Chapter 23

The summer rolls behind us like a hot tar spreader. Ever colored person in Jackson gets in front a whatever tee-vee set they can find, watches Martin Luther King stand in our nation’s capital and tell us he’s got a dream. I’m in the church basement watching. Our own Reverend Johnson went up there to march and I find myself scanning the crowd for his face. I can’t believe so many peoples is there – two-hundred-fifty thousand. And the ringer is, sixty thousand a them is white.

“Mississippi and the world is two very different places,” the Deacon say and we all nod cause ain’t it the truth.

September come and a church in Birmingham blows up into a million pieces, with four little colored girls inside. That wipe the smile off our faces pretty quick. Law, do we weep and it seems like life can’t go on. Oh, but it do.

Ever time I see Miss Skeeter, she look thinner, a little more skittish in the eyes. She try to smile like it ain’t that hard on her that she ain’t got no friends left.

In October, Miss Hilly sets at Miss Leefolt’s dining room table. Miss Leefolt so pregnant she can’t barely focus her eyes. Meanwhile, Miss Hilly got a big fur around her neck even though it’s sixty degrees outside. She stick her pinky out from her tea glass and say, “Skeeter thought she was so clever, dumping all those toilets in my front yard. Well, they’re working out just fine. We’ve already installed three of them in people’s garages and sheds. Even William said it was a blessing in disguise.”

I ain’t gone tell Miss Skeeter this. That she ended up supporting the cause she fighting against. But then I see it don’t matter cause Miss Hilly say, “I decided I’d write Skeeter a thank-you note last night. Told her how she’s helped move the project along faster than it ever would’ve gone.”

With Miss Leefolt so busy making clothes for the new baby, Mae Mobley and me spend pretty much ever minute a the day together. She getting too big for me to carry her all the time, or maybe I’m too big. I try and give her a lot a good squeezes instead.

“Come tell me my secret story,” she whisper, smiling so big. She always want her secret story now, first thing when I get in. The secret stories are the ones I be making up.

But then Miss Leefolt come in with her purse on her arm, ready to leave. “Mae Mobley, I’m leaving now. Come give Mama a big hug.”

But Mae Mobley don’t move.

Miss Leefolt, she got a hand on her hip, waiting for her sugar. “Go on, Mae Mobley,” I whisper. I nudge her and she go hug her mama real hard, kinda desperate-like, but Miss Leefolt, she already looking in her purse for her keys, kind a wiggle off. It don’t seem to bother Mae Mobley so much, though, like it used to, and that’s what I can’t hardly look at.

“Come on, Aibee,” Mae Mobley say to me after her mama gone. “Time for my secret story.”

We go on in her room, where we like to set. I get up in the big chair and she get up on me and smile, bounce a little. “Tell me, tell me bout the brown wrapping. And the present.” She so excited, she squirming. She has to jump off my lap, squirm a little to get it out. Then she crawl back up.

That’s her favorite story cause when I tell it, she get two presents. I take the brown wrapping from my Piggly Wiggly grocery bag and wrap up a little something, like piece a candy, inside. Then I use the white paper from my Cole’s Drug Store bag and wrap another one just like it. She take it real serious, the unwrapping, letting me tell the story bout how it ain’t the color a the wrapping that count, it’s what we is inside.

“We doing a different story today,” I say, but first I go still and listen, just to make sure Miss Leefolt ain’t coming back cause she forgot something. Coast is clear.

“Today I’m on tell you bout a man from outer space.” She just loves hearing about peoples from outer space. Her favorite show on the tee-vee is My Favorite Martian. I pull out my antennae hats I shaped last night out a tinfoil, fasten em on our heads. One for her and one for me. We look like we a couple a crazy people in them things.

“One day, a wise Martian come down to Earth to teach us people a thing or two,” I say.

“Martian? How big?”

“Oh, he about six-two.”

“What’s his name?”

“Martian Luther King.”

She take a deep breath and lean her head down on my shoulder. I feel her three-year-old heart racing against mine, flapping like butterflies on my white uniform.

“He was a real nice Martian, Mister King. Looked just like us, nose, mouth, hair up on his head, but sometime people looked at him funny and sometime, well, I guess sometime people was just downright mean.”

I could get in a lot a trouble telling her these little stories, especially with Mister Leefolt. But Mae Mobley know these our “secret stories.”

“Why Aibee? Why was they so mean to him?” she ask.

“Cause he was green.”

* * *

Two times this morning, Miss Leefolt’s phone rung and two times I missed it. Once cause I was chasing Baby Girl nekkid in the backyard and another cause I was using the bathroom in the garage and what with Miss Leefolt being three – yes, three – weeks late to have this baby, I don’t expect her to run for no phone. But I don’t expect her to snap at me cause I couldn’t get there, neither. Law, I should a known when I got up this morning.

Last night Miss Skeeter and I worked on the stories until a quarter to midnight. I am bone tired, but we done finished number eight and that means we still got four more to go. January tenth be the deadline and I don’t know if we gone make it.

It’s already the third Wednesday a October, so it’s Miss Leefolt’s turn to host bridge club. It’s all changed up now that Miss Skeeter been thrown out. It’s Miss Jeanie Caldwell, the one who call everybody honey, and Miss Lou Anne who replaced Miss Walter, and everybody’s real polite and stiff and they just agree with each other for two hours. They ain’t much fun listening to anymore.

I’m pouring the last ice tea when the doorbell go dingdong. I get to the door real quick, show Miss Leefolt I ain’t as slow as she accused me a being.

When I open it, the first word that pop in my head is pink. I never even seen her before but I’ve had enough conversations with Minny to know it’s her. Cause who else around here gone fit extra-large bosoms in a extra-small sweater?

“Hello there,” she say, licking her lipsticky lips. She raise her hand out to me and I think she giving me something. I reach out to take whatever it is and she give me a funny little handshake.

“My name is Celia Foote and I am here to see Miss Elizabeth Leefolt, please.”

I’m so mesmerized by all that pink, it takes a few seconds to hit me how bad this could turn out for me. And Minny. It was a long time ago, but that lie stuck.

“I… she…” I’d tell her nobody’s home but the bridge table’s five feet behind me. I look back and all four a them ladies is staring at the door with they mouths open like they catching flies. Miss Caldwell whisper something to Miss Hilly. Miss Leefolt stagger up, slap on a smile.

“Hello, Celia,” Miss Leefolt say. “It’s certainly been a long time.”

Miss Celia clears her throat and says kind a too loud, “Hello, Elizabeth. I’m calling on you today to —” Her eyes flicker back to the table where the other ladies is setting. “Oh no, I’m interrupting. I’ll just… I’ll come on back. Another time.”

“No, no, what can I do for you?” Miss Leefolt say.

Miss Celia takes a deep breath in that tight pink skirt and for a second I guess we all think she gone pop.

“I’m here to offer my help for the Children’s Benefit.”

Miss Leefolt smile, say, “Oh. Well, I…”

“I got a real knack for arranging flowers, I mean, everybody back in Sugar Ditch said so, even my maid said so, right after she said I’m the worst cook she’s ever laid eyes on.” She giggle at this a second and I suck in my breath at the word maid. Then she snap back to serious. “But I can address things and lick stamps and —”

Miss Hilly get up from the table. She lean in, say, “We really don’t need any more help, but we’d be delighted if you and Johnny would attend the Benefit, Celia.”

Miss Celia smile and look so grateful it’d break anybody’s heart. Who had one.

“Oh thank you,” she say. “I’d love to.”

“It’s on Friday night, November the fifteenth at the —”

“ – the Robert E. Lee Hotel,” Miss Celia finish. “I know all about it.”

“We’d love to sell you some tickets. Johnny’ll be coming with you, won’t he? Go get her some tickets, Elizabeth.”

“And if there’s anything I can do to help —”

“No, no.” Hilly smile. “We’ve got it all taken care of.”

Miss Leefolt come back with the envelope. She fish out a few tickets, but then Miss Hilly take the envelope away from her.

“While you’re here, Celia, why don’t you buy some tickets for your friends?”

Miss Celia be frozen for a second. “Um, alright.”

“How about ten? You and Johnny and eight friends. Then you’d have a whole table.”

Miss Celia smiling so hard it starts to tremble. “I think just the two will be fine.”

Miss Hilly take out two tickets and hand the envelope back to Miss Leefolt, who goes in the back to put it away.

“Lemme just get my check writ out. I’m lucky I have this big ole thing with me today. I told my maid Minny I’d pick up a hambone for her in town.”

Miss Celia struggle to write that check on her knee. I stay still as I can, hoping to God Miss Hilly didn’t hear what she just said. She hand the check to her but Miss Hilly all wrinkled up, thinking.

“Who? Who’d you say your maid was?”

“Minny Jackson. Aw! Shoot.” Miss Celia pop her hand over her mouth. “Elizabeth made me swear I’d never tell she recommended her and here I am blabbing my mouth off.”

“Elizabeth… recommended Minny Jackson?”

Miss Leefolt come back in from the bedroom. “Aibileen, she’s up. Go on and get her now. I can’t lift a nail file with my back.”

I go real quick to Mae Mobley’s room but soon as I peek in, Mae Mobley’s done fallen asleep again. I rush back to the dining room. Miss Hilly’s shutting the front door closed.

Miss Hilly set down, looking like she just swallowed the cat that ate the canary.

“Aibileen,” Miss Leefolt say, “go on and get the salads ready now, we’re all waiting.”

I go in the kitchen. When I come back out, the salad plates is rattling like teeth on the serving tray.

“…mean the one who stole all your mama’s silver and…”

“…thought everybody in town knew that Nigra was a thief…”

“…I’d never in a million years recommend…”

“…you see what she had on? Who does she…”

“I’m going to figure this out if it kills me,” Miss Hilly say.