I open my mouth to say something, anything, but then two-year-old William, Jr., totters in.

“There you are.” Hilly picks him up, nuzzles his neck. “You are perfect, my perfect boy!” she says. William looks at me and screams.

“Well, enjoy the picture show,” I say, going for the front door.

“Alright,” she says. I walk down the steps. From her doorway, Hilly waves, flaps William’s hand bye-bye. She slams the door before I’ve even made it to my car.

AIBILEEN

Chapter 14

I BEEN IN SOME tense situations, but to have Minny on one side a my living room and Miss Skeeter on the other, and the topic at hand be what it feel like being Negro and working for a white woman. Law, it’s a wonder they hadn’t been a injury.

We had some close calls though.

Like last week, when Miss Skeeter showed me Miss Hilly’s reasons why colored folk need they own bathroom.

“Feel like I’m looking at something from the KKK,” I said to Miss Skeeter. We was in my living room and the nights had started to get warm. Minny’d gone in the kitchen to stand in front a the icebox. Minny don’t stop sweating but for five minutes in January and maybe not even then.

“Hilly wants me to print it in the League newsletter,” Miss Skeeter said, shaking her head disgusted. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have shown it to you. But there’s no one else I can tell.”

A minute later, Minny come back from the kitchen. I gave Miss Skeeter a look, so she slid the list under her notebook. Minny didn’t look much cooler. Fact, she looked hotter than ever.

“Minny, do you and Leroy ever talk about civil rights?” Miss Skeeter ask. “When he comes home from work?”

Minny had that big bruise on her arm cause that’s what Leroy do when he come home from work. He push her around.

“Nope” was all Minny said. Minny do not like people up in her business.

“Really? He doesn’t share the way he feels about the marches and the segregation? Maybe at work, his bo—”

“Move off a Leroy.” Minny crossed her arms up so that bruise wouldn’t show.

I gave Skeeter a nudge on the foot. But Miss Skeeter, she had that look she gets when she’s all up in something.

“Aibileen, don’t you think it would be interesting if we could show a little of the husbands’ perspective? Minny, maybe—”

Minny stood so quick the lightshade rattled.“I ain’t doing this no more. You making this too personal. I don’t care about telling white people how it feel.”

“Minny, okay, I’m sorry,” Miss Skeeter said. “We don’t have to talk about your family.”

“No. I change my mind. You find somebody else to spill the beans.” We been through this before. But this time, Minny snatched up her pocketbook, grabbed her funeral fan that fell under the chair, and said, “I’m sorry, Aib. But I just can’t do this no more.”

I got a panicky feeling then. She really gone leave. Minny can’t quit. She the only maid besides me who agreed to do it.

So I leant up, slipped Hilly’s piece a paper out from under Miss Skeeter’s notebook. My fingers stopped right in front a Minny.

She look down at it.“What that?”

I put on my blank face. Shrugged my shoulders. Couldn’t act like I really wanted her to read it cause then she wouldn’t.

Minny picked it up and started skimming. Pretty soon, I could see all her front teeth. But she wasn’t smiling.

Then she looked at Miss Skeeter, long and heavy. She said,“Maybe we keep going then. But you stay out a my personal business, you hear?”

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31