Kathryn Stockett - The Help

Ever afternoon, me and Baby Girl set in the rocking chair before her nap. Ever afternoon, I tell her: You kind, you smart, you important. But she growing up and I know, soon, them few words ain’t gone be enough.

“Aibee? Read me a story?”

I look through the books to see what I’m on read to her. I can’t read that Curious George one more time cause she don’t want a hear it. Or Chicken Little or Madeline neither.

So we just rock in the chair awhile. Mae Mobley lean her head against my uniform. We watch the rain dripping on the water left in the green plastic pool. I say a prayer for Myrlie Evers, wishing I’d had work off to go to the funeral. I think on how her ten-year-old son, somebody told me, had cried so quiet through the whole thing. I rock and pray, feeling so sad, I don’t know, something just come over me. The words just come out.

“Once upon a time they was two little girls,” I say. “One girl had black skin, one girl had white.”

Mae Mobley look up at me. She listening.

“Little colored girl say to the little white girl, ‘How come your skin be so pale?’ White girl say, ‘I don’t know. How come your skin be so black? What you think that mean?’

“But neither one a them little girls knew. So little white girl say, ‘Well, let’s see. You got hair, I got hair.’ ” I gives Mae Mobley a little tousle on her head.

“Little colored girl say, ‘I got a nose, you got a nose.’ ” I gives her little snout a tweak. She got to reach up and do the same to me.

“Little white girl say, ‘I got toes, you got toes.’ And I do the little thing with her toes, but she can’t get to mine cause I got my white work shoes on.

“ ‘So we’s the same. Just a different color,’ say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends. The End.”

Baby Girl just look at me. Law, that was a sorry story if I ever heard one. Wasn’t even no plot to it. But Mae Mobley, she smile and say, “Tell it again.”

So I do. By the fourth time, she asleep. I whisper, “I’m on tell you a better one next time.”

“DON’T WE HAVE MORE TOWELS, Aibileen? This one’s fine, but we can’t take this old ratty thing, I’d be embarrassed to death. I guess we’ll just take the one, then.”

Miss Leefolt all in a tizzy. She and Mister Leefolt don’t belong to no swim club, not even the dinky Broadmoore pool. Miss Hilly call this morning and ask if she and Baby Girl want to go swimming at the Jackson Country Club and that’s a invitation Miss Leefolt ain’t had but once or twice. I probably been there more times than she has.

You can’t use paper money there, you got to be a member and charge it to your account and one thing I know about Miss Hilly is, she don’t like to carry nobody’s costs. I reckon Miss Hilly got other ladies she go to the Country Club with, ones who got the memberships.

We still ain’t heard another word about the satchel. Ain’t even seen Miss Hilly in five days. Neither has Miss Skeeter, which is bad. They sposed to be best friends. Miss Skeeter, she brung over the first Minny chapter last night. Miss Walter was no cup a tea and if Miss Hilly saw anything relating to that, I don’t know what’s gone happen to us. I just hope Miss Skeeter ain’t too scared to tell me if she heard anything new.

I put Baby Girl’s yellow bikini on. “You got to keep you top on, now. They don’t let no nekkid babies swim at the country club.” Nor Negroes nor Jews. I used to work for the Goldmans. The Jackson Jews got to swim at the Colonial Country Club, the Negroes, in May’s Lake.

I feed Baby Girl a peanut butter sandwich and the phone ring.

“Miss Leefolt residence.”

“Aibileen, hey, it’s Skeeter. Is Elizabeth there?”

“Hey Miss Skeeter . . .” I look over at Miss Leefolt, about to hand her the phone, but she wave her hands. She shake her head and mouth, No. Tell her I’m not here.

“She . . . she gone, Miss Skeeter,” I say and I look Miss Leefolt right in the eye while I tell her lie. I don’t understand it. Miss Skeeter a member a the club, wouldn’t be no trouble inviting her.

At noontime, we all three get in Miss Leefolt’s blue Ford Fairlane. On the back seat next to us, I got a bag with a Thermos a apple juice, cheese nabs, peanuts, and two Co-Cola bottles that’s gone be like drinking coffee they gone be so hot. I spec Miss Leefolt know Miss Hilly ain’t gone be pushing us to the snack bar. Law knows why she invite her today.

Baby Girl ride in my lap in the back seat. I crank the window down, let the warm air blow on our faces. Miss Leefolt keep poofing her hair up. She a stop-and-go driver and I feel nauseous, wish she’d just keep both hands on the wheel.

We pass the Ben Franklin Five and Dime, the Seale-Lily Ice Cream drive-thru. They got a sliding window on the back side so colored folk can get our ice cream too. My legs is sweating with Baby Girl setting on me. After while, we on a long, bumpy road with pasture on both sides, cows flapping at the flies with they tails. We count us twenty-six cows but Mae Mobley just call out “ Ten ” after the first nine. That’s high as she know.

Bout fifteen minutes later, we pull onto a paved drive. The club’s a low, white building with prickle bushes around it, not nearly so fancy as folks talk about it. They’s plenty a parking places up front, but Miss Leefolt think on it a second, park a ways back.

We step out onto the blacktop, feel the heat cover us. I got the paper sack in one hand, Mae Mobley’s hand in the other and we trudge across the steaming black lot. Gridlines make it like we on a charcoal grill, roasting like corncobs. My face getting tight, burning in the sun. Baby Girl lagging back on my hand looking stunned like she just got slapped. Miss Leefolt panting and frowning at the door, still twenty yards away, wondering, I reckon, why she park so far. The part in my hair get to burning, then itching, but I can’t scratch at it cause both hands is full then whoo! somebody blow out the flame. The lobby’s dark, cool, heaven. We blink awhile.

Miss Leefolt look around, blind and shy, so I point to the side door. “Pool that a way, ma’am.”

She look grateful I know my way around so she don’t have to ask like poor folk.

We push open the door and the sun flash in our eyes again, but it’s nice, cooler. The swimming pool shining blue. The black-and-white stripe awnings look clean. The air smell like laundry soap. Kids is laughing and splashing and ladies is laying around in they swimsuits and sunglasses reading magazines.

Miss Leefolt roof her eyes and spy around for Miss Hilly. She got a white floppy hat on, black-and-white polky-dot dress, clonky white buckle sandals a size too big for her feet. She frowning cause she feel out a place, but smiling cause she don’t want nobody to know it.

“ There she is.” We follow Miss Leefolt around the pool to where Miss Hilly is in a red bathing suit. She laid out on a lounge chair, watching her kids swim. I see two maids I don’t know with other families, but not Yule May.

“There y’all are,” Miss Hilly say. “Why, Mae Mobley, don’t you look like a little butterball in that bikini. Aibileen, the kids are right there in the baby pool. You can sit in the shade back yonder and look after them. Don’t let William splash the girls, now.”

Miss Leefolt lay down on the lounge chair next to Miss Hilly and I set at the table under a umbrella, few feet behind the ladies. I pop my hose away from my legs to dry the sweat. I’m in a pretty good position for hearing what they say.

“Yule May,” Miss Hilly shake her head at Miss Leefolt. “Another day off. I tell you, that girl is pushing it with me.” Well, that’s one mystery solved. Miss Hilly invite Miss Leefolt to the pool cause she know she bring me.