chapter 18

ON MONDAY MORNING, I drive to work rehearsing the whole way. I know I mouthed off . . . I walk into her kitchen. And I know I was out of place... I set my bag down in the chair, and . . . and . . . This is the hard part. And I’m sorry.

I brace myself when I hear Miss Celia’s feet padding through the house. I don’t know what to expect, if she’ll be mad or cold or just flat out re-fire me. All I know is, I’m doing the talking first.

“Morning,” she says. Miss Celia’s still in her nightgown. She hasn’t even brushed her hair, much less put the goo on her face.

“Miss Celia, I got to . . . tell you something . . .”

She groans, flattens her hand against her stomach.

“You . . . feel bad?”

“Yeah.” She puts a biscuit and some ham on a plate, then takes the ham back off.

“Miss Celia, I want you to know—”

But she walks right out while I’m talking and I know I am in some kind of trouble.

I go ahead and do my work. Maybe I’m crazy to act like the job’s still mine. Maybe she won’t even pay me for today. After lunch, I turn on Miss Christine on As the World Turns and do the ironing. Usually, Miss Celia comes in and watches with me, but not today. When the program’s over, I wait on her awhile in the kitchen, but Miss Celia doesn’t even come in for her lesson. The bedroom door stays closed, and by two o’clock I can’t think of anything else to do except clean their bedroom. I feel a dread like a frying pan in my stomach. I wish I’d gotten my words in this morning when I had the chance.

Finally, I go to the back of the house, look at that closed door. I knock and there’s no answer. Finally, I take a chance and open it.

But the bed is empty. Now I’ve got the shut bathroom door to contend with.

“I’m on do my work in here,” I call out. There’s no answer, but I know she’s in there. I can feel her behind that door. I’m sweating. I want to get this damn conversation over with.

I go around the room with my laundry sack, stuffing a weekend’s worth of clothes inside. The bathroom door stays closed with no sound. I know that bathroom in there’s a mess. I listen for some life as I pull the sheets up taut on the bed. The pale yellow bolster pillow is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, packaged on the ends like a big yellow hotdog. I smack it down on the mattress, smooth the bedspread out.

I wipe down the bedside table, stack the Look magazines on her side, the bridge book she ordered. I straighten the books on Mister Johnny’s. He reads a lot. I pick up To Kill a Mockingbird and turn it over.

“Well look a there.” A book with black folks in it. It makes me wonder if, one day, I’ll see Miss Skeeter’s book on a bedside table. Not with my real name in it, that’s for sure.

Finally, I hear a noise, something scruff against the bathroom door. “Miss Celia,” I call out again, “I’m out here. Just want you to know.”

But there’s nothing.

“That ain’t none a my business whatever’s going on in there,” I say to myself. Then I holler, “Just gone do my work and get out a here before Mister Johnny gets home with the pistol.” I’m hoping that’ll draw her out. It doesn’t.

“Miss Celia, they’s some Lady-a-Pinkam under the sink. Drink that up and come out so I can do my work in there.”

Finally, I just stop, stare at the door. Am I fired or am I ain’t? And if I ain’t, then what if she’s so drunk, she can’t hear me? Mister Johnny asked me to look after her. I don’t think this would qualify as looking after if she’s drunk in the bathtub.

“Miss Celia, just say something so I know you still alive in there.”

“I’m fine.”

But she does not sound fine to me.

“It’s almost three o’clock.” I stand in the middle of the bedroom, waiting. “Mister Johnny be home soon.”

I need to know what’s going on in there. I need to know if she’s laid out drunk. And if I ain’t fired, then I need to clean that bathroom so Mister Johnny doesn’t think the secret maid is slacking and fire me a second time.

“Come on, Miss Celia, you mess up the hair coloring again? I helped you fix it last time, remember? We got it back real pretty.”

The knob turns. Slowly, the door opens. Miss Celia’s sitting on the floor, to the right of the door. Her knees are drawn up inside her nightgown.

I step a little closer. From the side, I can see her complexion is the color of fabric softener, a flat milky blue.

I can also see blood in the toilet bowl. A lot of it.

“You got the cramps, Miss Celia?” I whisper. I feel my nostrils flare.

Miss Celia doesn’t turn around. There’s a line of blood along the hem of her white nightgown, like it dipped down into the toilet.

“You want me to call Mister Johnny?” I say. I try, but I can’t stop myself from looking at that red full bowl. Because there’s something else deep down in that red liquid. Something . . . solid-looking.

“No.” Miss Celia says, staring at the wall. “Fetch me . . . my phone book.”

I hurry to the kitchen, snatch the book from the table, rush back. But when I try to hand it to Miss Celia, she waves it away.

“Please, you call,” she says. “Under T, for Doctor Tate. I can’t do it again.”

I skip through the thin pages of the book. I know who Doctor Tate is. He doctors most of the white women I’ve waited on. He also gives his “special treatment” to Elaine Fairley every Tuesday when his wife is at her hair appointment. Taft . . . Taggert . . . Tann. Thank the Lord.

My hands tremble around the rotary dial. A white woman answers. “Celia Foote, on Highway Twenty-Two out Madison County,” I tell her as best I can without yacking on the floor. “Yes ma’am, lots and lots a blood coming out... Do he know how to get here?” She says yes, of course, and hangs up.

“He’s coming?” asks Celia.

“He coming,” I say. Another wave of nausea sneaks up on me. It’ll be a long time until I can scrub that toilet again without gagging.

“You want a Co-Cola? I’m on get you a Co-Cola.”

In the kitchen, I get a bottle of Coca-Cola from the refrigerator. I come back and set it on the tile and back away. As far from that red-filled pot as I can without leaving Miss Celia alone.

“Maybe we should get you up in the bed, Miss Celia. You think you can stand up?”

Miss Celia leans forward, tries to push herself up. I step in to help her and see that the blood has soaked through the seat of her nightgown, stained the blue tile with what looks like red glue, embedded in the grout. Stains that won’t be easy to get up.

Just as I raise her to her feet, Miss Celia slips in a spot of blood, catches the edge of toilet bowl to steady herself. “Let me stay—I want to stay here.”

“Alright then.” I back away, into the bedroom. “Doctor Tate be here real soon. They calling him up at home.”

“Come and set with me, Minny? Please?”

But there’s a waft of warm, wretched air coming off that toilet. After some figuring, I sit with half my bottom in the bathroom, half out. And at eye-level, I can really smell it. It smells like meat, like hamburger defrosting on the counter. I kind of panic when I put that one together.

“Come on out of here, Miss Celia. You need some air.”

“I can’t get the blood on the . . . rug or Johnny will see it.” The veins on Miss Celia’s arm look black under her skin. Her face is getting whiter.

“You getting funny-looking. Drink you a little a this Co-Cola.”

She takes a sip, says, “Oh Minny.”

“How long you been bleeding?”

“Since this morning,” she says and starts crying into the crook of her arm.

“It’s alright, you gone be fine,” I say and I sound real soothing, real confident, but inside my heart is pounding. Sure, Doctor Tate’s coming to help Miss Celia, but what about the thing in the toilet? What am I supposed to do, flush it? What if it gets stuck in the pipes? It’ll have to be fished up. Oh Lord, how am I going to make myself do that?