Free The Help by Kathryn Stockett

she’s been rehearsing this. “Cause I don’t sleep real well at night.”
    I give her a stupid smile, like I really believe this, and go back to wiping the mirrors.
    “Don’t do it too good. Leave some smudges.”
    It’s always something, mirrors, floors, a dirty glass in the sink or the trash can full. “We’ve got to make it believable,” she’ll say and I find myself reaching for that dirty glass a hundred times to wash it. I like things clean, put away.
     
    “I WISH I COULD TEND to that azalea bush out there,” Miss Celia says one day. She’s taken to laying on the couch while my stories are on, interrupting the whole time. I’ve been tuned in to The Guiding Light for twenty-four years, since I was ten years old and listening to it on Mama’s radio.
    A Dreft commercial comes on and Miss Celia stares out the back window at the colored man raking up the leaves. She’s got so many azalea bushes, her yard’s going to look like Gone With the Wind come spring. I don’t like azaleas and I sure didn’t like that movie, the way they made slavery look like a big happy tea party. If I’d played Mammy, I’d of told Scarlett to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper. Make her own damn man-catching dress.
    “And I know I could make that rose bush bloom if I pruned it back,” Miss Celia says. “But the first thing I’d do is cut down that mimosa tree.”
    “What’s wrong with that tree?” I press the corner of my iron into Mister Johnny’s collar-point. I don’t even have a shrub, much less a tree, in my entire yard.
    “I don’t like those hairy flowers.” She gazes off like she’s gone soft in the head. “They look like little baby hairs.”
    I get the creepers with her talking that way. “You know about flowers?”
    She sighs. “I used to love to tend to my flowers back in Sugar Ditch. I learned to grow things hoping I could pretty up all that ugliness.”
    “Go head outside then,” I say, trying not to sound too excited. “Take some exercise. Get some fresh air.” Get out a here.
    “No,” Miss Celia sighs. “I shouldn’t be running around out there. I need to be still.”
    It’s really starting to irritate me how she never leaves the house, how she smiles like the maid walking in every morning is the best part of her day. It’s like an itch. Every day I reach for it and can’t quite scratch it. Every day, it itches a little worse. Every day she’s there .
    “Maybe you ought to go make some friends,” I say. “Lot a ladies your age in town.”
    She frowns up at me. “I’ve been trying. I can’t tell you the umpteen times I’ve called those ladies to see if I can help with the Children’s Benefit or do something from home. But they won’t call me back. None of them.”
    I don’t say anything to this because ain’t that a surprise. With her bosoms hanging out and her hair colored Gold Nugget.
    “Go shopping then. Go get you some new clothes. Go do whatever white women do when the maid’s home.”
    “No, I think I’ll go rest awhile,” she says and two minutes later I hear her creeping around upstairs in the empty bedrooms.
    The mimosa branch knocks against the window and I jump, burn my thumb. I squeeze my eyes shut to slow my heart. Ninety-four more days of this mess and I don’t know how I can take a minute more.
     
    “M AMA, fix me something to eat. I’m hungry.” That’s what my youngest girl, Kindra, who’s five, said to me last night. With a hand on her hip and her foot stuck out.
    I have five kids and I take pride that I taught them yes ma’am and please before they could even say cookie .
    All except one.
    “You ain’t having nothing till supper,” I told her.
    “Why you so mean to me? I hate you,” she yelled and ran out the door.
    I set my eyes on the ceiling because that’s a shock I will never get used to, even with four before her. The day your child says she hates you, and every child will go through the phase, it kicks like a