I didn’t work the Benefit this year, first time in a decade. The money’s pretty good, but I just couldn’t risk running into Miss Hilly.

“Could you tell her Celia Foote called again? I left her a message a few days back . . .”

Miss Celia’s voice is chipper, like she’s peddling something on the tee-vee. Every time I hear it, I want to jerk the phone out of her hand, tell her to quit wasting her time. Because never mind she looks like a hussy. There’s a bigger reason why Miss Celia doesn’t have any friends and I knew it the minute I saw that picture of Mister Johnny. I’ve served enough bridge club luncheons to know something about every white woman in this town. Mister Johnny dumped Miss Hilly for Miss Celia back in college, and Miss Hilly never got over him.

I WALK IN THE CHURCH on Wednesday night. It’s not but half full since it’s only a quarter to seven and the choir doesn’t start singing until seven thirty. But Aibileen asked me to come early so here I am. I’m curious what she has to say. Plus Leroy was in a good mood and playing with the kids so I figure, if he wants them, he can have them.

I see Aibileen in our usual pew, left side, fourth from the front, right by the window fan. We’re prime members and we deserve a prime spot. She’s got her hair smoothed back, a little roll of pencil curls around her neck. She’s wearing a blue dress with big white buttons that I’ve never seen before. Aibileen has white lady clothes out the wazoo. White ladies love giving her their old stuff. As usual, she looks plump and respectable, but for all her prim and proper, Aibileen can still tell a dirty joke that’ll make you tinkle in your pants.

I walk up the aisle, see Aibileen frown at something, creasing her forehead. For a second I can see the fifteen-odd years between us. But then she smiles and her face goes young and fat again.

“Lord,” I say as soon as I’m settled in.

“I know. Somebody got to tell her.” Aibileen fans her face with her hanky. It was Kiki Brown’s morning for cleaning and the whole church is gaudied up with her lemon smell-good she makes and tries to sell for twenty-five cents a bottle. We have a sign-up sheet for cleaning the church. Ask me,Kiki Brown ought to sign a little less and the men ought to sign a lot more. Far as I know, no man has signed that sheet once.

Besides the smell, the church looks pretty good. Kiki shined the pews to where you could pick your teeth looking at them. The Christmas tree’s already up, next to the altar, full of tinsel and a shiny gold star on top. Three windows of the church have stained glass—the birth of Christ, Lazarus raised from the dead, and the teaching of those fool Pharisees. The other seven are filled with regular clear panes. We’re still raising money for those.

“How Benny’s asthma?” Aibileen asks.

“Had a little spell yesterday. Leroy dropping him and the rest a the kids by in a while. Let’s hope the lemon don’t kill him.”

“Leroy.” Aibileen shakes her head and laughs. “Tell him I said he better behave. Or I put him on my prayer list.”

“I wish you would. Oh Lord, hide the food.”

Hoity-toity Bertrina Bessemer waddles toward us. She leans over the pew in front of us, smilling with a big, tacky blue-bird hat on. Bertrina, she’s the one who called Aibileen a fool for all those years.

“Minny,” Bertrina says, “I sure was glad to hear about your new job.”

“Thank you, Bertrina.”

“And Aibileen, I thank you for putting me on your prayer list. My angina sure is better now. I call you this weekend and we catch up.”

Aibileen smiles, nods. Bertrina waddles off to her pew.

“Maybe you ought a be a little pickier who you pray for,” I say.

“Aw, I ain’t mad at her no more,” says Aibileen. “And look a there, she done lost some weight.”

“She telling everybody she lost forty pounds,” I say.

“Lord a mercy.”

“Only got two hundred more to go.”

Aibileen tries not to smile, acts like she’s waving away the lemon smell.

“So what you want me to come early for?” I ask. “You miss me or something?”

“Naw, it’s no big deal. Just something somebody said.”

“What?”

Aibileen takes a breath, looks around for anybody listening. We’re like royalty here. Folks are always hemming in on us.

“You know that Miss Skeeter?” she asks.

“I told you I did the other day.”

She quiets her voice, says,“Well, remember how I slipped up and told her about Treelore writing colored things down?”

“I remember. She want a sue you for that?”

“No, no. She nice. But she had the gall to ask if me and some a my maid friends might want a put down on paper what it’s like to tend for white people. Say she writing a book.”

“Say what?”

Aibileen nods, raises her eyebrows.“Mm-hmm.”

“Phhh. Well, you tell her it’s a real Fourth of July picnic. It’s what we dream a doing all weekend, get back in they houses to polish they silver,” I say.

“I told her, let the regular old history books tell it. White people been representing colored opinions since the beginning a time.”

“That’s right. You tell her.”

“I did. I tell her she crazy,” Aibileen says. “I ask her, what if we told the truth? How we too scared to ask for minimum wage. How nobody gets paid they Social Security. How it feel when your own boss be calling you . . .” Aibileen shakes her head. I’m glad she doesn’t say it.

“How we love they kids when they little . . .” she says and I see Aibileen’s lip tremble a little. “And then they turn out just like they mamas.”

I look down and see Aibileen’s gripping her black pocketbook like it’s the only thing she has left in this world. Aibileen, she moves on to another job when the babies get too old and stop being color-blind. We don’t talk about it.

“Even if she is changing all the names a the help and the white ladies,” she sniff.

“She crazy if she think we do something dangerous as that. Forher.”

“We don’t want a bring all that mess up.” Aibileen wipes her nose with a hankie. “Tell people the truth.”

“No, we don’t,” I say, but I stop. It’s something about that wordtruth. I’ve been trying to tell white women the truth about working for them since I was fourteen years old.

“We don’t want a change nothing around here,” Aibileen says and we’re both quiet, thinking about all the things we don’t want to change. But then Aibileen narrows her eyes at me, asks, “What. You don’t think it’s a crazy idea?”

“I do, I just . . .” And that’s when I see it. We’ve been friends for sixteen years, since the day I moved from Greenwood to Jackson and we met at the bus stop. I can read Aibileen like the Sunday paper. “You thinking about it, ain’t you,” I say. “You want a talk to Miss Skeeter.”

She shrugs and I know I’m right. But before Aibileen can confess, Reverend Johnson comes and sits down in the pew behind us, leans between our shoulders. “Minny, I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to tell you congratulations on your new job.”