THAT AFTERNOON 3 page

On either side of me, the cotton fields are a glaring green, fat with bolls. Daddy lost the back fields to the rain last month, but the majority bloomed unharmed. The leaves are just starting to spot brown with defoliant and I can still smell the sour chemical in the air. There are no cars on the County Road. I open the mailbox.

And there, underneath Mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal, is a letter addressed to Miss Eugenia Phelan. The red raised font in the corner says Harper & Row, Publishers. I tear it open right there in the lane, in nothing but my long nightgown and Daddy’s old Brooks Brothers shirt.

September 4, 1962

Dear Miss Phelan,

I am responding personally to your résumé because I found it admirable that a young lady with absolutely no work experience would apply for an editing job at a publisher as prestigious as ours. A minimum of five years in the business is mandatory for such a job. You’d know this if you’d done any amount of research on the business.

Having once been an ambitious young lady myself, however, I’ve decided to offer you some advice: go to your local newspaper and get an entry-level job. You included in your letter that you “immensely enjoy writing.” When you’re not making mimeographs or fixing your boss’s coffee, look around, investigate, and write. Don’t waste your time on the obvious things. Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.

Yours sincerely,

Elaine Stein, Senior Editor, Adult Book Division

Below the pica type is a handwritten note, in a choppy blue scrawl:

P.S. If you are truly serious, I’d be willing to look over your best ideas and give my opinion. I offer this for no better reason, Miss Phelan, than someone once did it for me.

A truck full of cotton rumbles by on the County Road. The Negro in the passenger side leans out and stares. I’ve forgotten I am a white girl in a thin nightgown. I have just received correspondence, maybe even encouragement, from New York City and I say the name aloud: “Elaine Stein.” I’ve never met a Jewish person.

I race back up the lane, trying to keep the letter from flapping in my hand. I don’t want it wrinkled. I dash up the stairs with Mother hollering to take off those tacky Mexican man shoes, and I get to work writing down every goddamn thing that bothers me in life, particularly those that do not seem to faze anyone else. Elaine Stein’s words are running hot silver through my veins and I type as fast as I can. Turns out, it is a spectacularly long list.

By the next day, I am ready to mail my first letter to Elaine Stein, listing the ideas I thought worthy journalism material: the prevalence of illiteracy in Mississippi; the high number of drunk-driving accidents in our county; the limited job opportunities for women.

It’s not until after I mail the letter that I realize I probably chose those ideas she would think impressive, rather than ones I was really interested in.

I TAKE a DEEP BREATH and pull open the heavy glass door. A feminine little bell tinkles hello. A not-so-feminine receptionist watches me. She is enormous and looks uncomfortable in the small wooden chair. “Welcome to the Jackson Journal. Can I help you?”

I had made my appointment day before yesterday, hardly an hour after I’d received Elaine Stein’s letter. I asked for an interview for any position they might have. I was surprised they said they’d see me so soon.

“I’m here to see Mister Golden, please.”

The receptionist waddles to the back in her tented dress. I try and calm my shaking hands. I peek through the open door to a small, wood-paneled room in the back. Inside, four men in suits bang away on typewriters and scratch with pencils. They are bent over, haggard, three with just a horseshoe of hair left. The room is gauzy with cigarette smoke.

The receptionist reappears, thumbs me to follow her, cigarette dangling in her hand. “Come on back.” Despite my nerves, all I can think of is the old college rule, A Chi Omega never walks with a cigarette. I follow her through the desks of staring men, the haze of smoke, to an interior office.

“Close that thing back,” Mister Golden hollers as soon as I’ve opened the door and stepped in. “Don’t let all that damn smoke in here.”

Mister Golden stands up behind his desk. He’s about six inches shorter than me, trim, younger than my parents. He has long teeth and a sneer, the greased black hair of a mean man.

“Didn’t you hear?” he said. “They announced last week cigarettes’ll kill you.”

“I hadn’t heard that.” I can only hope it hadn’t been on the front page of his newspaper.

“Hell, I know niggers a hundred years old look younger than those idjits out there.” He sits back down, but I keep standing because there are no other chairs in the room.

“Alright, let’s see what you got.” I hand him my résumé and sample articles I’d written in school. I grew up with the Journal sitting on our kitchen table, open to the farm report or the local sports page. I rarely had time to read it myself.

Mister Golden doesn’t just look at my papers, he edits them with a red pencil. “Murrah High editor three years, Rebel Rouser editor two years, Chi Omega editor three years, double major English and journalism, graduated number four... Damn, girl,” he mutters, “didn’t you have any fun?”

I clear my throat. “Is . . . that important?”

He looks up at me. “You’re peculiarly tall but I’d think a pretty girl like you’d be dating the whole goddamn basketball team.”

I stare at him, not sure if he’s making fun of me or paying me a compliment.

“I assume you know how to clean . . .” He looks back to my articles, strikes them with violent red marks.

My face flushes hot and quick. “Clean? I’m not here to clean. I’m here to write.”

Cigarette smoke is bleeding under the door. It’s like the entire place is on fire. I feel so stupid that I thought I could just walk in and get a job as a journalist.

He sighs heavily, hands me a thick folder of papers. “I guess you’ll do. Miss Myrna’s gone shit-house crazy on us, drunk hair spray or something. Read the articles, write the answers like she does, nobody’ll know the damn difference.”

“I . . . what?” And I take the folder because I don’t know what else to do. I have no idea who this Miss Myrna is. I ask the only safe question I can think of. “How much . . . did you say it pays?”

He gives me a surprisingly appreciative look, from my flat shoes to my flat hairstyle. Some dormant instinct tells me to smile, run my hand through my hair. I feel ridiculous, but I do it.

“Eight dollars, every Monday.”

I nod, trying to figure out how to ask him what the job is without giving myself away.

He leans forward. “You do know who Miss Myrna is, don’t you?”

“Of course. We . . . girls read her all the time,” I say, and again we stare at each other long enough for a distant telephone to ring three times.

“What then? Eight’s not enough? Jesus, woman, go clean your husband’s toilet for free.”

I bite my lip. But before I can utter anything, he rolls his eyes.

“Alright, ten. Copy’s due on Thursdays. And if I don’t like your style, I’m not printing it or paying you squat.”

I take the folder, thank him more than I probably should. He ignores me and picks up his phone and makes a call before I’m even out the door. When I get to my car, I sink down into the soft Cadillac leather. I sit there smiling, reading the pages in the folder.

I just got a job.

I COME HOME STANDING up straighter than I have since I was twelve, before my growth spurt. I am buzzing with pride. Even though every cell in my brain says do not, somehow I cannot resist telling Mother. I rush into the relaxing room and tell her everything about how I’ve gotten a job writing Miss Myrna, the weekly cleaning advice column.

“Oh the irony of it.” She lets out a sigh that means life is hardly worth living under such conditions. Pascagoula freshens her iced tea.

“At least it’s a start,” I say.

“A start at what? Giving advice on how to keep up a home when . . .” She sighs again, long and slow like a deflating tire.

I look away, wondering if everyone in town will be thinking the same thing. Already the joy is fleeting.

“Eugenia, you don’t even know how to polish silver, much less advise on how to keep a house clean.”

I hug the folder to my chest. She’s right, I won’t know how to answer any of the questions. Still, I thought she’d at least be proud of me.

“And you will never meet anybody sitting at that typewriter. Eugenia, have some sense.”

Anger works its way up my arms. I stand up straight again. “You think I want to live here? With you?” I laugh in a way I’m hoping will hurt her.

I see the quick pain in her eyes. She presses her lips together at the sting. Still, I have no desire to take back my words because finally, finally, I have said something she’s listening to.

I stand there, refusing to leave. I want to hear what she’ll say to this. I want to hear her say she’s sorry.

“I need to . . . ask you something, Eugenia.” She twists her handkerchief, grimaces. “I read the other day about how some . . . some girls get unbalanced, start thinking these—well, these unnatural thoughts.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I look up at the ceiling fan. Someone’s set it going too fast. Clackety-clackety-clackety . . .

“Are you . . . do you . . . find men attractive? Are you having unnatural thoughts about . . .” She shuts her eyes tight. “Girls or—or women?”

I stare at her, wishing the ceiling fan would fly from its post, crash down on us both.

“Because it said in this article there’s a cure, a special root tea—”

“Mother,” I say, shutting my eyes tight. “I want to be with girls as much as you’d like to be with . . . Jameso.” I head for the door. But I glance behind me. “I mean, unless, of course, you do?”

Mother straightens, gasps. I pound up the stairs.

THE NEXT DAY, I stack the Miss Myrna letters in a neat pile. I have thirty-five dollars in my purse, the monthly allowance Mother still gives me. I go downstairs wearing a thick Christian smile. Living at home, whenever I want to leave Longleaf, I have to ask Mother if I can borrow her car. Which means she’ll ask where I’m going. Which means I have to lie to her on a daily basis, which is in itself enjoyable but a little degrading at the same time.

“I’m going down to the church, see if they need any help getting ready for Sunday school.”

“Oh, darling, that’s just wonderful. Take your time with the car.”

I decided, last night, what I need is a professional to help me with the column. My first idea was to ask Pascagoula, but I hardly know her. Plus I couldn’t stand the thought of Mother nosing around, criticizing me all over again. Hilly’s maid, Yule May, is so shy I doubt she’d want to help me. The only other maid I see often enough is Elizabeth’s maid, Aibileen. Aibileen reminds me of Constantine in a way. Plus she’s older and seems to have plenty of experience.

On my way to Elizabeth’s, I go by the Ben Franklin store and buy a clipboard, a box of number two pencils, a blue-cloth notebook. My first column is due tomorrow, on Mister Golden’s desk by two o’clock.

“Skeeter, come on in.” Elizabeth opens her own front door and I fear Aibileen might not be working today. She has on a blue bathrobe and jumbo-sized rollers, making her head look huge, her body even more waif-like than it is. Elizabeth generally has rollers in all day, can never get her thin hair full enough.

“Sorry I’m such a mess. Mae Mobley kept me up half the night and now I don’t even know where Aibileen’s gotten off to.”

I step inside the tiny foyer. It’s a low-ceilinged house with small rooms. Everything has a secondhand look—the faded blue floral curtains, the crooked cover on the couch. I hear Raleigh’s new accounting business isn’t doing well. Maybe up in New York or somewhere it’s a good thing, but in Jackson, Mississippi, people just don’t care to do business with a rude, condescending asshole.

Hilly’s car is out front, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth sits at the sewing machine she has on the dining room table. “I’m almost done,” she says. “Let me just hem this last seam . . .” Elizabeth stands, holds up a green church dress with a round white collar. “Now be honest,” she whispers with eyes that are pleading for me to be anything but. “Does it look homemade?”

The hem on one side hangs longer than the other. It’s wrinkled and a cuff is already fraying. “One hundred percent store-bought. Straight from Maison Blanche’s,” I say because that is Elizabeth’s dream store. It is five stories of expensive clothes on Canal Street in New Orleans, clothes that could never be found in Jackson. Elizabeth gives me a grateful smile.

“Mae Mobley’s sleeping?” I ask.

“Finally.” Elizabeth fiddles with a clump of hair that’s slipped out of her roller, grimaces at its obstinacy. Sometimes her voice takes on a hard edge when she talks about her little girl.

The door to the guest bathroom in the hall opens and Hilly comes out talking, “. . . so much better. Everybody has their own place to go now.”

Elizabeth fiddles with the machine needle, seems worried by it.

“You tell Raleigh I said You are welcome,” Hilly adds, and it hits me, then, what’s being said. Aibileen has her own bathroom in the garage now.

Hilly smiles at me and I realize she’s about to bring up the initiative. “How’s your mama?” I ask, even though I know this is her least favorite subject. “She get settled in the home alright?”

“I guess.” Hilly pulls her red sweater down over the pudgy roll in her waist. She has on red-and-green plaid pants that seem to magnify her bottom, making it rounder and more forceful than ever. “Of course she doesn’t appreciate a thing I do. I had to fire that maid for her, caught her trying to steal the damn silver right under my nose.” Hilly narrows her eyes a bit. “Y’all haven’t heard, by the way, if that Minny Jackson is working somewhere, have you?”

We shake our heads no.

“I doubt she’ll find work in this town again,” Elizabeth says.

Hilly nods, mulling this over. I take a deep breath, anxious to tell them my news.

“I just got a job at the Jackson Journal,” I say.

There is quiet in the room. Suddenly Elizabeth squeals. Hilly smiles at me with such pride, I blush and shrug, like it’s not that big of a deal.

“They’d be a fool not to hire you, Skeeter Phelan,” Hilly says and raises her iced tea as a toast.

“So . . . um, have either of y’all actually read Miss Myrna?” I ask.

“Well no,” Hilly says. “But I bet the poor white trash girls in South Jackson read it like the King James.”

Elizabeth nods. “All those poor girls without help, I bet they do.”

“Would you mind if I talked to Aibileen?” I ask Elizabeth. “To help me answer some of the letters?”

Elizabeth is very still a second. “Aibileen? My Aibileen?”

“I sure don’t know the answers to these questions.”

“Well . . . I mean, as long as it doesn’t interfere with her work.”

I pause, surprised by this attitude. But I remind myself that Elizabeth is paying her, after all.

“And not today with Mae Mobley about to get up or else I’ll have to look after her myself.”

“Okay. Maybe . . . maybe I’ll come by tomorrow morning then?” I count the hours on my hand. If I finish talking to Aibileen by midmorning, I’ll have time to rush home to type it up, then get it back to town by two.

Elizabeth frowns down at her spool of green thread. “And only for a few minutes. Tomorrow’s silver-polishing day.”

“It won’t be long, I promise,” I say.

Elizabeth is starting to sound just like my mother.

THE NEXT MORNING AT TEN, Elizabeth opens her door, nods at me like a schoolteacher. “Alright. Go on in. And not too long now. Mae Mobley’ll be waking up any time.”

I walk into the kitchen, my notebook and papers under my arm. Aibileen smiles at me from the sink, her gold tooth shining. She’s a little plump in the middle, but it is a friendly softness. And she’s much shorter than me, because who isn’t? Her skin is dark brown and shiny against her starchy white uniform. Her eyebrows are gray even though her hair is black.

“Hey, Miss Skeeter. Miss Leefolt still at the machine?”

“Yes.” It’s strange, even after all these months home, to hear Elizabeth being called Miss Leefolt—not Miss Elizabeth or even her maiden name, Miss Fredericks.

“May I?” I point to the refrigerator. But before I can help myself, Aibileen’s opened it for me.

“What you want? A Co-Cola?”

I nod and she pops the cap off with the opener mounted on the counter, pours it into a glass.

“Aibileen”—I take a deep breath—“I was wondering if I could get your help on something.” I tell her about the column then, grateful when she nods that she knows who Miss Myrna is.

“So maybe I could read you some of the letters and you could... help me with the answers. After a while, maybe I’ll catch on and . . .” I stop. There is no way I’ll ever be able to answer cleaning questions myself. Honestly, I have no intention of learning how to clean. “It sounds unfair, doesn’t it, me taking your answers and acting like they’re mine. Or Myrna’s, I mean.” I sigh.

Aibileen shakes her head. “I don’t mind that. I just ain’t so sure Miss Leefolt gone approve.”

“She said it was alright.”

“During my regular hours working?”

I nod, remembering the propriety in Elizabeth’s voice.

“Alright then.” Aibileen shrugs. She looks up at the clock above the sink. “I probably have to stop when Mae Mobley gets up.”

“Should we sit?” I point to the kitchen table.

Aibileen glances at the swinging door. “You go head, I’m fine standing.”

I spent last night reading every Miss Myrna article from the previous five years, but I haven’t had time to sort through the unanswered letters yet. I straighten my clipboard, pencil in hand. “Here’s a letter from Rankin County.

“ ‘Dear Miss Myrna,’ ” I read, “ ‘how do I remove the rings from my fat slovenly husband’s shirt collar when he is such a pig and . . . and sweats like one too . . .’ ”

Wonderful. A column on cleaning and relationships. Two things I know absolutely nothing about.

“Which one she want a get rid of?” Aibileen asks. “The rings or the husband?”

I stare at the page. I wouldn’t know how to instruct her to do either one.

“Tell her a vinegar and Pine-Sol soak. Then let it set in the sun a little while.”

I write it quickly on my pad. “Sit in the sun for how long?”

“Bout an hour. Let it dry.”

I pull out the next letter and, just as quickly, she answers it. After four or five, I exhale, relieved.

“Thank you, Aibileen. You have no idea how much this helps.”

“Ain’t no trouble. Long as Miss Leefolt don’t need me.”

I gather up my papers and take a last sip of my Coke, letting myself relax for five seconds before I have to go write the article. Aibileen picks through a sack of green fiddleheads. The room is quiet except for the radio playing softly, Preacher Green again.

“How did you know Constantine? Were you related?”

“We . . . in the same church circle.” Aibileen shifts her feet in front of the sink.

I feel what has become a familiar sting. “She didn’t even leave an address. I just—I can’t believe she quit like that.”

Aibileen keeps her eyes down. She seems to be studying the fiddleheads very carefully. “No, I’m right sure she was let go.”

“No, Mama said she quit. Back in April. Went to live up in Chicago with her people.”

Aibileen picks up another fiddlehead, starts washing its long stem, the curly green ends. “No ma’am,” she says after a pause.

It takes me a few seconds to realize what we’re talking about here.

“Aibileen,” I say, trying to catch her eye. “You really think Constantine was fired?”

But Aibileen’s face has gone blank as the blue sky. “I must be misrememoring,” she says and I can tell she thinks she’s said too much to a white woman.

We hear Mae Mobley calling out and Aibileen excuses herself and heads through the swinging door. A few seconds pass before I have the sense to go home.

WHEN I Walk in THE HOUSE ten minutes later, Mother is reading at the dining room table.

“Mother,” I say, clutching my notebook to my chest, “did you fire Constantine?”

“Did I . . . what?” Mother asks. But I know she’s heard me because she’s set the DAR newsletter down. It takes a hard question to pull her eyes off that riveting material.

“Eugenia, I told you, her sister was sick so she went up to Chicago to live with her people,” she says. “Why? Who told you different?”

I would never in a million years tell her it was Aibileen. “I heard it this afternoon. In town.”

“Who would talk about such a thing?” Mother narrows her eyes behind her reading glasses. “It must’ve been one of the other Nigras.”

“What did you do to her, Mother?”

Mother licks her lips, gives me a good, long look over her bifocals. “You wouldn’t understand, Eugenia. Not until you’ve hired help of your own.”

“You . . . fired her? For what?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s behind me now and I just won’t think about it another minute.”

“Mother, she raised me. You tell me right now what happened!” I’m disgusted by the squeakiness of my voice, the childish sound of my demands.

Mother raises her eyebrows at my tone, takes her glasses off. “It was nothing but a colored thing. And that’s all I’m saying.” She puts her glasses back on and lifts her DAR sheet to her eyes.

I’m shaking, I’m so mad. I pound my way up the stairs. I sit at my typewriter, stunned that my mother could cast off someone who’d done her the biggest favor of her life, raise her children, teach me kindness and self-respect. I stare across my room at the rose wallpaper, the eyelet curtains, the yellowing photographs so familiar they are nearly contemptible. Constantine worked for our family for twenty-nine years.

FOR THE NEXT WEEK, Daddy rises before dawn. I wake to truck motors, the chug of the combines starting, the hollers to hurry. The fields are brown and crisp with dead cotton stalks, defoliated so the machines can get to the bolls. Cotton harvest is here.

Daddy doesn’t even stop for church during harvest time, but on Sunday night, I catch him in the dusky hall, between his supper and sleep. “Daddy?” I ask. “Will you tell me what happened to Constantine?”

He is so dog-tired, he sighs before he answers.

“How could Mother fire her, Daddy?”

“What? Darlin’, Constantine quit. You know your mother would never fire her.” He looks disappointed in me for asking such a thing.

“Do you know where she went? Or have her address?”

He shakes his head no. “Ask your mama, she’ll know.” He pats my shoulder. “People move on, Skeeter. But I wish she’d stayed down here with us.”

He wanders down the hall to bed. He is too honest a man to hide things so I know he doesn’t have any more facts about it than I do.

That week and every week, sometimes twice, I stop by Elizabeth’s to talk to Aibileen. Each time, Elizabeth looks a little warier. The longer I stay in the kitchen, the more chores Elizabeth comes up with until I leave: the doorknobs need polishing, the top of the refrigerator needs dusting, Mae Mobley’s fingernails could use a trim. Aibileen is no more than cordial with me, nervous, stands at the kitchen sink and never stops working. It’s not long before I am ahead of copy and Mister Golden seems pleased with the column, the first two of which only took me about twenty minutes to write.

And every week, I ask Aibileen about Constantine. Can’t she get her address for me? Can’t she tell me anything about why she got fired? Was there a big to-do, because I just can’t imagine Constantine saying yes ma’am and walking out the back door. Mama’d get cross with her about a tarnished spoon and Constantine would serve her toast burned up for a week. I can only imagine how a firing would’ve gone.

It hardly matters, though, because all Aibileen will do is shrug at me, say she don’t know nothing.

One afternoon, after asking Aibileen how to get out tough tub rings (never having scrubbed a bathtub in my life), I come home. I walk past the relaxing room. The television set is on and I glance at it. Pascagoula’s standing about five inches away from the screen. I hear the words Ole Miss and on the fuzzy screen I see white men in dark suits crowding the camera, sweat running off their bald heads. I come closer and see a Negro man, about my age, standing in the middle of the white men, with Army men behind him. The picture pans back and there is my old administration building. Governor Ross Barnett stands with his arms crossed, looking the tall Negro in the eye. Next to the governor is our Senator Whitworth, whose son Hilly’s been trying to set me up with on a blind date.

I watch the television, riveted. Yet I am neither thrilled nor disappointed by the news that they might let a colored man into Ole Miss, just surprised. Pascagoula, though, is breathing so loud I can hear her. She stands stock-still, not aware I am behind her. Roger Sticker, our local reporter, is nervous, smiling, talking fast. “President Kennedy has ordered the governor to step aside for James Meredith, I repeat, the President of the United—”

“Eugenia, Pascagoula! Turn that set off right this minute!”

Pascagoula jerks around to see me and Mother. She rushes out of the room, her eyes to the floor.

“Now, I won’t have it, Eugenia,” Mother whispers. “I won’t have you encouraging them like that.”

“Encouraging? It’s nationwide news, Mama.”

Mother sniffs. “It is not appropriate for the two of you to watch together,” and she flips the channel, stops on an afternoon rerun of Lawrence Welk.

“Look, isn’t this so much nicer?”

On a HOT SATURDAY in late September, the cotton fields chopped and empty, Daddy carries a new RCA color television set into the house. He moves the black-and-white one to the kitchen. Smiling and proud, he plugs the new TV into the wall of the relaxing room. The Ole Miss versus LSU football game blares through the house for the rest of the afternoon.

Mama, of course, is glued to the color picture, oohing and aahing at the vibrant reds and blues of the team. She and Daddy live by Rebel football. She’s dressed up in red wool pants despite the sweltering heat and has Daddy’s old Kappa Alpha blanket draped on the chair. No one mentions James Meredith, the colored student they let in.

I take the Cadillac and head into town. Mother finds it inexplicable that I don’t want to watch my alma mater throw a ball around. But Elizabeth and her family are at Hilly’s watching the game so Aibileen’s working in the house alone. I’m hoping it’ll be a little easier on Aibileen if Elizabeth’s not there. Truth is, I’m hoping she’ll tell me something, anything, about Constantine.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1173