Kathryn Stockett - The Help

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 full 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 all 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 fallen. It is September again and I’m here. Still 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, yellow and flickering with night bugs. She’s leaning over her steering wheel, like she’s trying to see who’s home. What the hell 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.

Hilly 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 Hilly with one of those since Johnny broke up with her in college.

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

“Hilly, why are you here?”

“To tell 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, Hilly.” I’ve had this discussion with the legal department of Harper & Row. We were very careful in our obscurity.

“Well, 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, Hilly, 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?

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

“You’re going to tell 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.” Hilly walks up the front steps, head held high.

I follow quickly behind Hilly to the front door. She opens it and walks in like it’s her own house.

“Hilly, 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.”

Hilly blinks at her several times. I do not know if Hilly 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 all, Mother doesn’t have all of her teeth in, only her front ones. The hollows in her cheeks are deep, deathly.

“Missus Phelan, I’m—I’m here to—”

“Hilly, are you ill? You look horrendous,” Mother says.

Hilly licks her lips. “Well I—I didn’t have time to get fixed up before—”

Mother is shaking her head. “Hilly, 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 calling 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.”

Hilly stands there a second, her mouth hanging open. Finally, she goes to the door and flings it open and walks out. The letter is still 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, Hilly?” I say. “You don’t know anything.”

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

“And you tell that Aibileen, the next time she wants to write about my dear friend Elizabeth, uh-huh,” she says, flashing a crude smile. “You remember Elizabeth? She had you in her wedding?”

My nostrils flare. I want to hit her, at the sound of Aibileen’s name.

“Let’s just say Aibileen ought to’ve been a little bit smarter and not put in the L-shaped crack in poor Elizabeth’s dining table.”

My heart stops. The goddamn crack. How stupid could I be to let that slip?

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten Minny Jackson. I have some big plans for that Nigra.”

“Careful, Hilly,” I say through my teeth. “Don’t give yourself away now.” I sound so confident, but inside I’m trembling, wondering what these plans are.

Her eyes fly open. “That was not me WHO ATE THAT PIE!”

She turns and marches to her car. She jerks the door open. “You tell those Nigras they better keep one eye over their shoulders. They better watch out for what’s coming to them.”

MY HAND SHAKES as I dial Aibileen’s number. I take the receiver in the pantry and shut the door. The opened letter from Harper & Row is in my other hand. It feels like midnight, but it’s only eight thirty.

Aibileen answers and I blurt it out. “Hilly came here tonight and she knows. ”

“Miss Hilly? Knows what?”

Then I hear Minny’s voice in the background. “Hilly? What about Miss Hilly?”

“Minny’s . . . here with me,” Aibileen says.

“Well, I guess she needs to hear this too,” I say, even though I wish Aibileen could tell her later, without me. As I describe how Hilly showed up here, stormed into the house, I wait while she repeats everything back to Minny. It is worse hearing it in Aibileen’s voice.