The Help / Прислуга. Книга для чтения на английском языке

And I know she ain’t saying what she want a say either and it’s a strange thing happening here cause nobody saying nothing and we still managing to have us a conversation.

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 - Miss Marilyn Monroe – Мерилин Монро (1926– 1962), американская актриса, певица, у которой был роман с Дж.

Ф. Кеннеди.]. 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.