I smile sweetly. I am twenty-three goddamn years old.“Of course not, Mama.”

She leaves and we sit, staring, smiling.

Waiting.

Mother pads around the kitchen, closes a window, runs some water. A few seconds pass and we hear the clack-click of her bedroom door shutting. Stuart stands and says,“Comehere,” and he’s on my side of the room in one stride and he claps my hands to his hips and kisses my mouth like I am the drink he’s been dying for all day and I’ve heard girls say it’s like melting, that feeling. But I think it’s like rising, growing even taller and seeing sights over a hedge, colors you’ve never seen before.

I have to make myself pull away. I have things to say.“Come here. Sit down.”

We sit side by side on the sofa. He tries to kiss me again, but I back my head away. I try not to look at the way his sunburn makes his eyes so blue. Or the way the hairs on his arms are golden, bleached.

“Stuart—” I swallow, ready myself for the dreaded question. “When you were engaged, were your parents disappointed? When whatever happened with Patricia . . . happened?”

Immediately a stiffness forms around his mouth. He eyes me.“Mother was disappointed. They were close.”

Already I regret having brought it up, but I have to know.“How close?”

He glances around the room.“Do you have anything in the house? Bourbon?”

I go to the kitchen and pour him a glass from Pascagoula’s cooking bottle, top it off with plenty of water. Stuart made it clear the first time he showed up on my porch his fianc?e was a bad subject. But I need to know what this thing was that happened. Not just because I’m curious. I’ve never been in a relationship. I need to know what constitutes breaking up forever. I need to know how many rules you can break before you’re thrown out, and what those rules even are in the first place.

“So they were good friends?” I ask. I’ll be meeting his mother in two weeks. Mother’s already set on our shopping trip to Kennington’s tomorrow.

He takes a long drink, frowns.“They’d get in a room and swap notes on flower arrangements and who married who.” All traces of his mischievous smile are gone now. “Mother was pretty shook up. After it . . . fell apart.”

“So . . . she’ll be comparing me to Patricia?”

Stuart blinks at me a second.“Probably.”

“Great. I can hardly wait.”

“Mother’s just . . . protective is all. She’s worried I’ll get hurt again.” He looks off.

“Where is Patricia now? Does she still live here or—”

“No. She’s gone. Moved to California. Can we talk about something else now?”

I sigh, fall back against the sofa.

“Well, do your parents at least know what happened? I mean, am I allowed to know that?” Because I feel a flash of anger that he won’t tell me something as important as this.

“Skeeter, I told you, I hate talking . . .” But then he grits his teeth, lowers his voice. “Dad only knows part of it. Mother knows the real story, so do Patricia’s parents. And of courseher.” He throws back the rest of the drink. “She knows what she did, that’s for goddamn sure.”

“Stuart, I only want to know so I don’t do the same thing.”

He looks at me and tries to laugh but it comes out more like a growl.“You would never in a million years do what she did.”

“What? What did she do?”

“Skeeter.” He sighs and sets his glass down. “I’m tired. I better just go on home.”

I WALK IN THE STEAMY kitchen the next morning, dreading the day ahead. Mother is in her room getting ready for our shopping trip to outfit us both for supper at the Whitworths’. I have on blue jeans and an untucked blouse.

“Morning, Pascagoula.”

“Morning, Miss Skeeter. You want your regular breakfast?”

“Yes, please,” I say.

Pascagoula is small and quick on her feet. I told her last June how I liked my coffee black and toast barely buttered and she never had to ask again. She’s like Constantine that way, never forgetting things for us. It makes me wonder how many white women’s breakfasts she has ingrained in her brain. I wonder how it would feel to spend your whole life trying to remember other people’s preferences on toast butter and starch amounts and sheet changing.

She sets my coffee down in front of me. She doesn’t hand it to me. Aibileen told me that’s not how it’s done, because then your hands might touch. I don’t remember how Constantine used to do it.

“Thank you,” I say, “very much.”

She blinks at me a second, smiles weakly.“You . . . welcome.” I realize this the first time I’ve ever thanked her sincerely. She looks uncomfortable.

“Skeeter, you ready?” I hear Mother call from the back. I holler that I am. I eat my toast and hope we can get this shopping trip over quickly. I am ten years too old to have my mother still picking out clothes for me. I look over and notice Pascagoula watching me from the sink. She turns away when I look at her.

I skim theJackson Journal sitting on the table. My next Miss Myrna column won’t come out until next Monday, unlocking the mystery of hard-water stains. Down in the national news section, there’s an article on a new pill, the “Valium” they’re calling it, “to help women cope with everyday challenges.” God, I could use about ten of those little pills right now.