" 'Dear Miss Myrna,' " I read, " 'how do I remove the rings from my fat slovenly husband's shirt collar when he is such a pig and . . . and sweats like one too . . .' " " 'how do I remove the rings from my fat slovenly husband's shirt collar when he is such a pig and . . . and sweats like one too . . .' "

Wonderful. A column on cleaning and relationships. Two Two things I know absolutely nothing about. things I know absolutely nothing about.

"Which one she want a get rid of?" Aibileen asks. "The rings or the husband?"

I stare at the page. I wouldn't know how to instruct her to do either one.

"Tell her a vinegar and Pine-Sol soak. Then let it set in the sun a little while."

I write it quickly on my pad. "Sit in the sun for how long?"

"Bout an hour. Let it dry."

I pull out the next letter and, just as quickly, she answers it. After four or five, I exhale, relieved.

"Thank you, Aibileen. You have no idea how much this helps."

"Ain't no trouble. Long as Miss Leefolt don't need me."

I gather up my papers and take a last sip of my c.o.ke, letting myself relax for five seconds before I have to go write the article. Aibileen picks through a sack of green fiddleheads. The room is quiet except for the radio playing softly, Preacher Green again.

"How did you know Constantine? Were you related?"

"We . . . in the same church circle." Aibileen shifts her feet in front of the sink.

I feel what has become a familiar sting. "She didn't even leave an address. I just--I can't believe she quit like that."

Aibileen keeps her eyes down. She seems to be studying the fiddleheads very carefully. "No, I'm right sure she was let go."

"No, Mama said she quit. Back in April. Went to live up in Chicago with her people."

Aibileen picks up another fiddlehead, starts washing its long stem, the curly green ends. "No ma'am," she says after a pause.

It takes me a few seconds to realize what we're talking about here.

"Aibileen," I say, trying to catch her eye. "You really think Constantine was fired?"

But Aibileen's face has gone blank as the blue sky. "I must be misrememoring," she says and I can tell she thinks she's said too much to a white woman.

We hear Mae Mobley calling out and Aibileen excuses herself and heads through the swinging door. A few seconds pa.s.s before I have the sense to go home.

WHEN I Walk in THE HOUSE ten minutes later, Mother is reading at the dining room table.

"Mother," I say, clutching my notebook to my chest, "did you fire fire Constantine?" Constantine?"

"Did I . . . what what?" Mother asks. But I know she's heard me because she's set the DAR newsletter down. It takes a hard question to pull her eyes off that riveting material.

"Eugenia, I told you, her sister was sick so she went up to Chicago to live with her people," she says. "Why? Who told you different?"

I would never in a million years tell her it was Aibileen. "I heard it this afternoon. In town."

"Who would talk about such a thing?" Mother narrows her eyes behind her reading gla.s.ses. "It must've been one of the other Nigras."

"What did you do do to her, Mother?" to her, Mother?"

Mother licks her lips, gives me a good, long look over her bifocals. "You wouldn't understand, Eugenia. Not until you've hired help of your own."

"You . . . fired fired her? For what?" her? For what?"

"It doesn't matter. It's behind me now and I just won't think about it another minute."

"Mother, she raised me. You tell me right now what happened!" I'm disgusted by the squeakiness of my voice, the childish sound of my demands.

Mother raises her eyebrows at my tone, takes her gla.s.ses off. "It was nothing but a colored thing. And that's all I'm saying." She puts her gla.s.ses back on and lifts her DAR sheet to her eyes.

I'm shaking, I'm so mad. I pound my way up the stairs. I sit at my typewriter, stunned that my mother could cast off someone who'd done her the biggest favor of her life, raise her children, teach me kindness and self-respect. I stare across my room at the rose wallpaper, the eyelet curtains, the yellowing photographs so familiar they are nearly contemptible. Constantine worked for our family for twenty-nine years.

FOR THE NEXT WEEK, Daddy rises before dawn. I wake to truck motors, the chug of the combines starting, the hollers to hurry. The fields are brown and crisp with dead cotton stalks, defoliated so the machines can get to the bolls. Cotton harvest is here.

Daddy doesn't even stop for church during harvest time, but on Sunday night, I catch him in the dusky hall, between his supper and sleep. "Daddy?" I ask. "Will you tell me what happened to Constantine?"

He is so dog-tired, he sighs before he answers.

"How could Mother fire her, Daddy?"

"What? Darlin', Constantine quit. You know your mother would never fire her." He looks disappointed in me for asking such a thing.

"Do you know where she went? Or have her address?"

He shakes his head no. "Ask your mama, she'll know." He pats my shoulder. "People move on, Skeeter. But I wish she'd stayed down here with us."

He wanders down the hall to bed. He is too honest a man to hide things so I know he doesn't have any more facts about it than I do.

That week and every week, sometimes twice, I stop by Elizabeth's to talk to Aibileen. Each time, Elizabeth looks a little warier. The longer I stay in the kitchen, the more ch.o.r.es Elizabeth comes up with until I leave: the doork.n.o.bs need polishing, the top of the refrigerator needs dusting, Mae Mobley's fingernails could use a trim. Aibileen is no more than cordial with me, nervous, stands at the kitchen sink and never stops working. It's not long before I am ahead of copy and Mister Golden seems pleased with the column, the first two of which only took me about twenty minutes to write.

And every week, I ask Aibileen about Constantine. Can't she get her address for me? Can't she tell me anything about why she got fired? Was there a big to-do, because I just can't imagine Constantine saying yes ma'am yes ma'am and walking out the back door. Mama'd get cross with her about a tarnished spoon and Constantine would serve her toast burned up for a week. I can only imagine how a firing would've gone. and walking out the back door. Mama'd get cross with her about a tarnished spoon and Constantine would serve her toast burned up for a week. I can only imagine how a firing would've gone.

It hardly matters, though, because all Aibileen will do is shrug at me, say she don't know nothing.

One afternoon, after asking Aibileen how to get out tough tub rings (never having scrubbed a bathtub in my life), I come home. I walk past the relaxing room. The television set is on and I glance at it. Pascagoula's standing about five inches away from the screen. I hear the words Ole Miss Ole Miss and on the fuzzy screen I see white men in dark suits crowding the camera, sweat running off their bald heads. I come closer and see a Negro man, about my age, standing in the middle of the white men, with Army men behind him. The picture pans back and there is my old administration building. Governor Ross Barnett stands with his arms crossed, looking the tall Negro in the eye. Next to the governor is our Senator Whitworth, whose son Hilly's been trying to set me up with on a blind date. and on the fuzzy screen I see white men in dark suits crowding the camera, sweat running off their bald heads. I come closer and see a Negro man, about my age, standing in the middle of the white men, with Army men behind him. The picture pans back and there is my old administration building. Governor Ross Barnett stands with his arms crossed, looking the tall Negro in the eye. Next to the governor is our Senator Whitworth, whose son Hilly's been trying to set me up with on a blind date.

I watch the television, riveted. Yet I am neither thrilled nor disappointed by the news that they might let a colored man into Ole Miss, just surprised. Pascagoula, though, is breathing so loud I can hear her. She stands stock-still, not aware I am behind her. Roger Sticker, our local reporter, is nervous, smiling, talking fast. "President Kennedy has ordered the governor to step aside for James Meredith, I repeat, the President of the United--"

"Eugenia, Pascagoula! Turn that set off right this minute!"

Pascagoula jerks around to see me and Mother. She rushes out of the room, her eyes to the floor.

"Now, I won't have it, Eugenia," Mother whispers. "I won't have you encouraging them like that."

"Encouraging? It's nationwide news, Mama."

Mother sniffs. "It is not appropriate for the two of you to watch together," and she flips the channel, stops on an afternoon rerun of Lawrence Welk.

"Look, isn't this so much nicer?"

On a HOT SAt.u.r.dAY in late September, the cotton fields chopped and empty, Daddy carries a new RCA color television set into the house. He moves the black-and-white one to the kitchen. Smiling and proud, he plugs the new TV into the wall of the relaxing room. The Ole Miss versus LSU football game blares through the house for the rest of the afternoon.

Mama, of course, is glued to the color picture, oohing and aahing at the vibrant reds and blues of the team. She and Daddy live by Rebel football. She's dressed up in red wool pants despite the sweltering heat and has Daddy's old Kappa Alpha blanket draped on the chair. No one mentions James Meredith, the colored student they let in.

I take the Cadillac and head into town. Mother finds it inexplicable that I don't want to watch my alma mater throw a ball around. But Elizabeth and her family are at Hilly's watching the game so Aibileen's working in the house alone. I'm hoping it'll be a little easier on Aibileen if Elizabeth's not there. Truth is, I'm hoping she'll tell me something, anything, about Constantine.

Aibileen lets me in and I follow her back to the kitchen. She seems only the smallest bit more relaxed in Elizabeth's empty house. She eyes the kitchen table, like she wants to sit today. But when I ask her, she answers, "No, I'm fine. You go head." She takes a tomato from a pan in the sink and starts to peel it with a knife.

So I lean against the counter and present the latest conundrum: how to keep the dogs from getting into your trashcans outside. Because your lazy husband forgets to put it out on the right pick-up day. Since he drinks all that d.a.m.n beer.

"Just pour some pneumonia in that garbage. Dogs won't so much as wink at them cans." I jot it down, amending it to ammonia, and pick out the next letter. When I look up, Aibileen's kind of smiling at me.

"I don't mean nothing disrespectful, Miss Skeeter, but . . . ain't it kind a strange you being the new Miss Myrna when you don't know nothing about housekeeping?"

She didn't say it the way Mother did, a month ago. I find myself laughing instead, and I tell her what I've told no one else, about the phone calls and the resume I'd sent to Harper & Row. That I want to be a writer. The advice I received from Elaine Stein. It's nice to tell somebody.

Aibileen nods, turns her knife around another soft red tomato. "My boy Treelore, he like to write."

"I didn't know you had a son."

"He dead. Two years now."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I say and for a moment it's just Preacher Green in the room, the soft pat of tomato skins against the sink.

"Made straight As on ever English test he take. Then later, when he grown, he pick himself up a typewriter and start working on a idea . . ." The pin-tucked shoulders of her uniform slump down. "Say he gone write himself a book."

"What kind of idea?" I ask. "I mean, if you don't mind telling . . ."

Aibileen says nothing for a while. Keeps peeling tomatoes around and around. "He read this book call Invisible Man. Invisible Man. When he done, he say he gone write down what it was like to be colored working for a white man in Mississippi." When he done, he say he gone write down what it was like to be colored working for a white man in Mississippi."

I look away, knowing this is where my mother would stop the conversation. This is where she'd smile and change the subject to the price of silver polish or white rice.

"I read Invisible Man Invisible Man, too, after he did," Aibileen says. "I liked it alright."

I nod, even though I've never read it. I hadn't thought of Aibileen as a reader before.

"He wrote almost fifty pages," she says. "I let his girl Frances keep hold of em."

Aibileen stops peeling. I see her throat move when she swallows. "Please don't tell n.o.body that," she says, softer now, "him wanting to write about his white boss." She bites her lip and it strikes me then that she's still afraid for him. Even though he's dead, the instinct to be afraid for her son is still there.

"It's fine that you told me, Aibileen. I think it was . . . a brave idea."

Aibileen holds my gaze for a moment. Then she picks up another tomato and sets the knife against the skin. I watch, wait for the red juice to spill. But Aibileen stops before she cuts, glances at the kitchen door.

"I don't think it's fair, you not knowing what happen to Constantine. I just--I'm sorry, I don't feel right talking to you about it."

I stay quiet, not sure what's spurred this, not wanting to ruin it.

"I'll tell you though, it was something to do with her daughter. Coming to see your mama."

"Daughter? Constantine never told me she had a daughter." I knew Constantine for twenty-three years. Why would she keep this from me?

"It was hard for her. The baby come out real . . . pale."

I hold still, remembering what Constantine told me, years ago. "You mean, light? Like . . . white?"

Aibileen nods, keeping at her task in the sink. "Had to send her away, up north I think."

"Constantine's father was white," I say. "Oh . . . Aibileen . . . you don't think . . ." An ugly thought is running through my head. I am too shocked to finish my sentence.

Aibileen shakes her head. "No no, no ma'am. Not... that. Constantine's man, Connor, he was colored. But since Constantine had her daddy's blood in her, her baby come out a high yellow. It . . . happens."

I feel ashamed for having thought the worst. Still, I don't understand. "Why didn't Constantine ever tell me?" I ask, not really expecting an answer. "Why would she send her away?"

Aibileen nods to herself, like she understands. But I don't. "That was the worst off I ever seen her. Constantine must a said a thousand times, she couldn't wait for the day when she got her back."

"You said the daughter, she had something to do with Constantine getting fired? What happened?"

At this, Aibileen's face goes blank. The curtain has drawn. She nods toward the Miss Myrna letters, making it clear that's all she's willing to say. At least right now.

THAT AFTERNOON, I stop by Hilly's football party. The street is lined with station wagons and long Buicks. I force myself through the door, knowing I'll be the only single one there. Inside, the living room is full of couples on the sofas, the chaises, the arms of chairs. Wives sit straight with their legs crossed, while husbands lean forward. All eyes are on the wooden television set. I stand in the back, exchange a few smiles, silent h.e.l.los. Except for the announcer, the room is quiet.

"Whooooooa!" they all yell and hands fly in the air and women stand and clap and clap. I chew at my cuticle. they all yell and hands fly in the air and women stand and clap and clap. I chew at my cuticle.

"That's it, Rebels! You show those Tigers!"

"Go, Rebels!" cheers Mary Frances Truly, jumping up and down in her matching sweater set. I look at my nail where my cuticle hangs off, stinging and pink. The room is thick with bourbon-smell and red wool and diamond rings. I wonder if the girls really care about football, or if they just act this way to impress their husbands. In my four months of being in the League, I've never once had a girl ask me, "How bout them Rebs?"

I chat my way through some couples until I make it to the kitchen. Hilly's tall, thin maid, Yule May, is folding dough around tiny sausages. Another colored girl, younger, washes dishes at the sink. Hilly waves me over, where she's talking to Deena Doran.

". . . best darn pet.i.t four I've ever tasted! Deena, you might be the most talented cook in the League!" Hilly stuffs the rest of the cake in her mouth, nodding and mm-mming.

"Why, thank you, Hilly, they're hard but I think they're worth it." Deena is beaming, looks like she might cry under Hilly's adoration.

"So you'll do it? Oh, I'm so glad. The bake sale committee really really needs somebody like you." needs somebody like you."

"And how many did you need?"

"Five hundred, by tomorrow afternoon."

Deena's smile freezes. "Okay. I guess I can . . . work through the night."

"Skeeter, you made it," Hilly says and Deena wanders out of the kitchen.