The Help

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.

I lay on the cot at midnight. The crickets sing outside the screen. I let my body sink deep into the thin mattress, against the springs. My feet dangle off the end, dance nervously, relishing relief for the first time in months. It’s not a dozen maids, but it’s one more.

THE NEXT DAY, I’m sitting in front of the television set watching the twelve o’clock news. Charles Warring is reporting, telling me that sixty American soldiers have been killed in Vietnam. It’s so sad to me. Sixty men, in a place far away from anyone they loved, had to die. I think it’s because of Stuart that this bothers me so, but Charles Warring looks eerily thrilled by it all.

I pick up a cigarette and put it back down. I’m trying not to smoke, but I’m nervous about tonight. Mother’s been nagging me about my smoking and I know I should stop, but it’s not like it’s going to kill me. I wish I could ask Pascagoula more about what Yule May said, but Pascagoula called this morning and said she had a problem and wouldn’t be coming in until this afternoon.

I can hear Mother out on the back porch, helping Jameso make ice cream. Even in the front of the house, I can hear the rumbly noise of ice cracking, the salt crunching. The sound is delicious, makes me wish for some now, but it won’t be ready for hours. Of course, no one makes ice cream at twelve noon on a hot day, it’s a night chore, but Mother has it in her mind that she’s going to make peach ice cream and the heat be damned.

I go out on the back porch and look. The big silver ice-cream maker is cold and sweating. The porch floor vibrates. Jameso’s sitting on an upsidedown bucket, knees on either side of the machine, turning the wooden crank with gloved hands. Steam rises from the well of dry ice.

“Has Pascagoula come in yet?” Mama asks, feeding more cream into the machine.

“Not yet,” I say. Mother is sweating. She pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll pour the cream awhile, Mama. You look hot.”

“You won’t do it right. I have to do it,” she says and shoos me back inside.

On the news, now Roger Sticker is reporting in front of the Jackson post office with the same stupid grin as the war reporter. “. . . this modern postal addressing system is called a Z-Z-ZIP code, that’s right, I said Z-Z-ZIP code, that’s five numbers to be written along the bottom of your envelope . . .”

He’s holding up a letter, showing us where to write the numbers. A man in overalls with no teeth says, “Ain’t nobody gonna use them there numbers. Folks is still trying to get used to using the tellyphone.”

I hear the front door close. A minute passes and Pascagoula comes in the relaxing room.

“Mother’s out on the back porch,” I tell her but Pascagoula doesn’t smile, doesn’t even look up at me. She just hands me a small envelope.

“She was gone mail it but I told her I just carry it to you.”

The front of the envelope is addressed to me, no return name on it. Certainly no ZIP code. Pascagoula walks off toward the back porch.

I open the letter. The handwriting is in black pen, written on the straight blue lines of school paper:

Dear Miss Skeeter,

I want you to know how sorry I am that I won’t be able to help you with your stories. But now I can’t and I want to be the one to tell you why. As you know, I used to wait on a friend of yours. I didn’t like working for her and I wanted to quit many times but I was afraid to. I was afraid I might never get another job once she’d had her say.

You probably don’t know that after I finished high school, I went on to college. I would’ve graduated except I decided to get married. It’s one of my few regrets in life, not getting my college degree. I have twin boys that make it all worthwhile, though. For ten years, my husband and I have saved our money to send them to Tougaloo College, but as hard as we worked, we still didn’t have enough for both. My boys are equally as smart, equally eager for an education. But we only had the money for one and I ask you, how do you choose which of your twin sons should go to college and which should take a job spreading tar? How do you tell one that you love him just as much as the other, but you’ve decided he won’t be the one to get a chance in life? You don’t. You find a way to make it happen. Any way at all.

I suppose you could look at this as a confession letter. I stole from that woman. An ugly ruby ring, hoping it would cover the rest of the tuition. Something she never wore and I felt she owed me for everything I’d been through working for her. Of course now, neither of my boys will be going to college. The court fine is nearly as much as we had saved.

Sincerely,

Yule May Crookle

Women’s Block 9

Mississippi State Penitentiary

The penitentiary. I shudder. I look around for Pascagoula but she’s left the room. I want to ask her when this happened, how it happened so goddamn fast? What can be done? But Pascagoula’s gone outside to help Mother. We can’t talk out there. I feel sick, nauseous. I switch off the television.

I think about Yule May, sitting in a jail cell writing this letter. I bet I even know what ring Yule May’s talking about—Hilly’s mother gave it to her for her eighteenth birthday. Hilly had it appraised a few years ago and found out it wasn’t even a ruby, just a garnet, hardly worth anything. Hilly never wore it again. My hands turn to fists.

The sound of the ice cream churning outside sounds like bones crunching. I go to the kitchen to wait for Pascagoula, to get answers. I’ll tell Daddy. I’ll see if there’s anything he can do. If he knows any lawyers who would be willing to help her.