The Six Rules of Maybe (22 page)

“Zeus … ,” I explained to Jesse, who seemed surprised to be suddenly grasping a dog, let alone one crazy with near-escape joy.

“My fault!” Juliet said from the doorway. Hayden retrieved Zeus, and they exchanged hands on that collar. I saw them standing together, and I had an unfair moment, a comparison moment, when I saw Hayden’s sure strength, his firm grip, and Jesse’s uncertain one, Hayden’s known pieces and Jesse’s unknown ones, the way Hayden filled the space in my mind like few people ever had, maybe no one.

“Thanks for the catch,” Hayden said, and smiled at Jesse.

“I’d better be going,” Jesse said. He got on his bike. I felt guilty, like maybe he could read my thoughts. But maybe not, because he just smiled and said, “See ya,” and shoved off on his bike, that cuff link still shiny on his jacket.

“Who was that?” Hayden said, and knocked me with his elbow.

“Someone from school,” I said.

“I don’t know, Scarlet Ellis. I got to wonder what’s going on here. It looks like a
someone
from school.”

“No, not at all.”

It sounded harsh and definite. I didn’t want him saying that. I wished he hadn’t seen us. It was wrong to think like I was thinking; stupid, I knew that, but there it was. The nighttime talks meant something to me. I was loyal, even if Juliet wasn’t.

Mrs. Martinelli held up a large ancient drill and waved it my way. “Your young man didn’t want any of these nice tools?” she said.

I wouldn’t have agreed to go shopping in the city with Juliet if I’d known Hayden was coming along. But there he was with his leather key chain dangling from his finger, heading for the truck, leaning in
to clear the seat so there was room for both of us. I didn’t want to be with them all day; I knew that much. His devotion made me feel lonely when I was with them, in a way it didn’t when it was just the two of us. I didn’t understand why people were always so devoted to Juliet. Instead of plain old love, she got absolute dedication; and instead of regular human anger, she got complete forgiveness. She gave so little back, too. Why was it that when we got crumbs from people who usually gave nothing, we were thrilled? A person’s everyday abundant generosity, though—it could become ordinary and meaningless, the way you stop smelling perfume after the first few thrilling sniffs. A crumb from someone who gave nothing was a million dollars and a crumb from someone who
always
gave was just a crumb.

“I’m going off on my own when we get there, okay?” I said to Juliet in the ferry bathroom from my side of the stall. “I’ve got a lot of places I want to go, and it’ll be faster.”

“No problem,” she said.

We each came out, stood at the sink, and washed our hands. “You want to come when we pick out the crib?”

“I thought you were shopping for clothes.”

“That, too. But Mom gave us money to get a crib.” She leaned toward the mirror, opened her purse, and took out her brush, combed her hair shiny and straight. I thought of them walking hand in hand in the baby aisles, a peachy glow around them like some sort of heaven-moment in the movies.

“The slats of the crib have to be really close together. If you can fit a soda can through, they’re too far apart. The baby’s head can get stuck.”

“Thanks, Scarlet,” she said, as if she already knew this even though I was sure she didn’t. She studied her face for a moment,
then closed her purse again and turned away from her image. “Well, I guess I’m still me, only pregnant.”

I played a successful game of Dodge Juliet and Hayden in the mall, seeing them only once, at one of the iron tables in front of Joy Juice, sharing a large drink from one straw. We met up afterward and got back into the car, Juliet in the middle and me on the outside edge by the window, where it seemed I had always been and might always be. We’d timed the ferry just right so we didn’t even have to wait in line. Juliet and Hayden both seemed happy. They held hands across the seat of Mom’s car, and Hayden would bring their joined hands to his mouth for an occasional kiss. They were in love, and that was good. When you cared about someone, you wanted for them most what they themselves wanted, I reminded myself again. Juliet was calm and light and joking, and Hayden’s eyes glowed with warmth and hope for all their future days together. Yeah, it all made me a little sick.

On the ferry, we sat on two bench seats across from each other. One of Juliet’s legs was flung over Hayden’s knee, and he rubbed it slowly. Juliet said something like,
Did you hear that airplane?
which made them both crack up in the annoying way of couples with their stupid inside jokes. I wanted them to be happy; it’s what I hoped for most. I would have done anything for her to love him properly, I would. For him and for Jitter and for her, too. But the real truth was, you could want one thing and have a secret wish for its opposite.

I watched the rushing waters of the Sound outside my large window, but the scenery was making me think too much, like scenery does. So I put my back against the window instead and played the game I rarely but sometimes played in public places where there
were lots of people, the Maybe My Father Is Here and I Don’t Know It game. It wasn’t some depressed, obsessed activity or anything—the game was more just curiosity and boredom, the way you looked for out of state license plates on long car rides. Maybe that was him in the suit and long overcoat, reading the fat Robert Ludlum book. Maybe that was him with two sticky kids and a wife with hair down to her waist like a prairie woman.

I was amusing myself in this manner, searching for men with Juliet’s blond hair, when their laughter abruptly stopped. It was one of those times when you could feel the change in the room come suddenly. I looked over. Juliet’s leg was off Hayden’s; she was staring just behind me, her face pale, and he was looking at her and leaning forward a little, trying to understand.

“Juliet?”

I looked over my shoulder, and I saw them. Buddy Wilkes—and you’d never believe it, never—sweet, delicate Elizabeth Everly, walking down the aisle past the bench seats. He was saying something to her, but she wasn’t listening, mocking him, maybe; it was something that caused her to shrug her shoulders in a way that meant his words were completely unimportant to her. And then it happened, as we all watched. Me and Juliet, but Hayden, too. Me and Juliet and Hayden and a previously limp, bored couple in my line of vision, and an old man standing by the candy machine, and a single woman drinking coffee and doing a crossword puzzle. We all saw, as Buddy, in his jeans and T-shirt with a dress shirt loose over it, grabbed the top of Elizabeth Everly’s arms and practically shoved her against the door marked
LIFE PRESERVERS
. He thrust his face onto hers and moved his hands to her hair and kissed her so hard and long that the lady with the coffee stopped her cup just shy of her mouth.

Juliet made a small sound behind me. Buddy let Elizabeth Everly go. Her hair was stuck up in a funny way and her cheeks were red, but she looked beautiful. They’d obviously had practice at that. But maybe what was more shocking than the kiss itself was the way Buddy looked afterward, the way he stared into her eyes as softly as the kiss was hard. The thing was, Buddy Wilkes was in love with her. Really
in love
. You could see it. It was so plainly there, plain as Elizabeth’s own hands reaching for a book to shelve at the Parrish Island Library.

They started walking forward again, and the woman went back to her crossword puzzle, and the old man dropped his coins into the snack machine slot, and the couple went back to ignoring each other. You could smell Elizabeth Everly’s perfume as she walked past, light and clean, fresh enough to drown out the smell of cigarettes on Buddy’s clothes. He was walking right past us, right past, maybe two feet from Juliet at the most.

“Buddy!” Juliet said. It sounded fake-light, fake-casual, the appropriate start to fake small talk, the kind that’s actually heavy with history and meaning—
How’ve you been, fine, great to see you again
—but that didn’t happen. If he even heard his name, he gave no indication. Buddy just walked right past, not even looking our way. Not even looking Juliet’s way. He didn’t even notice her. His name just hung there in the air until you weren’t even sure Juliet had ever spoken it.

When we arrived home, Ally Pete-Robbins was heading up her driveway carrying one of the Martinellis’ former Bundt pans, and that motorcyclist I’d seen on the street before was thumbing through their record albums and reading the back of one called
Boots: Nancy Sinatra
. Mr. Martinelli was snapping his fingers and dancing a little
to some nonexistent music. Mrs. Martinelli was giving the hard sell to two middle-age women holding a pair of Christmas sweaters and a Joni Mitchell album.

Inside our own house, on the kitchen counter, was the Martinellis’ old VCR and collection of videos in a box marked
$2.00
. Mom was always several entertainment devices behind the times. She was proud that her car had a tape player.

“Well?” Mom shouted down the stairs. You could tell she was having material-object thrill—a new VCR and a crib we must have bought, but Juliet was heading downstairs with her mood, not wanting to talk to anyone. Hayden followed her. I felt sorry for him, and for Mom, too. I felt sorry for everyone who’d ever been hurt by self-involved people.

Mom thumped down the stairs happily. She stopped when she saw me. Zeus sat down nearby, as if he was sticking with us.

“We saw Buddy on the ferry,” I said.

Mom said nothing.

“With someone.
Really
with someone.”

She sighed. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t get him. I never did.”

I was wrong about Hayden following Juliet downstairs, because suddenly he was there too. “She says he makes her feel safe,” he said.

We both looked over at him. I was sorry he’d heard us. His face was grim. “He makes her feel safe because he’s badder than anything bad.”

That night, I heard the doorknob handle turn. I wondered if I might hear the engine of Hayden’s truck start up and leave forever, if I might hear it that night or another night. Instead, I only heard the frustrated, unsuccessful flicking of that lighter again.

That night, we didn’t speak. I just tossed him the pack of matches and he caught them against his chest, as the pink light of morning showed over the horizon.

Chapter Eighteen

T
he note had three lines.

Steadiness and permanence, Juliet.

Those are the strongest words I know.

I will not leave you like you’ve been left before.

This, Hayden had wrong, I was sure. Who had ever left Juliet? No one left Juliet.

The next morning, I caught Hayden just standing and staring at Jitter’s black-and-white image stuck to the front of our refrigerator.

“Still trying to figure out if it’s a boy or girl?” I said.

I’d startled him. He jumped. When I saw his face, it looked unbearably sad.

“Scarlet … ,” he said. He held my eyes. He seemed to want to
tell me something. I waited. He would speak, and I would be there to catch his words, whatever they were.

“Are you all right, Hayden?”

He shook his head.

“Hayden?”

“Shit, Scarlet,” he said. “Shit.” And that was all. Then he opened the refrigerator and took out the orange juice, as if that had been his plan all along.

During the summer, there was only one thing worse than going to the place where everyone from my school hung out, and that was going to the place where everyone from my school hung out while I was wearing a bathing suit. Summer was supposed to be a reprieve from school, I thought, not a two-month warmer version of it. Every time Nicole had asked me to go to the Parrish Island Community Pool, I had a lie handy. I told her I was working much more than I was, or that I was babysitting Jeffrey and Jacob, which you couldn’t pay me enough to do. But it was becoming a lie traffic jam, and so I knew I had to agree, just once. Then I’d be free to start up the lies again. This was a clunky but workable system. You throw in a yes, and that allows you about five more no’s in the future.

A bikini requires you to feel comfortable with a bikini, but a one-piece looks like what your mother would wear, so I compromised and wore my tank suit that’s technically two pieces but looks like one. Even my bathing suit walked a line of dishonesty. When I went downstairs that morning, Juliet clicked the hang-up button of the phone fast and started one of those cover-up conversations that are the verbal equivalent of the dog kicking dirt backward after he’s just pooped in the yard.

“Pool or the beach?” she asked. “Pool’s so much nicer. No
sand.” Her hands were moving nervously, setting the phone exactly straight against the counter edge.

My stomach dropped. It was the fourth or fifth time in the four days since the ferry ride that I’d caught her with that phone in her hand, or against her ear, listening to something as if her life depended on it. I knew what was happening and where this was headed. Sometimes you just know before all the facts are in, the way rats are supposed to know to flee a ship before it’s about to go down. I would never understand her and Buddy Wilkes. Never. “Who were you calling?” I asked.

“I wasn’t calling anyone,” she said.

“That’s why you’re holding the
tele
phone,” I said.

She put her hand on her stomach then. It made me think of the cemetery, when Buddy Wilkes had put his hand there too. I hadn’t wanted to think what I’d been thinking. I counted back the number of months since Juliet had visited us last. I remembered a weekend at home, a night she’d gone out with friends and didn’t return until 2:00 a.m. No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

“My
hus
band. If it’s any of your business.”

“Will Quail’s got a phone on his boat?”

“Cell phone, idiot,” she said. “Hayden does have one, even if you’ve never seen it. He uses it for emergencies.”

I remembered this from my psychology books. How to tell if someone was lying. They used too many details. They covered up their nose or mouth with their hand, which Juliet did just then.