The Help

I set down on the step and ever knob on my spine hurt. Baby Girl so nervous around her Granmama, she wet all over me and I smell like it. The street’s full a folks walking to sweet Louvenia’s to pray for Robert, kids playing ball in the street. Everbody looking over at us thinking I must be getting fired or something.

“Yes ma’am,” I sigh. “What can I do for you?”

“I have an idea. Something I want to write about. But I need your help.”

I let all my breath out. I like Miss Skeeter, but come on. Sure, a phone call would a been nice. She never would a just shown up on some white lady’s step without calling. But no, she done plopped herself down like she got ever right to barge in on me at home.

“I want to interview you. About what it’s like to work as a maid.”

A red ball roll a few feet in my yard. The little Jones boy run across the street to get it. When he see Miss Skeeter, he stop dead. Then he run and snatch it up. He turn and dash off like he scared she gone get him.

“Like the Miss Myrna column?” I say, flat as a pan. “Bout cleaning?”

“Not like Miss Myrna. I’m talking about a book,” she say and her eyes is big. She excited. “Stories about what it’s like to work for a white family. What it’s like to work for, say . . . Elizabeth.”

I turn and look at her. This what she been trying to ask me the past two weeks in Miss Leefolt kitchen. “You think Miss Leefolt gone agree to that? Me telling stories about her?”

Miss Skeeter’s eyes drop down some. “Well, no. I was thinking we wouldn’t tell her. I’ll have to make sure the other maids will agree to keep it secret, too.”

I scrunch up my forehead, just starting to get what she’s asking. “Other maids?”

“I was hoping to get four or five. To really show what it’s like to be a maid in Jackson.”

I look around. We out here in the wide open. Don’t she know how dangerous this could be, talking about this while the whole world can see us? “Exactly what kind a stories you think you gone hear?”

“What you get paid, how they treat you, the bathrooms, the babies, all the things you’ve seen, good and bad.”

She looks excited, like this is some kind a game. For a second, I think I might be more mad than I am tired.

“Miss Skeeter,” I whisper, “do that not sound kind a dangerous to you?”

“Not if we’re careful—”

“Shhh, please. Do you know what would happen to me if Miss Leefolt find out I talked behind her back?”

“We won’t tell her, or anyone.” She lowers her voice some, but not enough. “These will be private interviews.”

I just stare at her. Is she crazy? “Did you hear about the colored boy this morning? One they beat with a tire iron for accidentally using the white bathroom?”

She just look at me, blink a little. “I know things are unstable but this is—”

“And my cousin Shinelle in Cauter County? They burn up her car cause she went down to the voting station.”

“No one’s ever written a book like this,” she say, finally whispering, finally starting to understand, I guess. “We’d be breaking new ground. It’s a brand-new perspective.”

I spot a flock a maids in they uniforms walking by my house. They look over, see me setting with a white woman on my front step. I grit my teeth, already know my phone gone be ringing tonight.

“Miss Skeeter,” and I say it slow, try to make it count, “I do this with you, I might as well burn my own house down.”

Miss Skeeter start biting her nail then. “But I’ve already . . .” She shut her eyes closed tight. I think about asking her, Already what, but I’m kind a scared to hear what she gone say. She reach in her pocketbook, pull out a scrap a paper and write her telephone number on it.

“Please, will you at least think about it?”

I sigh, stare out at the yard. Gentle as I can, I say, “No ma’am.”

She set the scrap a paper between us on the step, then she get in her Cadillac. I’m too tired to get up. I just stay there, watch while she roll real slow down the road. The boys playing ball clear the street, stand on the side frozen, like it’s a funeral car passing by.

MISS SKEETER

chapter 8

I DRIVE DOWN Gessum Avenue in Mama’s Cadillac. Up ahead, a little colored boy in overalls watches me, wide-eyed, gripping a red ball. I look into my rearview mirror. Aibileen is still on her front steps in her white uniform. She hadn’t even looked at me when she said No ma’am. She just kept her eyes set on that yellow patch of grass in her yard.

I guess I thought it would be like visiting Constantine, where friendly colored people waved and smiled, happy to see the little white girl whose daddy owned the big farm. But here, narrow eyes watch me pass by. When my car gets close to him, the little colored boy turns and scats behind a house a few down from Aibileen’s. Half-a-dozen colored people are gathered in the front yard of the house, holding trays and bags. I rub my temples. I try to think of something more that might convince Aibileen.

A WEEK AGO, Pascagoula knocked on my bedroom door.