Chapter 15

None a the Medgar Evers talk come up in Miss Leefolt’s house. I change the station when she come back from her lunch meeting. We go on like it’s a nice summer afternoon. I still ain’t heard hide nor hair from Miss Hilly and I’m sick a the worry that’s always in my head.

A day after the Evers funeral, Miss Leefolt’s mama stop by for a visit. She live up in Greenwood, Mississippi, and she driving down to New Orleans. She don’t knock, Miss Fredericks just waltz on in the living room where I’m ironing. She give me a lemony smile. I go tell Miss Leefolt who here.

“Mama! You’re so early! You must’ve gotten up at the crack of dawn this morning, I hope you didn’t tire yourself out!” Miss Leefolt say, rushing into the living room, picking up toys fast as she can. She shoot me a look that say, now. I put Mister Leefolt’s wrinkled shirts in a basket, get a cloth for Baby Girl’s face to wipe off the jelly.

“And you look so fresh and stylish this morning, Mama.” Miss Leefolt smiling so hard she getting bug-eyed. “Are you excited about your shopping trip?”

From the good Buick she drive and her nice buckle shoes, I spec Miss Fredericks got a lot more money than Mister and Miss Leefolt do.

“I wanted to break up the drive. And I was hoping you’d take me to the Robert E. Lee for lunch,” Miss Fredericks say. I don’t know how this woman can stand her own self. I heard Mister and Miss Leefolt arguing about how evertime she come to town, she make Miss Leefolt take her to the fanciest place in town and then sit back and make Miss Leefolt pay the bill.

Miss Leefolt say, “Oh, why don’t we have Aibileen fix us lunch here? We have a real nice ham and some —”

“I stopped by to go out to lunch. Not to eat here.”

“Alright. Alright, Mama, let me just go get my handbag.”

Miss Fredericks look down at Mae Mobley playing with her baby doll, Claudia, on the floor. She bend down and give her a hug, say, “Mae Mobley, did you like that smocked dress I sent over last week?”

“Yeah,” Baby Girl say to her granmama. I hated showing Miss Leefolt how tight that dress was around the middle. Baby Girl getting plumper.

Miss Fredericks, she scowl down at Mae Mobley. “You say yes, ma’am, young lady. Do you hear me?”

Mae Mobley, she get a dull look on her face, say, “Yes, ma’am.” But I know what she thinking. She thinking, Great. Just what I need today. Another lady in this house who don’t like me.

They head out the door with Miss Fredericks pinching the back a Miss Leefolt’s arm. “You don’t know how to hire proper help, Elizabeth. It is her job to make sure Mae Mobley has good manners.”

“Alright, Mama, we’ll work on it.”

“You can’t just hire anybody and hope you get lucky.”

After while, I fix Baby Girl that ham sandwich Miss Fredericks too good to eat. But Mae Mobley only take one bite, push it away.

“I don’t feel good. My froat hurts, Aibee.”

I know what a froat is and I know how to fix it. Baby Girl getting a summer cold. I heat her up a cup a honey water, little lemon in it to make it good. But what this girl really needs is a story so she can go to sleep. I lift her up in my arms. Law, she getting big. Gone be three years old in a few months, and pudgy as a punkin.

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.

Miss Hilly pour more cocoa butter on her plump, tan legs, rub it around. She already so greasy she shining. “I am so ready to get down to the coast,” Miss Hilly say. “Three weeks at the beach.”

“I wish Raleigh’s family had a house down there.” Miss Leefolt sigh. She pull her dress up a little to sun her white knees. She can’t wear no bathing suit since she pregnant.

“Of course we have to pay the bus fare to get Yule May back up here on the weekends. Eight dollars. I ought to take it out of her pay.”

The kids yell they want to get in the big pool now. I pull Mae Mobley’s foam bubble out the bag, fasten it around her tummy. Miss Hilly hand me two more and I put one on William and Heather too. They get in the big pool and float around like a bunch a fishing corks. Miss Hilly look at me, say, “Aren’t they the cutest things?” and I nod. They sure is. Even Miss Leefolt nodding.

They talk and I listen, but they ain’t no mention a Miss Skeeter or a satchel. After while, Miss Hilly send me to the snack window to get cherry Co-Colas for everone, even myself. After while, the locusts in the trees start humming, the shade get cooler and I feel my eyes, trained on the kids in the pool, start to sag.

“Aibee, watch me! Looky at me!” I focus my eyes, smile at Mae Mobley funning around.

And that’s when I see Miss Skeeter, back behind the pool, outside the fence. She got on her tennis skirt and her racquet in her hand. She staring at Miss Hilly and Miss Leefolt, tilting her head like she sorting something out. Miss Hilly and Miss Leefolt, they don’t see her, they still talking about Biloxi. I watch Miss Skeeter come in the gate, walk around the pool. Pretty soon, she standing right in front a them and they still don’t see her.

“Hey, y’all,” Miss Skeeter say. She got sweat running down her arms. Her face is pink and swolled up in the sun.

Miss Hilly look up, but she stay stretched out on her pool chair, magazine in her hand. Miss Leefolt jump up off her chair and stand up.

“Hey, Skeeter! Why – I didn’t… we tried to call…” Her teeth just about chattering she smiling so big.

“Hey, Elizabeth.”

“Tennis?” Miss Leefolt ask, nodding her head like she a doll on a dashboard. “Who’re you playing with?”

“I was hitting balls on the backboard by myself,” Miss Skeeter say. She blow a thicket a hair off her forehead, but it’s stuck. She don’t move out the sun, though.

“Hilly,” Miss Skeeter say, “did Yule May tell you I called?”

Hilly smile kind a tight. “She’s off today.”

“I called you yesterday too.”

“Look, Skeeter, I didn’t have time. I have been at the campaign H.Q. since Wednesday addressing envelopes to practically every white person in Jackson.”

“Alright.” Miss Skeeter nod. Then she squint, say, “Hilly, are we… did I… do something to upset you?” and I feel my fingers jiggling again, twirling that dumb invisible pencil. Miss Hilly close her magazine, put it on the concrete so she don’t get her grease on it. “This should be discussed at a later time, Skeeter.”

Miss Leefolt sit back down real quick. She pick up Miss Hilly’s Good Housekeeping, start reading it like she ain’t ever seen nothing so important.

“Alright.” Miss Skeeter shrug. “I just thought we could talk about… whatever this is before you go out of town.”

Miss Hilly bout to protest, but then she let out a long sigh. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth, Skeeter?”

“The truth about wh —”

“Look, I found that paraphernalia of yours.” I swallow hard. Miss Hilly trying to whisper but she really ain’t no good at it.

Miss Skeeter keep her eyes on Hilly. She real calm, don’t look up at me at all. “What paraphernalia do you mean?”

“In your satchel when I was hunting for the minutes! And Skeeter” – she flash her eyes up at the sky and back down – “I don’t know. I just do not know anymore.”

“Hilly, what are you talking about? What did you see in my satchel?”

I look out at the kids, Law, I almost forgot about em. I feel like I’m gone faint listening to this.

“Those laws you were carrying around? About what the —” Miss Hilly look back at me. I keep my eyes trained on the pool. “What those other people can and cannot do and frankly,” she hiss, “I think it’s downright pig-headed of you. To think you know better than our government? Than Ross Barnett?”

“When did I ever say a word about Ross Barnett?” Miss Skeeter say.

Miss Hilly wag her finger up at Miss Skeeter. Miss Leefolt staring at the same page, same line, same word. I got the whole scene fixed in the corner a my eye.

“You are not a politician, Skeeter Phelan.”

“Well, neither are you, Hilly.”

Miss Hilly stand up then. She point her finger to the ground. “I am about to be a politician’s wife, unless you have anything to do with it. How is William ever going to get elected in Washington, D.C., one day if we have integrational friends in our closet?”

“Washington?” Miss Skeeter roll her eyes. “William’s running for the local senate, Hilly. And he might not win.”

Oh Law. I finally let myself look at Miss Skeeter. Why you doing this? Why you pushing her hot button?

Oh, Miss Hilly mad now. She snap her head straight. “You know well as I do, there are good, tax-paying white people in this town who would fight you to the death on this. You want to let them get in our swimming pools? Let them put their hands on everything in our grocery stores?”

Miss Skeeter stare long and hard at Miss Hilly. Then, for one-half a second, Miss Skeeter glance at me, see the pleading in my eyes. Her shoulders ease back some. “Oh Hilly, it’s just a booklet. I found it at the darn library. I’m not trying to change any laws, I just took it home to read.”

Miss Hilly take this in a second. “But if you’re looking at those laws,” Miss Hilly snap the leg a her bathing suit that’s crept up her behind, “I have to wonder, what else are you up to?”

Miss Skeeter shift her eyes away, lick her lips. “Hilly. You know me better than anybody else in this world. If I was up to something, you’d have me figured out in half a second.”

Miss Hilly just watch her. Then Miss Skeeter grab Miss Hilly’s hand and squeeze it. “I am worried about you. You disappear for an entire week, you’re working yourself to death on this campaign. Look at that.” Miss Skeeter turn Miss Hilly’s palm over. “You have a blister from addressing all those envelopes.”

And real slow, I watch Miss Hilly’s body slump down, start to give in on itself. She look to make sure Miss Leefolt ain’t listening.

“I’m just so scared,” Miss Hilly whisper through her teeth. I can’t hear much. “…piled so much money in this campaign, if William doesn’t win… been working day and…”

Miss Skeeter lay a hand on Miss Hilly’s shoulder, say something to her. Miss Hilly nod and give her a tired smile.

After while, Miss Skeeter tell them she got to go. She head off through the sunbathers, winding through the chairs and the towels. Miss Leefolt look over at Miss Hilly with big eyes, like she scared to ask any questions.

I lean back in my chair, wave to Mae Mobley making twirlies in the water. I try to rub the headache out my temples. Across the way, Miss Skeeter look back at me. Everbody around us is sunning and laughing and squinting, not a soul guessing that the colored woman and the white woman with the tennis racquet is wondering the same thing: is we fools to feel some relief?