The Help, Page 47

  I fal into a heavy sleep. I’m dreaming I’m at a long wooden table and I’m at a feast. I’m gnawing on a big roasted turkey leg.

  I fly upright in my bed. My breath is fast. “Who there?”

  My heart’s flinging itself against my chest. I look around my dark bedroom. It’s half-past midnight. Leroy’s not here, thank God. But

  something woke me for sure.

  And then I realize what it was that woke me. I heard what I’ve been waiting on. What we’ve al been waiting on.

  I heard Miss Hil y’s scream.

  MISS SKEETER

  CHAPTER 33

  MY EYES POP OPEN. My chest is pumping. I’m sweating. The green-vined wal paper is snaking up the wal s. What woke me? What was that?

  I get out of bed and listen. It didn’t sound like Mother. It was too high-pitched. It was a scream, like material ripping into two shredded

  pieces.

  I sit back on the bed and press my hand to my heart. It’s stil pounding. Nothing is going as planned. People know the book is about

  Jackson. I can’t believe I forgot what a slow goddamn reader Hil y is. I’l bet she’s tel ing people she’s read more than she has. Now things are

  spinning out of control, a maid named Annabel e was fired, white women are whispering about Aibileen and Louvenia and who knows who else.

  And the irony is, I’m gnawing my hands waiting for Hil y to speak up when I’m the only one in this town who doesn’t care what she has to say

  anymore.

  What if the book was a horrible mistake?

  I take a deep, painful breath. I try to think of the future, not the present. A month ago, I mailed out fifteen résumés to Dal as, Memphis,

  Birmingham, and five other cities, and once again, New York. Missus Stein told me I could list her as a reference, which is probably the only notable

  thing on the page, having a recommendation from someone in publishing. I added the jobs I’ve held for the past year:

  Weekly Housekeeping Columnist for the Jackson Journal Newspaper

  Editor of the Junior League of Jackson Newsletter

  Author of Help, a controversial book about colored housekeepers and

  their white employers, Harper & Row

  I didn’t real y include the book, I just wanted to type it out once. But now, even if I did get a job offer in a big city, I can’t abandon Aibileen in

  the middle of this mess. Not with things going so badly.

  But God, I have to get out of Mississippi. Besides Mother and Daddy, I have nothing left here, no friends, no job I real y care about, no Stuart.

  But it’s not just out of here. When I addressed my résumé to the New York Post, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker

  magazine, I felt that surge again, the same I’d felt in col ege, of how much I want to be there. Not Dal as, not Memphis— New York City, where

  writers are supposed to live. But I’ve heard nothing back from any of them. What if I never leave? What if I’m stuck. Here. Forever?

  I lie down and watch the first rays of sun coming through the window. I shiver. That ripping scream, I realize, was me.

  I’M STANDING IN BRENT’S DRUGSTORE PICKING out Mother’s Lustre Cream and a Vinolia soap bar, while Mr. Roberts works on her prescription. Mother says

  she doesn’t need the medicine anymore, that the only cure for cancer is having a daughter who won’t cut her hair and wears dresses too high

  above the knee even on Sunday, because who knows what tackiness I’d do to myself if she died.

  I’m just grateful Mother’s better. If my fifteen-second engagement to Stuart is what spurred Mother’s wil to live, the fact that I’m single again

  fueled her strength even more. She was clearly disappointed by our break up, but then bounced back superbly. Mother even went so far as to set

  me up with a third cousin, who is thirty-five and beautiful and clearly homosexual. “Mother,” I’d said when he left after supper, for how could she not see it? “He’s…” but I’d stopped. I’d patted her hand instead. “He said I wasn’t his type.”

  Now I’m hurrying to get out of the drugstore before anyone I know comes in. I should be used to my isolation by now, but I’m not. I miss

  having friends. Not Hil y, but sometimes Elizabeth, the old, sweet Elizabeth back in high school. It got harder when I finished the book and I couldn’t even visit Aibileen anymore. We decided it was too risky. I miss going to her house and talking to her more than anything.

  Every few days, I speak to Aibileen on the phone, but it’s not the same as sitting with her. Please, I think when she updates me on what’s

  going on around town, please let some good come out of this. But so far, nothing. Just girls gossiping and treating the book like a game, trying to guess who is who and Hil y accusing the wrong people. I was the one who assured the colored maids we wouldn’t be found out, and I am the one

  responsible for this.

  The front bel tinkles. I look over and in walk Elizabeth and Lou Anne Templeton. I slip back into beauty creams, hoping they don’t see me.

  But then I peek over the shelves to look. They’re heading for the lunch counter, huddled together like schoolgirls. Lou Anne’s wearing her usual long

  sleeves in the summer heat and her constant smile. I wonder if she knows she’s in the book.

  Elizabeth’s got her hair poufed up in front and she’s covered the back in a scarf, the yel ow scarf I gave her for her twenty-third birthday. I

  stand there a minute, letting myself feel how strange this al is, watching them, knowing what I know. She has read up to Chapter Ten, Aibileen told

  me last night, and stil doesn’t have the faintest idea that she’s reading about herself and her friends.

  “Skeeter?” Mr. Roberts cal s out from his landing above the register. “Your mama’s medicine’s ready.”

  I walk to the front of the store, and have to pass Elizabeth and Lou Anne at the lunch counter. They keep their backs to me, but I can see their

  eyes in the mirror, fol owing me. They look down at the same time.

  I pay for the medicine and Mother’s tubes and goo and work my way back through the aisles. As I try to escape along the far side of the

  store, Lou Anne Templeton steps from behind the hairbrush rack.

  “Skeeter,” she says. “You have a minute?”

  I stand there blinking, surprised. No one’s asked me for even a second, much less a minute, in over eight months. “Um, sure,” I say, wary.

  Lou Anne glances out the window and I see Elizabeth heading for her car, a milkshake in hand. Lou Anne motions me closer, by the

  shampoos and detanglers.

  “Your mama, I hope she’s stil doing better?” Lou Anne asks. Her smile is not quite as beaming as usual. She pul s at the long sleeves of her dress, even though a fine sweat covers her forehead.

  “She’s fine. Stil …in remission.”

  “I’m so glad.” She nods and we stand there awkwardly, looking at each other. Lou Anne takes a deep breath. “I know we haven’t talked in a

  while but,” she lowers her voice, “I just thought you should know what Hil y’s saying. She’s saying you wrote that book…about the maids.”

  “I heard that book was written anonymously,” is my quick answer, not sure I even want to act like I’ve read it. Even though everyone in town’s

  reading it. Al three bookstores are sold out and the library has a two-month waiting list.

  She holds up her palm, like a stop sign. “I don’t want to know if it’s true. But Hil y…” She steps closer to me. “Hil y Holbrook cal ed me the

  other day and told me to fire my maid Louvenia.” Her jaw tightens and she shakes her head.

  Please. I hold my breath. Please don’t say you fired her.

  “Skeeter, Louvenia…” Lou Anne looks me in the eye, says, “she’s the only reason I can get out of bed sometimes.”

  I don’t say an
ything. Maybe this is a trap Hil y’s set.

  “And I’m sure you think I’m just some dumb girl…that I agree with everything Hil y says.” Tears come up in her eyes. Her lips are trembling.

  “The doctors want me to go up to Memphis for… shock treatment…” She covers her face but a tear slips through her fingers. “For the depression

  and the…the tries,” she whispers.

  I look down at her long sleeves and I wonder if that’s what she’s been hiding. I hope I’m not right, but I shudder.

  “Of course, Henry says I need to shape up or ship out.” She makes a marching motion, trying to smile, but it fal s quickly and the sadness

  flickers back into her face.

  “Skeeter, Louvenia is the bravest person I know. Even with al her own troubles, she sits down and talks to me. She helps me get through my

  days. When I read what she wrote about me, about helping her with her grandson, I’ve never been so grateful in my life. It was the best I’d felt in

  months.”

  I don’t know what to say. This is the only good thing I’ve heard about the book and I want her to tel me more. I guess Aibileen hasn’t heard

  this yet, either. But I’m worried too because, clearly, Lou Anne knows.

  “If you did write it, if Hil y’s rumor is true, I just want you to know, I wil never fire Louvenia. I told Hil y I’d think about it, but if Hil y Holbrook ever says that to me again, I wil tel her to her face she deserved that pie and more.”

  “How do—what makes you think that was Hil y?” Our protection—our insurance, it’s gone if the pie secret is out.

  “Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. But that’s the talk.” Lou Anne shakes her head. “Then this morning I heard Hil y’s tel ing everybody the

  book’s not even about Jackson. Who knows why.”

  I suck in a breath, whisper, “Thank God.”

  “Wel , Henry’l be home soon.” She pul s her handbag up on her shoulder and stands up straighter. The smile comes back on her face like a

  mask.

  She turns for the door, but looks back at me as she opens it. “And I’l tel you one more thing. Hil y Holbrook’s not getting my vote for League

  president in January. Or ever again, for that matter.”

  On that, she walks out, the bel tinkling behind her.

  I linger at the window. Outside, a fine rain has started to fal , misting the glassy cars and slicking the black pavement. I watch Lou Anne slip

  away in the parking lot, thinking, There is so much you don’t know about a person. I wonder if I could’ve made her days a little bit easier, if I’d tried.

  If I’d treated her a little nicer. Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.

  But Lou Anne, she understood the point of the book before she ever read it. The one who was missing the point this time was me.

  THAT EVENING, I cal Aibileen four times, but her phone line is busy. I hang up and sit for a while in the pantry, staring at the jars of fig preserves Constantine put up before the fig tree died. Aibileen told me that the maids talk al the time about the book and what’s happening. She gets six or

  seven phone cal s a night.

  I sigh. It’s Wednesday. Tomorrow I turn in my Miss Myrna column that I wrote six weeks ago. Again, I’ve stockpiled two dozen of them,

  because I have nothing else to do. After that, there’s nothing left to think about, except worry.

  Sometimes, when I’m bored, I can’t help but think what my life would be like if I hadn’t written the book. Monday, I would’ve played bridge.

  And tomorrow night, I’d be going to the League meeting and turning in the newsletter. Then on Friday night, Stuart would take me to dinner and

  we’d stay out late and I’d be tired when I got up for my tennis game on Saturday. Tired and content and… frustrated.

  Because Hil y would’ve cal ed her maid a thief that afternoon, and I would’ve just sat there and listened to it. And Elizabeth would’ve grabbed

  her child’s arm too hard and I would’ve looked away, like I didn’t see it. And I’d be engaged to Stuart and I wouldn’t wear short dresses, only short

  hair, or consider doing anything risky like write a book about colored housekeepers, too afraid he’d disapprove. And while I’d never lie and tel

  myself I actual y changed the minds of people like Hil y and Elizabeth, at least I don’t have to pretend I agree with them anymore.

  I get out of that stuffy pantry with a panicky feeling. I slip on my man huaraches and walk out into the warm night. The moon is ful and there’s

  just enough light. I forgot to check the mailbox this afternoon and I’m the only one who ever does it. I open it and there’s one single letter. It’s from Harper & Row, so it must be from Missus Stein. I’m surprised she would send something here since I have al the book contracts sent to a box at

  the post office, just in case. It’s too dark to read, so I tuck it in the back pocket of my blue jeans.

  Instead of walking up the lane, I cut through the “orchard,” feeling the soft grass under my feet, stepping around the early pears that have

  fal en. It is September again and I’m here. Stil here. Even Stuart has moved on. An article a few weeks ago about the Senator said that Stuart

  moved his oil company down to New Orleans so that he can spend time out on the rigs at sea again.

  I hear the rumble of gravel. I can’t see the car driving up the lane, though, because for some reason, the headlights aren’t on.

  I WATCH HER PARK the Oldsmobile in front of the house and turn off the engine, but she stays inside. Our front porch lights are on, yel ow and flickering with night bugs. She’s leaning over her steering wheel, like she’s trying to see who’s home. What the hel does she want? I watch a few seconds.

  Then I think, Get to her first. Get to her before she does whatever it is she’s planning.

  I walk quietly through the yard. She lights a cigarette, throws the match out the open window into our drive.

  I approach her car from behind, but she doesn’t see me.

  “Waiting for someone?” I say at the window.

  Hil y jumps and drops her cigarette into the gravel. She scrambles out of the car and slams the door closed, backing away from me.

  “Don’t you get an inch closer,” she says.

  So I stop where I am and just look at her. Who wouldn’t look at her? Her black hair is a mess. A curl on top is floppy, sticking straight up. Half her blouse is untucked, her fat stretching the buttons, and I can see she’s gained more weight. And there’s a…sore. It’s in the corner of her mouth,

  scabby and hot red. I haven’t seen Hil y with one of those since Johnny broke up with her in col ege.

  She looks me up and down. “What are you, some kind of hippie now? God, your poor mama must be so embarrassed of you.”

  “Hil y, why are you here?”

  “To tel you I’ve contacted my lawyer, Hibbie Goodman, who happens to be the number one expert on the libel laws in Mississippi, and you

  are in big trouble, missy. You’re going to jail, you know that?”

  “You can’t prove anything, Hil y.” I’ve had this discussion with the legal department of Harper & Row. We were very careful in our obscurity.

  “Wel , I one-hundred-percent know you wrote it because there isn’t anybody else in town as tacky as you. Taking up with Nigras like that.”

  It is truly baffling that we were ever friends. I think about going inside and locking the door. But there’s an envelope in her hand, and that

  makes me nervous.

  “I know there’s been a lot of talk, Hil y, and a lot of rumors—”

  “Oh, that talk doesn’t hurt me. Everyone in town knows it’s not Jackson. It’s some town you made up in that sick little head of yours, and I

  know who helped you, too.”

  My jaw
tightens. She obviously knows about Minny, and Louvenia I knew already, but does she know about Aibileen? Or the others?

  Hil y waves the envelope at me and it crackles. “I am here to inform your mother of what you’ve done. ”

  “You’re going to tel my mother on me?” I laugh, but the truth is, Mother doesn’t know anything about it. And I want to keep it that way. She’d be mortified and ashamed of me and…I look down at the envelope. What if it makes her sick again?

  “I most certainly am.” Hil y walks up the front steps, head held high.

  I fol ow quickly behind Hil y to the front door. She opens it and walks in like it’s her own house.

  “Hil y, I did not invite you in here,” I say, grabbing her arm. “You get—”

  But then Mother appears from around the corner and I drop my hand.

  “Why, Hilly,” Mother says. She is in her bathrobe and her cane wobbles as she walks. “It’s been such a long time, dear.”

  Hil y blinks at her several times. I do not know if Hil y is more shocked at how my mother looks, or the other way around. Mother’s once thick

  brown hair is now snow white and thin. The trembling hand on her cane probably looks skeletonlike to someone who hasn’t seen her. But worst of

  al , Mother doesn’t have al of her teeth in, only her front ones. The hol ows in her cheeks are deep, deathly.

  “Missus Phelan, I’m—I’m here to—”

  “Hil y, are you il ? You look horrendous,” Mother says.

  Hil y licks her lips. “Wel I—I didn’t have time to get fixed up before—”

  Mother is shaking her head. “Hil y, darling. No young husband wants to come home and see this. Look at your hair. And that…” Mother

  frowns, peering closer at the cold sore. “That is not attractive, dear.”

  I keep my eye on the letter. Mother points her finger at me. “I’m cal ing Fanny Mae’s tomorrow and I’m going to make an appointment for the

  both of you.”

  “Missus Phelan, that’s not—”

  “No need to thank me,” Mother says. “It’s the least I can do for you, now that your own dear mother’s not around for guidance. Now, I’m off to

  bed,” and Mother hobbles toward her bedroom. “Not too late, girls.”

  Hil y stands there a second, her mouth hanging open. Final y, she goes to the door and flings it open and walks out. The letter is stil in her

  hand.

  “You are in a lifetime of trouble, Skeeter,” she hisses at me, her mouth like a fist. “And those Nigras of yours?”

  “Exactly who are you talking about, Hil y?” I say. “You don’t know anything.”

  “I don’t, do I? That Louvenia? Oh, I’ve taken care of her. Lou Anne’s al set to go on that one.” The curl on the top of her head bobs as she

  nods.

  “And you tel that Aibileen, the next time she wants to write about my dear friend Elizabeth, uh-huh,” she says, flashing a crude smile. “You