I slip into the pantry and sit on my flour can. I can’t speak for about five seconds. “When? When can she start?”

“Next Thursday. But she got some . . . requirements.”

“What are they?”

Aibileen pauses a moment.“She say she don’t want your Cadillac anywhere this side a the Woodrow Wilson bridge.”

“Alright,” I say. “I guess I could . . . drive the truck in.”

“And she say . . . she say you can’t set on the same side a the room as her. She want a be able to see you square on at all times.”

“I’ll . . . sit wherever she wants me to.”

Aibileen’s voice softens. “She just don’t know you, is all. Plus she ain’t got a real good history with white ladies.”

“Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”

I walk out of the pantry beaming, hang the phone up on the wall. Pascagoula is watching me, the shot glass in one hand, a raw biscuit in the other. She looks down quickly and goes back to her work.

TWO DAYS LATER, I tell Mother I’m going to pick up a new copy of the King James Bible since I’ve worn mine so thin and all. I also tell her I feel guilty driving the Cadillac what with all those poor starving babies in Africa and I’ve decided to take the old truck today. She narrows her eyes at me from her porch rocker. “Where exactly do you plan on buying this new Bible?”

I blink.“The . . . They ordered it for me. At the Canton church.”

She nods, watches me the entire time it takes to start the old truck.

I drive to Farish Street with a lawn mower in the back and a rusted-out floorboard. Under my feet, I can see flashes of pavement whiz by. But at least I’m not pulling a tractor.

Aibileen opens the door and I come in. In the back corner of the living room, Minny stands with her arms crossed over her huge bosom. I’ve met her the few times Hilly allowed Missus Walters to host bridge club. Minny and Aibileen are both still in their white uniforms.

“Hello,” I say from my side of the room. “Good to see you again.”

“Miss Skeeter.” Minny nods. She settles in a wooden chair Aibileen has brought out from the kitchen, and the frame creaks. I sit on the far end of the sofa. Aibileen sits on the other end of the sofa, between us.

I clear my throat, produce a nervous smile. Minny doesn’t smile back. She is fat and short and strong. Her skin is blacker than Aibileen’s by ten shades, and shiny and taut, like a pair of new patent shoes.

“I already told Minny how we doing the stories,” Aibileen says to me. “You helping me write mine. And hers she gone tell you, while you write it down.”

“And Minny, everything you say here is in confidence,” I say. “You’ll get to read everything we—”

“What makes you think colored people need your help?” Minny stands up, chair scraping. “Why you even care about this? Youwhite.”

I look at Aibileen. I’ve never had a colored person speak to me this way.

“We all working for the same thing here, Minny,” Aibileen says. “We just talking.”

“And what thing is that?” Minny says to me. “Maybe you just want me to tell you all this stuff so I get in trouble.” Minny points to the window. “Medgar Evers, the NAACP officer who live five minutes away, they blew up his carport last night. Fortalking.”

My face is burning red. I speak slowly.“We want to show your perspective . . . so people might understand what it’s like from your side. We—we hope it might change some things around here.”

“What you think you gone change with this? What law you want to reform so it say you got to be nice to your maid?”

“Now hold on,” I say, “I’m not trying to change any laws here. I’m just talking about attitudes and—”

“You know what’ll happen if people catch us? Forget the time I accidentally use the wrong changing room down at McRae’s women’s wear, I’d haveguns pointing at my house.”

There’s a still, tight moment in the room with just the sound of the brown Timex clock ticking on the shelf.

“You don’t have to do this, Minny,” Aibileen says. “It’s alright if you want a change your mind.”

Slowly, warily, Minny settles again in her chair.“I do it. I just want a make sure she understand, this ain’t nogame we playing here.”