The Help, Page 28

  Waiting.

  Mother pads around the kitchen, closes a window, runs some water. A few seconds pass and we hear the clack-click of her bedroom door

  shutting. Stuart stands and says, “Come here,” and he’s on my side of the room in one stride and he claps my hands to his hips and kisses my

  mouth like I am the drink he’s been dying for al day and I’ve heard girls say it’s like melting, that feeling. But I think it’s like rising, growing even tal er and seeing sights over a hedge, colors you’ve never seen before.

  I have to make myself pul away. I have things to say. “Come here. Sit down.”

  We sit side by side on the sofa. He tries to kiss me again, but I back my head away. I try not to look at the way his sunburn makes his eyes

  so blue. Or the way the hairs on his arms are golden, bleached.

  “Stuart—” I swal ow, ready myself for the dreaded question. “When you were engaged, were your parents disappointed? When whatever

  happened with Patricia…happened?”

  Immediately a stiffness forms around his mouth. He eyes me. “Mother was disappointed. They were close.”

  Already I regret having brought it up, but I have to know. “How close?”

  He glances around the room. “Do you have anything in the house? Bourbon?”

  I go to the kitchen and pour him a glass from Pascagoula’s cooking bottle, top it off with plenty of water. Stuart made it clear the first time he

  showed up on my porch his fiancée was a bad subject. But I need to know what this thing was that happened. Not just because I’m curious. I’ve

  never been in a relationship. I need to know what constitutes breaking up forever. I need to know how many rules you can break before you’re

  thrown out, and what those rules even are in the first place.

  “So they were good friends?” I ask. I’l be meeting his mother in two weeks. Mother’s already set on our shopping trip to Kennington’s

  tomorrow.

  He takes a long drink, frowns. “They’d get in a room and swap notes on flower arrangements and who married who.” Al traces of his

  mischievous smile are gone now. “Mother was pretty shook up. After it…fel apart.”

  “So…she’l be comparing me to Patricia?”

  Stuart blinks at me a second. “Probably.”

  “Great. I can hardly wait.”

  “Mother’s just…protective is al . She’s worried I’l get hurt again.” He looks off.

  “Where is Patricia now? Does she stil live here or—”

  “No. She’s gone. Moved to California. Can we talk about something else now?”

  I sigh, fal back against the sofa.

  “Wel , do your parents at least know what happened? I mean, am I al owed to know that?” Because I feel a flash of anger that he won’t tel me

  something as important as this.

  “Skeeter, I told you, I hate talking…” But then he grits his teeth, lowers his voice. “Dad only knows part of it. Mother knows the real story, so

  do Patricia’s parents. And of course her.” He throws back the rest of the drink. “She knows what she did, that’s for goddamn sure.”

  “Stuart, I only want to know so I don’t do the same thing.”

  He looks at me and tries to laugh but it comes out more like a growl. “You would never in a mil ion years do what she did.”

  “What? What did she do?”

  “Skeeter.” He sighs and sets his glass down. “I’m tired. I better just go on home.”

  I WALK INTO THE STEAMY kitchen the next morning, dreading the day ahead. Mother is in her room getting ready for our shopping trip to outfit us both for

  supper at the Whitworths’. I have on blue jeans and an untucked blouse.

  “Morning, Pascagoula.”

  “Morning, Miss Skeeter. You want your regular breakfast?”

  “Yes, please,” I say.

  Pascagoula is smal and quick on her feet. I told her last June how I liked my coffee black and toast barely buttered and she never had to ask

  again. She’s like Constantine that way, never forgetting things for us. It makes me wonder how many white women’s breakfasts she has ingrained

  in her brain. I wonder how it would feel to spend your whole life trying to remember other people’s preferences on toast butter and starch amounts

  and sheet changing.

  She sets my coffee down in front of me. She doesn’t hand it to me. Aibileen told me that’s not how it’s done, because then your hands might

  touch. I don’t remember how Constantine used to do it.

  “Thank you,” I say, “very much.”

  She blinks at me a second, smiles weakly. “You…welcome.” I realize this the first time I’ve ever thanked her sincerely. She looks

  uncomfortable.

  “Skeeter, you ready?” I hear Mother cal from the back. I hol er that I am. I eat my toast and hope we can get this shopping trip over quickly. I

  am ten years too old to have my mother stil picking out clothes for me. I look over and notice Pascagoula watching me from the sink. She turns

  away when I look at her.

  I skim the Jackson Journal sitting on the table. My next Miss Myrna column won’t come out until next Monday, unlocking the mystery of hard-

  water stains. Down in the national news section, there’s an article on a new pil , the “Valium” they’re cal ing it, “to help women cope with everyday

  chal enges.” God, I could use about ten of those little pil s right now.

  I look up and am surprised to see Pascagoula standing right next to me.

  “Are you…do you need something, Pascagoula?” I ask.

  “I need to tel you something, Miss Skeeter. Something bout that—”

  “You cannot wear dungarees to Kennington’s,” Mother says from the doorway. Like vapor, Pascagoula disappears from my side. She’s

  back at the sink, stretching a black rubber hose from the faucet to the dishwasher.

  “You go upstairs and put on something appropriate.”

  “Mother, this is what I’m wearing. What’s the point of getting dressed up to buy new clothes?”

  “Eugenia, please let’s don’t make this any harder than it is.”

  Mother goes back to her bedroom, but I know this isn’t the end of it. The whoosh of the dishwasher fil s the room. The floor vibrates under my

  bare feet and the rumble is soothing, loud enough to cover a conversation. I watch Pascagoula at the sink.

  “Did you need to tel me something, Pascagoula?” I ask.

  Pascagoula glances at the door. She’s just a slip of a person, practical y half of me. Her manner is so timid, I lower my head when I talk to

  her. She comes a little closer.

  “Yule May my cousin,” Pascagoula says over the whir of the machine. She’s whispering, but there’s nothing timid about her tone now.

  “I…didn’t know that.”

  “We close kin and she come out to my house ever other weekend to check on me. She told me what it is you doing.” She narrows her eyes

  and I think she’s about to tel me to leave her cousin alone.

  “I…we’re changing the names. She told you that, right? I don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”

  “She tel me Saturday she gone help you. She try to cal Aibileen but couldn’t get her. I’d a tole you earlier but…” Again she glances at the

  doorway.

  I’m stunned. “She is? She will?” I stand up. Despite my better thinking, I can’t help but ask. “Pascagoula, do you…want to help with the

  stories too?”

  She gives me a long, steady look. “You mean tel you what it’s like to work for…your mama?”

  We look at each other, probably thinking the same thing. The discomfort of her tel ing, the discomfort of me listening.

  “Not Mother,” I say quickly. “Other jobs, ones you’ve had before this.”

  “This m
y first job working domestic. I use to work at the Old Lady Home serving lunch. Fore it move out to Flowood.”

  “You mean Mother didn’t mind this being your first house job?”

  Pascagoula looks at the red linoleum floor, timid again. “Nobody else a work for her,” she says. “Not after what happen with Constantine.”

  I place my hand careful y on the table. “What did you think about…that?”

  Pascagoula’s face turns blank. She blinks a few times, clearly outsmarting me. “I don’t know nothing about it. I just wanted to tel you what

  Yule May say.” She goes to the refrigerator, opens it and leans inside.

  I let out a long, deep breath. One thing at a time.

  SHOPPING WITH MOTHER isn’t as unbearable as usual, probably because I’m in such a good mood from hearing about Yule May. Mother sits in a chair in

  the dressing lounge and I choose the first Lady Day suit I try on, light blue poplin with a round-col ar jacket. We leave it at the store so they can take down the hem. I’m surprised when Mother doesn’t try on anything. After only half an hour, she says she’s tired, so I drive us back to Longleaf. Mother

  goes straight to her room to nap.

  When we get home, I cal Elizabeth’s house, my heart pounding, but Elizabeth picks up the phone. I don’t have the nerve to ask for Aibileen.

  After the satchel scare, I promised myself I’d be more careful.

  So I wait until that night, hoping Aibileen’s home. I sit on my can of flour, fingers working a bag of dry rice. She answers on the first ring.

  “She’l help us, Aibileen. Yule May said yes!”

  “Say what? When you find out?”

  “This afternoon. Pascagoula told me. Yule May couldn’t reach you.”

  “Law, my phone was disconnected cause I’s short this month. You talk to Yule May?”

  “No, I thought it would be better if you talked to her first.”

  “What’s strange is I cal over to Miss Hil y house this afternoon from Miss Leefolt’s, but she say Yule May don’t work there no more and hang

  up. I been asking around but nobody know a thing.”

  “Hil y fired her?”

  “I don’t know. I’s hoping maybe she quit.”

  “I’l cal Hil y and find out. God, I hope she’s alright.”

  “And now that my phone’s back on, I keep trying to cal Yule May.”

  I cal Hil y’s house four times but the phone just rings. Final y I cal Elizabeth’s and she tel s me Hil y’s gone to Port Gibson for the night. That

  Wil iam’s father is il .

  “Did something happen…with her maid?” I ask as casual y as I can.

  “You know, she mentioned something about Yule May, but then she said she was late and had to pack up the car.”

  I spend the rest of the night on the back porch, rehearsing questions, nervous about what stories Yule May might tel about Hil y. Despite our

  disagreements, Hil y is stil one of my closest friends. But the book, now that it is going again, is more important than anything.

  I lay on the cot at midnight. The crickets sing outside the screen. I let my body sink deep into the thin mattress, against the springs. My feet

  dangle off the end, dance nervously, relishing relief for the first time in months. It’s not a dozen maids, but it’s one more.

  THE NEXT DAY, I’m sitting in front of the television set watching the twelve o’clock news. Charles Warring is reporting, tel ing me that sixty American soldiers have been kil ed in Vietnam. It’s so sad to me. Sixty men, in a place far away from anyone they loved, had to die. I think it’s because of

  Stuart that this bothers me so, but Charles Warring looks eerily thril ed by it al .

  I pick up a cigarette and put it back down. I’m trying not to smoke, but I’m nervous about tonight. Mother’s been nagging me about my

  smoking and I know I should stop, but it’s not like it’s going to kil me. I wish I could ask Pascagoula more about what Yule May said, but

  Pascagoula cal ed this morning and said she had a problem and wouldn’t be coming in until this afternoon.

  I can hear Mother out on the back porch, helping Jameso make ice cream. Even in the front of the house, I can hear the rumbly noise of ice

  cracking, the salt crunching. The sound is delicious, makes me wish for some now, but it won’t be ready for hours. Of course, no one makes ice

  cream at twelve noon on a hot day, it’s a night chore, but Mother has it in her mind that she’s going to make peach ice cream and the heat be

  damned.

  I go out on the back porch and look. The big silver ice-cream maker is cold and sweating. The porch floor vibrates. Jameso’s sitting on an

  upsidedown bucket, knees on either side of the machine, turning the wooden crank with gloved hands. Steam rises from the wel of dry ice.

  “Has Pascagoula come in yet?” Mama asks, feeding more cream into the machine.

  “Not yet,” I say. Mother is sweating. She pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’l pour the cream awhile, Mama. You look hot.”

  “You won’t do it right. I have to do it,” she says and shoos me back inside.

  On the news, now Roger Sticker is reporting in front of the Jackson post office with the same stupid grin as the war reporter. “…this modern

  postal addressing system is cal ed a Z-Z-ZIP code, that’s right, I said Z-Z-ZIP code, that’s five numbers to be written along the bottom of your

  envelope…”

  He’s holding up a letter, showing us where to write the numbers. A man in overal s with no teeth says, “Ain’t nobody gonna use them there

  numbers. Folks is stil trying to get used to using the tel yphone.”

  I hear the front door close. A minute passes and Pascagoula comes in the relaxing room.

  “Mother’s out on the back porch,” I tel her but Pascagoula doesn’t smile, doesn’t even look up at me. She just hands me a smal envelope.

  “She was gone mail it but I told her I just carry it to you.”

  The front of the envelope is addressed to me, no return name on it. Certainly no ZIP code. Pascagoula walks off toward the back porch.

  I open the letter. The handwriting is in black pen, written on the straight blue lines of school paper:

  Dear Miss Skeeter,

  I want you to know how sorry I am that I won’t be able to help you with your stories. But now I can’t and I want to be the one to

  tell you why. As you know, I used to wait on a friend of yours. I didn’t like working for her and I wanted to quit many times but I was

  afraid to. I was afraid I might never get another job once she’d had her say.

  You probably don’t know that after I finished high school, I went on to college. I would’ve graduated except I decided to get

  married. It’s one of my few regrets in life, not getting my college degree. I have twin boys that make it all worthwhile, though. For

  ten years, my husband and I have saved our money to send them to Tougaloo College, but as hard as we worked, we still didn’t

  have enough for both. My boys are equally as smart, equally eager for an education. But we only had the money for one and I ask

  you, how do you choose which of your twin sons should go to college and which should take a job spreading tar? How do you tell

  one that you love him just as much as the other, but you’ve decided he won’t be the one to get a chance in life? You don’t. You

  find a way to make it happen. Any way at all.

  I suppose you could look at this as a confession letter. I stole from that woman. An ugly ruby ring, hoping it would cover the

  rest of the tuition. Something she never wore and I felt she owed me for everything I’d been through working for her. Of course now,

  neither of my boys will be going to college. The court fine is nearly as much as we had saved.

  Sincerely,

  Yule May Crookle

&
nbsp; Women’s Block 9

  Mississippi State Penitentiary

  The penitentiary. I shudder. I look around for Pascagoula but she’s left the room. I want to ask her when this happened, how it happened so

  goddamn fast? What can be done? But Pascagoula’s gone outside to help Mother. We can’t talk out there. I feel sick, nauseous. I switch off the

  television.

  I think about Yule May, sitting in a jail cel writing this letter. I bet I even know what ring Yule May’s talking about—Hil y’s mother gave it to her

  for her eighteenth birthday. Hil y had it appraised a few years ago and found out it wasn’t even a ruby, just a garnet, hardly worth anything. Hil y never wore it again. My hands turn to fists.

  The sound of the ice cream churning outside sounds like bones crunching. I go to the kitchen to wait for Pascagoula, to get answers. I’l tel Daddy. I’l see if there’s anything he can do. If he knows any lawyers who would be wil ing to help her.

  I WALK UP AIBILEEN’S STEPS at eight o’clock that night. This was supposed to be our first interview with Yule May and even though I know that’s not going to happen, I’ve decided to come anyway. It’s raining and blowing hard and I hold my raincoat tight around me and the satchel. I kept thinking I’d cal

  Aibileen to talk about the situation, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I practical y dragged Pascagoula upstairs so Mother wouldn’t see us talking and asked her everything. “Yule May had her a real good lawyer,” Pascagoula said. “But everbody saying the judge wife be good friends

  with Miss Holbrook and how a regular sentence be six months for petty stealing, but Miss Holbrook, she get it pushed up to four years. That trial

  was done fore it even started.”

  “I could ask Daddy. He could try and get her a…white lawyer.”

  Pascagoula shakes her head, says, “He was a white lawyer.”

  I knock on Aibileen’s door, feel a rush of shame. I shouldn’t be thinking about my own problems when Yule May is in jail, but I know what this

  means for the book. If the maids were afraid to help us yesterday, I’m sure they’re terrified today.