The Help

advice column.

“Oh the irony of it.” She lets out a sigh that means life is hardly worth living under such conditions. Pascagoula freshens her iced tea.

“At least it’s a start,” I say.

“A start at what? Giving advice on how to keep up a home when . . .” She sighs again, long and slow like a deflating tire.

I look away, wondering if everyone in town will be thinking the same thing. Already the joy is fleeting.

“Eugenia, you don’t even know how to polish silver, much less advise on how to keep a house clean.”

I hug the folder to my chest. She’s right, I won’t know how to answer any of the questions. Still, I thought she’d at least be proud of me.

“And you will never meet anybody sitting at that typewriter. Eugenia, have some sense.”

Anger works its way up my arms. I stand up straight again. “You think I want to live here? With you?” I laugh in a way I’m hoping will hurt her.

I see the quick pain in her eyes. She presses her lips together at the sting. Still, I have no desire to take back my words because finally, finally, I have said something she’s listening to.

I stand there, refusing to leave. I want to hear what she’ll say to this. I want to hear her say she’s sorry.

“I need to . . . ask you something, Eugenia.” She twists her handkerchief, grimaces. “I read the other day about how some . . . some girls get unbalanced, start thinking these—well, these unnatural thoughts.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I look up at the ceiling fan. Someone’s set it going too fast. Clackety-clackety-clackety . . .

“Are you . . . do you . . . find men attractive? Are you having unnatural thoughts about . . .” She shuts her eyes tight. “Girls or—or women?”

I stare at her, wishing the ceiling fan would fly from its post, crash down on us both.

“Because it said in this article there’s a cure, a special root tea—”

“Mother,” I say, shutting my eyes tight. “I want to be with girls as much as you’d like to be with . . . Jameso.” I head for the door. But I glance behind me. “I mean, unless, of course, you do?”

Mother straightens, gasps. I pound up the stairs.

THE NEXT DAY, I stack the Miss Myrna letters in a neat pile. I have thirty-five dollars in my purse, the monthly allowance Mother still gives me. I go downstairs wearing a thick Christian smile. Living at home, whenever I want to leave Longleaf, I have to ask Mother if I can borrow her car. Which means she’ll ask where I’m going. Which means I have to lie to her on a daily basis, which is in itself enjoyable but a little degrading at the same time.

“I’m going down to the church, see if they need any help getting ready for Sunday school.”

“Oh, darling, that’s just wonderful. Take your time with the car.”

I decided, last night, what I need is a professional to help me with the column. My first idea was to ask Pascagoula, but I hardly know her. Plus I couldn’t stand the thought of Mother nosing around, criticizing me all over again. Hilly’s maid, Yule May, is so shy I doubt she’d want to help me. The only other maid I see often enough is Elizabeth’s maid, Aibileen. Aibileen reminds me of Constantine in a way. Plus she’s older and seems to have plenty of experience.

On my way to Elizabeth’s, I go by the Ben Franklin store and buy a clipboard, a box of number two pencils, a blue-cloth notebook. My first column is due tomorrow, on Mister Golden’s desk by two o’clock.

“Skeeter, come on in.” Elizabeth opens her own front door and I fear Aibileen might not be working today. She has on a blue bathrobe and jumbo-sized rollers, making her head look huge, her body even more waif-like than it is. Elizabeth generally has rollers in all day, can never get her thin hair full enough.

“Sorry I’m such a mess. Mae Mobley kept me up half the night and now I don’t even know where Aibileen’s gotten off to.”

I step inside the tiny foyer. It’s a low-ceilinged house with small rooms. Everything has a secondhand look— the faded blue floral curtains, the crooked cover on the couch. I hear Raleigh’s new accounting business isn’t doing well. Maybe up in New York or somewhere it’s a good thing, but in Jackson, Mississippi, people just don’t care to do business with a rude, condescending asshole.

Hilly’s car is out front, but she’s nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth sits at the sewing machine she has on the dining room table. “I’m almost done,” she says. “Let me just hem this last seam . . .” Elizabeth stands, holds up a green church dress with a round white collar. “Now be honest,” she whispers with eyes that are pleading for me to be anything but. “Does it look homemade?”

The hem on one side hangs longer than the other. It’s wrinkled and a cuff is already fraying. “One hundred percent store-bought. Straight from Maison Blanche’s,” I say because that is Elizabeth’s dream store. It is five stories of expensive clothes on Canal Street in New Orleans, clothes that could never be found in Jackson. Elizabeth gives me a grateful smile.

“Mae Mobley’s sleeping?” I ask.

“Finally.” Elizabeth fiddles with a clump of hair that’s slipped out of her roller, grimaces at its obstinacy. Sometimes her voice takes on a hard edge when she talks about her little girl.

The door to the guest bathroom in the hall opens and Hilly comes out talking, “. . . so much better. Everybody has their own place to go now.”

Elizabeth fiddles with the machine needle, seems worried by it.

“You tell Raleigh I said You are welcome,” Hilly adds, and it hits me, then, what’s being said. Aibileen has her own bathroom in the garage now.

Hilly smiles at me and I realize she’s about to bring up the initiative. “How’s your mama?” I ask, even though I know this is her least favorite subject. “She get settled in the home alright?”

“I guess.” Hilly pulls her red sweater down over the pudgy roll in her waist. She has on red-and-green plaid pants that seem to magnify her bottom, making it rounder and more forceful than ever. “Of course she doesn’t appreciate a thing I do. I had to fire that maid for her, caught her trying to steal the damn silver right under my nose.” Hilly narrows her eyes a bit. “Y’all haven’t heard, by the way, if that Minny Jackson is working somewhere, have you?”

We shake our heads no.

“I doubt she’ll find work in this town again,” Elizabeth says.

Hilly nods, mulling this over. I take a deep breath, anxious to tell them my news.

“I just got a job at the Jackson Journal,” I say.

There is quiet in the room. Suddenly Elizabeth squeals. Hilly smiles at me with such pride, I blush and shrug, like it’s not that big of a deal.

“They’d be a fool not to hire you, Skeeter Phelan,” Hilly says and raises her iced tea as a toast.

“So . . . um, have either of y’all actually read Miss Myrna?” I ask.

“Well no,” Hilly says. “But I bet the poor white trash girls in South Jackson read it like the King James.”

Elizabeth nods. “All those poor girls without help, I bet they do.”

“Would you mind if I talked to Aibileen?” I ask Elizabeth. “To help me answer some of the letters?”

Elizabeth is very still a second. “Aibileen? My Aibileen?”

“I sure don’t know the answers to these questions.”

“Well . . . I mean, as long as it doesn’t interfere with her work.”

I pause, surprised by this attitude. But I remind myself that Elizabeth is paying her, after all.

“And not today with Mae Mobley about to get up or else I’ll have to look after her myself.”

“Okay. Maybe . . . maybe I’ll come by tomorrow morning then?” I count the hours on my hand. If I finish talking to Aibileen by midmorning, I’ll have time to rush home to type it up, then get it back to town by two.

Elizabeth frowns down at her spool of green thread. “And only for a few minutes. Tomorrow’s silver-polishing day.”

“It won’t be long, I promise,” I say.

Elizabeth is starting to sound just like my mother.