He nods, looks down at his feet. Then he goes down the porch steps.
“I’m sorry,” he says, the door to his car open. “That’s what I came to say and, wel , I guess I said it.”
I stand on the porch, listening to the hol ow sounds of the evening, gravel under Stuart’s shifting feet, dogs moving in the early darkness. For
a second, I remember Charles Gray, my only kiss in a lifetime. How I’d pul ed away, somehow sure the kiss hadn’t been intended for me.
Stuart gets in his car and his door clicks shut. He props his arm up so his elbow pokes through the open window. But he keeps his eyes
turned down.
“Just give me a minute,” I hol er out to him. “Let me get my sweater.”
NO ONE TELLS US, girls who don’t go on dates, that remembering can be almost as good as what actual y happens. Mother climbs al the way to the third
floor and stands over me in my bed, but I act like I’m stil asleep. Because I just want to remember it awhile.
We’d driven to the Robert E. Lee for dinner last night. I’d thrown on a light blue sweater and a slim white skirt. I’d even let Mother brush out
my hair, trying to drown out her nervous, complicated instructions.
“And don’t forget to smile. Men don’t want a girl who’s moping around al night, and don’t sit like some squaw Indian, cross your—”
“Wait, my legs or my ank—”
“Your ankles. Don’t you remember anything from Missus Rheimer’s etiquette class? And just go ahead and lie and tel him you go to church
every Sunday, and whatever you do, do not crunch your ice at the table, it’s awful. Oh, and if the conversation starts to lag, you tel him about our
second cousin who’s a city councilman in Kosciusko…”
As she brushed and smoothed and brushed and smoothed, Mother kept asking how I’d met him and what happened on our last date, but I
managed to scoot out from under her and dash down the stairs, shaking with wonder and nervousness of my own. By the time Stuart and I walked
into the hotel and sat down and put our napkins in our lap, the waiter said they’d be closing soon. Al they’d serve us was dessert.
Then Stuart had gotten quiet.
“What…do you want, Skeeter?” he’d asked and I’d sort of tensed up then, hoping he wasn’t planning on getting drunk again.
“I’l have a Co-Cola. Lots of ice.”
“No.” He smiled. “I mean…in life. What do you want?”
I took a deep breath, knowing what Mother would advise me to say: fine, strong kids, a husband to take care of, shiny new appliances to
cook tasty yet healthful meals in. “I want to be a writer,” I said. “A journalist. Maybe a novelist. Maybe both.”
He lifted his chin and looked at me then, right in the eye.
“I like that,” he said, and then he just kept staring. “I’ve been thinking about you. You’re smart, you’re pretty, you’re”—he smiled—“tal .”
Pretty?
We ate strawberry soufflés and had one glass of Chablis apiece. He talked about how to tel if there’s oil underneath a cotton field and I
talked about how the receptionist and I were the only females working for the paper.
“I hope you write something real y good. Something you believe in.”
“Thank you. I…hope so too.” I don’t say anything about Aibileen or Missus Stein.
I haven’t had the chance to look at too many men’s faces up close and I noticed how his skin was thicker than mine and a gorgeous shade
of toast; the stiff blond hairs on his cheeks and chin seemed to be growing before my eyes. He smel ed like starch. Like pine. His nose wasn’t so
pointy after al .
The waiter yawned in the corner but we both ignored him and stayed and talked some more. And by the time I was wishing I’d washed my
hair this morning instead of just bathed and was practical y doubled over with gratefulness that I’d at least brushed my teeth, out of the blue, he
kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body
—my skin, my col arbone, the hol ow backs of my knees, everything inside of me fil ed up with light.
ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON, a few weeks after my date with Stuart, I stop by the library before going to the League meeting. Inside, it smel s like grade
school—boredom, paste, Lysoled vomit. I’ve come to get more books for Aibileen and check if anything’s ever been written about domestic help.
“Wel hey there, Skeeter!”
Jesus. It’s Susie Pernel . In high school, she could’ve been voted most likely to talk too much. “Hey…Susie. What are you doing here?”
“I’m working here for the League committee, remember? You real y ought to get on it, Skeeter, it’s real fun! You get to read al the latest
magazines and file things and even laminate the library cards.” Susie poses by the giant brown machine like she’s on The Price Is Right television show.
“How new and exciting.”
“So, what may I help you find today, ma’am? We have murder mysteries, romance novels, how-to makeup books, how-to hair books,” she
pauses, jerks out a smile, “rose gardening, home decorating—”
“I’m just browsing, thanks.” I hurry off. I’l fend for myself in the stacks. There is no way I can tel her what I’m looking for. I can already hear her whispering at the League meetings, I knew there was something not right about that Skeeter Phelan, hunting for those Negro materials…
I search through card catalogues and scan the shelves, but find nothing about domestic workers. In nonfiction, I spot a single copy of
Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. I grab it, excited to deliver it to Aibileen, but when I open it, I see the middle section has been ripped out.
Inside, someone has written NIGGER BOOK in purple crayon. I am not as disturbed by the words as by the fact that the handwriting looks like a third
grader’s. I glance around, push the book in my satchel. It seems better than putting it back on the shelf.
In the Mississippi History room, I search for anything remotely resembling race relations. I find only Civil War books, maps, and old phone
books. I stand on tiptoe to see what’s on the high shelf. That’s when I spot a booklet, laid sideways across the top of the Mississippi River Valley Flood Index. A regular-sized person would never have seen it. I slide it down to glance at the cover. The booklet is thin, printed on onionskin paper, curling, bound with staples. “Compilation of Jim Crow Laws of the South,” the cover reads. I open the noisy cover page.
The booklet is simply a list of laws stating what colored people can and cannot do, in an assortment of Southern states. I skim the first page,
puzzled why this is here. The laws are neither threatening nor friendly, just citing the facts:
No person shall require any white female to nurse in wards or rooms in which negro men are placed.
It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be
void.
No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.
The officer in charge shall not bury any colored persons upon ground used for the burial of white persons.
Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using
them.
I read through four of the twenty-five pages, mesmerized by how many laws exist to separate us. Negroes and whites are not al owed to
share water fountains, movie houses, public restrooms, bal parks, phone booths, circus shows. Negroes cannot use the same pharmacy or buy
postage stamps at the same window as me. I think about Constantine, the time my family took her to Memphis with us and the highway had mostly
washed out, but we had to drive straight on through because we knew the hotels wouldn’t let her in. I think about how no one in the car would come
out and say it. We al know about these laws, we live here, but we don’t talk about them. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them written down.
Lunch counters, the state fair, pool tables, hospitals. Number forty-seven I have to read twice, for its irony.
The Board shall maintain a separate building on separate grounds for the instruction of all blind persons of the colored race.
After several minutes, I make myself stop. I start to put the booklet back, tel ing myself I’m not writing a book about Southern legislation, this
is a waste of my time. But then I realize, like a shel cracking open in my head, there’s no difference between these government laws and Hil y
building Aibileen a bathroom in the garage, except ten minutes’ worth of signatures in the state capital.
On the last page, I see the pica type that reads Property of Mississippi Law Library. The booklet was returned to the wrong building. I
scratch my revelation on a piece of paper and tuck it inside the booklet: Jim Crow or Hilly’s bathroom plan—what’s the difference? I slip it in my bag. Susie sneezes behind the desk across the room.
I head for the doors. I have a League meeting in thirty minutes. I give Susie an extra friendly smile. She’s whispering into the phone. The
stolen books in my bag feel like they’re pulsing with heat.
“Skeeter,” Susie hisses from the desk, eyes wide. “Did I real y hear you have been seeing Stuart Whitworth?” She puts a bit too much
emphasis on the you for me to keep up my smile. I act like I don’t hear her and walk out into the bright sunshine. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life before today. I’m a little satisfied it was on Susie’s watch.
OUR PLACES OF COMFORT ARE expectedly different, my friends and I. Elizabeth’s is hunched over her sewing machine trying to make her life look seamless, store-bought. Mine is at my typewriter writing pithy things I’l never have the guts to say out loud. And Hil y’s is behind a podium tel ing sixty-five women that three cans apiece isn’t enough to feed al those PSCAs. The Poor Starving Children of Africa, that is. Mary Joline Walker, however,
thinks three is plenty.
“And isn’t it kind of expensive, carting al this tin across the world to Ethiopia?” Mary Joline asks. “Doesn’t it make more sense just to send
them a check?”
The meeting has not official y started, but Hil y’s already behind her podium. There’s a franticness in her eyes. This isn’t our normal evening
time, but an extra afternoon session Hil y’s cal ed. In June, many of the members are going out of town for summer vacations. Then, in July, Hil y
leaves for her annual trip down to the coast for three weeks. It’s going to be hard for her to trust an entire town to operate properly without her here.
Hil y rol s her eyes. “You cannot give these tribal people money, Mary Joline. There is no Jitney 14 Grocery in the Ogaden Desert. And how
would we know if they’re even feeding their kids with it? They’re likely to go to the local voodoo tent and get a satanic tattoo with our money.”
“Alright.” Mary Joline teeters off, flat-faced, brainwashed-looking. “I guess you know best.” It is this bug-eyed effect Hil y has on people that
makes her such a successful League president.
I make my way across the crowded meeting room, feeling the warmth of attention, as if a beam of light is shining down on my head. The
room is ful of cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women al about my age. Some are whispering to each other, glancing my way.
“Skeeter, ” Liza Presley says before I make it past the coffee urns, “did I hear you were at the Robert E. Lee a few weeks ago?”
“Is that right? Are you real y seeing Stuart Whitworth?” says Frances Greenbow.
Most of the questions are not unkind, not like Susie’s at the library. Stil , I shrug, try not to notice how when a regular girl gets asked out, it’s information, but when Skeeter Phelan gets asked out, it’s news.
But it’s true. I am seeing Stuart Whitworth and have been for three weeks now. Twice at the Robert E. Lee if you include the disaster date,
and three more times sitting on my front porch for drinks before he drove home to Vicksburg. My father even stayed up past eight o’clock to speak
to him. “Night, son. You tel the Senator we sure do appreciate him stomping out that farm tax bil .” Mother’s been trembling, torn between the terror
that I’l screw it up and glee that I actual y like men.
The white spotlight of wonder fol ows me as I make my way to Hil y. Girls are smiling and nodding at me.
“When wil y’al see each other again?” This is Elizabeth now, twisting a napkin, eyes wide like she’s staring at a car accident. “Did he say?”
“Tomorrow night. As soon as he can drive over.”
“Good.” Hil y’s smile is a fat child’s at the Seale-Lily Ice Cream window. The button on her red suitcoat bulges. “We’l make it a double date,
then.”
I don’t answer. I don’t want Hil y and Wil iam coming along. I just want to sit with Stuart, have him look at me and only me. Twice, when we
were alone, he brushed my hair back when it fel in my eyes. He might not brush my hair back if they’re around.
“Wil iam’l telephone Stuart tonight. Let’s go to the picture show.”
“Alright,” I sigh.
“I’m just dying to see It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Won’t this be fun,” Hil y says. “You and me and Wil iam and Stuart.”
It strikes me as suspicious, the way she’s arranged the names. As if the point were for Wil iam and Stuart to be together instead of me and
Stuart. I know I’m being paranoid. But everything makes me wary now. Two nights ago, as soon as I crossed over the colored bridge, I was stopped
by a policeman. He shone his flashlight in the truck, let it shine on the satchel. He asked for my license and where I was going. “I’m taking a check to my maid…Constantine. I forgot to pay her.” Another cop pul ed up, came to my window. “Why did you stop me?” I asked, my voice sounding about
ten pitches too high. “Did something happen?” I asked. My heart was slamming against my chest. What if they looked in my satchel?
“Some Yankee trash stirring up trouble. We’l catch em, ma’am,” he said, patting his bil y club. “Do your business and get back over the
bridge.”
When I got to Aibileen’s street, I parked even farther down the block. I walked around to her back door instead of using the front. I shook so
bad for the first hour, I could hardly read the questions I’d written for Minny.
Hil y gives the five-minute-til bang with her gavel. I make my way to my chair, lug my satchel onto my lap. I tick through the contents, suddenly
conscious of the Jim Crow booklet I stole from the library. In fact, my satchel holds al the work we’ve done—Aibileen’s and Minny’s interviews, the
book outline, a list of potential maids, a scathing, unmailed response I wrote to Hil y’s bathroom initiative—everything I can’t leave at home for fear Mother wil snoop through my things. I keep it al in a side zip-pocket with a flap over it. It bulges unevenly.
“Skeeter, those poplin pants are just the cutest thing, why haven’t I seen those before?” Carrol Ringer says a few chairs away and I look up
at her and smile, thinking Because I wouldn’t dare wear old clothes to a meeting and neither would you. Clothing questions irritate me after so many years of Mother hounding me.
I feel a hand on my other shoulder and turn to find Hil y with her finger in my satchel, right on the booklet. “Do you have the notes for next
week’s newsletter? Are these them?” I hadn’t even seen her coming.
“No, wait!” I say and
ease the booklet back into my papers. “I need to…to correct one thing. I’l bring them to you a little later.”
I take a deep breath.
At the podium, Hil y looks at her watch, toying with the gavel like she’s just dying to bang it. I push my satchel under my chair. Final y, the
meeting begins.
I record the PSCA news, who’s on the trouble list, who’s not brought in their cans. The calendar of events is ful of committee meetings and
baby showers, and I shift around in my wooden chair, hoping the meeting wil end soon. I have to get Mother’s car back to her by three.
It’s not until a quarter til , an hour and a half later, that I rush out of the hot room toward the Cadil ac. I’l be on the trouble list for leaving early, but Jesus Christ, what’s worse, the wrath of Mother or the wrath of Hil y?
I WALK INTO THE HOUSE five minutes early, humming “Love Me Do,” thinking I ought to go buy a short skirt like Jenny Foushee wore today. She said she’d
gotten it up in New York City at Bergdorf Goodman’s. Mother would keel over if I showed up with a skirt above the knee when Stuart picks me up on
Saturday.
“Mama, I’m home,” I cal down the hal way.
I pul a Co-Cola from the fridge, sigh and smile, feeling good, strong. I head to the front door for my satchel, ready to thread together more of
Minny’s stories. I can tel she is itching to talk about Celia Foote, but she always stops after a minute of it and changes the subject. The phone rings and I answer it, but it’s for Pascagoula. I take a message on the pad. It’s Yule May, Hil y’s maid.
“Hey, Yule May,” I say, thinking what a smal town this is. “I’l give her the message when she gets back.” I lean a minute against the counter,
wishing Constantine was here like it used to be. How I’d love to share every single thing about my day with her.
I sigh and finish my Coke and then go to the front door for my satchel. It’s not there. I go outside and look in the car but it’s not there either.
Huh, I think and head up the stairs, feeling less pink now and more of a pale yel ow. Did I go upstairs yet? I scour my room, but it’s nowhere to be found. Final y, I stand stil in my quiet bedroom, a slow tingle of panic working its way up my spine. The satchel, it has everything in it.
Mother, I think and I dash downstairs and look in the relaxing room. But suddenly I realize it’s not Mother who has it—the answer has come
to me, numbing my entire body. I left my satchel at the League House. I was in such a hurry to get Mother’s car home. And even as the phone is
ringing, I already know it is Hil y on the end of that line.
I grab the phone from the wal . Mother cal s goodbye from the front door.
“Hel o?”
“How could you leave this heavy thing behind?” Hil y asks. Hil y never has had a problem with going through other people’s things. In fact, she
enjoys it.
“Mother, wait a second!” I hol er from the kitchen.
“Good Lord, Skeeter, what’s in here?” Hil y says. I’ve got to catch Mother, but Hil y’s voice is muffled, like she’s bending down, opening it.
“Nothing! Just…al those Miss Myrna letters, you know.”
“Wel , I’ve lugged it back to my house so come on by and get it when you can.”
Mother is starting the car outside. “Just…keep it there. I’l be by as soon as I can get there.”
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