I hear a car pull in the driveway. I listen and the spoon slips down into the pot of beans.“Cream-a-Wheat.”

“I ain’t eating no Cream-a-Wheat for supper!” Leroy says.

“I had that for breakfast!” Kindra cries.

“I mean—ham. And beans.” I go slam the back door and turn the latch. I look out the window again. The car is backing out. It was just turning around.

Leroy gets up and flings the back door open again.“It’s hot as hell in here!” He comes to the stove where I’m standing. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks, about an inch from my face.

“Nothing,” I say and move back a little. Usually, he doesn’t mess with me when I’m pregnant. But he moves closer. He squeezes my arm hard.

“What’d you do this time?”

“I—I didn’t do nothing,” I say. “I’m just tired.”

He tightens his grip on my arm. It’s starting to burn. “You don’t get tired. Not till the tenth month.”

“I didn’t do nothing, Leroy. Just go set and lemme get to supper.”

He lets go, giving me a long look. I can’t meet his eyes.

AIBILEEN

Chapter 31

EVER TIME Miss Leefolt go out shopping or in the yard or even to the bathroom, I check her bedside table where she put the book. I act like I’m dusting, but what I really be doing is checking to see if that First Presbyterian Bible bookmark’s moved any deeper in the pages. She’s been reading it for five days now and I flip it open today and she still on Chapter One, pagefourteen. She got two hundred and thirty-five pages left. Law, she read slow.

Still, I want to tell her, you reading about Miss Skeeter, don’t you know? About her growing up with Constantine. And I’m scared to death, but I want to tell her, keep reading, lady, cause Chapter Two gone be aboutyou.

I am nervous as a cat seeing that book in her house. All week long I been tiptoeing around. One time Li’l Man come up from behind and touch me on the leg and I near bout jump out a my workshoes. Especially on Thursday, when Miss Hilly come over. They set at the dining room table and work on the Benefit. Ever once in a while they look up and smile, ask me to fetch a mayonnaise sandwich or some ice tea.

Twice Miss Hilly come in the kitchen and call her maid, Ernestine.“Are you done soaking Heather’s smock dress like I told you to? Uh-huh, and have you dusted the half-tester canopy? Oh you haven’t, well go on and do that right away.”

I go in to collect they plates and I hear Miss Hilly say,“I’m up to Chapter Seven,” and I freeze, the plates in my hand clattering. Miss Leefolt look up and wrinkle her nose at me.

But Miss Hilly, she shaking her finger at Miss Leefolt.“And I think they’re right, it justfeels like Jackson.”

“You do?” Miss Leefolt ask.

Miss Hilly lean down and whisper.“I bet we even know some of these Nigra maids.”

“You really think so?” Miss Leefolt ask and my body go cold. I can barely move a foot toward the kitchen. “I’ve only read a little . . .”

“I do. And you know what?” Miss Hilly smile real sneaky-like. “I’m going to figure out every last one of these people.”

THE NEXT MORNING, I’m near about hyperventilating at the bus stop thinking about what Miss Hilly gone do when she get to her part, wondering if Miss Leefolt done read Chapter Two yet. And when I walk in her house, there Miss Leefolt is reading my book at the kitchen table. She hand me Li’l Man from her lap without even taking her eyes off the page. Then she wander off to the back reading and walking at the same time. All a sudden, she can’t get enough of it now that Miss Hilly done taken a interest in it.

Few minutes later, I go back to her bedroom to get the dirty clothes. Miss Leefolt’s in the bathroom, so I open the book at the bookmark. She already on ChapterSix, Winnie’s chapter. This where the white lady get the old-timer disease and call the police department ever morning cause a colored woman just walked in her house. That means Miss Leefolt read her part and justkept on going.

I’m scared but I can’t help but roll my eyes. I bet Miss Leefolt ain’t got no idea it be about herself. I mean, thank the Lord, but still. She probably shaking her head in bed last night, reading bout this awful woman who don’t know how to love her own child.

Soon as Miss Leefolt go to her hair appointment, I call Minny. All we do lately is run up our white lady’s phone bill.

“You heard anything?” I ask.

“No, nothing. Miss Leefolt finish yet?” she ask.

“No, but she made it to Winnie last night. Miss Celia still ain’t bought a copy?”

“That lady don’t look at nothing but trash.I’m coming,” Minny holler. “The fool’s stuck in the hair dryer hood again. I told her not to put her head in there when she got them big rollers in.”

“Call me if you hear anything,” I say. “I do the same.”

“Something’s gone happen soon, Aibileen. It’s got to.”

THAT AFTERNOON, I stomp up to the Jitney to pick up some fruit and cottage cheese for Mae Mobley. That Miss Taylor done it again. Baby Girl get out the carpool today, walked straight to her room and throwed herself on her bed.“What’s wrong, Baby? What happen?”

“I colored myself black,” she cried.

“What you mean?” I asked. “With the markers you did?” I picked up her hand but she didn’t have no ink on her skin.

“Miss Taylor said to draw what we like about ourselves best.” I saw then a wrinkled, sad-looking paper in her hand. I turned it over and sure enough, there’s my baby white girl done colored herself black.

“She said black means I got a dirty, bad face.” She plant her face in her pillow and cried something awful.

Miss Taylor. After all the time I spent teaching Mae Mobley how to love all people, not judge by color. I feel a hard fist in my chest because what person out there don’t remember they first-grade teacher? Maybe they don’t remember what they learn, but I’m telling you, I done raised enough kids to know, theymatter.

At least the Jitney’s cool. I feel bad I forgot to buy Mae Mobley’s snack this morning. I hurry so she won’t have to set with her mama for too long. She done hid her paper under her bed so her mama wouldn’t see it.

In the can food section, I get two cans a tunafish. I walk over to find the green Jell-O powder and there’s sweet Louvenia in her white uniform looking at peanut butter. I’ll think a Louvenia as Chapter Seven for the rest a my life.

“How’s Robert doing?” I ask, patting her arm. Louvenia work all day for Miss Lou Anne and then come home ever afternoon and take Robert to blind school so he can learn to read with his fingers. And I have never heard Louvenia complain once.

“Learning to get around.” She nod. “You alright? Feel okay?”

“Just nervous. You heard anything at all?”

She shake her head.“My boss been reading it, though.” Miss Lou Anne’s in Miss Leefolt’s bridge club. Miss Lou Anne was real good to Louvenia when Robert got hurt.

We walk down the aisle with our handbaskets. There be two white ladies talking by the graham crackers. They kind a familiar looking, but I don’t know they names. Soon as we get close, they hush up and look at us. Funny how they ain’t smiling.

“Scuse me,” I say and move on past. When we not but a foot away, I hear one say, “That’s the Nigra waits on Elizabeth . . .” A cart rattles past us, blocking the words.

“I bet you’re right,” the other one say. “I bet that’s her . . .”

Me and Louvenia keep walking real quiet, looking dead ahead. I feel prickles up my neck, hearing the ladies’ heels clack away. I know Louvenia heard better than I did, cause her ears is ten years younger than mine. At the end a the aisle we start to go in different directions, but then we both turn to look at each other.

Did I hear right? I say with my eyes.

You heard right, Louvenia’s say back.

Please, Miss Hilly,read. Read like the wind.

MINNY

Chapter 32

ANOTHER DAY PASSES, and still I can hear Miss Hilly’s voice talking the words, reading the lines. I don’t hear the scream. Not yet. But she’s getting close.

Aibileen told me what the ladies in the Jitney said yesterday, but we haven’t heard another thing since. I keep dropping things, broke my last measuring cup tonight and Leroy’s eyeing me like he knows. Right now he’s drinking coffee at the table and the kids are draped all over the kitchen doing their homework.