How It All Goes Down
- The Phelans finally get an AC. Since the breakup with Stuart, Skeeter feels "so hot, so goddamned singed and hurt, [she] think[s] she might catch on fire" (21.5).
- She really needs the AC, but it keeps blowing out the power for the whole house.
- Skeeter drowns her heartbreak in writing.
- She pretends to her parents that she and Stuart are still together. Charlotte is really sick, and all that cheers her up is Stuart and Skeeter as a couple.
- Skeeter and Aibileen have completed Aibileen's chapter, Minny's chapter, and four others. There are still five to go. Skeeter worries about what will happen to the women if anybody finds out what they're doing. She thinks, "We must keep this "a perfect secret" (21.30).
- At the Junior League meeting, Hilly and Skeeter fight about Hilly's bathroom initiative.
- Skeeter refuses to print it, and Hilly threatens to have her fired as editor. Skeeter demands that Hilly give back the pamphlet of Jim Crow laws.
- Hilly says it's her "job" to protect the League from "racial integrationist" (27.55) members, or else nobody will donate money to "The Poor Starving Children of Africa" (21.57).
- Skeeter wishes Hilly could "catch the irony of this, that she'll send money to people overseas, but not across town" (21.58). She calls Hilly a "hypocrite" (21.58).
- Hilly says, "You know, it's no wonder Stuart Whitworth dropped you" (21.60).
- The fight ends with Hilly saying she'll give Skeeter back the Jim Crow pamphlet when Skeeter prints the bathroom initiative.
- At home, Skeeter types up the League newsletter and includes Hilly's initiative. She worries about what Constantine would think of her for giving in.