How It All Goes Down
- On December 2nd, Skeeter (who narrates this chapter) calls Elaine Stein in New York and learns that if the manuscript doesn't get to New York by December 21st, it won't be read.
- That night, Skeeter goes to Aibileen's and tells her they have a new deadline, and that Miss Stein says they have to add a chapter about Constantine, the woman who raised Skeeter.
- On Thursday night, Skeeter goes to the League meeting. Nobody will talk to her, and she gets fired as editor of the newsletter, though we suppose this was no surprise. Hilly becomes the new editor.
- Skeeter drives around after the meeting, wishing she could get out of this town.
- Stuart is at her house when she gets back. Even better.
- He wants Skeeter back. She's afraid of getting hurt.
- That night Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter decide to call the book Help.
- On Tuesday, Aibileen tells Skeeter the story of Constantine. Constantine has a daughter, Lulabelle, who was born looking white. Constantine felt compelled to send her to an orphanage when she was four. She tried to get her daughter back a few years later, but Lula was already adopted.
- A couple of years ago, when Lula was 25, she came to stay with Constantine. Skeeter was away at school.
- Aibileen gives Skeeter the rest of the story in writing, for Skeeter to read at home.
- After Skeeter reads it, she writes about Constantine for hours. She calls Aibileen and says she can't publish the story of what happened between Constantine and Charlotte. Aibileen agrees with her.
- The next night, Skeeter asks Charlotte to tell her what happened between her and Lula.
- Charlotte tells Skeeter that Lula came to a DAR meeting pretending to be a white woman. When Charlotte realized what she was up to, she told her to leave. Lula spit in her face.
- Constantine and Lula went back to Chicago together, and Constantine died three weeks later.
- Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter decide on one final addition to the book. They put in the story of Hilly's chocolate pie. This way, Hilly will have to keep quiet (rather than blowing up others' lives, as usual) when she realizes the book is about Jackson. Otherwise, everybody will know what she ate.
- Six days before the last editor's meeting, Skeeter mails the manuscript to Miss Stein.