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.

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 Mobley,” I say cause I got a notion to try something. “You a smart girl?”

She just look at me, like she don’t know.

“You a smart girl,” I say again.

She say, “Mae Mo smart.”

I say, “You a kind little girl?”

She just look at me. She two years old. She don’t know what she is yet.

I say, “You a kind girl,” and she nod, repeat it back to me. But before I can do another one, she get up and chase that poor dog around the yard and laugh and that’s when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever day?

She turn from the birdbath and smile and holler, “Hi, Aibee. I love you, Aibee,” and I feel a tickly feeling, soft like the flap a butterfly wings, watching her play out there. The way I used to feel watching Treelore. And that makes me kind a sad, memoring.

After while, Mae Mobley come over and press her cheek up to mine and just hold it there, like she know I be hurting. I hold her tight, whisper, “You a smart girl. You a kind girl, Mae Mobley. You hear me?” And I keep saying it till she repeat it back to me.

* * *

The next few weeks is real important for Mae Mobley. You think on it, you probably don’t remember the first time you went to the bathroom in the toilet bowl stead of a diaper. Probably don’t give no credit to who taught you, neither. Never had a single baby I raise come up to me and say, Aibileen, why I sure do thank you for showing me how to go in the pot.

It’s a tricky thing. You try and get a baby to go in the toilet before its time, it’ll make em crazy. They can’t get the hang of it and get to thinking low a theyselves. Baby Girl, though, I know she ready. And she know she ready. But, Law, if she ain’t running my fool legs off. I set her on her wooden baby seat so her little hiney don’t fall in and soon as I turn my back, she off that pot running.

“You got to go, Mae Mobley?”

“No.”

“You drunk up two glasses a grape juice, I know you got to go.”

“Nooo.”

“I give you a cookie if you go for me.”

We look at each other awhile. She start eyeing the door. I don’t hear nothing happening in the bowl. Usually, I can get them going after about two weeks. But that’s if I got they mamas helping me. Little boys got to see they daddy doing it standing-up style, little girls got to see they mama setting down. Miss Leefolt won’t let that girl come near her when she going, and that’s the trouble.

“Go just a little for me, Baby Girl.”

She stick her lip out, shake her head.

Miss Leefolt gone to get her hair done, else I ask her again will she set the example even though that woman’s already said no five times. Last time Miss Leefolt say no, I was fixing to tell her how many kids I raised in my lifetime and ask her what number she on, but I ended up saying alright like I always do.

“I give you two cookies,” I say even though her mama always getting on me about making her fat.

Mae Mobley, she shake her head and say, “You go.”

Now, I ain’t saying I ain’t heard this before, but usually I can get around it. I know, though, she got to see how it’s done fore she gone get to business. I say, “I don’t got to go.”

We look at each other. She point again and say, “You go.” Then she get to crying and fidgeting cause that seat making a little indent on her behind and I know what I’m on have to do. I just don’t know how to go about it. Should I take her out to the garage to mine or go here in this bathroom? What if Miss Leefolt come home and I’m setting up on this toilet? She have a fit.

I put her diaper back on and we go out to the garage. Rain make it smell a little swampy. Even with the light on it’s dark, and they ain’t no fancy wallpaper like inside the house. Fact, they really ain’t no proper walls at all, just plyboard hammered together. I wonder if she gone be scared.

“Alright, Baby Girl, here tis. Aibileen’s bathroom.”

She stick her head in and her mouth make the shape of a Cheerio. She say, “Oooooo.”

I take down my underthings and I tee-tee real fast, use the paper, and get it all back on before she can really see anything. Then I flush.

“And that’s how you go in the toilet,” I say.

Well, don’t she look surprise. Got her mouth hanging open like she done seen a miracle. I step out and fore I know it, she got her diaper off and that little monkey done climbed on that toilet, holding herself up so she don’t fall in, going tee-tee for herself.

“Mae Mobley! You going! That’s real good!” She smile and I catches her fore she dip down in it. We run back inside and she get her two cookies.

Later on, I get her on her pot and she go for me again. That’s the hardest part, those first couple a times. By the end a the day, I feel like I really done something. She getting to be a pretty good talker and you can guess what the new word a the day is.

“What Baby Girl do today?”

She say, “Tee-tee.”

“What they gone put in the history books next to this day?”

She say, “Tee-tee.”

I say, “What Miss Hilly smell like?”

She say, “Tee-tee.”

But I get onto myself. It wasn’t Christian, plus I’m afraid she repeat it.

Late that afternoon, Miss Leefolt come home with her hair all teased up. She got a permanent and she smell like pneumonia.

“Guess what Mae Mobley done today?” I say. “Went to the bathroom in the toilet bowl.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” She give her girl a hug, something I don’t see enough of. I know she mean it, too, cause Miss Leefolt do not like changing diapers.

I say, “You got to make sure she go in the pot from now on. It’s real confusing for her if you don’t.”

Miss Leefolt smile, say, “Alright.”

“Let’s see if she do it one more time fore I go home.” We go in the bathroom. I get her diapers off and put her up on that toilet. But Baby Girl, she shaking her head.

“Come on, Mae Mobley, can’t you go in the pot for your mama?”

“Noooo.”

Finally I put her back down on her feet. “That’s alright, you did real good today.”

But Miss Leefolt, she got her lips sticking out and she hmphing and frowning down at her. Before I can get her diaper on again, Baby Girl run off fast as she can. Nekkid little white baby running through the house. She in the kitchen. She got the back door open, she in the garage, trying to reach the knob to my bathroom. We run after her and Miss Leefolt pointing her finger. Her voice go about ten pitches too high. “This is not your bathroom!”

Baby Girl wagging her head. “My bafroom!”

Miss Leefolt snatch her up, give her a pop on the leg.

“Miss Leefolt, she don’t know what she do —”

“Get back in the house, Aibileen!”

I hate it, but I go in the kitchen. I stand in the middle, leave the door open behind me.

“I did not raise you to use the colored bathroom!” I hear her hiss-whispering, thinking I can’t hear, and I think, Lady, you didn’t raise your child at all.

“This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You’ll catch diseases! No no no!” And I hear her pop her again and again on her bare legs.

After a second, Miss Leefolt potato-sack her inside. There ain’t nothing I can do but watch it happen. My heart feel like it’s squeezing up into my throat-pipe. Miss Leefolt drop Mae Mobley in front a the tee-vee and she march to her bedroom and slam the door. I go give Baby Girl a hug. She still crying and she look awful confused.

“I’m real sorry, Mae Mobley,” I whisper to her. I’m cussing myself for taking her out there in the first place. But I don’t know what else to say, so I just hold her.

We set there watching Li’l Rascals until Miss Leefolt come out, ask ain’t it past time for me to go. I tuck my bus dime in my pocket. Give Mae Mobley one more hug, whisper, “You a smart girl. You a good g irl.”

On the ride home, I don’t see the big white houses passing outside the window. I don’t talk to my maid friends. I see Baby Girl getting spanked cause a me. I see her listening to Miss Leefolt call me dirty, diseased.

The bus speeds up along State Street. We pass over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and my jaw so tight I could break my teeth off. I feel that bitter seed growing inside a me, the one planted after Treelore died. I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain’t a color, disease ain’t the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming – and it come in ever white child’s life – when they start to think that colored folks ain’t as good as whites.

We turn on Farish and I stand up cause my stop be coming. I pray that wasn’t her moment. Pray I still got time.

* * *

Things is real quiet the next few weeks. Mae Mobley’s wearing big-girl panties now. She don’t hardly ever have no accidents. After what happen in the garage, Miss Leefolt take a real interest in Mae Mobley’s bathroom habits. She even let her watch her on the pot, set the white example. A few times, though, when her mama’s gone, I still catch her trying to go in mine. Sometimes she do it fore I can tell her no.

“Hey, Miss Clark.” Robert Brown, who do Miss Leefolt’s yard, come up on her back steps. It’s nice and cool out. I open the screen door.

“How you doing, son?” I say and pat him on the arm. “I hear you working ever yard on the street.”

“Yes ma’am. Got two guys mowing for me.” He grin. He a handsome boy, tall with short hair. Went to high school with Treelore. They was good friends, played baseball together. I touch him on the arm, just needing to feel it again.

“How your granmama?” I ask. I love Louvenia, she is the sweetest person living. She and Robert came to the funeral together. This makes me remember what’s coming next week. The worst day a the year.

“She stronger than me.” He smile. “I be by your house on Saturday to mow.”

Treelore always did my mowing for me. Now Robert does it without my even asking, never will take any money for it. “Thank you, Robert. I appreciate it.”

“You need anything, you call me, alright, Miss Clark?”

“Thank you, son.”

I hear the doorbell ring and I see Miss Skeeter’s car out front. Miss Skeeter been coming over to Miss Leefolt’s ever week this month, to ask me the Miss Myrna questions. She ask about hard water stains and I tell her cream of tartar. She ask how you unscrew a lightbulb that done broke off in the socket and I tell her a raw potato. She ask me what happen with her old maid Constantine and her mama, and I go cold. I thought if I told her a little, a few weeks ago, about Constantine having a daughter, she’d leave me alone about it after that. But Miss Skeeter just keep on asking me questions. I could tell she don’t understand why a colored woman can’t raise no white-skin baby in Mississippi. Be a hard, lonely life, not belonging here nor there.

Ever time Miss Skeeter finish asking me about how to clean the-this or fix the-that or where Constantine, we get to talking about other things too. That’s not something I done a whole lot with my bosses or they friends. I find myself telling her how Treelore never made below a B+ or that the new church deacon get on my nerves cause he lisp. Little bits, but things I ordinarily wouldn’t tell a white person.

Today, I’m trying to explain to her the difference between dipping and polishing the silver, how only the tacky houses do the dip cause it’s faster, but it don’t look good. Miss Skeeter cock her head to the side, wrinkle her forehead. “Aibileen, remember that… idea Treelore had?”

I nod, feel a prickle. I should a never shared that with a white woman.

Miss Skeeter squint her eyes like she did when she brung up the bathroom thing that time. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been wanting to talk to you —”

But fore she can finish, Miss Leefolt come in the kitchen and catch Baby Girl playing with my comb in my pocketbook and say maybe Mae Mobley ought to have her bath early today. I tell Miss Skeeter goodbye, go start the tub.

* * *

After I spent a year dreading it, November eighth finally come. I spec I sleep about two hours the night before. I wake up at dawn and put a pot a Community coffee on the stovetop. My back hurts when I bend over to get my stockings on. Fore I walk out the door, the phone ring.

“Just checking on you. You sleep?”

“I did alright.”

“I’m on bring you a caramel cake tonight. And I don’t want you to do nothing but set in your kitchen and eat the whole thing for supper.” I try to smile, but nothing come out. I tell Minny thank you.

Three years ago today, Treelore died. But by Miss Leefolt’s book it’s still floor-cleaning day. Thanksgiving coming in two weeks and I got plenty to do to get ready. I scrub my way through the morning, through the twelve o’clock news. I miss my stories cause the ladies is in the dining room having a Benefit meeting and I ain’t allowed to turn on the tee-vee when they’s company. And that’s fine. My muscles is shivering they so tired. But I don’t want a stop moving.

About four o’clock, Miss Skeeter come in the kitchen. Before she can even say hello, Miss Leefolt rush in behind her. “Aibileen, I just found out Missus Fredericks is driving down from Greenwood tomorrow and staying through Thanksgiving. I want the silver service polished and all the guest towels washed. Tomorrow I’ll give you the list of what else.”

Miss Leefolt shake her head at Miss Skeeter like ain’t she got the hardest life in town and walks out. I go on and get the silver service out the dining room. Law, I’m already tired and I got to be ready to work the Benefit next Saturday night. Minny ain’t coming. She too scared she gone run into Miss Hilly.

Miss Skeeter still waiting on me in the kitchen when I come back in. She got a Miss Myrna letter in her hand.

“You got a cleaning question?” I sigh. “Go head.”

“Not really. I just… I wanted to ask you… the other day…”

I take a plug a Pine-Ola cream and start rubbing it onto the silver, working the cloth around the rose design, the lip and the handle. God, please let tomorrow come soon. I ain’t gone go to the gravesite. I can’t, it’ll be too hard —

“Aibileen? Are you feeling alright?”

I stop, look up. Realize Miss Skeeter been talking to me the whole time.

“I’m sorry I’s just… thinking about something.”

“You looked so sad.”

“Miss Skeeter.” I feel tears come up in my eyes, cause three years just ain’t long enough. A hundred years ain’t gone be long enough. “You mind if I help you with them questions tomorrow?”

Miss Skeeter start to say something, but then she stop herself. “Of course. I hope you feel better.”

I finish the silver set and the towels and tell Miss Leefolt I got to go home even though it’s half a hour early and she gone short my pay. She open her mouth like she want to protest and I whisper my lie, I vomited, and she say go. Cause besides her own mother, there ain’t nothing Miss Leefolt scared of more than Negro diseases.

* * *

“Alright then. I’ll be back in thirty minutes. I’ll pull right up here at nine forty-five,” Miss Leefolt say through the passenger car window. Miss Leefolt dropping me off at the Jitney 14 to pick up what else we need for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

“You bring her back that receipt, now,” Miss Fredericks, Miss Leefolt’s mean old mama, say. They all three in the front seat, Mae Mobley squeezed in the middle with a look so miserable you think she about to get a tetanus shot. Poor girl. Miss Fredericks supposed to stay two weeks this time.

“Don’t forget the turkey, now,” Miss Leefolt say. “And two cans of cranberry sauce.”

I smile. I only been cooking white Thanksgivings since Calvin Coolidge was President.

“Quit squirming, Mae Mobley,” Miss Fredericks snap, “or I’ll pinch you.”

“Miss Leefolt, lemme take her in the store with me. Help me with my shopping.”

Miss Fredericks about to protest, but Miss Leefolt say, “Take her,” and fore I know it, Baby Girl done wormed her way over Miss Fredericks’ lap and is climbing out the window in my arms like I am the Lord Savior. I pull her up on my hip and they drive off toward Fortification Street, and Baby Girl and me, we giggle like a couple a schoolgirls.

I push open the metal door, get a cart, and put Mae Mobley up front, stick her legs through the holes. Long as I got my white uniform on, I’m allowed to shop in this Jitney. I miss the old days, when you just walk out to Fortification Street and there be the farmers with they wheelbarrows calling out, “Sweet potatoes, butter beans, string beans, okra. Fresh cream, buttermilk, yellow cheese, eggs.” But the Jitney ain’t so bad. Least they got the good air-condition.

“Alrighty, Baby Girl. Less see what we need.”

In produce, I pick out six sweet potatoes, three handfuls a string beans. I get a smoked ham hock from the butcher. The store is bright, lined up neat. Nothing like the colored Piggly Wiggly with sawdust on the floor. It’s mostly white ladies, smiling, got they hair already fixed and sprayed for tomorrow. Four or five maids is shopping, all in they uniforms.

“Purple stuff!” Mae Mobley say and I let her hold the can a cranberry. She smile at it like it’s a old friend. She love the purple stuff. In dry goods, I heave the two-pound bag a salt in the cart, to brine the turkey in. I count the hours on my hands, ten, eleven, twelve. If I’m on soak the bird for fourteen hours in the salt water, I’ll put it in the bucket around three this afternoon. Then I’ll come in to Miss Leefolt’s at five tomorrow morning and cook the turkey for the next six hours. I already baked two pans a cornbread, left it to stale on the counter today to give it some crunch. I got a apple pie ready to bake, gone do my biscuits in the morning.

“Ready for tomorrow, Aibileen?” I turn and see Franny Coots behind me. She go to my church, work for Miss Caroline on Manship. “Hey, cutie, look a them fat legs,” she say to Mae Mobley. Mae Mobley lick the cranberry can.

Franny bend her head down, say, “You hear what happen to Louvenia Brown’s grandson this morning?”

“Robert?” I say. “Who do the mowing?”

“Use the white bathroom at Pinchman Lawn and Garden. Say they wasn’t a sign up saying so. Two white mens chased him and beat him with a tire iron.”

Oh no. Not Robert. “He… is he… ?”

Franny shake her head. “They don’t know. He up at the hospital. I heard he blind.”

“God, no.” I close my eyes. Louvenia, she is the purest, kindest person they is. She raised Robert after her own daughter died.

“Poor Louvenia. I don’t know why the bad have to happen to the goodest ones,” Franny say.

That afternoon, I work like a crazy woman, chopping onions and celery, mixing up my dressing, ricing sweet potatoes, stringing the beans, polishing silver. I heard folks is heading to Louvenia Brown’s tonight at five-thirty to pray for Robert, but by the time I lift that twenty-pound turkey in the brine, I can’t barely raise my arms.

I don’t finish cooking till six o’clock that night, two hours later than usual. I know I ain’t gone have the strength to go knock on Louvenia’s door. I’ll have to do it tomorrow after I’m done cleaning up the turkey. I waddle myself from the bus stop, hardly able to keep my eyes open. I turn the corner on Gessum. A big white Cadillac’s parked in front a my house. And there be Miss Skeeter in a red dress and red shoes, setting on my front steps like a bullhorn.

I walk real slow through my yard, wondering what it’s gone be now. Miss Skeeter stand up, holding her pocketbook tight like it might get snatched. White peoples don’t come round my neighborhood less they toting the help to and fro, and that is just fine with me. I spend all day long tending to white peoples. I don’t need em looking in on me at home.

“I hope you don’t mind me coming by,” she say. “I just… I didn’t know where else we could talk.”

I set down on the step and ever knob on my spine hurt. Baby Girl so nervous around her Granmama, she wet all over me and I smell like it.

The street’s full a folks walking to sweet Louvenia’s to pray for Robert, kids playing ball in the street. Everbody looking over at us thinking I must be getting fired or something.

“Yes ma’am,” I sigh. “What can I do for you?”

“I have an idea. Something I want to write about. But I need your help.”

I let all my breath out. I like Miss Skeeter, but come on. Sure, a phone call would a been nice. She never would a just shown up on some white lady’s step without calling. But no, she done plopped herself down like she got ever right to barge in on me at home.

“I want to interview you. About what it’s like to work as a maid.”

A red ball roll a few feet in my yard. The little Jones boy run across the street to get it. When he see Miss Skeeter, he stop dead. Then he run and snatch it up. He turn and dash off like he scared she gone get him.

“Like the Miss Myrna column?” I say, flat as a pan. “Bout cleaning?”

“Not like Miss Myrna. I’m talking about a book,” she say and her eyes is big. She excited. “Stories about what it’s like to work for a white family. What it’s like to work for, say… Elizabeth.”

I turn and look at her. This what she been trying to ask me the past two weeks in Miss Leefolt kitchen. “You think Miss Leefolt gone agree to that? Me telling stories about her?”

Miss Skeeter’s eyes drop down some. “Well, no. I was thinking we wouldn’t tell her. I’ll have to make sure the other maids will agree to keep it secret, too.”

I scrunch up my forehead, just starting to get what she’s asking. “Other maids?”

“I was hoping to get four or five. To really show what it’s like to be a maid in Jackson.”

I look around. We out here in the wide open. Don’t she know how dangerous this could be, talking about this while the whole world can see us? “Exactly what kind a stories you think you gone hear?”

“What you get paid, how they treat you, the bathrooms, the babies, all the things you’ve seen, good and bad.”

She looks excited, like this is some kind a game. For a second, I think I might be more mad than I am tired.

“Miss Skeeter,” I whisper, “do that not sound kind a dangerous to you?”

“Not if we’re careful —”

“Shhh, please. Do you know what would happen to me if Miss Leefolt find out I talked behind her back?”

“We won’t tell her, or anyone.” She lowers her voice some, but not enough. “These will be private interviews.”

I just stare at her. Is she crazy? “Did you hear about the colored boy this morning? One they beat with a tire iron for accidentally using the white bathroom?”

She just look at me, blink a little. “I know things are unstable but this is —”

“And my cousin Shinelle in Cauter County? They burn up her car cause she went down to the voting station.”

“No one’s ever written a book like this,” she say, finally whispering, finally starting to understand, I guess. “We’d be breaking new ground. It’s a brand-new perspective.”

I spot a flock a maids in they uniforms walking by my house. They look over, see me setting with a white woman on my front step. I grit my teeth, already know my phone gone be ringing tonight.

“Miss Skeeter,” and I say it slow, try to make it count, “I do this with you, I might as well burn my own house down.”

Miss Skeeter start biting her nail then. “But I’ve already…” She shut her eyes closed tight. I think about asking her, Already what, but I’m kind a scared to hear what she gone say. She reach in her pocketbook, pull out a scrap a paper and write her telephone number on it.

“Please, will you at least think about it?”

I sigh, stare out at the yard. Gentle as I can, I say, “No ma’am.”

She set the scrap a paper between us on the step, then she get in her Cadillac. I’m too tired to get up. I just stay there, watch while she roll real slow down the road. The boys playing ball clear the street, stand on the side frozen, like it’s a funeral car passing by.