When I waited on Miss Caulier, her carport attach to the house so I didn’t have to go outside. Place before that had a maid quarters. Plus my own little bedroom for when I sit at night. This one I got to cross through the weather to get there.
On a Tuesday noon, I carry my lunch on out to the back steps, set down on the cool concrete. Miss Leefolt’s grass don’t grow good back here. A big magnolia tree shades most a the yard. I already know that’s the tree gone be Mae Mobley’s hideout. In about five years, to hide from Miss Leefolt.
After a while, Mae Mobley waddle out on the back step. She got half her hamburger patty in her hand. She smile up at me and say, “Good.”
“How come you not in there with your mama?” I ask, but I know why. She rather be setting out here with the help than in there watching her mama look anywhere but at her. She like one a them baby chickens that get confused and follow the ducks around instead.
Mae Mobley point at the bluebirds getting ready for winter, twittering in the little gray fountain. “Boo birds!” She point and drop her hamburger down on the step. Out a nowhere, that old bird dog Aubie they don’t never pay no mind to come up and gobble it down. I don’t take to dogs, but this one is just plain pitiful. I pet him on the head. I bet nobody petted that dog since Christmas.
When Mae Mobley see him, she squeal and grab at his tail. It whap her in the face a few times before she get holt. Poor thing, he whine and give her one a those pitiful people-dog looks, his head turned funny, his eyebrows up. I can almost hear him asking her to turn him loose. He ain’t the biting kind.
So she’ll let go, I say, “Mae Mobley, where your tail?”
Sho nuff, she let go and start looking at her rear. Her mouth’s popped open like she just can’t believe she done missed it all this time. She turning in wobbly circles trying to see it.
“You ain’t got no tail.” I laugh and catch her fore she fall off that step. Dog sniff around for more hamburger.
It always tickle me how these babies believe anything you tell em. Tate Forrest, one a my used-to-be babies long time ago, stop me on the way to the Jitney just last week, give me a big hug, so happy to see me. He a grown man now. I needed to get back to Miss Leefolt’s, but he start laughing and memoring how I’d do him when he was a boy. How the first time his foot fell asleep and he say it tickle, I told him that was just his foot snoring. And how I told him don’t drink coffee or he gone turn colored. He say he still ain’t drunk a cup a coffee and he twenty-one years old. It’s always nice seeing the kids grown up fine.
“Mae Mobley? Mae Mobley Leefolt!”
Miss Leefolt just now noticing her child ain’t setting in the same room with her. “She out here with me, Miss Leefolt,” I say through the screen door.
“I told you to eat in your high chair, Mae Mobley. How I ended up with you when all my friends have angels I just do not know . . .” But then the phone ring and I hear her stomping off to get it.
I look down at Baby Girl, see how her forehead’s all wrinkled up between the eyes. She studying hard on something.
I touch her cheek. “You alright, baby?”
She say, “Mae Mo bad.”
The way she say it, like it’s a fact, make my insides hurt.
“Mae Mobley,” I say cause I got a notion to try something. “You a smart girl?”
She just look at me, like she don’t know.
“You a smart girl,” I say again.
She say, “Mae Mo smart.”
I say, “You a kind little girl?”
She just look at me. She two years old. She don’t know what she is yet.
I say, “You a kind girl,” and she nod, repeat it back to me. But before I can do another one, she get up and chase that poor dog around the yard and laugh and that’s when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever day?
She turn from the birdbath and smile and holler, “Hi, Aibee. I love you, Aibee,” and I feel a tickly feeling, soft like the flap a butterfly wings, watching her play out there. The way I used to feel watching Treelore. And that makes me kind a sad, memoring.
After while, Mae Mobley come over and press her cheek up to mine and just hold it there, like she know I be hurting. I hold her tight, whisper, “You a smart girl. You a kind girl, Mae Mobley. You hear me?” And I keep saying it till she repeat it back to me.
THE NEXT FEW WEEKS is real important for Mae Mobley. You think on it, you probably don’t remember the first time you went to the bathroom in the toilet bowl stead of a diaper. Probably don’t give no credit to who taught you, neither. Never had a single baby I raise come up to me and say, Aibileen, why I sure do thank you for showing me how to go in the pot.
It’s a tricky thing. You try and get a baby to go in the toilet before its time, it’ll make em crazy. They can’t get the hang of it and get to thinking low a theyselves. Baby Girl, though, I know she ready. And she know she ready. But, Law, if she ain’t running my fool legs off. I set her on her wooden baby seat so her little hiney don’t fall in and soon as I turn my back, she off that pot running.
“You got to go, Mae Mobley?”
“No.”
“You drunk up two glasses a grape juice, I know you got to go.”
“Nooo.”
“I give you a cookie if you go for me.”
We look at each other awhile. She start eyeing the door. I don’t hear nothing happening in the bowl. Usually, I can get them going after about two weeks. But that’s if I got they mamas helping me. Little boys got to see they daddy doing it standing-up style, little girls got to see they mama setting down. Miss Leefolt won’t let that girl come near her when she going, and that’s the trouble.
“Go just a little for me, Baby Girl.”
She stick her lip out, shake her head.
Miss Leefolt gone to get her hair done, else I ask her again will she set the example even though that woman’s already said no five times. Last time Miss Leefolt say no, I was fixing to tell her how many kids I raised in my lifetime and ask her what number she on, but I ended up saying alright like I always do.
“I give you two cookies,” I say even though her mama always getting on me about making her fat.
Mae Mobley, she shake her head and say, “You go.”
Now, I ain’t saying I ain’t heard this before, but usually I can get around it. I know, though, she got to see how it’s done fore she gone get to business. I say, “I don’t got to go.”
We look at each other. She point again and say, “You go.”
Then she get to crying and fidgeting cause that seat making a little indent on her behind and I know what I’m on have to do. I just don’t know how to go about it. Should I take her out to the garage to mine or go here in this bathroom? What if Miss Leefolt come home and I’m setting up on this toilet? She have a fit.
I put her diaper back on and we go out to the garage. Rain make it smell a little swampy. Even with the light on it’s dark, and they ain’t no fancy wallpaper like inside the house. Fact, they really ain’t no proper walls at all, just plyboard hammered together. I wonder if she gone be scared.
“Alright, Baby Girl, here tis. Aibileen’s bathroom.”
She stick her head in and her mouth make the shape of a Cheerio. She say, “Oooooo.”
I take down my underthings and I tee-tee real fast, use the paper, and get it all back on before she can really see anything. Then I flush.