Minny

Chapter 3

Standing on that white lady’s back porch, I tell myself, Tuck it in, Minny. Tuck in whatever might fly out my mouth and tuck in my behind too. Look like a maid who does what she’s told. Truth is, I’m so nervous right now, I’d never backtalk again if it meant I’d get this job.

I yank my stockings up from sagging around my feet – the trouble of all fat, short women around the world. Then I rehearse what to say, what to keep to myself. I go ahead and punch the bell.

The doorbell rings a long bing-bong, fine and fancy for this big mansion out in the country. It looks like a castle, gray brick rising high in the sky and left and right too. Woods surround the lawn on every side. If this place was in a storybook, there’d be witches in those woods. The kind that eat kids.

The back door opens and there stands Miss Marilyn Monroe^[23]. Or something kin to her.

“Hey there, you’re right on time. I’m Celia. Celia Rae Foote.”

The white lady sticks her hand out to me and I study her. She might be built like Marilyn, but she ain’t ready for no screen test. She’s got flour in her yellow hairdo. Flour in her glue-on eyelashes. And flour all over that tacky pink pantsuit. Her standing in a cloud of dust and that pantsuit being so tight, I wonder how she can breathe.

“Yes ma’am. I’m Minny Jackson.” I smooth down my white uniform instead of shaking her hand. I don’t want that mess on me. “You cooking something?”

“One of those upsidedown cakes from the magazine?” She sighs. “It ain’t working out too good.”

I follow her inside and that’s when I see Miss Celia Rae Foote’s suffered only a minor injury in the flour fiasco. The rest of the kitchen took the real hit. The countertops, the double-door refrigerator, the Kitchen-Aid mixer are all sitting in about a quarter-inch of snow flour. It’s enough mess to drive me crazy. I ain’t even got the job yet, and I’m already looking over at the sink for a sponge.

Miss Celia says, “I guess I have some learning to do.”

“You sure do,” I say. But I bite down hard on my tongue. Don’t you go sassing this white lady like you done the other. Sassed her all the way to the nursing home.

But Miss Celia, she just smiles, washes the muck off her hands in a sink full of dishes. I wonder if maybe I’ve found myself another deaf one, like Miss Walters was. Let’s hope so.

“I just can’t seem to get the hang of kitchen work,” she says and even with Marilyn’s whispery Hollywood voice, I can tell right off, she’s from way out in the country. I look down and see the fool doesn’t have any shoes on, like some kind of white trash. Nice white ladies don’t go around barefoot.

She’s probably ten or fifteen years younger than me, twenty-two, twenty-three, and she’s real pretty, but why’s she wearing all that goo on her face? I’ll bet she’s got on double the makeup the other white ladies wear. She’s got a lot more bosom to her, too. In fact, she’s almost as big as me except she’s skinny in all those places I ain’t. I just hope she’s an eater. Because I’m a cooker and that’s why people hire me.

“Can I get you a cold drink?” she asks. “Set down and I’ll bring you something.”

And that’s my clue: something funny’s going on here.

“Leroy, she got to be crazy,” I said when she called me up three days ago and asked if I’d come interview, “cause everbody in town think I stole Miss Walters’ silver. And I know she do too cause she call Miss Walters up on the phone when I was there.”

“White people strange,” Leroy said. “Who knows, maybe that old woman give you a good word^[24].”

I look at Miss Celia Rae Foote hard. I’ve never in my life had a white woman tell me to sit down so she can serve me a cold drink. Shoot, now I’m wondering if this fool even plans on hiring a maid or if she just drug me all the way out here for sport.

“Maybe we better go on and see the house first, ma’am.”

She smiles like the thought never entered that hairsprayed head of hers, letting me see the house I might be cleaning.

“Oh, of course. Come on in yonder, Maxie. I’ll show you the fancy dining room first.”

“The name,” I say, “is Minny.”

Maybe she’s not deaf or crazy. Maybe she’s just stupid. A shiny hope rises up in me again.

All over that big ole doodied up house she walks and talks and I follow. There are ten rooms downstairs and one with a stuffed grizzly bear that looks like it ate up the last maid and is biding for the next one. A burned-up Confederate flag^[25] is framed on the wall, and on the table is an old silver pistol with the name “Confederate General John Foote” engraved on it. I bet Great-Grandaddy Foote scared some slaves with that thing.

We move on and it starts to look like any nice white house. Except this one’s the biggest I’ve ever been in and full of dirty floors and dusty rugs, the kind folks who don’t know any better would say is worn out, but I know an antique when I see one. I’ve worked in some fine homes. I just hope she ain’t so country she don’t own a Hoover.

“Johnny’s mama wouldn’t let me decorate a thing. I had my way, there’d be wall-to-wall white carpet and gold trim and none of this old stuff.”

“Where your people from?” I ask her.

“I’m from… Sugar Ditch.” Her voice drops down a little. Sugar Ditch is as low as you can go in Mississippi, maybe the whole United States. It’s up in Tunica County, almost to Memphis. I saw pictures in the paper one time, showing those tenant shacks. Even the white kids looked like they hadn’t had a meal for a week.

Miss Celia tries to smile, says, “This is my first time hiring a maid.”

“Well you sure need one.” Now, Minny —

“I was real glad to get the recommendation from Missus Walters. She told me all about you. Said your cooking is the best in town.”

That makes zero sense to me. After what I did to Miss Hilly, right in front of Miss Walters to see? “She say… anything else about me?”

But Miss Celia’s already walking up a big curving staircase. I follow her upstairs, to a long hall with sun coming through the windows. Even though there are two yellow bedrooms for girls and a blue one and a green one for boys, it’s clear there aren’t any children living here. Just dust.

“We’ve got five bedrooms and five bathrooms over here in the main house.” She points out the window and I see a big blue swimming pool, and behind that, another house. My heart thumps hard.

“And then there’s the poolhouse out yonder,” she sighs.

I’d take any job I can get at this point, but a big house like this should pay plenty. And I don’t mind being busy. I ain’t afraid to work. “When you gone have you some chilluns, start filling up all these beds?” I try to smile, look friendly.

“Oh, we’re gonna have some kids.” She clears her throat, fidgets. “I mean, kids is the only thing worth living for.” She looks down at her feet. A second passes before she heads back to the stairs. I follow behind, noticing how she holds the stair rail tight on the way down, like she’s afraid she might fall.

It’s back in the dining room that Miss Celia starts shaking her head. “It’s an awful lot to do,” she says. “All the bedrooms and the floors…”

“Yes ma’am, it’s big,” I say, thinking if she saw my house with a cot in the hall and one toilet for six behinds, she’d probably run. “But I got lots a energy.”

“…and then there’s all this silver to clean.”

She opens up a silver closet the size of my living room. She fixes a candle that’s turned funny on the candelabra and I can see why she’s looking so doubtful.

After the town got word of Miss Hilly’s lies, three ladies in a row hung up on me the minute I said my name^[26]. I ready myself for the blow. Say it, lady. Say what you thinking about me and your silver. I feel like crying thinking about how this job would suit me fine and what Miss Hilly’s done to keep me from getting it. I fix my eyes on the window, hoping and praying this isn’t where the interview ends.

“I know, those windows are awful high. I never tried to clean them before.”

I let my breath go. Windows are a heck of a lot better subject for me than silver. “I ain’t afraid a no windows. I clean Miss Walters’ top to bottom ever four weeks.”

“Did she have just the one floor or a double decker?”

“Well, one… but they’s a lot to it. Old houses got a lot a nooks and crannies, you know.”

Finally, we go back in the kitchen. We both stare down at the breakfast table, but neither one of us sits. I’m getting so jittery wondering what she’s thinking, my head starts to sweat.

“You got a big, pretty house,” I say. “All the way out here in the country. Lot a work to be done.”

She starts fiddling with her wedding ring. “I guess Missus Walters’ was a lot easier than this would be. I mean, it’s just us now, but when we get to having kids…”

“You, uh, got some other maids you considering?”

She sighs. “A bunch have come out here. I just haven’t found… the right one yet.” She bites on her fingernails, shifts her eyes away.

I wait for her to say I’m not the right one either, but we just stand there breathing in that flour. Finally, I play my last card, whisper it because it’s all I got left.

“You know, I only left Miss Walters cause she going up to the rest home. She didn’t fire me.”

But she just stares down at her bare feet, black-soled because her floors haven’t been scrubbed since she moved in this big old dirty house. And it’s clear, this lady doesn’t want me.

“Well,” she says, “I appreciate you driving all this way. Can I at least give you some money for the gas?”

I pick up my pocketbook and thrust it up under my armpit. She gives me a cheery smile I could wipe off with one swat. Damn that Hilly Holbrook.

“No ma’am, no, you cannot.”

“I knew it was gonna be a chore finding someone, but…” I stand there listening to her acting all sorry but I just think, Get it over with, lady, so I can tell Leroy we got to move all the way to the North Pole next to Santy Claus where nobody’s heard Hilly’s lies about me.

“…and if I were you I wouldn’t want to clean this big house either.”

I look at her square on. Now that’s just excusing herself a little too much, pretending Minny ain’t getting the job cause Minny don’t want the job.

“When you hear me say I don’t want a clean this house?”

“It’s alright, five maids have already told me it’s too much work.”

I look down at my hundred-and-sixty-five-pound, five-foot-zero self practically busting out of my uniform. “Too much for me?”

She blinks at me a second. “You… you’ll do it?”

“Why you think I drove all the way out here to kingdom come, just to burn gas?” I clamp my mouth shut. Don’t go ruirning this now, she offering you a jay-o-bee. “Miss Celia, I be happy to work for you.”

She laughs and the crazy woman goes to hug me, but I step back a little, let her know that’s not the kind of thing I do.

“Hang on now, we got to talk about some things first. You got to tell me what days you want me here and… and that kind a thing.” Like how much you paying.

“I guess… whenever you feel like coming,” she says.

“For Miss Walters I work Sunday through Friday^[27].”

Miss Celia chews some more on her pink pinky-nail. “You can’t come here on weekends.”

“Alright.” I need the days, but maybe later on she’ll let me do some party serving or whatnot. “Monday through Friday then. Now, what time you want me here in the morning?”

“What time do you want to come in?”

I’ve never had this choice before. I feel my eyes narrow up. “How bout eight. That’s when Miss Walters used to get me in.”

“Alright, eight’s real good.” Then she stands there like she’s waiting for my next checker move.

“Now you supposed to tell me what time I got to leave.”

“What time?” asks Celia.

I roll my eyes at her. “Miss Celia, you supposed to tell me that. That’s the way it works.”

She swallows, like she’s trying real hard to get this down. I just want to get through this before she changes her mind about me.

“How bout four o’clock?” I say. “I work eight to four and I gets some time for lunch or what-have-you.”

“That’s just fine.”

“Now… we got to talk bout pay,” I say and my toes start wriggling in my shoes. It must not be much if five maids already said no.

Neither one of us says anything.

“Now come on, Miss Celia. What your husband say you can pay?”

She looks off at the Veg-O-Matic I bet she can’t even use and says, “Johnny doesn’t know.”

“Alright then. Ask him tonight what he wants to pay.”

“No, Johnny doesn’t know I’m bringing in help.”

My chin drops down to my chest. “What you mean he don’t know?”

“I am not telling Johnny.” Her blue eyes are big, like she’s scared to death of him.

“And what’s Mister Johnny gone do if he come home and find a colored woman up in his kitchen?”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t —”

“I’ll tell you what he’s gone do, he’s gone get that pistol and shoot Minny dead right here on this no-wax floor.”

Miss Celia shakes her head. “I’m not telling him.”

“Then I got to go,” I say. Shit. I knew it. I knew she was crazy when I walked in the door —

“It’s not that I’d be fibbing to him. I just need a maid —”

“A course you need a maid. Last one done got shot in the head.”

“He never comes home during the day. Just do the heavy cleaning and teach me how to fix supper and it’ll only take a few months —”

My nose prickles from something burning. I see a waft of smoke coming from the oven. “And then what, you gone fire me after them few months?”

“Then I’ll… tell him,” she say but she’s frowning at the thought. “Please, I want him to think I can do it on my own. I want him to think I’m… worth the trouble.”

“Miss Celia…” I shake my head, not believing I’m already arguing with this lady and I haven’t worked here two minutes. “I think you done burned up your cake.”

She grabs a rag and rushes to the oven and jerks the cake out. “Oww! Dawgon it!”

I set my pocketbook down, sidle her out of the way. “You can’t use no wet towel on a hot pan.”

I grab a dry rag and take that black cake out the door, set it down on the concrete step.

Miss Celia stares down at her burned hand. “Missus Walters said you were a real good cook.”

“That old woman eat two butterbeans and say she full^[28]. I couldn’t get her to eat nothing.”

“How much was she paying you?”

“Dollar an hour,” I say, feeling kind of ashamed. Five years and not even minimum wage.

“Then I’ll pay you two.”

And I feel all the breath slip out of me.

“When Mister Johnny get out the house in the morning?” I ask, cleaning up the butterstick melting right on the counter, not even a plate under it.

“Six. He can’t stand to do-dad around here very long. Then he heads back from his real estate office about five.”

I do some figuring and even with the fewer hours it’d be more pay. But I can’t get paid if I get shot dead. “I’ll leave at three then. Give myself two hours coming and going so I can stay out a his way.”

“Good.” She nods. “It’s best to be safe.”

On the back step, Miss Celia dumps the cake in a paper sack. “I’ll have to bury this in the waste bin so he won’t know I’ve burned up another one.”

I take the bag out of her hands. “Mister Johnny ain’t seeing nothing. I’ll throw it out at my house.”

“Oh, thank you.” Miss Celia shakes her head like that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for her. She holds her hands in tight little fists under her chin. I walk out to my car.

I sit in the sagging seat of the Ford Leroy’s still paying his boss twelve dollars every week for. Relief hits me. I have finally gotten myself a job. I don’t have to move to the North Pole. Won’t Santy Claus be disappointed.