got to tell me.
“The stores are asking for more books, Aibileen. Missus Stein called this afternoon.” She take my hands. “They’re going to do another print run. Five thousand more copies.”
I just look at her. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t even know they could do that,” I say and I cover my mouth. Our book is setting in five thousand houses, on they bookshelves, next to they night tables, behind they toilets?
“There’ll be more money coming. At least one hundred dollars to each of you. And who knows? Maybe there’ll be more.”
I put my hand on my heart. I ain’t spent a cent a the first sixty-one dollars and now she telling me they’s more?
“And there’s something else.” Miss Skeeter look down at the satchel. “I went to the paper on Friday and quit the Miss Myrna job.” She takes a deep breath. “And I told Mr. Golden, I think the next Miss Myrna should be you.”
“Me?”
“I told him you’ve been giving me the answers all along. He said he’d think about it and today he called me and said yes, as long as you don’t tell anybody and you write the answers like Miss Myrna did.”
She pull a blue-cloth notebook out a her satchel, hand it to me. “He said he’ll pay you the same as me, ten dollars a week.”
Me? Working for the white newspaper? I go to the sofa and open the notebook, see all them letters and articles from past times. Miss Skeeter set beside me.
“Thank you, Miss Skeeter. For this, for everthing.”
She smile, take a deep breath like she fighting back tears.
“I can’t believe you gone be a New Yorker tomorrow,” I say.
“Actually, I’m going to go to Chicago first. Only for one night. I want to see Constantine, her grave.”
I nod. “I’m glad.”
“Mother showed me the obituary. It’s right outside of town. And then I’ll go to New York the next morning.”
“You tell Constantine Aibileen say hello.”
She laugh. “I’m so nervous. I’ve never been to Chicago or New York. I’ve never even been on an airplane before.”
We set there a second, listening to the storm. I think about the first time Miss Skeeter came to my house, how awkward we was. Now I feel like we family.
“Are you scared, Aibileen?” she asks. “Of what might happen?”
I turn so she can’t see my eyes. “I’m alright.”
“Sometimes, I don’t know if this was worth it. If something happens to you . . . how am I going to live with that, knowing it was because of me?” She presses her hand over her eyes, like she don’t want to see what’s gone happen.
I go to my bedroom and bring out the package from Reverend Johnson. She take off the paper and stare at the book, all the names signed in it. “I was gone send it to you in New York, but I think you need to have it now.”
“I don’t . . . understand,” she say. “This is for me?”
“Yes ma’am.” Then I pass on the Reverend’s message, that she is part of our family. “You need to remember, ever one a these signatures means it was worth it.” She read the thank-yous, the little things they wrote, run her fingers over the ink. Tears fill up her eyes.
“I reckon Constantine would a been real proud a you.”
Miss Skeeter smile and I see how young she is. After all we written and the hours we spent tired and worried, I ain’t seen the girl she still is in a long, long time.
“Are you sure it’s alright? If I leave you, with everything so . . .”
“Go to New York, Miss Skeeter. Go find your life.”
She smile, blinking back the tears, and say, “Thank you.”
THAT NIGHT I lay in bed thinking. I am so happy for Miss Skeeter. She starting her whole life over. Tears run down my temples into my ears, thinking about her walking down them big city avenues I seen on tee-vee with her long hair behind her. Part a me wishes I could have a new start too. The cleaning article, that’s new. But I’m not young. My life’s about done.
The harder I try to sleep, the more I know I’m on be up most a the night. It’s like I can feel the buzz all over town, of people talking about the book. How can anybody sleep with all them bees? I think about Flora Lou, how if Hilly wasn’t telling people the book ain’t Jackson, Miss Hester would