I do not know if you can find

But I cannot stand to touch Hilly when she reaches out to me. When I back away from her hug, she acts like she doesn’t notice. But during the game, she keeps looking at me with narrowed eyes.

“What are you going to do?” Elizabeth asks Hilly. “You’re welcome to bring the children over any time, but . . . well . . .” Before bridge club, Hilly dropped Heather and William at Elizabeth’s for Aibileen to look after while we play bridge. But I already know the message in Elizabeth’s sour smile: she worships Hilly, but Elizabeth does not care to share her help with anybody.

“I knew it. I knew that girl was a thief the day she started.” As Hilly tells us the story of Yule May, she makes a big circle with her finger to indicate a huge stone, the unimaginable worth of the “ruby.”

“I caught her taking the milk after it expired and that’s how it starts, you know, first it’s washing powder, then they work their way up to towels and coats. Before you know it, they’re taking the heirlooms, hocking them for liquor pints. .”

I fight the urge to snap each of her flapping fingers in half, but I hold my tongue. Let her think everything is fine. It is safer for everyone.

After the game, I rush home to prepare for Aibileen’s that night, relieved there’s not a soul in the house. I quickly flip through Pascagoula’s messages for me—Patsy my tennis partner, Celia Foote, whom I hardly know. Why would Johnny Foote’s wife be calling me? Minny’s made me swear I’ll never call her back, and I don’t have the time to wonder. I have to get ready for the interviews.

I SIT AT AIBILEEN’S KITCHEN table at six o’clock that night. We’ve arranged for me to come over nearly every night until we’re finished. Every two days, a different colored woman will knock on Aibileen’s back door and sit at the table with me, tell me her stories. Eleven maids have agreed to talk to us, not counting Aibileen and Minny. That puts us at thirteen and Missus Stein asked for a dozen, so I think we’re lucky. Aibileen stands in the back of the kitchen, listening. The first maid’s name is Alice. I don’t ask for last names.