“If I didn’t hit you, Minny, who knows what you become.”
I was trapped in the corner of the bedroom like a dog. He was beating me with his belt. It was the first time I’d ever really thought about it.
Who knows what I could become, if Leroy would stop goddamn hitting me.
THE NEXT NIGHT, I make everybody go to bed early, including myself. Leroy’s at the plant until five and I’m feeling too heavy for my time. Lord, maybe it’s twins. I’m not paying a doctor to tell me that bad news. All I know is, this baby’s already bigger than the others when they came out, and I’m only six months.
I fall into a heavy sleep. I’m dreaming I’m at a long wooden table and I’m at a feast. I’m gnawing on a big roasted turkey leg.
I fly upright in my bed. My breath is fast. “Who there?”
My heart’s flinging itself against my chest. I look around my dark bedroom. It’s half-past midnight. Leroy’s not here, thank God. But something woke me for sure.
And then I realize what it was that woke me. I heard what I’ve been waiting on. What we’ve all been waiting on.
I heard Miss Hilly’s scream.
MISS SKEETER
chapter 33
MY EYES POP OPEN. My chest is pumping. I’m sweating. The greenvined wallpaper is snaking up the walls. What woke me? What was that?
I get out of bed and listen. It didn’t sound like Mother. It was too high-pitched. It was a scream, like material ripping into two shredded pieces.
I sit back on the bed and press my hand to my heart. It’s still pounding. Nothing is going as planned. People know the book is about Jackson. I can’t believe I forgot what a slow goddamn reader Hilly is. I’ll bet she’s telling people she’s read more than she has. Now things are spinning out of control, a maid named Annabelle was fired, white women are whispering about Aibileen and Louvenia and who knows who else. And the irony is, I’m gnawing my hands waiting for Hilly to speak up when I’m the only one in this town who doesn’t care what she has to say anymore.
What if the book was a horrible mistake?
I take a deep, painful breath. I try to think of the future, not the present. A month ago, I mailed out fifteen résumés to Dallas, Memphis, Birmingham, and five other cities, and once again, New York. Missus Stein told me I could list her as a reference, which is probably the only notable thing on the page, having a recommendation from someone in publishing. I added the jobs I’ve held for the past year:
Weekly Housekeeping Columnist for the Jackson Journal Newspaper
Editor of the Junior League of Jackson Newsletter
Author of Help, a controversial book about colored housekeepers and
their white employers, Harper & Row
I didn’t really include the book, I just wanted to type it out once. But now, even if I did get a job offer in a big city, I can’t abandon Aibileen in the middle of this mess. Not with things going so badly.
But God, I have to get out of Mississippi. Besides Mother and Daddy, I have nothing left here, no friends, no job I really care about, no Stuart. But it’s not just out of here. When I addressed my résumé to the New York Post, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker magazine, I felt that surge again, the same I’d felt in college, of how much I want to be there. Not Dallas, not Memphis—New York City, where writers are supposed to live. But I’ve heard nothing back from any of them. What if I never leave? What if I’m stuck. Here. Forever?
I lie down and watch the first rays of sun coming through the window. I shiver. That ripping scream, I realize, was me.
I’m STANDING IN BRENT’S Drug Store picking out Mother’s Lustre Cream and a Vinolia soap bar, while Mr. Roberts works on her prescription. Mother says she doesn’t need the medicine anymore, that the only cure for cancer is having a daughter who won’t cut her hair and wears dresses too high above the knee even on Sunday, because who knows what tackiness I’d do to myself if she died.
I’m just grateful Mother’s better. If my fifteen-second engagement to Stuart is what spurred Mother’s will to live, the fact that I’m single again fueled her strength even more. She was clearly disappointed by our breakup, but then bounced back superbly. Mother even went so