I look around, try to think of a lie, but finally I just sigh. "He knows. Mister Johnny came home and found me."

"What?"

"Yes'm. He tell me not to tell you so you go right on thinking he's proud a you. He love you so much, Miss Celia. I seen it in his face how much."

"But . . . how long has he known?"

"A few . . . months."

"Months? Was he--was he upset that I'd lied?"

"Heck no. He even call me up at home a few weeks later to make sure I didn't have no plans to quit. Say he afraid he gone starve if I left."

"Oh Minny," she cries. "I'm sorry. I'm real sorry about everything."

"I been in worse situations." I'm thinking about the blue hair dye. Eating lunch in the freezing cold. And right now. There's still the baby in the toilet that someone's going to have to deal with.

"I don't know what to do, Minny."

"Doctor Tate tell you to keep trying, then I guess you keep trying."

"He hollers at me. Says I'm wasting my time in bed." She shakes her head. "He's a mean, awful man."

She presses the towel hard against her eyes. "I can't do this anymore." And the harder she cries, the whiter she turns.

I try to feed her a few more sips of Co-Cola but she won't take it. She can't hardly lift her hand to wave it away.

"I'm going to . . . be sick. I'm--"

I grab the garbage can, watch as Miss Celia vomits over it. And then I feel something wet on me and I look down and the blood's coming so fast now, it's leaked over to where I'm sitting. Everytime she heaves, the blood pushes out of her. I know she losing more than a person can handle.

"Sit up, Miss Celia! Get a good breath, now," I say, but she's slumping against me.

"Nuh-uh, you don't want a lay down. Come on." I push her back up but she's gone limp and I feel tears spring up in my eyes because that d.a.m.n doctor should be here by now. He should've sent an ambulance and in the twenty-five years I've been cleaning houses n.o.body ever tells you what to do when your white lady keels over dead on top of you.

"Come on, Miss Celia!" I scream, but she's a soft white lump next to me, and there is nothing I can do but sit and tremble and wait.

Many minutes pa.s.s before the back bell rings. I prop Miss Celia's head on a towel, take off my shoes so I don't track the blood over the house, and run for the door.

"She done pa.s.sed out!" I tell the doctor, and the nurse pushes past me and heads to the back like she knows her way around. She pulls the smelling salts out and puts them under Miss Celia's nose and Miss Celia jerks her head, lets out a little cry, and opens her eyes.

The nurse helps me get Miss Celia out of her b.l.o.o.d.y nightgown. She's got her eyes open but can hardly stand up. I put old towels down in the bed and we lay her down. I go in the kitchen where Doctor Tate's washing his hands.

"She in the bedroom," I say. Not the kitchen, you snake. Not the kitchen, you snake. He's in his fifties, Doctor Tate, and tops me by a good foot and a half. He has real white skin and this long, narrow face that shows no feelings at all. Finally he goes back to the bedroom. He's in his fifties, Doctor Tate, and tops me by a good foot and a half. He has real white skin and this long, narrow face that shows no feelings at all. Finally he goes back to the bedroom.

Just before he opens the door, I touch him on the arm. "She don't want her husband to know. He ain't gone find out, is he?"

He looks at me like I'm a n.i.g.g.e.r and says, "You don't think it's his business?" He walks into the bedroom and shuts the door in my face.

I go to the kitchen and pace the floor. Half an hour pa.s.ses, then an hour, and I'm worrying so hard that Mister Johnny's going to come home and find out, worrying Doctor Tate will call him, worrying they're going to leave that baby in the bowl for me to deal with, my head's throbbing. Finally, I hear Doctor Tate open the door.

"She alright?"

"She's hysterical. I gave her a pill to calm her down."

The nurse walks around us and out the back door carrying a white tin box. I breathe out for what feels like the first time in hours.

"You watch her tomorrow," he says and hands me a white paper bag. "Give her another pill if she gets too agitated. There'll be more bleeding. But don't call me up unless it's heavy."

"You ain't really gone tell Mister Johnny bout this, are you, Doctor Tate?"

He lets out a sick hiss. "You make sure she doesn't miss her appointment on Friday. I'm not driving all the way out here just because she's too lazy to come in."

He waltzes out and slams the door behind him.

The kitchen clock reads five o'clock. Mister Johnny's going to be home in half an hour. I grab the Clorox and the rags and a bucket.

MISS SKEETER.

chapter 19.

IT is 1963. The s.p.a.ce Age they're calling it. A man has circled the earth in a rocketship. They've invented a pill so married women don't have to get pregnant. A can of beer opens with a single finger instead of a can opener. Yet my parents' house is still as hot as it was in 1899, the year Great-grandfather built it.

"Mama, please," I beg, "when are we going to get air-conditioning?"

"We have survived this long without electric cool and I have no intentions of setting one of those tacky contraptions in my window."

And so, as July wanes on, I am forced from my attic bedroom to a cot on the screened back porch. When we were kids, Constantine used to sleep out here with Carlton and me in the summer, when Mama and Daddy went to out-of-town weddings. Constantine slept in an old-fashioned white nightgown up to her chin and down to her toes even though it'd be hot as Hades. She used to sing to us so we'd go to sleep. Her voice was so beautiful I couldn't understand how she'd never had lessons. Mother had always told me a person can't learn anything without proper lessons. It's just unreal to me that she was here, right here on this porch, and now she's not. And no one will tell me a thing. I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

Next to my cot, now, my typewriter sits on a rusted, white enamel washtable. Underneath is my red satchel. I take Daddy's hankie and wipe my forehead, press salted ice to my wrists. Even on the back porch, the Avery Lumber Company temperature dial rises from 89 to 96 to a nice round 100 degrees. Luckily, Stuart doesn't come over during the day, when the heat is at its worst.

I stare at my typewriter with nothing to do, nothing to write. Minny's stories are finished and typed already. It's a wretched feeling. Two weeks ago, Aibileen told me that Yule May, Hilly's maid, might help us, that she shows a little more interest every time Aibileen talks to her. But with Medgar Evers's murder and colored people getting arrested and beat by the police, I'm sure she's scared to death by now.

Maybe I ought to go over to Hilly's and ask Yule May myself. But no, Aibileen's right, I'd probably scare her even more and ruin any chance we have.

Under the house, the dogs yawn, whine in the heat. One lets out a half-hearted woof as Daddy's field workers, five Negroes, pull up in a truckbed. The men jump from the tailgate, hoofing up dust when they hit the dirt. They stand a moment, dead-faced, stupefied. The foreman drags a red cloth across his black forehead, his lips, his neck. It is so recklessly hot, I don't know how they can stand baking out there in the sun.

In a rare breeze, my copy of Life Life magazine flutters. Audrey Hepburn smiles on the cover, no sweat beading on her upper lip. I pick it up and finger the wrinkled pages, flip to the story on the Soviet s.p.a.ce Girl. I already know what's on the next page. Behind her face is a picture of Carl Roberts, a colored schoolteacher from Pelahatchie, forty miles from here. "In April, Carl Roberts told Washington reporters what it means to be a black man in Mississippi, calling the governor 'a pathetic man with the morals of a streetwalker. ' Roberts was found cattle-branded and hung from a pecan tree." magazine flutters. Audrey Hepburn smiles on the cover, no sweat beading on her upper lip. I pick it up and finger the wrinkled pages, flip to the story on the Soviet s.p.a.ce Girl. I already know what's on the next page. Behind her face is a picture of Carl Roberts, a colored schoolteacher from Pelahatchie, forty miles from here. "In April, Carl Roberts told Washington reporters what it means to be a black man in Mississippi, calling the governor 'a pathetic man with the morals of a streetwalker. ' Roberts was found cattle-branded and hung from a pecan tree."

They'd killed Carl Roberts for speaking out, for talking talking. I think about how easy I thought it would be, three months ago, to get a dozen maids to talk to me. Like they'd just been waiting, all this time, to spill their stories to a white woman. How stupid I'd been.

When I can't take the heat another second, I go sit in the only cool place on Longleaf. I turn on the ignition and roll up the windows, pull my dress up around my underwear and let the bi-level blow on me full blast. As I lean my head back, the world drifts away, tinged by the smell of Freon and Cadillac leather. I hear a truck pull up into the front drive but I don't open my eyes. A second later, my pa.s.senger door opens.

"d.a.m.n it feels good in here."

I push my dress down. "What are you doing here?"

Stuart shuts the door, kisses me quickly on the lips. "I only have a minute. I have to head down to the coast for a meeting."

"For how long?"

"Three days. I've got to catch some fella on the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board. I wish I'd known about it sooner."

He reaches out and takes my hand and I smile. We've been going out twice a week for two months now if you don't count the horror date. I guess that's considered a short time to other girls. But it's the longest thing that's ever happened to me, and right now it feels like the best.

"Wanna come?" he says.

"To Biloxi? Right now?"

"Right now," he says and puts his cool palm on my leg. As always, I jump a little. I look down at his hand, then up to make sure Mother's not spying on us.

"Come on, it's too d.a.m.n hot here. I'm staying at the Edgewater, right on the beach."

I laugh and it feels good after all the worrying I've done these past weeks. "You mean, at the Edgewater . . . together? In the same room?"

He nods. "Think you can get away?"

Elizabeth would be mortified by the thought of sharing a room with a man before she was married, Hilly would tell me I was stupid to even consider it. They'd held on to their virginity with the fierceness of children refusing to share their toys. And yet, I consider it.

Stuart moves closer to me. He smells like pine trees and fired tobacco, expensive soap the likes of which my family's never known. "Mama'd have a fit, Stuart, plus I have all this other stuff to do . . ." But G.o.d, he smells good. He's looking at me like he wants to eat me up and I shiver under the blast of Cadillac air.

"You sure?" he whispers and he kisses me then, on the mouth, not so politely as before. His hand is still on the upper quarter of my thigh and I find myself wondering again if he was like this with his fiancee, Patricia. I don't even know if they went to bed together. The thought of them touching makes me feel sick and I pull back from him.

"I just . . . I can't," I say. "You know I couldn't tell Mama the truth . . ."

He lets out a long sorry sigh and I love that look on his face, that disappointment. I understand now why girls resist, just for that sweet look of regret. "Don't lie to her," he says. "You know I hate lies."

"Will you call me from the hotel?" I ask.

"I will," he says. "I'm sorry I have to leave so soon. Oh, and I almost forgot, in three weeks, Sat.u.r.day night. Mother and Daddy want y'all to come have supper."

I sit up straighter. I've never met his parents before. "What do you mean . . . y'all?"

"You and your parents. Come into town, meet my family."

"But . . . why all of us?"

He shrugs. "My parents want to meet them. And I want them to meet you."

"But . . ."

"I'm sorry, baby," he says and pushes my hair behind my ear, "I have to go. Call you tomorrow night?"

I nod. He climbs out into the heat and drives off, waving to Daddy walking up the dusty lane.

I'm left alone in the Cadillac to worry. Supper at the state senator's house. With Mother there asking a thousand questions. Looking desperate on my behalf. Bringing up cotton trust funds.

THREE EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG, hot nights later, with still no word from Yule May or any other maids, Stuart comes over, straight from his meeting on the coast. I'm sick of sitting at the typewriter typing nothing but newsletters and Miss Myrna. I run down the steps and he hugs me like it's been weeks.

Stuart's sunburned beneath his white shirt, the back wrinkled from driving, the sleeves rolled up. He wears a perpetual, almost devilish smile. We both sit straight up on opposite sides of the relaxing room, staring at each other. We're waiting for Mother to go to bed. Daddy went to sleep when the sun went down.

Stuart's eyes hang on mine while Mother waxes on about the heat, how Carlton's finally met "the one."

"And we're thrilled about dining with your parents, Stuart. Please do tell your mother I said so."

"Yes ma'am. I sure will."

He smiles over at me again. There are so many things I love about him. He looks me straight in the eye when we talk. His palms are callused but his nails are clean and trimmed. I love the rough feeling on my neck. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it's nice to have someone to go to weddings and parties with. Not to have to endure the look in Raleigh Leefolt's eyes when he sees that I'm tagging along again. The sullen daze when he has to carry my coat with Elizabeth's, fetch me a drink too.

Then there is Stuart at the house. From the minute he walks in, I am protected, exempt. Mother won't criticize me in front of him, for fear he might notice my flaws himself. She won't nag me in front of him because she knows that I'd act badly, whine. Short my chances. It's all a big game to Mother, to show only one side of me, that the real me shouldn't come out until after it's "too late."

Finally, at half past nine, Mother smoothes her skirt, folds a blanket slowly and perfectly, like a cherished letter. "Well, I guess it's time for bed. I'll let you young people alone. Eugenia?" She eyes me. "Not too late, now?"

I smile sweetly. I am twenty-three G.o.dd.a.m.n years old. "Of course not, Mama."

She leaves and we sit, staring, smiling.

Waiting.

Mother pads around the kitchen, closes a window, runs some water. A few seconds pa.s.s and we hear the clack-click of her bedroom door shutting. Stuart stands and says, "Come here here," and he's on my side of the room in one stride and he claps my hands to his hips and kisses my mouth like I am the drink he's been dying for all day and I've heard girls say it's like melting, that feeling. But I think it's like rising, growing even taller and seeing sights over a hedge, colors you've never seen before.

I have to make myself pull away. I have things to say. "Come here. Sit down."

We sit side by side on the sofa. He tries to kiss me again, but I back my head away. I try not to look at the way his sunburn makes his eyes so blue. Or the way the hairs on his arms are golden, bleached.

"Stuart--" I swallow, ready myself for the dreaded question. "When you were engaged, were your parents disappointed? When whatever happened with Patricia . . . happened?"

Immediately a stiffness forms around his mouth. He eyes me. "Mother was disappointed. They were close."

Already I regret having brought it up, but I have to know. "How close?"

He glances around the room. "Do you have anything in the house? Bourbon?"

I go to the kitchen and pour him a gla.s.s from Pascagoula's cooking bottle, top it off with plenty of water. Stuart made it clear the first time he showed up on my porch his fiancee was a bad subject. But I need to know what this thing was that happened. Not just because I'm curious. I've never been in a relationship. I need to know what const.i.tutes breaking up forever. I need to know how many rules you can break before you're thrown out, and what those rules even are in the first place.

"So they were good friends?" I ask. I'll be meeting his mother in two weeks. Mother's already set on our shopping trip to Kennington's tomorrow.

He takes a long drink, frowns. "They'd get in a room and swap notes on flower arrangements and who married who." All traces of his mischievous smile are gone now. "Mother was pretty shook up. After it . . . fell apart."

"So . . . she'll be comparing me to Patricia?"