The Help Page #8

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CHARLOTTE (CONT'D)

Pray Carlton doesn't like LSU,

Constantine. It's so far. It

might be the last we see of him.

The horn blows again. Charlotte is out the door.

Skeeter turns to Constantine who is all smiles.

CONSTANTINE:

Gone be just you and me all

weekend.

EXT. PHELAN PLANTATION (FLASHBACK) - PATIO - MOMENTS LATER

Skeeter sits at a picnic table smoking a cigarette.

Constantine smokes tobacco out of a corn pipe.

SKEETER:

I just couldn't tell her I didn't

get asked to the dance.

CONSTANTINE:

Some things we should just keep to

ourselves.

Skeeter looks down to her long, bony legs.

SKEETER:

I'm already taller than the boys'

basketball coach. How tall are

you, Constantine?

CONSTANTINE:

I'm five-thirteen, so quit feeling

sorry for yourself.

SKEETER:

Momma was third runner up in the

Miss South Carolina pageant.

CONSTANTINE:

"Miss" what? Shoot, Child! You

gone be "Miss Something Better."

Constantine grabs Skeeter's hand and presses her thumb firmly

to her palm.

CONSTANTINE (CONT'D)

Now you listen. Your momma didn't

pick her life. It pick her, and she

done even know it. You gone do

something big with yours. Bigger

than your momma or your brother.

Constantine lets go of Skeeter's palm and wipes a tear from

her face.

28.

SKEETER:

What about you? What did you want

to be, Constantine?

Constantine laughs.

CONSTANTINE:

Oh, Child! We don't get to pick.

This pick us, and that just how it

is.

Tight on Skeeter's face as Constantine gives her a big hug.

INT. PHELEN PLANTATION - SKEETER'S BEDROOM - NEXT MORNING

Skeeter lies in bed staring holes into the ceiling as a

rooster announces the morning.

A sudden revelation washes over her. In a flash, Skeeter is

out of bed and running down the stairs.

INT. PHELAN PLANTATION - KITCHEN - MOMENTS LATER

Pascagoula tends to a skillet full of eggs next to a black

and white TV resting on the counter.

CLOSE ON TELEVISION:

Jolene French attempts to deliver the weather on WLBT.

JOLENE:

Sunny skies and a high of ninety-

eight today with ninety-nine

percent humidity. There's a slight

chance of afternoon showers so

y'all carry an umbrella.

Jolene pivots to camera, lowers her chin and smiles.

Skeeter runs past Pascagoula with a phone and disappears

inside the pantry.

INT. HARPER AND ROW PUBLISHING - OFFICE - NEW YORK - LATER

ELAINE STEIN, 45, hard but stylish, talks on the phone in a

large corner office. She lights a cigarette and swivels her

chair toward the Manhattan skyline.

MISS STEIN:

What gave you this idea, Miss

Phelan? I'm...curious.

INT. PHELAN PLANTATION (INTERCUT) - PANTRY - SAME TIME

Skeeter sits on a huge sack of flour. A millennium's supply

of can goods fills the shelves.

29.

SKEETER:

I was...well, I was raised by a

colored woman. I've seen how

simple it can be and...well, how

complex it can be, too...between

the families and the help.

MISS STEIN:

Continue.

SKEETER:

I'd like to write something from

the point of view of the help.

These colored women raise white

children, and then twenty years

later those children become the

employer. It's that irony, Miss

Stein, that we love them and they

love us yet...we don't even let

them use the toilet in the house.

Miss Stein's swivels her chair back around and sits up.

MISS STEIN:

I'm listening.

SKEETER:

Margaret Mitchell glorified the

mammy figure who dedicates her

whole life to a white family but no

one...ever asked Mammy how she felt

about it. There is both undisguised

hate for white women and an

inexplicable love, but nobody ever

talks about it down here.

MISS STEIN:

So, a side to this never before

heard.

SKEETER:

Yes!

Charlotte knocks on the pantry door.

CHARLOTTE (O.C.)

Skeeter, who are you talking to in

there?

Skeeter covers the mouth piece and opens the door.

SKEETER:

Go! Away!

Skeeter slams the door.

SKEETER (CONT'D)

So, yes, their side of the story.

Skeeter leans back against the shelves.

30.

MISS STEIN:

Who was that?

SKEETER:

My mother. She just dropped by to-

MISS STEIN:

Look, no maid in her right mind

would ever tell you the truth.

That's a hell of a risk in a place

like Jackson, Mississippi. I

watched them try to integrate your

bus station on the news. Oy! They

jammed fifty-five Negroes in a jail

built for four.

Skeeter panics.

SKEETER:

I already have a maid.

Skeeter can't believe what just came out of her mouth. Miss

Stein rises and sits on the edge of her desk.

MISS STEIN:

Really? A negro maid has already

agreed to talk to you?

Skeeter blinks hard. No turning back now.

SKEETER:

Yes, ma'am...

MISS STEIN:

Well...I suppose I could read what

you come up with. The book biz

could use a little rattling.

SKEETER:

You'd do that?

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