“Skeeter, you made it[66],” Hilly says and Deena wanders out of the kitchen.
“I can’t stay long,” I say, probably too quickly.
“Well, I found out.” Hilly smirks. “He is definitely coming this time. Three weeks from today.”
I watch Yule May’s long fingers pinch the dough off a knife and I sigh, knowing right away who she means. “I don’t know, Hilly. You’ve tried so many times. Maybe it’s a sign.” Last month, when he’d canceled the day before the date, I’d actually allowed myself a bit of excitement. I don’t really feel like going through that again.
“What? Don’t you dare say that.”
“Hilly,” I clench my teeth, because it’s time I finally just said it, “you know I won’t be his type.”
“Look at me,” she says. And I do as I’m told. Because that is what we do around Hilly.
“Hilly, you can’t make me go —”
“It is your time, Skeeter.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand, presses her thumb and fingers down as hard as Constantine ever did. “It is your turn. And damn it, I’m not going to let you miss this just because your mother convinced you you’re not good enough for somebody like him.”
I’m stung by her bitter, true words. And yet, I am awed by my friend, by her tenacity for me. Hilly and I’ve always been uncompromisingly honest with each other, even about the little things. With other people, Hilly hands out lies like the Presbyterians hand out guilt, but it’s our own silent agreement, this strict honesty, perhaps the one thing that has kept us friends.
Elizabeth comes in the kitchen carrying an empty plate. She smiles, then stops, and we all three look at each other.
“What?” Elizabeth says. I can tell she thinks we’ve been talking about her.
“Three weeks then?” Hilly asks me. “You coming?”
“Oh yes you are! You most certainly are going!” Elizabeth says.
I look in their smiling faces, at their hope for me. It’s not like Mother’s meddling, but a clean hope, without strings or hurt. I hate that my friends have discussed this, my one night’s fate, behind my back. I hate it and I love it too.
I head back to the country before the game is over. Out the open window of the Cadillac, the fields look chopped and burned. Daddy finished the last harvest weeks ago, but the side of the road is still snowy with cotton stuck in the grass. Whiffs of it blow and float through the air.
I check the mailbox from the driver’s seat. Inside is The Farmer’s Almanac and a single letter. It is from Harper & Row. I turn into the drive, throw the gear into Park. The letter is handwritten, on small square notepaper.
Miss Phelan,
You certainly may hone your writing skills on such flat, passionless subjects as drunk driving and illiteracy. I’d hoped, however, you’d choose topics that actually had some punch to them. Keep looking. If you find something original, only then may you write me again.
I slip past Mother in the dining room, invisible Pascagoula dusting pictures in the hall, up my steep, vicious stairs. My face burns. I fight the tears over Missus Stein’s letter, tell myself to pull it together. The worst part is, I don’t have any better ideas.
I bury myself in the next housekeeping article, then the League newsletter. For the second week in a row, I leave out Hilly’s bathroom initiative. An hour later, I find myself staring off at the window. My copy of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sits on the window ledge. I walk over and pick it up, afraid the light will fade the paper jacket, the black-and-white photo of the humble, impoverished family on the cover. The book is warm and heavy from the sun. I wonder if I’ll ever write anything worth anything at all. I turn when I hear Pascagoula’s knock on my door. That’s when the idea comes to me.
No. I couldn’t. That would be… crossing the line.
But the idea won’t go away.
Aibileen
Chapter 7
The heat wave finally passes round the middle a October and we get ourselves a cool fifty degrees. In the mornings, that bathroom seat get cold out there, give me a little start when I set down. It’s just a little room they built inside the carport. Inside is a toilet and a little sink attached to the wall. A pull cord for the lightbulb. Paper have to set on the floor.
When I waited on Miss Caulier, her carport attach to the house so I didn’t have to go outside. Place before that had a maid quarters. Plus my own little bedroom for when I sit at night. This one I got to cross through the weather to get there.
On a Tuesday noon, I carry my lunch on out to the back steps, set down on the cool concrete. Miss Leefolt’s grass don’t grow good back here. A big magnolia tree shades most a the yard. I already know that’s the tree gone be Mae Mobley’s hideout. In about five years, to hide from Miss Leefolt.
After a while, Mae Mobley waddle out on the back step. She got half her hamburger patty in her hand. She smile up at me and say, “Good.”
“How come you not in there with your mama?” I ask, but I know why. She rather be setting out here with the help than in there watching her mama look anywhere but at her. She like one a them baby chickens that get confused and follow the ducks around instead.
Mae Mobley point at the bluebirds getting ready for winter, twittering in the little gray fountain. “Boo birds!” She point and drop her hamburger down on the step. Out a nowhere, that old bird dog Aubie they don’t never pay no mind to come up and gobble it down. I don’t take to dogs, but this one is just plain pitiful. I pet him on the head. I bet nobody petted that dog since Christmas.
When Mae Mobley see him, she squeal and grab at his tail. It whap her in the face a few times before she get holt. Poor thing, he whine and give her one a those pitiful people-dog looks, his head turned funny, his eyebrows up. I can almost hear him asking her to turn him loose. He ain’t the biting kind.[67]
So she’ll let go, I say, “Mae Mobley, where your tail?”
Sho nuff, she let go and start looking at her rear. Her mouth’s popped open like she just can’t believe she done missed it all this time. She turning in wobbly circles trying to see it.
“You ain’t got no tail.” I laugh and catch her fore she fall off that step. Dog sniff around for more hamburger.
It always tickle me how these babies believe anything you tell em. Tate Forrest, one a my used-to-be babies long time ago, stop me on the way to the Jitney just last week, give me a big hug, so happy to see me. He a grown man now. I needed to get back to Miss Leefolt’s, but he start laughing and memoring how I’d do him when he was a boy. How the first time his foot fell asleep and he say it tickle, I told him that was just his foot snoring. And how I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup a coffee and he twenty-one years old. It’s always nice seeing the kids grown up fine.
“Mae Mobley? Mae Mobley Leefolt!”
Miss Leefolt just now noticing her child ain’t setting in the same room with her. “She out here with me, Miss Leefolt,” I say through the screen door.
“I told you to eat in your high chair, Mae Mobley. How I ended up with you when all my friends have angels I just do not know…” But then the phone ring and I hear her stomping off to get it.
I look down at Baby Girl, see how her forehead’s all wrinkled up between the eyes. She studying hard on something.
I touch her cheek. “You alright, baby?”
She say, “Mae Mo bad.”
The way she say it, like it’s a fact, make my insides hurt.
“Mae