AFTER THE People Will Talk show, I grab the Space Command and punch the “Off ” button. My stories are about to come on, but I don’t even care. Doctor Strong and Miss Julia will just have to turn the world without me today.

I’ve a mind to call that Dennis James on the phone and say, Who do you think you are, spreading lies like that? You can’t tell the whole metro area our book is about Jackson! You don’t know what town we’ve written our book about!

I’ll tell you what that fool’s doing. He’s wishing it was about Jackson. He’s wishing Jackson, Mississippi, was interesting enough to write a whole book on and even though it is Jackson . . . well, he doesn’t know that.

I rush to the kitchen and call Aibileen, but after two tries the line’s still busy. I hang up. In the living room, I flip on the iron, yank Mister Johnny’s white shirt out of the basket. I wonder for the millionth time what’s going to happen when Miss Hilly reads the last chapter. She better get to work soon, telling people it’s not our town. And she can tell Miss Celia to fire me all afternoon and Miss Celia won’t. Hating Miss Hilly’s the only thing that crazy woman and I have in common. But what Hilly’ll do once that fails, I don’t know. That’ll be our own war, between me and Miss Hilly. That won’t affect the others.

Oh, now I’m in a bad mood. From where I’m ironing, I can see Miss Celia in the backyard in a pair of hoochie pink satin pants and black plastic gloves. She’s got dirt all over her knees. I’ve asked her a hundred times to quit digging dirt in her dress-up clothes. But that lady never listens.

The grass in front of the pool is covered in yard rakes and hand tools. All Miss Celia does now is hoe up the yard and plant more fancy flowers. Never mind that Mister Johnny hired a full-time yardman a few months ago, name of John Willis. He was hoping he’d be some kind of protection after the naked man showed up, but he’s so old he’s bent up like a paper clip. Skinny as one too. I feel like I have to check on him just to make sure he hasn’t stroked in the bushes. I guess Mister Johnny didn’t have the heart to send him home for somebody younger.

I spray more starch on Mister Johnny’s collar. I hear Miss Celia hollering instructions on how to plant a bush. “Those hydrangeas, let’s get us some more iron in the dirt. Okay, John Willis?”

“Yes’m,” John Willis hollers back.

“Shut up, lady,” I say. The way she hollers at him, he thinks she’s the deaf one.

The phone rings and I run for it.

“OH MINNY,” Aibileen says on the phone. “They figure out the town, ain’t no time fore they figure out the people.”

“He a fool is what he is.”

“How we know Miss Hilly even gone read it?” Aibileen says, her voice turning high. I hope Miss Leefolt can’t hear her. “Law, we should a thought this through, Minny.”

I’ve never heard Aibileen like this. It’s like she’s me and I’m her. “Listen,” I say because something’s starting to make sense here. “Since Mister James done made such a stink about it, we know she gone read it. Everbody in town gone read it now.” Even as I’m saying it, I’m starting to realize it’s true. “Don’t cry yet, cause maybe things is happening just the way they should.”

Five minutes after I hang it up, Miss Celia’s phone rings. “Miss Celia res—”

“I just talk to Louvenia,” Aibileen whisper. “Miss Lou Anne just come home with a copy for herself and a copy for her best friend, Hilly Holbrook.”

Here we go.

All NIGHT LONG, I swear, I can feel Miss Hilly reading our book. I can hear the words she’s reading whispering in my head, in her cool, white voice. At two a.m. I get up from the bed and open my own copy and try to guess what chapter she’s on. Is it one or two or ten? Finally I just stare at the blue cover. I’ve never seen a book such a nice color. I wipe a smudge off the front.

Then I hide it back in the pocket of my winter coat I’ve never worn, since I’ve read zero books after I married Leroy and I don’t want to make him suspicious with this one. I finally go back to bed, telling myself there’s no way I can guess how far Miss Hilly’s read. I do know, though, she hasn’t gotten to her part at the end. I know because I haven’t heard the screaming in my head yet.

By morning, I swear, I’m glad to be going to work. It’s floor-scrubbing day and I want to just get my mind off it all. I heave myself into the car and drive out to Madison County. Miss Celia went to see another doctor yesterday afternoon to find out ............