My phone ring, making me jump. Before I can even say hel o, I hear Minny. She working late tonight.
“Miss Hil y sending Miss Walters to the old lady home. I got to find myself a new job. And you know when she going? Next week. ”
“Oh no, Minny.”
“I been looking, cal ten ladies today. Not even a speck a interest.”
I am sorry to say I ain’t surprised. “I ask Miss Leefolt first thing tomorrow do she know anybody need help.”
“Hang on,” Minny say. I hear old Miss Walter talking and Minny say, “What you think I am? A chauffeur? I ain’t driving you to no country club in
the pouring rain.”
Sides stealing, worse thing you’n do for your career as a maid is have a smart mouth. Stil , she such a good cook, sometimes it makes up
for it.
“Don’t you worry, Minny. We gone find you somebody deaf as a doe-knob, just like Miss Walter.”
“Miss Hil y been hinting around for me to come work for her.”
“What?” I talk stern as I can: “Now you look a here, Minny, I support you myself fore I let you work for that evil lady.”
“Who you think you talking to, Aibileen? A monkey? I might as wel go work for the KKK. And you know I never take Yule May’s job away.”
“I’m sorry, Lordy me.” I just get so nervous when it come to Miss Hil y. “I cal Miss Caroline over on Honeysuckle, see if she know somebody.
And I cal Miss Ruth, she so nice it near bout break your heart. Used to clean up the house ever morning so I didn’t have nothing to do but keep her
company. Her husband died a the scarlet fever, mm-hmm.”
“Thank you, A. Now come on, Miss Walters, eat up a little green bean for me.” Minny say goodbye and hang up the phone.
THE NEXT MORNING, there that old green lumber truck is again. Banging’s already started but Mister Leefolt ain’t stomping around today. I guess he know he done lost this one before it even started.
Miss Leefolt setting at the kitchen table in her blue-quilt bathrobe talking on the telephone. Baby Girl’s got red sticky al over her face,
hanging on to her mama’s knees trying to get her look at her.
“Morning, Baby Girl,” I say.
“Mama! Mama!” she say, trying to crawl up in Miss Leefolt’s lap.
“No, Mae Mobley.” Miss Leefolt nudge her down. “Mama’s on the telephone. Let Mama talk.”
“Mama, pick up,” Mae Mobley whine and reach out her arms to her mama. “Pick Mae Mo up.”
“Hush,” Miss Leefolt whisper.
I scoop Baby Girl up right quick and take her over to the sink, but she keep craning her neck around, whining, “Mama, Mama,” trying to get
her attention.
“Just like you told me to say it.” Miss Leefolt nodding into the phone. “Someday when we move, it’l raise the value of the house.”
“Come on, Baby Girl. Put your hands here, under the water.”
But Baby Girl wriggling hard. I’m trying to get the soap on her fingers but she twisting and turning and she snake right out my arms. She run
straight to her mama and stick out her chin and then she jerk the phone cord hard as she can. The receiver clatter out a Miss Leefolt’s hand and hit
the floor.
“Mae Mobley!” I say.
I rush to get her but Miss Leefolt get there first. Her lips is curled back from her teeth in a scary smile. Miss Leefolt slap Baby Girl on the
back a her bare legs so hard I jump from the sting.
Then Miss Leefolt grab Mae Mobley by the arm, jerk it hard with ever word. “Don’t you touch this phone again, Mae Mobley!” she say.
“Aibileen, how many times do I have to tel you to keep her away from me when I am on the phone!”
“I’m sorry,” I say and I pick up Mae Mobley, try to hug her to me, but she bawling and her face is red and she fighting me.
“Come on, Baby Girl, it’s al right, everthing—”
Mae Mobley make an ugly face at me and then she rear back and bowp! She whack me right on the ear.
Miss Leefolt point at the door, yel , “Aibileen, you both just get out.”
I carry her out the kitchen. I’m so mad at Miss Leefolt, I’m biting my tongue. If the fool would just pay her child some attention, this wouldn’t
happen! When we make it to Mae Mobley’s room, I set in the rocking chair. She sob on my shoulder and I rub her back, glad she can’t see the mad
on my face. I don’t want her to think it’s at her.
“You okay, Baby Girl?” I whisper. My ear smarting from her little fist. I’m so glad she hit me instead a her mama, cause I don’t know what that
woman would a done to her. I look down and see red fingermarks on the back a her legs.
“I’m here, baby, Aibee’s here,” I rock and soothe, rock and soothe.
But Baby Girl, she just cry and cry.
AROUND LUNCHTIME, when my stories come on tee-vee, it gets quiet out in the carport. Mae Mobley’s in my lap helping me string the beans. She stil kind a fussy from this morning. I reckon I am too, but I done pushed it down to a place where I don’t have to worry with it.
We go in the kitchen and I fix her baloney sandwich. In the driveway, the workmen is setting in they truck, eating they own lunches. I’m glad
for the peace. I smile over at Baby Girl, give her a strawberry, so grateful I was here during the trouble with her mama. I hate to think what would a
happen if I wasn’t. She stuff the strawberry in her mouth, smile back. I think she feel it too.
Miss Leefolt ain’t here so I think about cal ing Minny at Miss Walter, see if she found any work yet. But before I get around to it, they’s a
knock on the back door. I open it to see one a the workmen standing there. He real old. Got coveral s on over a white col ar shirt.
“Hidee, ma’am. Trouble you for some water?” he ask. I don’t recognize him. Must live somewhere south a town.
“Sho nuff,” I say.
I go get a paper cup from the cupboard. It’s got happy birthday bal oons on it from when Mae Mobley turn two. I know Miss Leefolt don’t want
me giving him one a the glasses.
He drink it in one long swal ow and hand me the cup back. His face be real tired. Kind a lonesome in the eyes.
“How y’al coming along?” I ask.
“It’s work,” he say. “Stil ain’t no water to it. Reckon we run a pipe out yonder from the road.”
“Other fel a need a drink?” I ask.
“Be mighty nice.” He nod and I go get his friend a little funny-looking cup too, fil it up from the sink.
He don’t take it to his partner right away.
“Beg a pardon,” he say, “but where…” He stand there a minute, look down at his feet. “Where might I go to make water?”
He look up and I look at him and for a minute we just be looking. I mean, it’s one a them funny things. Not the ha-ha funny but the funny where
you be thinking: Huh. Here we is with two in the house and one being built and they stil ain’t no place for this man to do his business.
“Wel …” I ain’t never been in this position before. The young’un, Robert, who do the yard ever two weeks, I guess he go fore he come over.
But this fel a, he a old man. Got heavy wrinkled hands. Seventy years a worry done put so many lines in his face, he like a roadmap.
“I spec you gone have to go in the bushes, back a the house,” I hear myself say, but I wish it weren’t me. “Dog’s back there, but he won’t
bother you.”
“Alright then,” he say. “Thank ya.”
I watch him walk back real slow with the cup a water for his partner.
The banging and the digging go on the rest a the afternoon.
ALL THE NEXT DAY LONG, they’s hammering and digging going on in the front yard. I don’t ask Miss Leefolt no questions about it and Miss Leefolt don’t
offer no explanation. She just peer out the back door ever hour to see what’s going on.
Three o’clock the racket stops and the mens get in they truck and leave. Miss Leefolt, she watch em drive off, let out a big sigh. Then she get
in her car and go do whatever it is she do when she ain’t nervous bout a couple a colored mens hanging round her house.
After while, the phone ring.
“Miss Leef—”
“She tel ing everbody in town I’m stealing! That’s why I can’t get no work! That witch done turned me into the Smart-Mouthed Criminal Maid a
Hinds County!”
“Hold on, Minny, get your breath—”
“Before work this morning, I go to the Renfroes’ over on Sycamore and Miss Renfroe near bout chase me off the property. Say Miss Hil y
told her about me, everbody know I stole a candelabra from Miss Walters!”
I can hear the grip she got on the phone, sound like she trying to crush it in her hand. I hear Kindra hol er and I wonder why Minny already
home. She usual y don’t leave work til four.
“I ain’t done nothing but feed that old woman good food and look after her!”
“Minny, I know you honest. God know you honest.”
Her voice dip down, like bees on a comb. “When I walk into Miss Walters’, Miss Hil y be there and she try to give me twenty dol ars. She say,
‘Take it. I know you need it,’ and I bout spit in her face. But I didn’t. No sir.” She start making this panting noise, she say, “I did worse.”
“What you did?”
“I ain’t tel ing. I ain’t tel ing nobody about that pie. But I give her what she deserve!” She wailing now and I feel a real cold fear. Ain’t no game
crossing Miss Hil y. “I ain’t never gone get no work again, Leroy gone kil me…”
Kindra gets to crying in the background. Minny hang up without even saying goodbye. I don’t know what she talking about a pie. But Law,
knowing Minny, it could not have been good.
THAT NIGHT, I pick me a poke salad and a tomato out a Ida’s garden. I fry up some ham, make a little gravy for my biscuit. My wig been brushed out
and put up, got my pink rol ers in, already sprayed the Good Nuff on my hair. I been worried al afternoon, thinking bout Minny. I got to put it out a my mind if I’m on get some sleep tonight.
I set at my table to eat, turn on the kitchen radio. Little Stevie Wonder’s singing “Fingertips.” Being colored ain’t nothing on that boy. He
twelve years old, blind, and got a hit on the radio. When he done, I skip over Pastor Green playing his sermon and stop on WBLA. They play the
juke joint blues.
I like them smoky, liquor-drinking sounds when it get dark. Makes me feel like my whole house is ful a people. I can almost see em, swaying
here in my kitchen, dancing to the blues. When I turn off the ceiling light, I pretend we at The Raven. They’s little tables with red-covered lights. It’s May or June and warm. My man Clyde flash me his white-toothed smile and say Honey, you want you a drink? And I say, Black Mary straight up and then I get to laughing at myself, setting in my kitchen having this daydream, cause the raciest thing I ever take is the purple Nehi.
Memphis Minny get to singing on the radio how lean meat won’t fry, which is about how the love don’t last. Time to time, I think I might find
myself another man, one from my church. Problem is, much as I love the Lord, churchgoing man never do al that much for me. Kind a man I like ain’t
the kind that stays around when he done spending al you money. I made that mistake twenty years ago. When my husband Clyde left me for that
no-count hussy up on Farish Street, one they cal Cocoa, I figured I better shut the door for good on that kind a business.
A cat get to screeching outside and bring me back to my cold kitchen. I turn the radio off and the light back on, fish my prayer book out my
purse. My prayer book is just a blue notepad I pick up at the Ben Franklin store. I use a pencil so I can erase til I get it right. I been writing my
prayers since I was in junior high. When I tel my seventh-grade teacher I ain’t coming back to school cause I got to help out my mama, Miss Ross
just about cried.
“You’re the smartest one in the class, Aibileen,” she say. “And the only way you’re going to keep sharp is to read and write every day.”
So I started writing my prayers down instead a saying em. But nobody’s cal ed me smart since.
I turn the pages a my prayer book to see who I got tonight. A few times this week, I thought about maybe putting Miss Skeeter on my list. I’m
not real sure why. She always nice when she come over. It makes me nervous, but I can’t help but wonder what she was gone ask me in Miss
Leefolt’s kitchen, about do I want to change things. Not to mention her asking me the whereabouts a Constantine, her maid growing up. I know what
happen between Constantine and Miss Skeeter’s mama and ain’t no way I’m on tel her that story.
The thing is though, if I start praying for Miss Skeeter, I know that conversation gone continue the next time I see her. And the next and the
next. Cause that’s the way prayer do. It’s like electricity, it keeps things going. And the bathroom situation, it just ain’t something I real y want to discuss.
I scan down my prayer list. My Mae Mobley got the number one rung, then they’s Fanny Lou at church, ailing from the rheumatism. My sisters
Inez and Mable in Port Gibson that got eighteen kids between em and six with the flu. When the list be thin, I slip in that old stinky white fel a that live behind the feed store, the one lost his mind from drinking the shoe polish. But the list be pretty ful tonight.
And look a there who else I done put on this list. Bertrina Bessemer a al people! Everbody know Bertrina and me don’t take to each other
ever since she cal me a nigga fool for marrying Clyde umpteen years ago.
“Minny,” I say last Sunday, “why Bertrina ask me to pray for her?”
We walking home from the one o’clock service. Minny say, “Rumor is you got some kind a power prayer, gets better results than just the
regular variety.”
“Say what?”
“Eudora Green, when she broke her hip, went on your list, up walking in a week. Isaiah fel off the cotton truck, on your prayer list that night,
back to work the next day.”
Hearing this made me think about how I didn’t even get the chance to pray for Treelore. Maybe that’s why God took him so fast. He didn’t
want a have to argue with me.
“Snuff Washington,” Minny say, “Lol y Jackson—heck, Lol y go on your list and two days later she pop up from her wheelchair like she
touched Jesus. Everbody in Hinds County know about that one.”
“But that ain’t me,” I say. “That’s just prayer.”
“But Bertrina—” Minny get to laughing, say, “You know Cocoa, the one Clyde run off with?”
“Phhh. You know I never forget her.”
“Week after Clyde left you, I heard that Cocoa wake up to her cootchie spoilt like a rotten oyster. Didn’t get better for three months. Bertrina,
she good friends with Cocoa. She know your prayer works.”
My mouth drop open. Why she never tel me this before? “You saying people think I got the black magic?”
“I knew it make you worry if I told you. They just think you got a better connection than most. We al on a party line to God, but you, you setting
right in his ear.”
My teapot start fussing on the stove, bringing me back to real life. Law, I reckon I just go ahead and put Miss Skeeter on the list, but how
come, I don’t know. Which reminds me a what I don’t want a think about, that Miss Leefolt’s building me a bathroom cause she think I’m diseased.
And Miss Skeeter asking don’t I want to change things, like changing Jackson, Mississippi, gone be like changing a lightbulb.
I’M STRINGING BEANS in Miss Leefolt’s kitchen and the phone rings. I’m hoping it’s Minny to say she found something. I done cal ed everbody I ever waited on and they al told me the same thing: “We ain’t hiring.” But what they real y mean is: “We ain’t hiring Minny.”
Even though Minny already had her last day a work three days ago, Miss Walter cal Minny in secret last night, ask her to come in today
cause the house feel too empty, what with most the furniture already taken away by Miss Hil y. I stil don’t know what happen with Minny and Miss Hil y. I reckon I don’t real y want to know.
“Leefolt residence.”
“Um, hi. This is…” The lady stop, clear her throat. “Hel o. May I…may I please speak to Elizabeth Leer-folt?”
“Miss Leefolt ain’t home right now. May I take a message?”
“Oh,” she say, like she got al excited over nothing.
“May I ask who cal ing?”
“This is…Celia Foote. My husband gave me this number here and I don’t know Elizabeth, but…wel , he said she knows al about the
Children’s Benefit and the Ladies League.” I know this name, but I can’t quite place it. This woman talk like she from so deep in the country she got
corn growing in her shoes. Her voice is sweet though, high-pitch. Stil , she don’t sound like the ladies round here do.
“I give her your message,” I say. “What’s your number?”
“I’m kind of new here and, wel , that’s not true, I’ve been here a pretty good stretch, gosh, over a year now. I just don’t real y know anybody. I
don’t…get out too much.”
She clear her throat again and I’m wondering why she tel ing me al this. I’m the maid, she ain’t gone win no friends talking to me.
“I was thinking maybe I could help out with the Children’s Benefit from home,” she say.
I remember then who she is. She the one Miss Hil y and Miss Leefolt always talking trash on cause she marry Miss Hil y’s old boyfriend.
“I give her the message. What you say your number is again?”
“Oh, but I’m fixing to scoot off to the grocery store. Oh, maybe I should sit