I look up and am surprised to see Pascagoula standing right next to me.

“Are you . . . do you need something, Pascagoula?” I ask.

“I need to tell you something, Miss Skeeter. Something bout that—”

“You cannot wear dungarees to Kennington’s,” Mother says from the doorway. Like vapor, Pascagoula disappears from my side. She’s back at the sink, stretching a black rubber hose from the faucet to the dishwasher.

“You go upstairs and put on something appropriate.”

“Mother, this is what I’m wearing. What’s the point of getting dressed up to buy new clothes?”

“Eugenia, please let’s don’t make this any harder than it is.”

Mother goes back to her bedroom, but I know this isn’t the end of it. Thewhoosh of the dishwasher fills the room. The floor vibrates under my bare feet and the rumble is soothing, loud enough to cover a conversation. I watch Pascagoula at the sink.

“Did you need to tell me something, Pascagoula?” I ask.

Pascagoula glances at the door. She’s just a slip of a person, practically half of me. Her manner is so timid, I lower my head when I talk to her. She comes a little closer.

“Yule May mycousin,” Pascagoula says over the whir of the machine. She’s whispering, but there’s nothing timid about her tone now.

“I . . . didn’t know that.”

“We close kin and she come out to my house ever other weekend to check on me. She told me what it is you doing.” She narrows her eyes and I think she’s about to tell me to leave her cousin alone.

“I . . . we’re changing the names. She told you that, right? I don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”

“She tell me Saturday she gone help you. She try to call Aibileen but couldn’t get her. I’d a tole you earlier but . . .” Again she glances at the doorway.

I’m stunned. “She is? Shewill?” I stand up. Despite my better thinking, I can’t help but ask. “Pascagoula, do you . . . Want to help with the stories too?”

She gives me a long, steady look.“You mean tell you what it’s like to work for . . . your mama?”

We look at each other, probably thinking the same thing. The discomfort of her telling, the discomfort of me listening.

“Not Mother,” I say quickly. “Other jobs, ones you’ve had before this.”

“This my first job working domestic. I use to work at the Old Lady Home serving lunch. Fore it move out to Flowood.”

“You mean Mother didn’t mind this being your first house job?”

Pascagoula looks at the red linoleum floor, timid again.“Nobody else a work for her,” she says. “Not after what happen with Constantine.”

I place my hand carefully on the table.“What did you think about . . . That?”

Pascagoula’s face turns blank. She blinks a few times, clearly outsmarting me. “I don’t know nothing about it. I just wanted to tell you what Yule May say.” She goes to the refrigerator, opens it and leans inside.

I let out a long, deep breath. One thing at a time.

SHOPPING WITH MOTHER isn’t as unbearable as usual, probably because I’m in such a good mood from hearing about Yule May. Mother sits in a chair in the dressing lounge and I choose the first Lady Day suit I try on, light blue poplin with a round-collar jacket. We leave it at the store so they can take down the hem. I’m surprised when Mother doesn’t try on anything. After only half an hour, she says she’s tired, so I drive us back to Longleaf. Mother goes straight to her room to nap.

When we get home, I call Elizabeth’s house, my heart pounding, but Elizabeth picks up the phone. I don’t have the nerve to ask for Aibileen. After the satchel scare, I promised myself I’d be more careful.

So I wait until that night, hoping Aibileen’s home. I sit on my can of flour, fingers working a bag of dry rice. She answers on the first ring.

“She’ll help us, Aibileen. Yule May said yes!”

“Say what? When you find out?”

“This afternoon. Pascagoula told me. Yule May couldn’t reach you.”

“Law, my phone was disconnected cause I’s short this month. You talk to Yule May?”

“No, I thought it would be better if you talked to her first.”

“What’s strange is I call over to Miss Hilly house this afternoon from Miss Leefolt’s, but she say Yule May don’t work there no more and hang up. I been asking around but nobody know a thing.”

“Hilly fired her?”

“I don’t know. I’s hoping maybe she quit.”

“I’ll call Hilly and find out. God, I hope she’s alright.”

“And now that my phone’s back on, I keep trying to call Yule May.”