ABOUT A YEAR AFTER Treelore died, I started going to the Community Concerns Meeting at my church. I reckon I started doing it to fill time. Keep the evenings from getting so lonely. Even though Shirley Boon, with her big know-it-all smile, kind a irritate me. Minny don’t like Shirley neither, but she usually come anyway to get out the house. But Benny got the asthma tonight, so Minny ain’t gone make it.
Lately, the meetings is more about civil rights than keeping the streets clean and who gone work at the clothing exchange. It ain’t aggressive, mostly people just talking things out, praying about it. But after Mr. Evers got shot a week ago, lot a colored folks is frustrated in this town. Especially the younger ones, who ain’t built up a callus to it yet. They done had meetings all week over the killing. I hear folks was angry, yelling, crying. This the first one I come to since the shooting.
I walk down the steps to the basement. Generally, it’s cooler than up in the church, but it’s warm down here tonight. Folks is putting ice cubes in they coffee. I look around to see who’s here, reckoning I better ask some more maids to help us, now that it look like we squeaked by Miss Hilly. Thirty-five maids done said no and I feel like I’m selling something nobody want to buy. Something big and stinky, like Kiki Brown and her lemon smell-good polish. But what really makes me and Kiki the same is, I’m proud a what I’m selling. I can’t help it. We telling stories that need to be told.
I wish Minny could help me ask people. Minny know how to put a sell on. But we decided from the start, nobody needs to know Minny’s a part a this. It’s just too risky for her family. We felt like we had to tell folks it was Miss Skeeter, though. Nobody would agree if they didn’t know who the white lady was, wondering if they knew her or had worked for her. But Miss Skeeter can’t do the front sell. She’d scare em off before she even opened her mouth. So it’s up to me and it didn’t take but five or six maids before everbody already know what I’m on ask before I get three words out my mouth. They say it ain’t worth it. They ask me why I’d put my own self at risk when it ain’t gone do no good. I reckon peoples is starting to think old Aibileen’s basket ain’t got many pawpaws left in it.
All the wooden fold-chairs is full tonight. They’s over fifty people here, mostly womens.
Sit down by me, Aibileen,” Bertrina Bessemer say. “Goldella, let the older folk have the chairs.
Goldella jump up, motion me down. Least Bertrina still treating me like I ain’t crazy.
I settle in. Tonight, Shirley Boon’s sitting down and the Deacon standing at the front. He say we need a quiet prayer meeting tonight. Say we need to heal. I’m glad for it. We close our eyes and the Deacon leads us in a prayer for the Everses, for Myrlie, for the sons. Some folks is whispering, murmuring to God, and a quiet power fill up the room, like bees buzzing on a comb. I say my prayers to myself. When I’m done, I take a deep breath, wait for the others to finish. When I get home tonight, I’ll write my prayers too. This is worth the double time.
Yule May, Miss Hilly’s maid, setting in front a me. Yule May easy to recognize from the back cause she got such good hair, smooth, no nap to it. I hear she educated, went through most a college. Course we got plenty a smart people in our church with they college degrees. Doctors, lawyers, Mr. Cross who own The Southern Times, the colored newspaper that come out ever week. But Yule May, she probably the most educated maid we got in our parish. Seeing her makes me think again about the wrong I need to right.
The Deacon open his eyes, look out on us all real quiet. “The prayers we are say
Deacon Thoroughgood,” a deep voice boom through stillness. I turn—everbody turn—and there’s Jessup, Plantain Fidelia’s grandson, standing in the doorway. He twenty-two, twenty-three. He got his hands in thick fists.
What I want to know is,” he say slow, angry, “what we plan to do about it.
Deacon got a stern look on his face like he done talked with Jessup before. “Tonight, we are going to lift our prayers to God. We will march peacefully down the streets of Jackson next Tuesday. And in August, I will see you in Washington to march with Doctor King.
That is not enough!” Jessup say, banging his fist on his hand. “They shot him in the back like a dog
Jessup.” Deacon raise his hand. “Tonight is for prayer. For the family. For the lawyers on the case. I understand your anger, but, son
Prayer? You mean y’all just gonna sit around and pray about it
He look around at all a us in our chairs.
Y’all think prayer’s going to keep white people from killing us
No one answer, not even the Deacon. Jessup just turn and leave. We all hear his feet stomping up the stairs and then over our heads out the church.
The room is real quiet. Deacon Thoroughgood got his eyes locked a few inches above our heads. It’s strange. He ain’t a man not to look you in the eye. Everbody staring at him, everbody wondering what he thinking so that he can’t look in our faces. Then I see Yule May shaking her head, real small, but like she mean it and I reckon the Deacon and Yule May is thinking the same thing. They thinking about what Jessup ask. And Yule May, she just answering the question.
THE MEETING Ends around eight o’clock. The ones who got kids go on, others get ourselves coffee from the table in the back. They ain’t much chatter. People quiet. I take a breath, go to Yule May standing at the coffee urn. I just want to get this lie off that’s stuck on me like a cocklebur. I ain’t gone ask nobody else at the meeting. Ain’t nobody gone buy my stinky smell-good tonight.
Yule May nod at me, smile polite. She about forty and tall and thin. She done kept her figure nice. She still wearing her white uniform and it fit trim on her waist. She always wear earrings, tiny gold loops.
I hear the twins is going to Tougaloo College next year. Congratulations.
We hope so. We’ve still got a little more to save. Two at once’s a lot.
You went to a good bit a college yourself, didn’t you
She nod, say, “Jackson College.
I loved school. The reading and the writing. Cept the rithmatic. I didn’t take to that.
Yule May smiles. “The English was my favorite too. The writing.
I been . . . writing some myself.
Yule May look me in the eye and I can tell then she know what I’m about to say. For a second, I can see the shame she swallow ever day, working in that house. The fear. I feel embarrassed to ask her.
But Yule May say it before I have to. “I know about the stories you’re working on. With that friend of Miss Hilly’s.
It’s alright, Yule May. I know you can’t do it.
It’s just... a risk I can’t afford to take right now. We so close to getting enough money together.
I understand,” I say and I smile, let her know she off the hook. But Yule May don’t move away.
The names . . . you’re changing them, I heard
This the same question everbody ask, cause they curious.
That’s right. And the name a the town, too.
She look down at the floor. “So I’d tell my stories about being a maid and she’d write them down? Edit them or . . . something like that
I nod. “We want a do all kind a stories. Good things and bad. She working with . . . another maid right now.
Yule May lick her lips, look like she imagining it, telling what it’s like to work for Miss Hilly.
Could we . . . talk about this some more? When I have more time
A course,” I say, and I see, in her eyes, she ain’t just being nice.
I’m sorry, but Henry and the boys are waiting on me,” she says. “But may I call you? And talk in private
Anytime. Whenever you feel like it.
She touch my arm and look me straight in the eyes again. I can’t believe what I see. It’s like she been waiting on me to ask her all this time.
Then she gone out the door. I stand in the corner a minute, drinking coffee too hot for the weather. I laugh and mutter to myself, even though everbody gone think I’m even crazier for it.