If you got a note on your car, they gone repossess it.

If you got a parking ticket you ain’t paid, you going to jail.

If you got a daughter, maybe you go live with her. She tend to a white family a her own. But a few days later she come home, say,“Mama? I just got fired.” She look hurt, scared. She don’t understand why. You got to tell her it’s cause a you.

Least her husband still working. Least they can feed the baby.

Then they fire her husband. Just another little sharp tool, shiny and fine.

They both pointing at you, crying, wondering why you done it. You can’t even remember why. Weeks pass and nothing, no jobs, no money, no house. You hope this is the end of it, that she done enough, she ready to forget.

It’ll be a knock on the door, late at night. It won’t be the white lady at the door. She don’t do that kind a thing herself. But while the nightmare’s happening, the burning or the cutting or the beating, you realize something you known all your life: the white lady don’tever forget.

And she ain’t gone stop till you dead.

THE NEXT MORNING, Miss Skeeter pull her Cadillac up in Miss Leefolt’s driveway. I got raw chicken on my hands and a flame on the stovetop and Mae Mobley whining cause she starving to death but I can’t stand it another second. I walk in the dining room with my dirty hands up in the air.

Miss Skeeter, she asking Miss Leefolt about a list a girls who serving on a committee and Miss Leefolt say,“The head of the cupcake committee is Eileen,” and Miss Skeeter say, “But the cupcake committee chairman is Roxanne,” and Miss Leefolt say, “No, the cupcake co-chair is Roxanne and Eileen is the cupcake head,” and I’m getting so peckertated over this cupcake talk I want to poke Miss Skeeter with my raw-chicken finger but I know better than to interrupt so I don’t. There ain’t no talk at all about the satchel.

Before I know it, Miss Skeeter out the door.

Law.

That night after supper, me and that cockroach stare each other down across the kitchen floor. He big, inch, inch an a half. He black. Blacker than me. He making a crackling sound with his wings. I got my shoe in my hand.

The phone ring and we both jump.

“Hey, Aibileen,” Miss Skeeter say and I hear a door shut. “Sorry to call so late.”

I breathe out.“I’m glad you did.”

“I was just calling to see if you had any . . . word. From any other maids, I mean.”

Miss Skeeter sound strange. Tight in the jaw. Lately, she been glowing like a firefly she so in love. My heart start drumming. Still, I don’t jump right in with my questions. I ain’t sure why.

“I asked Corrine who work at the Cooleys. She say no. Then Rhonda, and Rhonda’s sister who wait on the Millers . . . but both a them say no too.”

“What about Yule May? Have you . . . talked to her recently?”

I wonder then if that’s why Miss Skeeter acting strange. See, I told Miss Skeeter a fib. I told her a month ago I asked Yule May, but I didn’t. It’s not just that I don’t know Yule May well. It’s that she Miss Hilly Holbrook’s maid, and anything having to do with that name make me nervous.

“Not real recent. Maybe . . . I try her again,” I lie, hating it.

Then I get back to jiggling my pencil. Ready to tell her what Miss Hilly said.

“Aibileen,” Miss Skeeter voice gone all shaky, “I have to tell you something.”

Miss Skeeter get quiet and it’s like them eerie seconds before a funnel cloud drop.

“What happen, Miss Skeeter?”

“I . . . left my satchel. At the League. Hilly picked it up.”