At the moment, I am writing the Miss Myrna column. Once ahead by three months, somehow I’ve managed to almost miss my deadline. “He’s fine, Mother. He doesn’t have to call every minute of the day.” But then I soften my voice. Every day she seems thinner. The sharpness of her collarbone is enough to tamp down my irritation at her comment. “He’s just traveling is all, Mama.”

This seems to placate her for the moment and I tell the same story to Elizabeth, with a few more details to Hilly, pinching my arm to bear her insipid smile. But I do not know what to tell myself. Stuart needs “space” and “time,” as if this were physics and not a human relationship.

So instead of feeling sorry for myself every minute of the day, I work. I type. I sweat. Who knew heartbreak would be so goddamn hot. When Mother’s lying down on her bed, I pull my chair up to the air conditioner and stare into it. In July, it becomes a silver shrine. I find Pascagoula pretending to dust with one hand, while holding up her hairbraids at the thing with the other. It’s not as if it’s a new invention, air-conditioning, but every store in town that has it puts a sign in the window, prints it on its ads because it is so vital. I make a cardboard sign for the Phelan house, place it on the front doorknob, NOW AIR-CONDITIONED. Mother smiles, but pretends she’s not amused.

On a rare evening home, I sit with Mother and Daddy at the dinner table. Mother nibbles on her supper. She spent the afternoon trying to keep me from finding out she’d been vomiting. She presses her fingers along the top of her nose to hold back her headache and says, “I was thinking about the twenty-fifth, do you think that’s too soon to have them over?” and I still cannot bring myself to tell her that Stuart and I have broken up.

But I can see it on her face, that Mother feels worse than bad tonight. She is pale and trying to sit up longer than I know she wants to. I take her hand and say, “Let me check, Mama. I’m sure the twenty-fifth will be fine.” She smiles for the first time all day.

AIBILEEN SMILES AT THE STACK of pages on her kitchen table. It’s an inch thick, double-spaced, and starting to look like something that can sit on a shelf. Aibileen is as exhausted as I am, surely more since she works all day and then comes home to the interviews at night.

“Look a that,” she says. “That thing’s almost a book.”

I nod, try to smile, but there is so much work left to do. It’s nearly August and even though it’s not due until January, we still have five more interviews to sort through. With Aibileen’s help, I’ve molded and cut and arranged five of the women’s chapters including Minny’s, but they still need work. Thankfully, Aibileen’s section is done. It is twenty-one pages, beautifully written, simple.

There are several dozen made-up names, both white and colored, and at times, it is hard to keep them all straight. All along, Aibileen has been Sarah Ross. Minny chose Gertrude Black, for what reason I don’t know. I have chosen Anonymous, although Elaine Stein doesn’t know this yet. Niceville, Mississippi, is the name of our town because it doesn’t exist, but we decided a real state name would draw interest. And since Mississippi happens to be the worst, we figured we’d better use it.

A breeze blows through the window and the top pages flutter. We both slam our palms down to catch them.

“You think . . . she gone want a print it?” asks Aibileen. “When it’s done?”

I try to smile at Aibileen, show some false confidence. “I hope so,” I say as brightly as I can manage. “She seemed interested in the idea and she . . . well, the march is coming up and . . .”

I hear my own voice taper off. I truly don’t know if Missus Stein will want to print it. But what I do know is, the responsibility of the project lays on my shoulders and I see it in their hardworking, lined faces, how much the maids want this book to be published. They are scared, looking at the back door every ten minutes, afraid they’ll get caught talking to me. Afraid they’ll be beaten like Louvenia’s grandson, or, hell, bludgeoned in their front yard like Medgar Evers. The risk they’re taking is proof they want this to get printed and they want it bad.

I no longer feel protected just because I’m white. I check over my shoulder often when I drive the truck to Aibileen’s. The cop who stopped me a few months back is my reminder: I am now a threat to every white family in town. Even though so many of the stories are good, celebrating the bonds of women and family, the bad stories will be the ones that catch the white people’s attention. They will make their blood boil and their fists swing. We must keep this a perfect secret.

I’m DELIBERATELY FIVE MINUTES LATE for the Monday night League meeting, our first in a month. Hilly’s been down at the coast, wouldn’t dare allow a meeting without her. She’s tan and ready to lead. She holds her gavel like a weapon. All around me, women sit and smoke cigarettes, tip them into glass ashtrays on the floor. I chew my nails to keep from smoking one. I haven’t smoked in six days.

Besides the cigarette missing from my hand, I’m jittery from the faces around me. I easily spot seven women in the room who are related to someone in the book, if not in it themselves. I want to get out of here and get back to work, but two long, hot hours pass before Hilly finally bangs her gavel. By then, even she looks tired of hearing her own voice.

Girls stand and stretch. Some head out, eager to attend to their husbands. Others dawdle, the ones with a kitchen full of kids and help that has gone home. I gather my things quickly, hoping to avoid talking to anyone, especially Hilly.

But before I can escape, Elizabeth catches my eye, waves me over. I haven’t seen her for weeks and I can’t avoid speaking to her. I feel guilty that I haven’t been to see her. She grabs the back of her chair and raises herself up. She is six months pregnant, woozy from the pregnancy tranquilizers.

“How are you feeling?” I ask. Everything on her body is the same except her stomach is huge and swollen. “Is it any better this time?”

“God, no, it’s awful and I still have three months to go.”

We’re both quiet. Elizabeth burps faintly, looks at her watch. Finally, she picks up her bag, about to leave, but then she takes my hand. “I heard,” she whispers, “about you and Stuart. I’m so sorry.”

I look down. I’m not surprised she knows, only that it took this long for anyone to find out. I haven’t told anyone, but I guess Stuart has. Just this morning, I had to lie to Mother and tell her the Whitworths would be out of town on the twenty-fifth, Mother’s so-called date to have them over.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say. “I don’t like talking about it.”

“I understand. Oh shoot, I better go on, Raleigh’s probably having a fit by himself with her.” She gives a last look at Hilly. Hilly smiles and nods her excusal.

I gather my notes quickly, head for the door. Before I make it out, I hear her.

“Wait a sec, would you, Skeeter?”

I sigh, turn around and face Hilly. She’s wearing the navy blue sailor number, something you’d dress a five-year-old in. The pleats around her hips are stretched open like accordion bellows. The room is empty except for us now.

“Can we discuss this, please, ma’am?” She holds up the most recent newsletter and I know what’s coming.

“I can’t stay. Mother’s sick—”

“I told you five months ago to print my initiative and now another week has passed and you still haven’t followed my instructions.”

I stare at her and my anger is sudden, ferocious. Everything I’ve kept down for months rises and erupts in my throat.

“I will not print that initiative.”

She looks at me, holding very still. “I want that initiative in the newsletter before election time,” she says and points to the ceiling, “or I’m calling upstairs, missy.”