Skeeter thinks of herself as too tall, with whitish blond hair that’s too kinky, a nose flawed by having a slight bump along the top and fair skin that’s “downright deathly when I’m serious.”
Although Skeeter enjoys the monthly bridge games with childhood friends Hilly Holbrook and Elizabeth Leefolt, she runs afoul of Hilly when she jokes about the former’s mission to see that all the white residents of Jackson, Mississippi have separate bathrooms outside of their homes for the black help. For as Hilly believes, “everybody knows they (blacks) carry different kinds of diseases than we do.”
Aibileen Clark, the maid waiting on the ladies as they play bridge, overhears Skeeter’s flippant reply. “Maybe we ought to just build you a bathroom outside Hilly.”
That sets off Skeeter and Hilly’s battle of wills throughout the novel. Not only does Skeeter have to endure her mother’s constant criticisms, but also Hilly’s attempts to run her life. Hilly fires the first warning shot, when she threatens to remove Skeeter as the editor of their Junior League’s newsletter for her untimely joke. For Hilly is hell bent on having her Home Help Sanitation Initiative bill placed into law.
A somewhat dejected Skeeter tries to engage Aibileen in conversation once they’re in Elizabeth Leefolt’s kitchen by themselves. Skeeter notes the radio station Aibileen’s listening to, telling her the preacher’s sermon reminds her of the station her childhood maid, Constantine always listened to. Skeeter also tries to broach the subject of Hilly’s sanitation bill, and wonders aloud to a woman who’s lived her whole life under segregation “Do you ever wish you could…change things?”