Kathryn Stockett - The Help

“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 million 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 IN 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 small 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 call from the back. I holler 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 still 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 pill, the “Valium” they’re calling it, “to help women cope with everyday challenges.” God, I could use about ten of those little pills 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 tell 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 fills 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 tell me something, Pascagoula?” I ask.

Pascagoula glances at the door. She’s just a slip of a person, practically 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 tell 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 tell me Saturday she gone help you. She try to call 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 tell you what it’s like to work for . . . your mama?”

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

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

“This my 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 carefully 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 tell 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-collar 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 call 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’ll 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 call over to Miss Hilly 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.”

“Hilly fired her?”

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

“I’ll call Hilly and find out. God, I hope she’s alright.”

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

I call Hilly’s house four times but the phone just rings. Finally I call Elizabeth’s and she tells me Hilly’s gone to Port Gibson for the night. That William’s father is ill.

“Did something happen . . . with her maid?” I ask as casually 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 tell about Hilly. Despite our disagreements, Hilly is still one of my closest friends. But the book, now that it is going again, is more important than anything.