I flick on the radio, desperate for noise to fill my ears. “It’s My Party” is playing and I search for something else. I’m starting to hate the whiny teenage songs about love and nothing. In a moment of aligned wavelengths, I pick up Memphis WKPO and out comes a man’s voice, drunk-sounding, singing fast and bluesy. At a dead end street, I ease into the Tote-Sum store parking lot and listen to the song. It is better than anything I’ve ever heard.
A voice in a can tells me his name is Bob Dylan, but as the next song starts, the signal fades. I lean back in my seat, stare out at the dark windows of the store. I feel a rush of inexplicable relief. I feel like I’ve just heard something from the future.
At the phone booth outside the store, I put in a dime and call Mother. I know she’ll wait up for me until I get home.
“Hello?” It’s Daddy’s voice at eight-fifteen at night.
“Daddy . . . why are you up? What’s wrong?”
“You need to come on home now, darling.”
The streetlight suddenly feels too bright in my eyes, the night very cold. “Is it Mama? Is she sick?”
“Stuart’s been sitting on the porch for almost two hours now. He’s waiting on you.”
Stuart? It doesn’t make sense. “But Mama . . . she’s . . .”
“Oh, Mama’s fine. In fact, she’s brightened up a little. Come on home, Skeeter, and tend to Stuart now.”
THE DRIVE HOME has never felt so long. Ten minutes later, I pull in front of the house and see Stuart sitting on the top porch step. Daddy’s in a rocking chair. They both stand when I turn off the car.
“Hey, Daddy,” I say. I don’t look at Stuart. “Where’s Mama?”
“She’s asleep, I just checked on her.” Daddy yawns. I haven’t seen him up past seven o’clock in ten years, when the spring cotton froze.
“’Night, you two. Turn the lights out when you’re done.” Daddy goes inside and Stuart and I are left alone. The night is so black, so quiet, I can’t see stars or a moon or even a dog in the yard.
“What are you doing here?” I say and my voice, it sounds small.
“I came to talk to you.”
I sit on the front step and put my head down on my arms. “Just say it fast and then go on. I was getting better. I heard this song and almost felt better ten minutes ago.”
He moves closer to me, but not so close that we are touching. I wish we were touching.
“I came to tell you something. I came to say that I saw her.”
I lift my head up. The first word in my head is
“I went out there, to San Francisco. Two weeks ago. I got in my truck and drove for four days and knocked on the door of the apartment house her mama gave me the address to.”
I cover my face. All I can see is Stuart pushing her hair back like he used to with me. “I don’t want to know this.”
“I told her I thought that was the ugliest thing you could do to a person. Lie that way. She looked so different. Had on this prairie-looking dress and a peace sign and her hair was long and she didn’t have any lipstick on. And she laughed when she saw me. And then she called me a whore.” He rubs his eyes hard with his knuckles. “She, the one who took her clothes off for that guy—said I was a whore to my daddy, a whore to Mississippi.”
“Why are you telling me this?” My fists are clenched. I taste metal. I’ve bitten down on my tongue.
“I drove out there because of you. After we broke up, I knew I had to get her out of my head. And I did it, Skeeter. I drove two thousand miles there and back and I’m here to tell you. It’s dead. It’s gone.”
“Well, good, Stuart,” I say. “Good for you.”
He moves closer and leans down so I will look at him. And I feel sick, literally nauseated by the smell of bourbon on his breath. And yet I still want to fold myself up and put my entire body in his arms. I am loving him and hating him at the same time.
“Go home,” I say, hardly believing myself. “There’s no place left inside me for you.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You’re too late, Stuart.”
“Can I come by on Saturday? To talk some more?”
I shrug, my eyes full of tears. I won’t let him throw me away again. It’s already happened too many times, with him, with my friends. I’d be stupid to let it happen again.
“I don’t really care what you do.”
I WAKE UP AT FIVE A.M. and start working on the stories. With only seventeen days until our deadline, I work through the day and night with a speed and efficiency I didn’t know I possessed. I finish Louvenia’s story in half the time it took me to write the others and, with an intense burning headache, I turn off the light as the first rays of sun peek through the window. If Aibileen will give me Constantine’s story by early next week, I just might be able to pull this off.
And then I realize I do not have seventeen more days. How
I’d cry, if only I had the time to do it.
A few hours later, I wake up and go back to work. At five in the afternoon, I hear a car pull up and see Stuart climb out of his truck. I tear myself away from the typewriter and go out on the front porch.
“Hello,” I say, standing in the doorway.
“Hey, Skeeter.” He nods at me, shyly I think, compared to his way two nights ago. “Afternoon, Mister Phelan.”
“Hey there, son.” Daddy gets up from his rocking chair. “I’ll let you kids talk out here.”
“Don’t get up, Daddy. I’m sorry, but I’m busy today, Stuart. You’re welcome to sit out here with Daddy as long as you like.”
I go back in the house, pass Mother at the kitchen table drinking warm milk.
“Was that Stuart I saw out there?”
I go in the dining room. I stand back from the windows, where I know Stuart can’t see me. I watch until he drives away. And then I just keep watching.
THAT NIGHT, as usual, I go to Aibileen’s. I tell her about the deadline of only ten days, and she looks like she might cry. Then I hand her Louvenia’s chapter to read, the one I’ve written at lightning speed. Minny is at the kitchen table with us, drinking a Coke, looking out the window. I hadn’t known she’d be here tonight and wish she’d leave us to work.
Aibileen puts it down, nods. “I think this chapter is right good. Read just as well as the slow-wrote ones.”
I sigh, leaning back in my chair, thinking of what else needs to be done. “We need to decide on the title,” I say and rub my temples. “I’ve been working on a few. I think we should call it
“Say what?” Minny says, looking at me for the first time.
“That’s the best way to describe it, don’t you think?” I say.
“If you got a corn cob up you butt.”
“This isn’t fiction, Minny. It’s sociology. It has to sound exact.”
“But that don’t mean it have to sound boring,” Minny says.
“Aibileen,” I sigh, hoping we can resolve this tonight. “What do you think?”
