The Help, Page 43

  It’s a gift from God, I guess. So they can go on and finish their

  business. But that’s al it is, honey. Don’t expect anything more.”

  “But did you see her color? She looks so much better and she’s keeping the food—”

  He shakes his head. “Just try and keep her comfortable.”

  ON THE FIRST FRIDAY OF 1964, I can’t wait any longer. I stretch the phone into the pantry. Mother is asleep, after having eaten a second bowl of oatmeal.

  Her door is open so I can hear her, in case she cal s.

  “Elaine Stein’s office.”

  “Hel o, it’s Eugenia Phelan, cal ing long-distance. Is she available?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Phelan, but Missus Stein isn’t taking any cal s regarding her manuscript selection.”

  “Oh. But…can you at least tel me if she received it? I mailed it just before the deadline and—”

  “One moment please.”

  The phone goes silent, and a minute or so later she comes back.

  “I can confirm that we did receive your package at some point during the holidays. Someone from our office wil notify you after Missus Stein

  has made her decision. Thank you for cal ing.”

  I hear the line on the other end click.

  A FEW NIGHTS LATER, after a riveting afternoon answering Miss Myrna letters, Stuart and I sit in the relaxing room. I’m glad to see him and to eradicate, for a while, the deadly silence of the house. We sit quietly, watching television. A Tareyton ad comes on, the one where the girl smoking the

  cigarette has a black eye— Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!

  Stuart and I have been seeing each other once a week now. We went to a movie after Christmas and once to dinner in town, but usual y he

  comes out to the house because I don’t want to leave Mother. He is hesitant around me, kind of respectful y shy. There is a patience in his eyes that

  replaces my own panic that I felt with him before. We don’t talk about anything serious. He tel s me stories about the summer, during col ege, he

  spent working on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The showers were saltwater. The ocean was crystal clear blue to the bottom. The other men were

  doing this brutal work to feed their families while Stuart, a rich kid with rich parents, had col ege to go back to. It was the first time, he said, he’d real y had to work hard.

  “I’m glad I dril ed on the rig back then. I couldn’t go off and do it now,” he’d said, like it was ages ago and not five years back. He seems

  older than I remember.

  “Why couldn’t you do it now?” I asked, because I am looking for a future for myself. I like to hear about the possibilities of others.

  He furrowed his brow at me. “Because I couldn’t leave you.”

  I tucked this away, afraid to admit how good it was to hear it.

  The commercial is over and we watch the news report. There is a skirmish in Vietnam. The reporter seems to thinks it’l be solved without

  much fuss.

  “Listen,” Stuart says after a while of silence between us. “I didn’t want to bring this up before but…I know what people are saying in town.

  About you. And I don’t care. I just want you to know that.”

  My first thought is the book. He’s heard something. My entire body goes tense. “What did you hear?”

  “You know. About that trick you played on Hil y.”

  I relax some, but not completely. I’ve never talked to anyone about this except Hil y herself. I wonder if Hil y ever cal ed him like she’d

  threatened.

  “And I could see how people would take it, think you’re some kind of crazy liberal, involved in al that mess.”

  I study my hands, stil wary of what he might have heard, and a little irritated too. “How do you know,” I ask, “what I’m involved in?”

  “Because I know you, Skeeter,” he says softly. “You’re too smart to get mixed up in anything like that. And I told them, too.”

  I nod, try to smile. Despite what he thinks he “knows” about me, I can’t help but appreciate that someone out there cares enough to stand up

  for me.

  “We don’t have to talk about this again,” he says. “I just wanted you to know. That’s al .”

  ON SATURDAY EVENING, I say good night to Mother. I have a long coat on so she can’t see my outfit. I keep the lights off so she can’t comment on my hair.

  Very little has changed with her health. She doesn’t seem to be getting any worse—the vomiting is stil at bay—but her skin is grayish white. Her

  hair has started to fal out. I hold her hands, brush her cheek.

  “Daddy, you’l cal the restaurant if you need me?”

  “I wil , Skeeter. Go have some fun.”

  I get in Stuart’s car and he takes me to the Robert E. Lee for dinner. The room is gaudy with gowns, red roses, silver service clinking. There is excitement in the air, the feeling that things are almost back to normal since President Kennedy died; 1964 is a fresh, new year. The glances our

  way are abundant.

  “You look…different,” Stuart says. I can tel he’s been holding in this comment al night, and he seems more confused than impressed. “That

  dress, it’s so…short.”

  I nod and push my hair back. The way he used to do.

  This morning, I told Mother I was going shopping. She looked so tired though, I quickly changed my mind. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

  But I’d already said it. Mother had me fetch the big checkbook. When I came back she tore out a blank check and then handed me a

  hundred-dol ar bil she had folded in the side of her wal et. Just the word shopping seemed to’ve made her feel better.

  “Don’t be frugal, now. And no slacks. Make sure Miss LaVole helps you.” She rested her head back in her pil ows. “She knows how young

  girls should dress.”

  But I couldn’t stand the thought of Miss LaVole’s wrinkled hands on my body, smel ing of coffee and mothbal s. I drove right through

  downtown and got on Highway 51 and headed for New Orleans. I drove through the guilt of leaving Mother for so long, knowing that Doctor Neal

  was coming by that afternoon and Daddy would be home al day with her.

  Three hours later, I walked into Maison Blanche’s department store on Canal Street. I’d been there umpteen times with Mother and twice

  with Elizabeth and Hil y, but I was mesmerized by the vast white marble floors, the miles of hats and gloves and powdered ladies looking so happy,

  so healthy. Before I could ask for help, a thin man said, “Come with me, I have it al upstairs,” and whisked me in the elevator to the third floor, to a room cal ed MODERN WOMEN’S WEAR.

  “What is al this?” I asked. There were dozens of women and rock-and-rol playing and champagne glasses and bright glittering lights.

  “Emilio Pucci, darling. Final y!” He stepped back from me and said, “Aren’t you here for the preview? You do have an invitation, don’t you?”

  “Um, somewhere,” I said, but he lost interest as I faked through my handbag.

  Al around me, clothes looked like they’d sprouted roots and bloomed on their hangers. I thought of Miss LaVole and laughed. No easter-

  egg suits here. Flowers! Big bright stripes! And hemlines that showed several inches of thigh. It was electric and gorgeous and dizzying. This Emilio Pucci character must stick his finger in a socket every morning.

  I bought with my blank check enough clothes to fil the back seat of the Cadil ac. Then on Magazine Street, I paid forty-five dol ars to have my

  hair lightened and trimmed and ironed straight. It had grown longer over the winter and was the color of dirty dishwater. By four o’clock I was driving back over the Lake Pontchartrain bridge with the radio playing a band cal ed the Rol ing Stones and the wind blowing through my satiny, straight

  hair, and I thought, Tonight, I’ll str
ip off all this armor and let it be as it was before with Stuart.

  STUART AND I eat our Chateaubriand, smiling, talking. He looks off at the other tables, commenting on people he knows. But no one gets up to tel us

  hel o.

  “Here’s to new beginnings,” Stuart says and raises his bourbon.

  I nod, sort of wanting to tel him that al beginnings are new. Instead, I smile and toast with my second glass of wine. I’ve never real y liked

  alcohol, until today.

  After dinner, we walk out into the lobby and see Senator and Missus Whitworth at a table, having drinks. People are around them drinking

  and talking. They are home for the weekend, Stuart told me earlier, their first since they moved to Washington.

  “Stuart, there are your parents. Should we go say hel o?”

  But Stuart steers me toward the door, practical y pushes me outside.

  “I don’t want Mother to see you in that short dress,” he says. “I mean, believe me, it looks great on you, but…” He looks down at the hemline.

  “Maybe that wasn’t the best choice for tonight.” On the ride home, I think of Elizabeth, in her curlers, afraid the bridge club would see me. Why is it that someone always seems to be ashamed of me?

  By the time we make it back to Longleaf, it’s eleven o’clock. I smooth my dress, thinking Stuart is right. It is too short. The lights in my

  parents’ bedroom are off, so we sit on the sofa.

  I rub my eyes and yawn. When I open them, he’s holding a ring between his fingers.

  “Oh…Jesus.”

  “I was going to do it at the restaurant but…” He grins. “Here is better.”

  I touch the ring. It is cold and gorgeous. Three rubies are set on both sides of the diamond. I look up at him, feeling very hot al of a sudden. I

  pul my sweater off my shoulders. I am smiling and about to cry at the same time.

  “I have to tel you something, Stuart,” I blurt out. “Do you promise you won’t tel anyone?”

  He stares at me and laughs. “Hang on, did you say yes?”

  “Yes, but…” I have to know something first. “Can I just have your word?”

  He sighs, looks disappointed that I’m ruining his moment. “Sure, you have my word.”

  I am in shock from his proposal but I do my best to explain. Looking into his eyes, I spread out the facts and what details I can safely share

  about the book and what I’ve been doing over the past year. I leave out everyone’s name and I pause at the implication of this, knowing it’s not

  good. Even though he is asking to be my husband, I don’t know him enough to trust him completely.

  “This is what you’ve been writing about for the past twelve months? Not…Jesus Christ?”

  “No, Stuart. Not…Jesus.”

  When I tel him that Hil y found the Jim Crow laws in my satchel, his chin drops and I can see that I’ve confirmed something Hil y already told

  him about me—something he had the naïve trust not to believe.

  “The talk…in town. I told them they were dead wrong. But they were…right.”

  When I tel him about the colored maids filing past me after the prayer meeting, I feel a swel of pride over what we’ve done. He looks down

  into his empty bourbon glass.

  Then I tel him that the manuscript has been sent to New York. That if they decide to publish it, it would come out in, my guess is, eight

  months, maybe sooner. Right around the time, I think to myself, an engagement would turn into a wedding.

  “It’s been written anonymously,” I say, “but with Hil y around, there’s stil a good chance people wil know it was me.”

  But he’s not nodding his head or pushing my hair behind my ear and his grandmother’s ring is sitting on Mother’s velvet sofa like some

  ridiculous metaphor. We are both silent. His eyes don’t even meet mine. They stay a steady two inches to the right of my face.

  After a minute, he says, “I just…I don’t understand why you would do this. Why do you even… care about this, Skeeter?”

  I bristle, look down at the ring, so sharp and shiny.

  “I didn’t…mean it like that,” he starts again. “What I mean is, things are fine around here. Why would you want to go stirring up trouble?”

  I can tel , in his voice, he sincerely wants an answer from me. But how to explain it? He is a good man, Stuart. As much as I know that what

  I’ve done is right, I can stil understand his confusion and doubt.

  “I’m not making trouble, Stuart. The trouble is already here.”

  But clearly, this isn’t the answer he is looking for. “I don’t know you.”

  I look down, remembering that I’d thought this same thing only moments ago. “I guess we’l have the rest of our lives to fix that,” I say, trying to

  smile.

  “I don’t…think I can marry somebody I don’t know.”

  I suck in a breath. My mouth opens but I can’t say anything for a little while.

  “I had to tel you,” I say, more to myself than him. “You needed to know.”

  He studies me for a few moments. “You have my word. I won’t tel anyone,” he says, and I believe him. He may be many things, Stuart, but

  he’s not a liar.

  He stands up. He gives me one last, lost look. And then he picks up the ring and walks out.

  THAT NIGHT, after Stuart has left, I wander from room to room, dry-mouthed, cold. Cold is what I’d prayed for when Stuart left me the first time. Cold is what I got.

  At midnight, I hear Mother’s voice cal ing from her bedroom.

  “Eugenia? Is that you?”

  I walk down the hal . The door is half open and Mother is sitting up in her starchy white nightgown. Her hair is down around her shoulders. I

  am struck by how beautiful she looks. The back porch light is on, casting a white halo around her entire body. She smiles and her new dentures are

  stil in, the ones Dr. Simon cast for her when her teeth starting eroding from the stomach acid. Her smile is whiter, even, than in her teen pageant

  pictures.

  “Mama, what can I get you? Is it bad?”

  “Come here, Eugenia. I want to tel you something.”

  I go to her quietly. Daddy is a long sleeping lump, his back to her. And I think, I could tel her a better version of tonight. We al know there’s

  very little time. I could make her happy in her last days, pretend that the wedding is going to happen.

  “I have something to tel you, too,” I say.

  “Oh? You go first.”

  “Stuart proposed,” I say, faking a smile. Then I panic, knowing she’l ask to see the ring.

  “I know,” she says.

  “You do?”

  She nods. “Of course. He came by here two weeks ago and asked Carlton and me for your hand.”

  Two weeks ago? I almost laugh. Of course Mother was the first to know something so important. I’m happy she’s had so long to enjoy the

  news.

  “And I have something to tel you,” she says. The glow around Mother is unearthly, phosphorescent. It’s from the porch light, but I wonder why

  I’ve never seen it before. She clasps my hand in the air with the healthy grip of a mother holding her newly engaged daughter. Daddy stirs, then sits

  straight up.

  “What?” he gasps. “Are you sick?”

  “No, Carlton. I’m fine. I told you.”

  He nods numbly, closes his eyes, and is asleep before he has even lain down again.

  “What’s your news, Mama?”

  “I’ve had a long talk with your daddy and I have made a decision.”

  “Oh God,” I sigh. I can just see her explaining it to Stuart when he asked for my hand. “Is this about the trust fund?”

  “No, it’s not that,” she says and I think, Then it must be something about the wedding. I feel a shuddering sadness that Mother w
il not be

  here to plan my wedding, not only because she’l be dead, but because there is no wedding. And yet, I also feel a horrifyingly guilty relief that I won’t have to go through this with her.

  “Now I know you’ve noticed that things have been on the uptick these past few weeks,” she says. “And I know what Doctor Neal says, that it’s

  some kind of last strength, some nonsense ab—” She coughs and her thin body arches over like a shel . I give her a tissue and she frowns, dabs at

  her mouth.

  “But as I said, I have made a decision.”

  I nod, listening, with the same numbness as my father a moment ago.

  “I have decided not to die.”

  “Oh…Mama. God, please…”

  “Too late,” she says, waving my hand away. “I’ve made my decision and that’s that.”

  She slides her palms across each other, as if throwing the cancer away. Sitting straight and prim in her gown, the halo of light glowing

  around her hair, I can’t keep from rol ing my eyes. How dumb of me. Of course Mother wil be as obstinate about her death as she has been about

  every detail of her life.

  THE DATE IS FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1964. I have on a black A-line dress. My fingernails are al bitten off. I wil remember every detail of this day, I think, the way people are saying they’l never forget what kind of sandwich they were eating, or the song on the radio, when they found out Kennedy was shot.

  I walk into what has become such a familiar spot to me, the middle of Aibileen’s kitchen. It is already dark outside and the yel ow bulb seems

  very bright. I look at Minny and she looks at me. Aibileen edges between us as if to block something.