I BEEN IN SOME tense situations, but to have Minny on one side a my living room and Miss Skeeter on the other, and the topic at hand be what it feel like being Negro and working for a white woman. Law, it’s a wonder they hadn’t been a injury.

We had some close calls though.

Like last week, when Miss Skeeter showed me Miss Hilly’s reasons why colored folk need they own bathroom.

“Feel like I’m looking at something from the KKK,” I said to Miss Skeeter. We was in my living room and the nights had started to get warm. Minny’d gone in the kitchen to stand in front a the icebox. Minny don’t stop sweating but for five minutes in January and maybe not even then.

“Hilly wants me to print it in the League newsletter,” Miss Skeeter said, shaking her head disgusted. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have shown it to you. But there’s no one else I can tell.”

A minute later, Minny come back from the kitchen. I gave Miss Skeeter a look, so she slid the list under her notebook. Minny didn’t look much cooler. Fact, she looked hotter than ever.

“Minny, do you and Leroy ever talk about civil rights?” Miss Skeeter ask. “When he comes home from work?”

Minny had that big bruise on her arm cause that’s what Leroy do when he come home from work. He push her around.

“Nope” was all Minny said. Minny do not like people up in her business.

“Really? He doesn’t share the way he feels about the marches and the segregation? Maybe at work, his bo—”

“Move off a Leroy.” Minny crossed her arms up so that bruise wouldn’t show.

I gave Skeeter a nudge on the foot. But Miss Skeeter, she had that look she gets when she’s all up in something.

“Aibileen, don’t you think it would be interesting if we could show a little of the husbands’ perspective? Minny, maybe—”

Minny stood so quick the lightshade rattled. “I ain’t doing this no more. You making this too personal. I don’t care about telling white people how it feel.”

“Minny, okay, I’m sorry,” Miss Skeeter said. “We don’t have to talk about your family.”

“No. I change my mind. You find somebody else to spill the beans.” We been through this before. But this time, Minny snatched up her pocketbook, grabbed her funeral fan that fell under the chair, and said, “I’m sorry, Aib. But I just can’t do this no more.”

I got a panicky feeling then. She really gone leave. Minny can’t quit. She the only maid besides me who agreed to do it.

So I leant up, slipped Hilly’s piece a paper out from under Miss Skeeter’s notebook. My fingers stopped right in front a Minny.

She look down at it. “What that?”

I put on my blank face. Shrugged my shoulders. Couldn’t act like I really wanted her to read it cause then she wouldn’t.

Minny picked it up and started skimming. Pretty soon, I could see all her front teeth. But she wasn’t smiling.

Then she looked at Miss Skeeter, long and heavy. She said, “Maybe we keep going then. But you stay out a my personal business, you hear?”

Miss Skeeter nodded. She learning.

I MIX a Egg salad for Miss Leefolt and Baby Girl’s lunch, put them little pickles on the side to fancy it up. Miss Leefolt set at the kitchen table with Mae Mobley, start telling her how the baby’s gone be here in October, how she hope she don’t have to be in the hospital for the Ole Miss homecoming game, how she might have her a little sister or a little brother and wonder what they gone name it. It’s nice, seeing them talking like this. Half the morning, Miss Leefolt been on the phone with Miss Hilly gossiping about something, hardly noticing Baby Girl at all. And once the new baby come, Mae Mobley ain’t gone get so much as a swat from her mama.

After lunch, I take Baby Girl out to the backyard and fill up the green plastic pool. It’s already ninety-five degrees outside. Mississippi got the most unorganized weather in the nation. In February, it’ll be fifteen degrees and you be wishing spring would come on, and the next day it’s ninety degrees for the next nine months.

The sun shining. Mae Mobley’s setting in the middle a that pool in bathing bottoms. First thing she do is take off that top. Miss Leefolt come outside and say, “That looks like fun! I’m fixing to call Hilly, tell her to bring Heather and little Will over here.”

And fore I know it, all three kids is playing in there, splashing around, having a good old time.

Heather, Miss Hilly’s girl, she pretty cute. She six months older than Mae Mobley and Mae Mobley just love her. Heather got dark, shiny curls all over her head and some little freckles, and she real talkative. She pretty much just a short version a Miss Hilly, only it look better on a child. Little William, Jr., he two. He tow-headed and he don’t say nothing. Just waddle around like a duck, following them girls to the high monkey grass on the edge a the yard, to the swingset that hitch up on one side if you swing too high and scare me to death, and back into the baby pool.

One thing I got to say about Miss Hilly, she love her children. About every five minutes, she kiss little Will on the head. Or she ask Heather, is she having fun? Or come here and give Mama a hug. Always telling her she the most beautiful girl in the world. And Heather love her mama too. She look at Miss Hilly like she looking up at the Statue a Liberty. That kind a love always make me want a cry. Even when it going to Miss Hilly. Cause it makes me think about Treelore, how much he love me. I appreciate seeing a child adoring they mama.

We grown-ups is setting in the shade a the magnolia tree while the kids play. I put a few feet between me and the ladies so it’s proper. They got towels down in them black iron chairs that gets so hot. I like to sit in the plastic green folding chair. Keep my legs cool.

I watch Mae Mobley make Barbie Doll do the skinny dip, jumping off the side a the pool. But I got my eye on the ladies too. I been noticing how Miss Hilly act all sweet and happy when she talk to Heather and William, but ever time she turn to Miss Leefolt, she get a sneer on her face.

“Aibileen, get me a little more iced tea, would you, please?” Hilly ask. I go and get the pitcher from the refrigerator.

“See, that’s what I don’t understand,” I hear Miss Hilly say when I’m close enough. “Nobody wants to sit down on a toilet seat they have to share with them.”

“It does make sense,” Miss Leefolt say, but then she hush up when I come over to fill up they glasses.

“Why, thank you,” Miss Hilly say. Then she give me a real perplexed look, say, “Aibileen, you like having your own toilet, don’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.” She still talking about that pot even though it’s been in there six months.

“Separate but equal,” Miss Hilly say back to Miss Leefolt. “That’s what Governor Ross Barnett says is right, and you can’t argue with the government.”

Miss Leefolt clap her hand on her thigh like she got the most interesting thing to change the subject to. I’m with her. Let’s discuss something else. “Did I tell you what Raleigh said the other day?”

But Miss Hilly shaking her head. “Aibileen, you wouldn’t want to go to a school full of white people, would you?”

“No ma’am,” I mumble. I get up and pull the ponytail holder out a Baby Girl’s head. Them green plastic balls get all tangly when her hair get wet. But what I really want to do is put my hands up over her ears so she can’t hear this talk. And worse, hear me agreeing.

But then I think: Why? Why I have to stand here and agree with her? And if Mae Mobley gone hear it, she gone hear some sense. I get my breath. My heart beating hard. And I say polite as I can, “Not a school full a just white people. But where the colored and the white folks is together.”

Hilly and Miss Leefolt both look at me. I look back down at the kids.

“But Aibileen”—Miss Hilly smile real cold—“colored people and white people are just so . . . different.” She wrinkle up her nose.

I feel my lip curling. A course we different! Everbody know colored people and white people ain’t the same. But we still just people! Shoot, I even been hearing Jesus had colored skin living out there in the desert. I press my lips together.

It don’t matter though, cause Miss Hilly already moved on. Ain’t nothing to her. She back to her low-down talk with Miss Leefolt. Out a nowhere, a big heavy cloud cover the sun. I spec we about to get a shower.

“. . . government knows best and if Skeeter thinks she’s going to get away with this colored non—”

“Mama! Mama! Look at me!” holler Heather from the pool. “Look at my pigtails!”

“I see you! I do! What with William running for office next—”

“Mama, give me your comb! I want to do beauty parlor!”

“—cannot have colored-supporting friends in my closet—”

“Mamaaaaa! Gimme your comb. Get your comb for me!”

“I read it. I found it in her satchel and I intend to take action.”

And then Miss Hilly quiet, hunting for her comb in her pocketbook. Thunder boom over in South Jackson and way off we hear the wail a the tornado bell. I’m trying to make sense a what Miss Hilly just said: Miss Skeeter. Her satchel. I read it.

I get the kids out the pool, swaddle em up in towels. The thunder come crashing out the sky.

A MINUTE AFTER dark, I’m setting at my kitchen table, twirling my pencil. My white-library copy a Huckleberry Finn’s in front a me, but I can’t read it. I got a bad taste in my mouth, bitter, like coffee grounds in the last sip. I need to talk to Miss Skeeter.

I ain’t never called her house except two times cause I had no choice, when I told her I’d work on the stories, and then to tell her Minny would too. I know it’s risky. Still, I get up, put my hand on the wall phone. But what if her mama answer, or her daddy? I bet their maid gone home hours ago. How Miss Skeeter gone explain a colored woman calling her up on the telephone?

I set back down. Miss Skeeter come over here three days ago to talk to Minny. Seemed like everthing was fine. Nothing like when the police pull her over a few weeks ago. She didn’t say nothing about Miss Hilly.

I huff in my chair awhile, wishing the phone would ring. I shoot up and race a cockroach across the floor with my workshoe. Cockroach win. He crawl under that grocery bag a clothes Miss Hilly give me, been setting there for months.

I stare at the sack, start twirling that pencil in my hand again. I got to do something with that bag. I’m used to ladies giving me clothes—got white lady clothes out the wazoo, ain’t had to buy my own clothes in thirty years. It always takes a while till they feel like mine. When Treelore was a little thing, I put on a old coat from some lady I’s waiting on and Treelore, he look at me funny, back away. Say I smell white.

But this bag is different. Even what would fit me in that paper sack, I can’t wear. Can’t give to my friends either. Ever piece in that bag—the culotte pants, the shirt with the Peter Pan collar, the pink jacket with the gravy stain on it, even the socks—they all got the letters H.W.H. sewn in. Red thread, pretty little cursive letters. I reckon Yule May had to sew them letters. Wearing those, I’d feel like I’s personal-owned property a Hilly W. Holbrook.

I get up and kick at the bag, but the cockroach don’t come out. So I take out my notebook, intending to start on my prayers, but I’m just too deep worrying about Miss Hilly. Wondering what she meant when she said Read it.

After while, my mind done drifted to where I wish it wouldn’t. I reckon I know pretty well what would happen if the white ladies found out we was writing about them, telling the truth a what they really like. Womens, they ain’t like men. A woman ain’t gone beat you with a stick. Miss Hilly wouldn’t pull no pistol on me. Miss Leefolt wouldn’t come burn my house down.

No, white womens like to keep they hands clean. They got a shiny little set a tools they use, sharp as witches’ fingernails, tidy and laid out neat, like the picks on a dentist tray. They gone take they time with em.

First thing a white lady gone do is fire you. You upset, but you figure you’ll find another job, when things settle down, when the white lady get around to forgetting. You got a month a rent saved. People bring you squash casseroles.

But then a week after you lost your job, you get this little yellow envelope stuck in your screen door. Paper inside say NOTICE Of EVICTION. Ever landlord in Jackson be white and ever one got a white wife that’s friends with somebody. You start to panic some then. You still ain’t got no job prospects. Everwhere you try, the door slams in your face. And now you ain’t got a place to live.

Then it starts to come a little faster.

If you got a note on your car, they gone repossess it.

If you got a parking ticket you ain’t paid, you going to jail.

If you got a daughter, maybe you go live with her. She tend to a white family a her own. But a few days later she come home, say, “Mama? I just got fired.” She look hurt, scared. She don’t understand why. You got to tell her it’s cause a you.

Least her husband still working. Least they can feed the baby.

Then they fire her husband. Just another little sharp tool, shiny and fine.

They both pointing at you, crying, wondering why you done it. You can’t even remember why. Weeks pass and nothing, no jobs, no money, no house. You hope this is the end of it, that she done enough, she ready to forget.

It’ll be a knock on the door, late at night. It won’t be the white lady at the door. She don’t do that kind a thing herself. But while the nightmare’s happening, the burning or the cutting or the beating, you realize something you known all your life: the white lady don’t ever forget.

And she ain’t gone stop till you dead.

THE NEXT MORNING, Miss Skeeter pull her Cadillac up in Miss Leefolt’s driveway. I got raw chicken on my hands and a flame on the stovetop and Mae Mobley whining cause she starving to death but I can’t stand it another second. I walk in the dining room with my dirty hands up in the air.

Miss Skeeter, she asking Miss Leefolt about a list a girls who serving on a committee and Miss Leefolt say, “The head of the cupcake committee is Eileen,” and Miss Skeeter say, “But the cupcake committee chairman is Roxanne,” and Miss Leefolt say, “No, the cupcake co-chair is Roxanne and Eileen is the cupcake head,” and I’m getting so peckertated over this cupcake talk I want to poke Miss Skeeter with my raw-chicken finger but I know better than to interrupt so I don’t. There ain’t no talk at all about the satchel.

Before I know it, Miss Skeeter out the door.

Law.

That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor. He big, inch, inch an a half. He black. Blacker than me. He making a crackling sound with his wings. I got my shoe in my hand.

The phone ring and we both jump.

“Hey, Aibileen,” Miss Skeeter say and I hear a door shut. “Sorry to call so late.”

I breathe out. “I’m glad you did.”

“I was just calling to see if you had any... word. From any other maids, I mean.”

Miss Skeeter sound strange. Tight in the jaw. Lately, she been glowing like a firefly she so in love. My heart start drumming. Still, I don’t jump right in with my questions. I ain’t sure why.

“I asked Corrine who work at the Cooleys. She say no. Then Rhonda, and Rhonda’s sister who wait on the Millers... but both a them say no too.”

“What about Yule May? Have you . . . talked to ............