"Elaine Stein's office."

"h.e.l.lo, it's Eugenia Phelan, calling long-distance. Is she available?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Phelan, but Missus Stein isn't taking any calls regarding her ma.n.u.script selection."

"Oh. But . . . can you at least tell me if she received it? I mailed it just before the deadline and--"

"One moment please."

The phone goes silent, and a minute or so later she comes back.

"I can confirm that we did receive your package at some point during the holidays. Someone from our office will notify you after Missus Stein has made her decision. Thank you for calling."

I hear the line on the other end click.

A FEW NIGHTS LATER, after a riveting afternoon answering Miss Myrna letters, Stuart and I sit in the relaxing room. I'm glad to see him and to eradicate, for a while, the deadly silence of the house. We sit quietly, watching television. A Tareyton ad comes on, the one where the girl smoking the cigarette has a black eye--Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!

Stuart and I have been seeing each other once a week now. We went to a movie after Christmas and once to dinner in town, but usually he comes out to the house because I don't want to leave Mother. He is hesitant around me, kind of respectfully shy. There is a patience in his eyes that replaces my own panic that I felt with him before. We don't talk about anything serious. He tells me stories about the summer, during college, he spent working on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The showers were salt.w.a.ter. The ocean was crystal clear blue to the bottom. The other men were doing this brutal work to feed their families while Stuart, a rich kid with rich parents, had college to go back to. It was the first time, he said, he'd really had to work hard.

"I'm glad I drilled on the rig back then. I couldn't go off and do it now," he'd said, like it was ages ago and not five years back. He seems older than I remember.

"Why couldn't you do it now?" I asked, because I am looking for a future for myself. I like to hear about the possibilities of others.

He furrowed his brow at me. "Because I couldn't leave you."

I tucked this away, afraid to admit how good it was to hear it.

The commercial is over and we watch the news report. There is a skirmish in Vietnam. The reporter seems to thinks it'll be solved without much fuss.

"Listen," Stuart says after a while of silence between us. "I didn't want to bring this up before but . . . I know what people are saying in town. About you. And I don't care. I just want you to know that."

My first thought is the book. the book. He's heard something. My entire body goes tense. "What did you hear?" He's heard something. My entire body goes tense. "What did you hear?"

"You know. About that trick you played on Hilly."

I relax some, but not completely. I've never talked to anyone about this except Hilly herself. I wonder if Hilly ever called him like she'd threatened.

"And I could see how people would take it, think you're some kind of crazy liberal, involved in all that mess."

I study my hands, still wary of what he might have heard, and a little irritated too. "How do you know," I ask, "what I'm involved in?"

"Because I know you, Skeeter," he says softly. "You're too smart to get mixed up in anything like that. And I told them, too."

I nod, try to smile. Despite what he thinks he "knows" about me, I can't help but appreciate that someone out there cares enough to stand up for me.

"We don't have to talk about this again," he says. "I just wanted you to know. That's all."

On SAt.u.r.dAY EVENING, I say good night to Mother. I have a long coat on so she can't see my outfit. I keep the lights off so she can't comment on my hair. Very little has changed with her health. She doesn't seem to be getting any worse--the vomiting is still at bay--but her skin is grayish white. Her hair has started to fall out. I hold her hands, brush her cheek.

"Daddy, you'll call the restaurant if you need me?"

"I will, Skeeter. Go have some fun."

I get in Stuart's car and he takes me to the Robert E. Lee for dinner. The room is gaudy with gowns, red roses, silver service clinking. There is excitement in the air, the feeling that things are almost back to normal since President Kennedy died; 1964 is a fresh, new year. The glances our way are abundant.

"You look . . . different," Stuart says. I can tell he's been holding in this comment all night, and he seems more confused than impressed. "That dress, it's so . . . short."

I nod and push my hair back. The way he used to do.

This morning, I told Mother I was going shopping. She looked so tired though, I quickly changed my mind. "Maybe I shouldn't go."

But I'd already said it. Mother had me fetch the big checkbook. When I came back she tore out a blank check and then handed me a hundred-dollar bill she had folded in the side of her wallet. Just the word shopping shopping seemed to've made her feel better. seemed to've made her feel better.

"Don't be frugal, now. And no slacks. Make sure Miss LaVole helps you." She rested her head back in her pillows. "She knows how young girls should dress."

But I couldn't stand the thought of Miss LaVole's wrinkled hands on my body, smelling of coffee and mothb.a.l.l.s. I drove right through downtown and got on Highway 51 and headed for New Orleans. I drove through the guilt of leaving Mother for so long, knowing that Doctor Neal was coming by that afternoon and Daddy would be home all day with her.

Three hours later, I walked into Maison Blanche's department store on Ca.n.a.l Street. I'd been there umpteen times with Mother and twice with Elizabeth and Hilly, but I was mesmerized by the vast white marble floors, the miles of hats and gloves and powdered ladies looking so happy, so healthy healthy. Before I could ask for help, a thin man said, "Come with me, I have it all upstairs," and whisked me in the elevator to the third floor, to a room called MODERN WOMEN'S WEAR.

"What is all this?" I asked. There were dozens of women and rock-and-roll playing and champagne gla.s.ses and bright glittering lights.

"Emilio Pucci, darling. Finally!" He stepped back from me and said, "Aren't you here for the preview? You do have an invitation, don't you?"

"Um, somewhere," I said, but he lost interest as I faked through my handbag.

All around me, clothes looked like they'd sprouted roots and bloomed on their hangers. I thought of Miss LaVole and laughed. No easter-egg suits here. Flowers! Big bright stripes! And hemlines that showed several inches of thigh. several inches of thigh. It was electric and gorgeous and dizzying. This Emilio Pucci character must stick his finger in a socket every morning. It was electric and gorgeous and dizzying. This Emilio Pucci character must stick his finger in a socket every morning.

I bought with my blank check enough clothes to fill the back seat of the Cadillac. Then on Magazine Street, I paid forty-five dollars to have my hair lightened and trimmed and ironed straight. It had grown longer over the winter and was the color of dirty dishwater. By four o'clock I was driving back over the Lake Pontchartrain bridge with the radio playing a band called the Rolling Stones and the wind blowing through my satiny, straight hair, and I thought, Tonight, I'll strip off all this armor and let it be as it was before with Stuart. Tonight, I'll strip off all this armor and let it be as it was before with Stuart.

STUART and I eat our Chateaubriand, smiling, talking. He looks off at the other tables, commenting on people he knows. But no one gets up to tell us h.e.l.lo.

"Here's to new beginnings," Stuart says and raises his bourbon.

I nod, sort of wanting to tell him that all beginnings are new. Instead, I smile and toast with my second gla.s.s of wine. I've never really liked alcohol, until today.

After dinner, we walk out into the lobby and see Senator and Missus Whitworth at a table, having drinks. People are around them drinking and talking. They are home for the weekend, Stuart told me earlier, their first since they moved to Washington.

"Stuart, there are your parents. Should we go say h.e.l.lo?"

But Stuart steers me toward the door, practically pushes me outside.

"I don't want Mother to see you in that short dress," he says. "I mean, believe me, it looks great on you, but . . ." He looks down at the hemline. "Maybe that wasn't the best choice for tonight." On the ride home, I think of Elizabeth, in her curlers, afraid the bridge club would see me. Why is it that someone always seems to be ashamed of me?

By the time we make it back to Longleaf, it's eleven o'clock. I smooth my dress, thinking Stuart is right. It is too short. The lights in my parents' bedroom are off, so we sit on the sofa.

I rub my eyes and yawn. When I open them, he's holding a ring between his fingers.

"Oh . . . Jesus."

"I was going to do it at the restaurant but . . ." He grins. "Here is better."

I touch the ring. It is cold and gorgeous. Three rubies are set on both sides of the diamond. I look up at him, feeling very hot all of a sudden. I pull my sweater off my shoulders. I am smiling and about to cry at the same time.

"I have to tell you something, Stuart," I blurt out. "Do you promise you won't tell anyone?"

He stares at me and laughs. "Hang on, did you say yes?"

"Yes, but . . ." I have to know something first. "Can I just have your word?"

He sighs, looks disappointed that I'm ruining his moment. "Sure, you have my word."

I am in shock from his proposal but I do my best to explain. Looking into his eyes, I spread out the facts and what details I can safely share about the book and what I've been doing over the past year. I leave out everyone's name and I pause at the implication of this, knowing it's not good. Even though he is asking to be my husband, I don't know him enough to trust him completely.

"This is what you've been writing about for the past twelve months? Not . . . Jesus Christ?"

"No, Stuart. Not . . . Jesus."

When I tell him that Hilly found the Jim Crow laws in my satchel, his chin drops and I can see that I've confirmed something Hilly already told him about me--something he had the naive trust not to believe.

"The talk... in town. I told them they were dead wrong. But they were . . . right."

When I tell him about the colored maids filing past me after the prayer meeting, I feel a swell of pride over what we've done. He looks down into his empty bourbon gla.s.s.

Then I tell him that the ma.n.u.script has been sent to New York. That if they decide to publish it, it would come out in, my guess is, eight months, maybe sooner. Right around the time, I think to myself, an engagement would turn into a wedding.

"It's been written anonymously," I say, "but with Hilly around, there's still a good chance people will know it was me."

But he's not nodding his head or pushing my hair behind my ear and his grandmother's ring is sitting on Mother's velvet sofa like some ridiculous metaphor. We are both silent. His eyes don't even meet mine. They stay a steady two inches to the right of my face.

After a minute, he says, "I just . . . I don't understand why you would do this. Why do you even . . . care care about this, Skeeter?" about this, Skeeter?"

I bristle, look down at the ring, so sharp and shiny.

"I didn't . . . mean it like that," he starts again. "What I mean is, things are fine around here. Why would you want to go stirring up trouble?"

I can tell, in his voice, he sincerely wants an answer from me. But how to explain it? He is a good man, Stuart. As much as I know that what I've done is right, I can still understand his confusion and doubt.

"I'm not making trouble, Stuart. The trouble is already here."

But clearly, this isn't the answer he is looking for. "I don't know you."

I look down, remembering that I'd thought this same thing only moments ago. "I guess we'll have the rest of our lives to fix that," I say, trying to smile.

"I don't . . . think I can marry somebody I don't know."

I suck in a breath. My mouth opens but I can't say anything for a little while.

"I had to tell you," I say, more to myself than him. "You needed to know."

He studies me for a few moments. "You have my word. I won't tell anyone," he says, and I believe him. He may be many things, Stuart, but he's not a liar.

He stands up. He gives me one last, lost look. And then he picks up the ring and walks out.

THAT NIGHT, after Stuart has left, I wander from room to room, dry-mouthed, cold. Cold is what I'd prayed for when Stuart left me the first time. Cold is what I got.

At midnight, I hear Mother's voice calling from her bedroom.

"Eugenia? Is that you?"

I walk down the hall. The door is half open and Mother is sitting up in her starchy white nightgown. Her hair is down around her shoulders. I am struck by how beautiful she looks. The back porch light is on, casting a white halo around her entire body. She smiles and her new dentures are still in, the ones Dr. Simon cast for her when her teeth starting eroding from the stomach acid. Her smile is whiter, even, than in her teen pageant pictures.

"Mama, what can I get you? Is it bad?"

"Come here, Eugenia. I want to tell you something."

I go to her quietly. Daddy is a long sleeping lump, his back to her. And I think, I could tell her a better version of tonight. We all know there's very little time. I could make her happy in her last days, pretend that the wedding is going to happen.

"I have something to tell you, too," I say.

"Oh? You go first."

"Stuart proposed," I say, faking a smile. Then I panic, knowing she'll ask to see the ring.

"I know," she says.

"You do?"

She nods. "Of course. He came by here two weeks ago and asked Carlton and me for your hand."

Two weeks ago? I almost laugh. Of course Mother was the first to know something so important. I'm happy she's had so long to enjoy the news.

"And I have something to tell you," she says. The glow around Mother is unearthly, phosph.o.r.escent. It's from the porch light, but I wonder why I've never seen it before. She clasps my hand in the air with the healthy grip of a mother holding her newly engaged daughter. Daddy stirs, then sits straight up.

"What?" he gasps. "Are you sick?"

"No, Carlton. I'm fine. I told you."

He nods numbly, closes his eyes, and is asleep before he has even lain down again.

"What's your news, Mama?"

"I've had a long talk with your daddy and I have made a decision."

"Oh G.o.d," I sigh. I can just see her explaining it to Stuart when he asked for my hand. "Is this about the trust fund?"

"No, it's not that," she says and I think, Then it must be something about the wedding. Then it must be something about the wedding. I feel a shuddering sadness that Mother will not be here to plan my wedding, not only because she'll be dead, but because there is no wedding. And yet, I also feel a horrifyingly guilty relief that I won't have to go through this with her. I feel a shuddering sadness that Mother will not be here to plan my wedding, not only because she'll be dead, but because there is no wedding. And yet, I also feel a horrifyingly guilty relief that I won't have to go through this with her.

"Now I know you've noticed that things have been on the uptick these past few weeks," she says. "And I know what Doctor Neal says, that it's some kind of last strength, some nonsense ab--" She coughs and her thin body arches over like a sh.e.l.l. I give her a tissue and she frowns, dabs at her mouth.