THAT AFTERNOON 24 page

“How dare you judge me, after what she did. Do you really know what happened? Were you there?” I see the old anger, an obstinate woman who’s survived years of bleeding ulcers.

“That girl—” She shakes her knobby finger at me. “She showed up here. I had the entire DAR chapter at the house. You were up at school and the doorbell was ringing nonstop and Constantine was in the kitchen, making all that coffee over since the old percolator burned the first two pots right up.” Mother waves away the remembered reek of scorched coffee. “They were all in the living room having cake, ninety-five people in the house, and she’s drinking coffee. She’s talking to Sarah von Sistern and walking around the house like a guest and sticking cake in her mouth and then she’s filling out the form to become a member.”

Again I nod. Maybe I didn’t know those details, but they don’t change what happened.

“She looked white as anybody, and she knew it too. She knew exactly what she was doing and so I say, How do you do? and she laughs and says, Fine, so I say, And what is your name? and she says, You mean you don’t know? I’m Lulabelle Bates. I’m grown now and I’ve moved back in with Mama. I got here yesterday morning. And then she goes over to help herself to another piece of cake.”

“Bates,” I say, because this is another detail I didn’t know, albeit insignificant. “She changed her last name back to Constantine’s.”

“Thank God nobody heard her. But then she starts talking to Phoebe Miller, the president of the Southern States of the DAR, and I pulled her into the kitchen and I said, Lulabelle, you can’t stay here. You need to go on, and oh she looked at me haughty. She said, What, you don’t allow colored Negroes in your living room if we’re not cleaning up? That’s when Constantine walks in the kitchen and she looks as shocked as I am. I say, Lulabelle, you get out of this house before I call Mister Phelan, but she won’t budge. Says, when I thought she was white, I treated her fine and dandy. Says up in Chicago, she’s part of some black cat group so I tell Constantine, I say, You get your daughter out of my house right now.”

Mother’s eyes seem more deep-set than ever. Her nostrils are flaring.

“So Constantine, she tells Lulabelle to go on back to their house, and Lulabelle says, Fine, I was leaving anyway, and heads for the dining room and of course I stop her. Oh no, I say, you go out the back door, not the front with the white guests. I was not about to have the DAR find out about this. And I told that bawdy girl, whose own mama we gave ten dollars extra to every Christmas, she was not to step foot on this farm again. And do you know what she did?”

Yes, I think, but I keep my face blank. I am still searching for the redemption.

“Spit. In my face. A Negro in my home. Trying to act white.”

I shudder. Who would ever have the nerve to spit at my mother?

“I told Constantine that girl better not show her face here again. Not to Hotstack, not to the state of Mississippi. Nor would I tolerate her keeping terms with Lulabelle, not as long as your daddy was paying Constantine’s rent on that house back there.”

“But it was Lulabelle acting that way. Not Constantine.”

“What if she stayed? I couldn’t have that girl going around Jackson, acting white when she was colored, telling everybody she got into a DAR party at Longleaf. I just thank God nobody ever found out about it. She tried to embarrass me in my own home, Eugenia. Five minutes before, she had Phoebe Miller filling out the form for her to join.”

“She hadn’t seen her daughter in twenty years. You can’t . . . tell a person they can’t see their child.”

But Mother is caught up in her own story. “And Constantine, she thought she could get me to change my mind. Miss Phelan, please, just let her stay at the house, she won’t come on this side again, I hadn’t seen her in so long.

“And that Lulabelle, with her hand up on her hip, saying, ‘Yeah, my daddy died and my mama was too sick to take care of me when I was a baby. She had to give me away. You can’t keep us apart.’ ”

Mother lowers her voice. She seems matter-of-fact now. “I looked at Constantine and I felt so much shame for her. To get pregnant in the first place and then to lie . . .”

I feel sick and hot. I’m ready for this to be over.

Mother narrows her eyes. “It’s time you learned, Eugenia, how things really are. You idolize Constantine too much. You always have.” She points her finger at me. “They are not like regular people.”

I can’t look at her. I close my eyes. “And then what happened, Mother?”

“I asked Constantine, just as plain as day, ‘Is that what you told her? Is that how you cover your mistakes?’ ”

This is the part I was hoping wasn’t true. This is what I’d hoped Aibileen had been wrong about.

“I told Lulabelle the truth. I told her, ‘Your daddy didn’t die. He left the day after you were born. And your mama hadn’t been sick a day in her life. She gave you up because you were too high yellow. She didn’t want you.’”

“Why couldn’t you let her believe what Constantine told her? Constantine was so scared she wouldn’t like her, that’s why she told her those things.”

“Because Lulabelle needed to know the truth. She needed to go back to Chicago where she belonged.”

I let my head sink into my hands. There is no redeeming piece of the story. I know why Aibileen hadn’t wanted to tell me. A child should never know this about her own mother.

“I never thought Constantine would go to Illinois with her, Eugenia. Honestly, I was . . . sorry to see her go.”

“You weren’t,” I say. I think about Constantine, after living fifty years in the country, sitting in a tiny apartment in Chicago. How lonely she must’ve felt. How bad her knees must’ve felt in that cold.

“I was. And even though I told her not to write you, she probably would’ve, if there’d been more time.”

“More time?”

“Constantine died, Skeeter. I sent her a check, for her birthday. To the address I found for her daughter, but Lulabelle . . . sent it back. With a copy of the obituary.”

“Constantine . . .” I cry. I wish I’d known. “Why didn’t you tell me, Mama?”

Mother sniffs, keeping her eyes straight ahead. She quickly wipes her eyes. “Because I knew you’d blame me when it—it wasn’t my fault.”

“When did she die? How long was she living in Chicago?” I ask.

Mother pulls the basin closer, hugs it to her side. “Three weeks.”

AIBILEEN OPENS HER back DOOR, lets me in. Minny is sitting at the table, stirring her coffee. When she sees me, she tugs the sleeve of her dress down, but I see the edge of a white bandage on her arm. She grumbles a hello, then goes back to her cup.

I put the manuscript down on the table with a thump.

“If I mail it in the morning, that still leaves six days for it to get there. We might just make it.” I smile through my exhaustion.

“Law, that is something. Look at all them pages.” Aibileen grins and sits on her stool. “Two hundred and sixty-six of em.”

“Now we just . . . wait and see,” I say and we all three stare at the stack.

“Finally,” Minny says, and I can see the hint of something, not exactly a smile, but more like satisfaction.

The room grows quiet. It’s dark outside the window. The post office is already closed so I brought it over to show to Aibileen and Minny one last time before I mail it. Usually, I only bring over sections at a time.

“What if they find out?” Aibleen says quietly.

Minny looks up from her coffee.

“What if folks find out Niceville is Jackson or figure out who who.”

“They ain’t gone know,” Minny says. “Jackson ain’t no special place. They’s ten thousand towns just like it.”

We haven’t talked about this in a while, and besides Winnie’s comment about tongues, we’ve haven’t really discussed the actual consequences besides the maids losing their jobs. For the past eight months, all we’ve thought about is just getting it written.

“Minny, you got your kids to think about,” Aibileen says. “And Leroy . . . if he find out . . .”

The sureness in Minny’s eyes changes to something darting, paranoid. “Leroy gone be mad. Sho nuff.” She tugs at her sleeve again. “Mad then sad, if the white people catch hold a me.”

“You think maybe we ought to find a place we could go . . . in case it get bad?” Aibileen asks.

They both think about this, then shake their heads. “I on know where we’d go,” Minny says.

“You might think about that, Miss Skeeter. Somewhere for yourself,” Aibileen says.

“I can’t leave Mother,” I say. I’ve been standing and I sink down into a chair. “Aibileen, do you really think they’d . . . hurt us? I mean, like what’s in the papers?”

Aibileen cocks her head at me, confused. She wrinkles her forehead like we’ve had a misunderstanding. “They’d beat us. They’d come out here with baseball bats. Maybe they won’t kill us but . . .”

“But . . . who exactly would do this? The white women we’ve written about . . . they wouldn’t hurt us. Would they?” I ask.

“Don’t you know, white mens like nothing better than ‘protecting’ the white womens a their town?”

My skin prickles. I’m not so afraid for myself, but for what I’ve done to Aibileen, to Minny. To Louvenia and Faye Belle and eight other women. The book is sitting there on the table. I want to put it in my satchel and hide it.

Instead, I look to Minny because, for some reason, I think she’s the only one among us who really understands what could happen. She doesn’t look back at me, though. She is lost in thought. She’s running her thumbnail back and forth across her lip.

“Minny? What do you think?” I ask.

Minny keeps her eyes on the window, nods at her own thoughts. “I think what we need is some insurance.”

“Ain’t no such thing,” Aibileen says. “Not for us.”

“What if we put the Terrible Awful in the book,” Minny asks.

“We can’t, Minny,” Aibileen says. “It’d give us away.”

“But if we put it in there, then Miss Hilly can’t let anybody find out the book is about Jackson. She don’t want anybody to know that story’s about her. And if they start getting close to figuring it out, she gone steer em the other way.”

“Law, Minny, that is too risky. Nobody can predict what that woman gone do.”

“Nobody know that story but Miss Hilly and her own mama,” Minny says. “And Miss Celia, but she ain’t got no friends to tell anyway.”

“What happened?” I ask. “Is it really that terrible?”

Aibileen looks at me. My eyebrows go up.

“Who she gone admit that to?” Minny asks Aibileen. “She ain’t gone want you and Miss Leefolt to get identified either, Aibileen, cause then people gone be just one step away. I’m telling you, Miss Hilly is the best protection we got.”

Aibileen shakes her head, then nods. Then shakes it again. We watch her and wait.

“If we put the Terrible Awful in the book and people do find out that was you and Miss Hilly, then you in so much trouble”—Aibileen shudders—“there ain’t even a name for it.”

“That’s a risk I’m just gone have to take. I already made up my mind. Either put it in or pull my part out altogether.”

Aibileen and Minny’s eyes hang on each other’s. We can’t pull out Minny’s section; it’s the last chapter of the book. It’s about getting fired nineteen times in the same small town. About what it’s like trying to keep the anger inside, but never succeeding. It starts with her mother’s rules of how to work for white women, all the way up to leaving Missus Walters. I want to speak up, but I keep my mouth shut.

Finally, Aibileen sighs.

“Alright,” Aibileen says, shaking her head. “I reckon you better tell her, then.”

Minny narrows her eyes at me. I pull out a pencil and pad.

“I’m only telling you for the book, you understand. Ain’t nobody sharing no heartfelt secrets here.”

“I’ll make us some more coffee,” Aibileen says.

On THE DRIVE back to Longleaf, I shudder, thinking about Minny’s pie story. I don’t know if we’d be safer leaving it out or putting it in. Not to mention, if I can’t get it written in time to make the mail tomorrow, it will put us yet another day later, shorting our chances to make the deadline. I can picture the red fury on Hilly’s face, the hate she still feels for Minny. I know my old friend well. If we’re found out, Hilly will be our fiercest enemy. Even if we’re not found out, printing the pie story will put Hilly in a rage like we’ve never seen. But Minny’s right—it’s our best insurance.

I look over my shoulder every quarter mile. I keep exactly to the speed limit and stay on the back roads. They will beat us rings in my ears.

I WRITE ALL NIGHT, grimacing over the details of Minny’s story, and all the next day. At four in the afternoon, I jam the manuscript in a cardboard letter box. I quickly wrap the box in brown paper wrapping. Usually it takes seven or eight days, but it will somehow have to get to New York City in six days to make the deadline.

I speed to the post office, knowing it closes at four-thirty, despite my fear of the police, and rush inside to the window. I haven’t gone to sleep since night before last. My hair is literally sticking straight up in the air. The postman’s eyes widen.

“Windy outside?”

“Please. Can you get this out today? It’s going to New York.”

He looks at the address. “Out-a-town truck’s gone, ma’am. It’ll have to wait until morning.”

He stamps the postage and I head back home.

As soon as I walk in, I go straight to the pantry and call Elaine Stein’s office. Her secretary puts me through and I tell her, in a hoarse, tired voice, I mailed the manuscript today.

“The last editors’ meeting is in six days, Eugenia. Not only will it have to get here in time, I’ll have to have time to read it. I’d say it’s highly unlikely.”

There is nothing left to say, so I just murmur, “I know. Thank you for the chance.” And I add, “Merry Christmas, Missus Stein.”

“We call it Hanukkah, but thank you, Miss Phelan.”

chapter 28

AFTER I Hang up the phone, I go stand on the porch and stare out at the cold land. I’m so dog-tired I hadn’t even noticed Doctor Neal’s car is here. He must’ve arrived while I was at the post office. I lean against the rail and wait for him to come out of Mother’s room. Down the hall, through the open front door, I can see that her bedroom door is closed.

A little while later, Doctor Neal gently closes her door behind him and walks out to the porch. He stands beside me.

“I gave her something to help the pain,” he says.

“The . . . pain? Was Mama vomiting this morning?”

Old Doctor Neal stares at me through his cloudy blue eyes. He looks at me long and hard, as if trying to decide something about me. “Your mother has cancer, Eugenia. In the lining of the stomach.”

I reach for the side of the house. I’m shocked and yet, didn’t I know this?

“She didn’t want to tell you.” He shakes his head. “But since she refuses to stay in the hospital, you need to know. These next few months are going to be . . . pretty hard.” He raises his eyebrows at me. “On her and you too.”

“Few months? Is that . . . all?” I cover my mouth with my hand, hear myself groan.

“Maybe longer, maybe sooner, honey.” He shakes his head. “Knowing your mother, though,” he glances into the house, “she’s going to fight it like the devil.”

I stand there in a daze, unable to speak.

“Call me anytime, Eugenia. At the office or at home.”

I walk into the house, back to Mother’s room. Daddy is on the settee by the bed, staring at nothing. Mother is sitting straight up. She rolls her eyes when she sees me.

“Well, I guess he told you,” she says.

Tears drip off my chin. I hold her hands.

“How long have you known?”

“About two months.”

“Oh, Mama.”

“Now stop that, Eugenia. It can’t be helped.”

“But what can I . . . I can’t just sit here and watch you . . .” I can’t even say the word. All the words are too awful.

“You most certainly will not just sit here. Carlton is going to be a lawyer and you . . .” She shakes her finger at me. “Don’t think you can just let yourself go after I’m gone. I am calling Fanny Mae’s the minute I can walk to the kitchen and make your hair appointments through 1975.”

I sink down on the settee and Daddy puts his arm around me. I lean against him and cry.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE Jameso put up a week ago dries and drops needles every time someone walks into the relaxing room. It’s still six days until Christmas, but no one’s bothered to water it. The few presents Mother bought and wrapped back in July sit under the tree, one for Daddy that’s obviously a church tie, something small and square for Carlton, a heavy box for me that I suspect is a new Bible. Now that everyone knows about Mother’s cancer, it is as if she’s let go of the few threads that kept her upright. The marionette strings are cut, and even her head looks wobbly on its post. The most she can do is get up and go to the bathroom or sit on the porch a few minutes every day.

In the afternoon, I take Mother her mail, Good Housekeeping magazine, church newsletters, DAR updates.

“How are you?” I push her hair back from her head and she closes her eyes like she relishes the feel. She is the child now and I am the mother.

“I’m alright.”

Pascagoula comes in. She sets a tray of broth on the table. Mother barely shakes her head when she leaves, staring off at the empty doorway.

“Oh no,” she says, grimacing, “I can’t eat.”

“You don’t have to eat, Mama. We’ll do it later.”

“It’s just not the same with Pascagoula here, is it?” she says.

“No,” I say. “It’s not.” This is the first time she’s mentioned Constantine since our terrible discussion.

“They say its like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.”

I nod, thinking how I ought to go write that down, include it in the book. But, of course, it’s too late, it’s already been mailed. There’s nothing I can do, there’s nothing any of us can do now, except wait for what’s coming.

CHRISTMAS EVE is DEPRESSING and rainy and warm. Every half hour, Daddy comes out of Mother’s room and looks out the front window and asks, “Is he here?” even if no one’s listening. My brother, Carlton, is driving home tonight from LSU law school and we’ll both be relieved to see him. All day, Mother has been vomiting and dry heaving. She can barely keep her eyes open, but she cannot sleep.

“Charlotte, you need to be in the hospital,” Doctor Neal said that afternoon. I don’t know how many times he’s said that in the past week. “At least let me get the nurse out here to stay with you.”

“Charles Neal,” Mother said, not even raising her head from the mattress, “I am not spending my final days in a hospital, nor will I turn my own house into one.”

Doctor Neal just sighed, gave Daddy more medicine, a new kind, and explained to him how to give it to her.

“But will it help her?” I heard Daddy whisper out in the hall. “Can it make her better?”

Doctor Neal put his hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “No, Carlton.”

At six o’clock that night, Carlton finally pulls up, comes in the house.

“Hey there, Skeeter.” He hugs me to him. He is rumpled from the car drive, handsome in his college cable-knit sweater. The fresh air on him smells good. It’s nice to have someone else here. “Jesus, why’s it so hot in this house?”

“She’s cold,” I say quietly, “all the time.”

I go with him to the back. Mother sits up when she sees him, holds her thin arms out. “Oh Carlton, you’re home,” she says.

Carlton stops still. Then he bends down and hugs her, very gently. He glances back at me and I can see the shock on his face. I turn away. I cover my mouth so I don’t cry, because I won’t be able to quit. Carlton’s look tells me more than I want to know.

When Stuart drops by on Christmas Day, I don’t stop him when he tries to kiss me. But I tell him, “I’m only letting you because my mother is dying.”

“EUGENIA,” I hear Mother calling. It is New Year’s Eve and I’m in the kitchen getting some tea. Christmas has passed and Jameso took the tree out this morning. Needles still litter the house, but I’ve managed to put away the decorations and store them back in the closet. It was tiring and frustrating, trying to wrap each ornament the way Mother likes, to get them ready for next year. I don’t let myself question the futility of it.

I’ve heard nothing from Missus Stein and don’t even know if the package made it on time. Last night, I broke down and called Aibileen to tell her I’ve heard nothing, just for the relief of talking about it to someone. “I keep thinking a things to put in,” Aibileen says. “I have to remind myself we already done sent it off.”

“Me too,” I say. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear something.”

I go in the back. Mother is propped up on her pillows. The gravity of sitting upright, we’ve learned, helps keep the vomit down. The white enamel bowl is beside her.

“Hey, Mama,” I say. “What can I get you?”

“Eugenia, you cannot wear those slacks to the Holbrook New Year’s party.” When Mother blinks, she keeps her eyes closed a second too long. She’s exhausted, a skeleton in a white dressing gown with absurdly fancy ribbons and starched lace. Her neck swims in the neckline like an eighty-pound swan’s. She cannot eat unless it’s through a straw. She’s lost her power of smell completely. Yet she can sense, from an entirely different room, if my wardrobe is disappointing.

“They canceled the party, Mama.” Perhaps she is remembering Hilly’s party last year. From what Stuart’s told me, all the parties were canceled because of the President’s death. Not that I’d be invited anyway. Tonight, Stuart’s coming over to watch Dick Clark on the television.

Mother places her tiny, angular hand on mine, so frail the joints show through the skin. I was Mother’s dress size when I was eleven.

She looks at me evenly. “I think you need to go on and put those slacks on the list, now.”

“But they’re comfortable and they’re warm and—”

She shakes her head, shuts her eyes. “I’m sorry, Skeeter.”

There is no arguing, anymore. “Al-right,” I sigh.

Mother pulls the pad of paper from under the covers, tucked in the invisible pocket she’s had sewn in every garment, where she keeps antivomiting pills, tissues. Tiny dictatorial lists. Even though she is so weak, I’m surprised by the steadiness of her hand as she writes on the “Do Not Wear” list: “Gray, shapeless, mannishly tailored pants.” She smiles, satisfied.

It sounds macabre, but when Mother realized that after she’s dead, she won’t be able to tell me what to wear anymore, she came up with this ingenious postmortem system. She’s assuming I’ll never go buy new, unsatisfactory clothes on my own. She’s probably right.

“Still no vomiting yet?” I ask, because it’s four o’clock and Mother’s had two bowls of broth and hasn’t been sick once today. Usually she’s thrown up at least three times by now.

“Not even once,” she says but then she closes her eyes and within seconds, she’s asleep.

On NEW YEAR’S DAY, I come downstairs to start on the black-eyed peas for good luck. Pascagoula set them out to soak last night, instructed me on how to put them in the pot and turn on the flame, put the ham hock in with them. It’s pretty much a two-step process, yet everyone seems nervous about me turning on the stove. I remember that Constantine always used to come by on January first and fix our good-luck peas for us, even though it was her day off. She’d make a whole pot but then deliver one single pea on a plate to everyone in the family and watch us to make sure we ate it. She could be superstitious like that. Then she’d wash the dishes and go back home. But Pascagoula doesn’t offer to come in on her holiday and, assuming she’s with her own family, I don’t ask her to.

We’re all sad that Carlton had to leave this morning. It’s been nice having my brother around to talk to. His last words to me, before he hugged me and headed back to school, were, “Don’t burn the house down.” Then he added, “I’ll call tomorrow, to see how she is.”

After I turn off the flame, I walk out on the porch. Daddy’s leaning on the rail, rolling cotton seeds around in his fingers. He’s staring at the empty fields that won’t be planted for another month.

“Daddy, you coming in for lunch?” I ask. “The peas are ready.”

He turns and his smile is thin, starved for reason.

“This medicine they got her on . . .” He studies his seeds. “I think it’s working. She keeps saying she feels better.”

I shake my head in disbelief. He can’t really believe this.

“She’s gone two days and only gotten sick once . . .”

“Oh, Daddy. No . . . it’s just a . . . Daddy, she still has it.”

But there’s an empty look in Daddy’s eyes and I wonder if he even heard me.

“I know you’ve got better places to be, Skeeter.” There are tears in his eyes. “But not a day passes that I don’t thank God you’re here with her.”

I nod, feel guilty that he thinks it’s a choice I actually made. I hug him, tell him, “I’m glad I’m here too, Daddy.”

WHEN THE CLUB REOPENS the first week of January, I put my skirt on and grab my racquet. I walk through the snack bar, ignoring Patsy Joiner, my old tennis partner who dumped me, and three other girls, all smoking at the black iron tables. They lean down and whisper to each other when I pass. I’ll be skipping the League meeting tonight, and forever, for that matter. I gave in and sent a letter three days ago with my resignation.

I slam the tennis ball into the backboard, trying my best not to think about anything. Lately I’ve found myself praying, when I’ve never been a very religious person. I find myself whispering long, never-ending sentences to God, begging for Mother to feel some relief, pleading for good news about the book, sometimes even asking for some hint of what to do about Stuart. Often I catch myself praying when I didn’t even know I was doing it.

When I get home from the club, Doctor Neal pulls up behind me in his car. I take him back to Mother’s room, where Daddy’s waiting, and they close the door behind them. I stand there, fidgeting in the hall like a kid. I can see why Daddy is hanging on to his thread of hope. Mother’s gone four days now without vomiting the green bile. She’s eating her oatmeal every day, even asked for more.

When Doctor Neal comes out, Daddy stays in the chair by the bed and I follow Doctor Neal out to the porch.

“She told you?” I ask. “About how she’s feeling better?”

He nods, but then shakes his head. “There’s no point in bringing her in for an X-ray. It would just be too hard on her.”

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 613