The Help / Прислуга. Книга для чтения на английском языке

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 - Sunday through Friday – (разг.) с воскресенья по пятницу включительно].”

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.

“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.

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.