty minutes north up by Miss Celia. “Minny, I’m on run up there now—”

“No, don’t hang up, please. Just stay on the phone with me till she get here.”

“Is you okay? You hurt?”

“I can’t take this no more, Aibileen. I can’t do this—” She break down crying into the phone.

It’s the first time I ever heard Minny say that. I take a deep breath, knowing what I need to do. The words is so clear in my head and
right now
is my only chance for her to really hear me, standing barefoot and rock bottom on the gas station phone. “Minny, listen to me. You never gone lose your job with Miss Celia. Mister Johnny told you hisself. And they’s more money coming from the book, Miss Skeeter found out last night. Minny, hear me when I say,
You don’t have to get hit by Leroy no more.”

Minny choke out a sob.

“It’s time, Minny. Do you hear me? You are
free.
”

Real slow, Minny’s crying wind down. Until she dead quiet. If I couldn’t hear her breathing, I’d think she hung up the phone.
Please, Minny,
I think.
Please, take this chance to get out.

She take a deep, shaky breath. She say, “I hear what you saying, Aibileen.”

“Let me come to the gas station and wait with you. I tell Miss Leefolt I be late.”

“No,” she say. “My sister . . . be here soon. We gone stay with her tonight.”

“Minny, is it just for tonight or . . .”

She let out a long breath into the phone. “No,” she say. “I can’t. I done took this long
enough.
” And I start to hear Minny Jackson come back into her own self again. Her voice is shaking, I know she scared, but she say, “God help him, but Leroy don’t know
what
Minny Jackson about to become.”

My heart jumps. “Minny, you can’t kill him. Then you gone be in jail right where Miss Hilly want you.”

Lord, that silence is a long, terrible one.

“I ain’t gone kill him, Aibileen. I promise. We gone go stay with Octavia till we find a place a our own.”

I let out a breath.

“She here,” she say. “I’ll call you tonight.”

 

 

 

WHEN I GET TO Miss Leefolt’s, the house is real quiet. I reckon Li’l Man still sleeping. Mae Mobley already gone to school. I put my bag down in the laundry room. The swinging door to the dining room is closed and the kitchen is a nice cool square.

I put the coffee on and say a prayer for Minny. She can stay out at Octavia’s for a while. Octavia got a fair-size farmhouse, from what Minny’s told me. Minny be closer to her job, but it’s far from the kids’ schools. Still, what’s important is, Minny’s away from Leroy. I never once heard her say she gone leave Leroy, and Minny don’t say things twice. When she do things, they done the first time.

I fix a bottle a milk for Li’l Man and take a deep breath. I feel like my day’s already done and it’s only eight o’clock in the morning. But I still ain’t tired. I don’t know why.

I push open the swinging door. And there be Miss Leefolt and Miss Hilly setting down at the dining room table on the same side, looking at me.

For a second, I stand there, gripping the bottle a milk. Miss Leefolt still got her hair curlers in and she in her blue quilted bathrobe. But Miss Hilly’s all dressed up in a blue plaid pantsuit. That nasty red sore still on the side a her lip.

“G’morning,” I say and start to walk to the back.

“Ross is still sleeping,” Miss Hilly say. “No need to go back there.”

I stop where I am and look at Miss Leefolt, but she staring at the funny L-shaped crack in her dining room table.

“Aibileen,” Miss Hilly says and she lick her lips. “When you returned my silver yesterday, there were three pieces missing out of that felt wrapper. One silver fork and two silver spoons.”

I suck in a breath. “Lemme—lemme go look in the kitchen, maybe I left some behind.” I look at Miss Leefolt to see if that’s what she want me to do, but she keep her eyes on the crack. A cold prickle creeps up my neck.

“You know as well as I do that silver’s not in the kitchen, Aibileen,” Miss Hilly say.

“Miss Leefolt, you checked in Ross’s bed? He been sneaking things and sticking em—”

Miss Hilly scoff real loud. “Do you hear her, Elizabeth? She’s trying to blame it on a toddler.”

My mind’s racing, I’m trying to remember if I counted the silver before I put it back in the felt. I think I did. I always do. Law, tell me she ain’t saying what I think she saying—

“Miss Leefolt, did you already check the kitchen? Or the silver closet? Miss Leefolt?”

But she still won’t look at me and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know, yet, how bad this is. Maybe this ain’t about silver, maybe this is really about Miss Leefolt and
Chapter Two
. . .

“Aibileen,” Miss Hilly say, “you can return those pieces to me by today, or else Elizabeth is going to press charges.”

Miss Leefolt look at Miss Hilly and suck in a breath, like she surprised. And I wonder whose idea this whole thing is, both of em or just Miss Hilly’s?

“I ain’t stole no silver service, Miss Leefolt,” I say and just the words make me want a run.

Miss Leefolt whisper, “She says she doesn’t have them, Hilly.”

Miss Hilly don’t even act like she heard. She raise her eyebrows at me and say, “Then it behooves me to inform you that you are fired, Aibileen.” Miss Hilly sniff. “I’ll be calling the police. They know me.”

“Maa-maaaa,” Li’l Man holler from his crib in the back. Miss Leefolt look behind her, then at Hilly, like she ain’t sure what to do. I reckon she just now thinking about what it’s gone be like if she don’t have a maid no more.

“Aaai-beee,”
Li’l Man call, starting to cry.

“Aai-bee,” call another small voice and I realize
Mae Mobley’s home.
She must not’ve gone to school today. I press on my chest.
Lord, please don’t let her see this. Don’t let her hear what Miss Hilly saying about me.
Down the hall, the door opens and Mae Mobley walks out. She blinks at us and coughs.

“Aibee, my froat hurts.”

“I—I be right there, baby.”

Mae Mobley coughs again and it sounds bad, like a dog barking, and I start for the hall, but Miss Hilly say, “Aibileen, you stay where you are, Elizabeth can take care of her kids.”

Miss Leefolt look at Hilly like,
Do I have to?
But then she get up and trudge down the hall. She take Mae Mobley into Li’l Man’s room and shut the door. It’s just two of us left now, me and Miss Hilly.

Miss Hilly lean back in her chair, say, “I won’t tolerate liars.”

My head swimming. I want to set down. “I didn’t steal no silver, Miss Hilly.”

“I’m not talking about silver,” she say, leaning forward. She hissing in a whisper so Miss Leefolt don’t hear her. “I’m talking about those things you wrote about Elizabeth. She has no idea Chapter Two is about her and I am too good of a friend to tell her. And maybe I can’t send you to jail for what you wrote about Elizabeth, but I can send you to jail for being a thief.”

I ain’t going to no penitentiary.
I ain’t,
is all I can think.

“And your friend, Minny? She’s got a nice surprise coming to her. I’m calling Johnny Foote and telling him he needs to fire her right now.”

The room getting blurry. I’m shaking my head and my fists is clenching tighter.

“I’m pretty darn close to Johnny Foote. He listens to what I—”

“Miss
Hilly.
” I say it loud and clear. She stops. I bet Miss Hilly ain’t been interrupted in ten years.

I say, “I know something about you and don’t you forget that.”

She narrow her eyes at me. But she don’t say nothing.

“And from what I hear, they’s a lot a time to write a lot a letters in jail.” I’m trembling. My breath feel like fire. “Time to write to ever person in Jackson the truth about you. Plenty a time and the paper is free.”

“Nobody would believe something you wrote, Nigra.”

“I don’t know. I been told I’m a pretty good writer.”

She fish her tongue out and touch that sore with it. Then she drop her eyes from mine.

Before she can say anything else, the door flies open down the hall. Mae Mobley runs out in her nightie and she stop in front a me. She hiccupping and crying and her little nose is red as a rose. Her mama must a told her I’m leaving.

God,
I pray,
tell me she didn’t repeat Miss Hilly’s lies.

Baby Girl grab the skirt a my uniform and don’t let go. I touch my hand to her forehead and she burning with fever.

“Baby, you need to get back in the bed.”

“Noooo,” she bawls. “Don’t gooo, Aibee.”

Miss Leefolt come out a the bedroom, frowning, holding Li’l Man.

“Aibee!” he call out, grinning.

“Hey . . . Li’l Man,” I whisper. I’m so glad he don’t understand what’s going on. “Miss Leefolt, lemme take her in the kitchen and give her some medicine. Her fever is real high.”

Miss Leefolt glance at Miss Hilly, but she just setting there with her arms crossed. “Alright, go on,” Miss Leefolt say.

I take Baby Girl’s hot little hand and lead her into the kitchen. She bark out that scary cough again and I get the baby aspirin and the cough syrup. Just being in here with me, she calmed down some, but tears is still running down her face.