least the woman’s gotten up to go to the mailbox. I pick it up to wipe the table and there I see the letters H W H across the top of a card. Before I know it, I’ve read the whole note:
Dear Celia,
In lieu of reimbursing me for my dress you tore, we at the League would gladly receive a donation of no less than two hundred dollars. Furthermore, please withhold from volunteering for any nonmember activities in the future, as your name has been placed on a probationary list. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.
Do kindly make the check out to the Jackson League Chapter.
Sincerely,
Hilly Holbrook
President and Chairman of Appropriations
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Miss Celia’s still under the covers. I do my work in the kitchen, try to appreciate the fact that she’s not hanging around with me in here. But I can’t enjoy it because the phone’s been ringing all morning, and for the first time since I started, Miss Celia won’t pick it up. After the tenth time, I can’t listen to it anymore and finally just grab it and say hello.
I go in her bedroom, tell her, “Mister Johnny on the phone.”
“What? He’s not supposed to know that I know that he knows about you.”
I let out a big sigh to show I don’t give a fat rat about that lie anymore. “He called me at home. The jig is up, Miss Celia.”
Miss Celia shuts her eyes. “Tell him I’m asleep.”
I pick up the bedroom line and look Miss Celia hard in the eye and tell him she’s in the shower.
“Yessir, she doing alright,” I say and narrow my eyes at her.
I hang up the phone and glare down at Miss Celia.
“He want to know how you doing.”
“I heard.”
“I lied for you, you know.”
She puts the pillow back over her head.
By the next afternoon, I can’t stand it another minute. Miss Celia’s still in the same spot she’s been all week. Her face is thin and that Butterbatch is greasy-looking. The room is starting to smell too, like dirty people. I bet she hasn’t bathed since Friday.
“Miss Celia,” I say.
Miss Celia looks at me, but doesn’t smile, doesn’t speak.
“Mister Johnny gone be home tonight and I told him I’d look after you. What’s he gone think if he find you laid up in that old nasty nightthing you got on?”
I hear Miss Celia sniffle, then hiccup, then start to cry full-on. “None of this would’ve happened if I’d just stayed where I belonged. He should’ve married proper. He should’ve married . . . Hilly.”
“Come on, Miss Celia. It ain’t—”
“The way Hilly looked at me . . . like I was nothing. Like I was trash on the side of the road.”
“But Miss Hilly don’t count. You can’t judge yourself by the way that woman see you.”
“I’m not right for this kind of life. I don’t need a dinner table for twelve people to sit at. I couldn’t get twelve people to come over if I begged.”
I shake my head at her. Complaining again cause she has too much.
“Why does she hate me so much? She doesn’t even know me,” Miss Celia cries. “And it’s not just Johnny, she called me a liar, accused me of getting her that . . . pie.” She bangs her fists against her knees. “I never would a thrown up if it wasn’t for that.”
“What pie?”
“H-H-Hilly won your pie. And she accused me of signing her up for it. Playing some . . . trick on her.” She wails and sobs. “Why would I do that? Write her name down on a list?”
It comes to me real slow what’s going on here. I don’t know who signed up Hilly for that pie, but I sure know why she’d eat alive anybody she thought did it.
I glance over at the door. That voice in my head says, Walk away, Minny. Just ease on out a here. But I look at Miss Celia bawling into her old nightgown, and I get a guilt thick as Yazoo clay.
“I can’t do this to Johnny anymore. I’ve already decided, Minny. I’m going back,” she sobs. “Back to Sugar Ditch.”
“You gone leave your husband just cause you throwed up at some party?” Hang on, I think, my eyes opening wide. Miss Celia can’t leave Mister Johnny—where in the heck would that leave me?
Miss Celia cries down harder at the reminder. I sigh and watch her, wondering what to do.