The Help

candidly? About working for a white family? Because that seems like a hell of a risk in a place like Jackson, Mississippi.”

I sat blinking. I felt the first fingers of worry that Aibileen might not be as easy to convince as I’d thought. Little did I know what she would say to me on her front steps the next week.

“I watched them try to integrate your bus station on the news,” Missus Stein continued. “They jammed fifty- five Negroes in a jail cell built for four.”

I pursed my lips. “She has agreed. Yes, she has.”

“Well. That is impressive. But after her, you really think other maids will talk to you? What if the employers find out?”

“The interviews would be conducted secretly. Since, as you know, things are a little dangerous down here right now.” The truth was, I had very little idea how dangerous things were. I’d spent the past four years locked away in the padded room of college, reading Keats and Eudora Welty and worrying over term papers.

“A little dangerous?” She laughed. “The marches in Birmingham, Martin Luther King. Dogs attacking colored children. Darling, it’s the hottest topic in the nation. But, I’m sorry, this will never work. Not as an article, because no Southern newspaper would publish it. And certainly not as a book. A book of interviews would never sell.”

“Oh,” I heard myself say. I closed my eyes, feeling all the excitement drain out of me. I heard myself say again, “Oh.”

“I called because, frankly, it’s a good idea. But . . . there’s no possible way to take it to print.”

“But . . . what if . . .” My eyes started darting around the pantry, looking for something to bring back her interest. Maybe I should talk about it as an article, maybe a magazine, but she said no —

“Eugenia, who are you talking to in there?” Mother’s voice cut though the crack. She inched the door open and I yanked it closed again. I covered the receiver, hissed, “I’m talking to Hilly, Mother —”

“In the pantry? You’re like a teenager again—”

“I mean—” Missus Stein let out a sharp tsk. “I suppose I could read what you get. God knows, the book business could use some rattling.”

“You’d do that? Oh Missus Stein . . .”

“I’m not saying I’m considering it. But . . . do the interview and I’ll let you know if it’s worth pursuing.”

I stuttered a few unintelligible sounds, finally coming out with, “Thank you. Missus Stein, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Call Ruth, my secretary, if you need to get in touch.” And she hung up.

I LUG AN OLD SATCHEL to bridge club at Elizabeth’s on Wednesday. It is red. It is ugly. And for today, at least, it is a prop.

It’s the only bag in Mother’s house I could find large enough to carry the Miss Myrna letters. The leather is cracked and flaking, the thick shoulder strap leaves a brown mark on my blouse where the leather stain is rubbing off. It was my Grandmother Claire’s gardening bag. She used to carry her garden tools around the yard in it and the bottom is still lined with sunflower seeds. It matches absolutely nothing I own and I don’t care.

“Two weeks,” Hilly says to me, holding up two fingers. “He’s coming.” She smiles and I smile back. “I’ll be right back,” I say and I slip into the kitchen, carrying my satchel with me.

Aibileen is standing at the sink. “Afternoon,” she says quietly. It was a week ago that I visited her at her house.

I stand there a minute, watching her stir the iced tea, feeling the discomfort in her posture, her dread that I might be about to ask for her help on the book again. I pull a few housekeeping letters out and, seeing this, Aibileen’s shoulders relax a little. As I read her a question about mold stains, she pours a little tea in a glass, tastes it. She spoons more sugar in the pitcher.

“Oh, fore I forget, I got the answer on that water ring question. Minny say just rub you a little mayonnaise on it.” Aibileen squeezes half a lemon in the tea. “Then go on and throw that no-good husband out the door.” She stirs, tastes. “Minny don’t take too well to husbands.”

“Thanks, I’ll put that down,” I say. As casually as I can, I pull an envelope from my bag. “And here. I’ve been meaning to give you this.”

Aibileen stiffens back into her cautious pose, the one she had when I walked in. “What you got there?” she says without reaching for it.

“For your help,” I say quietly. “I’ve put away five dollars for every article. It’s up to thirty-five dollars now.”

Aibileen’s eyes move quickly back to her tea. “No thank you, ma’am.”

“Please take it, you’ve earned it.”

I hear chairs scraping on wood in the dining room, Elizabeth’s voice.

“Please, Miss Skeeter. Miss Leefolt have a fit if she find you giving me cash,” Aibileen whispers.

“She doesn’t have to know.”

Aibileen looks up at me. The whites of her eyes are yellowed, tired. I know what she’s thinking.

“I already told you, I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that book, Miss Skeeter.”

I set the envelope on the counter, knowing I’ve made a terrible mistake.

“Please. Find you another colored maid. A young’un. Somebody . . . else.”

“But I don’t know any others well enough.” I am tempted to bring up the word friends, but I’m not that naive. I know we’re not friends.

Hilly’s head pops through the door. “Come on, Skeeter, I’m fixing to deal,” and she disappears.

“I’m begging you,” Aibileen says, “put that money away so Miss Leefolt don’t see it.”

I nod, embarrassed. I tuck the envelope in my bag, knowing we’re worse off than ever. It’s a bribe, she thinks, to get her to let me interview her. A bribe disguised as goodwill and thanks. I’d been waiting to give her the money anyway, once it added up to something, but it’s true, my timing today had been deliberately planned. And now I’ve scared her off for good.

“DARLING, JUST TRY IT on your head. It cost eleven dollars. It must be good.”

Mother has me cornered in the kitchen. I glance at the door to the hall, the door to the side porch. Mother comes closer, the thing in hand, and I’m distracted by how thin her wrists look, how frail her arms are carrying the heavy gray machine. She pushes me down into a chair, not so frail after all, and squeezes a noisy, farty tube of goo on my head. Mother’s been chasing me with the Magic Soft & Silky Shinalator for two days now.

She rubs the cream in my hair with both hands. I can practically feel the hope in her fingers. A cream will not straighten my nose or take a foot off my height. It won’t add distinction to my almost translucent eyebrows, nor add weight to my bony frame. And my teeth are already perfectly straight. So this is all she has left to fix, my hair.

Mother covers my dripping head with a plastic cap. She fastens a hose from the cap into a square machine.

“How long does this take, Mother?”

She picks up the booklet with a sticky finger. “It says here, ‘Cover with the Miracle Straightening Cap, then turn on the machine and wait for the miraculous—’ ”

“Ten minutes? Fifteen?”

I hear a click, a rising rumble, then feel a slow, intense warmth on my head. But suddenly there’s a pop! The tube is loose from the machine and jerking around like a mad firehose. Mother shrieks, grabs at it and misses. Finally, she snatches it and reattaches it.

She takes a deep breath and picks up the booklet again. “The Miracle Cap must remain on the head for two hours without removal or results—”

“Two hours?”

“I’ll have Pascagoula fix you a glass of tea, dear.” Mother pats me on the shoulder and swishes out through the kitchen door.

For two hours, I smoke cigarettes and read Life magazine. I finish To Kill a Mockingbird. Finally, I pick up the Jackson Journal, pick through it. It’s