The Help

Aibileen shakes her head. “I used to believe in em. I don’t anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain’t.”

“I know they there cause you get punished for crossing em,” I say. “Least I do.”

“Lot a folks think if you talk back to you husband, you crossed the line. And that justifies punishment. You believe in that line?”

I scowl down at the table. “You know I ain’t studying no line like that.”

“Cause that line ain’t there. Except in Leroy’s head. Lines between black and white ain’t there neither. Some folks just made those up, long time ago. And that go for the white trash and the so-ciety ladies too.”

Thinking about Miss Celia coming out with that fire poker when she could’ve hid behind the door, I don’t know. I get a twinge. I want her to understand how it is with Miss Hilly. But how do you tell a fool like her?

“So you saying they ain’t no line between the help and the boss either?”

Aibileen shakes her head. “They’s just positions, like on a checkerboard. Who work for who don’t mean nothing.”

“So I ain’t crossing no line if I tell Miss Celia the truth, that she ain’t good enough for Hilly?” I pick my cup up. I’m trying hard to get this, but my cut’s thumping against my brain. “But wait, if I tell her Miss Hilly’s out a her league . . . then ain’t I saying they is a line?”

Aibileen laughs. She pats my hand. “All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”

“Hmph.” I put the ice to my head again. “Well, maybe I’ll try to tell her. Before she goes to the Benefit and makes a big pink fool a herself.”

“You going this year?” Aibileen asks.

“If Miss Hilly gone be in the same room as Miss Celia telling her lies about me, I want a be there. Plus Sugar wants to make a little money for Christmas. Be good for her to start learning party serving.”

“I be there too,” says Aibileen. “Miss Leefolt done asked me three months ago would I do a lady-finger cake for the auction.”

“That old bland thing again? Why them white folks like the lady-fingers so much? I can make a dozen cakes taste better ’n that.”

“They think it be real European.” Aibileen shakes her head. “I feel bad for Miss Skeeter. I know she don’t want a go, but Miss Hilly tell her if she don’t, she lose her officer job.”

I drink down the rest of Aibileen’s good coffee, watch the sun sink. The air turns cooler through the window.

“I guess I got to go,” I say, even though I’d rather spend the rest of my life right here in Aibileen’s cozy little kitchen, having her explain the world to me. That’s what I love about Aibileen, she can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they’ll fit right in your pocket.

“You and the kids want a come stay with me?”

“No.” I untack the bandage, slip it back in my pocket. “I want him to see me,” I say, staring down at my empty coffee cup. “See what he done to his wife.”

“Call me on the phone if he gets rough. You hear me?”

“I don’t need no phone. You’ll hear him screaming for mercy all the way over here.”

THE THERMOMETER by Miss Celia’s kitchen window sinks down from seventy-nine to sixty to fifty-five in less than an hour. At last, a cold front’s moving in, bringing cool air from Canada or Chicago or somewhere. I’m picking the lady peas for stones, thinking about how we’re breathing the same air those Chicago people breathed two days ago. Wondering if, for no good reason I started thinking about Sears and Roebuck or Shake ’n Bake, would it be because some Illinoian had thought it two days ago. It gets my mind off my troubles for about five seconds.

It took me a few days, but I finally came up with a plan. It’s not a good one, but at least it’s something. I know that every minute I wait is a chance for Miss Celia to call up Miss Hilly. I wait too long and she’ll see her at the Benefit next week. It makes me sick thinking about Miss Celia running up to those girls like they’re best friends, the look on her made-up face when she hears about me. This morning, I saw the list by Miss Celia’s bed. Of what else she needs to do for the Benefit: Get fingernails done. Go to panty-hose store. Get tuxedo Martinized and pressed. Call Miss Hilly.

“Minny, does this new hair color look cheap?”

I just look at her.

“Tomorrow I am marching down to Fanny Mae’s and getting it re-colored.” She’s sitting at the kitchen table and holds up a handful of sample strips, splayed out like playing cards. “What do you think? Butterbatch or Marilyn Monroe?”

“Why you don’t like you own natural color?” Not that I have any idea what that might be. But it’s sure not the brass-bell or the sickly white on those cards in her hand.

“I think this Butterbatch is a little more festive, for the holidays and all. Don’t you?”

“If you want your head to look like a Butterball turkey.”