The Six Rules of Maybe

gone from having everything to having nothing.
    “I shouldn’t have drunk that Fresca,” she said. She got up and went inside and in a few moments I heard her retching, the toilet flush, the faucet running.
    I sat there on the grass, ran my hands over the blades. I felt a little sick myself. I smelled a whiff of Varathane or some other soupy, gleaming chemical coming from over the back fence. I heard a small burst of man-talk, a shout. Whaddya say? More faraway man-talk. Music. I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker… .
    And then another sound, closer. Right there, from our own bathroom.
    Juliet, crying.

Chapter Nine
    T his is what I call reciprocity,” Mom said, holding a pie dish on one palm.
    “Lemon meringue?”
    Mom nodded. It was Mrs. Martinelli’s specialty. “I perform the computer miracle called turn the machine off and back on and look what I get. Want some?”
    “No thanks.” I gestured to the white bread I’d taken out of the cupboard for a snack, the jar of peanut butter.
    “Tell me why it’s nice to have superior computer knowledge over someone, anyone.” Mom loved Mrs. Martinelli too. Sometimes Mrs. Martinelli would have lemonade with Mom at our umbrella table outside or coffee with her while sitting on the living room couch. They would pat each other’s hands and tell stories. Mom always said that she respected the sequined sweatshirts. Sequins required a certain confidence, especially when worn while gardening.
    “I guess you got her connected again.”
    “Maybe I shouldn’t have. Did you know they’re writing back and forth with some scammer? She said you knew all about it.” Mom didn’t wait for an answer. “Where’s Juliet?” she asked.
    “She’s not feeling well.” I stuck my tongue out, mimed a throw-up face.
    “Oh,” Mom said. “Poor thing. That’s too bad.”
    “Why aren’t you at work?” I asked.
    “I thought maybe I’d take the day off. Make sure Juliet was settled in.”
    The words fell before I could catch them. “You didn’t even stay home with me when I had the flu and a hundred degree fever.”
    “Scarlet,” she said as if it were the end of what she had to say even though it was the start. “I asked you over and over if you wanted me to stay. You said you were fine. You insisted. I took you at your word.”
    I was going to tell her about Clive Weaver naked in the street, but I didn’t feel like it anymore. Some worm of jealousy and resentment was working around in my heart. I put my knife into the new jar of peanut butter. No matter what seemed to be going wrong in my life, there was something satisfying about that act. It was a mini-sense of triumph, a culinary groundbreaking ceremony, with me holding the special shovel.
    Mom left the kitchen. I could see her through the door, standing in front of the stereo. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail and then let it go as she pretended to contemplate what to put on. She looked young like that. It was always strange when you saw your parent as a person, not a mother or father. I guessed that happened more when you had a single parent. They couldn’t hide in that thing called marriage. Mom stared down at Neil Diamond’s faceon the cover of Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits , the one where his eyes are brooding but kind, and then on came the deep thrum of the guitar, and his voice. Melinda was mine, ’til the time that I found her … holding Jim. Loving him …
    “Mom, God,” I called from the other room.
    “What?”
    “I’m so sick of that I could scream.”
    She put her hands on her hips. “I’m not exactly forcing you to stand there and listen, am I?”
    “Play ‘Sweet Caroline.’” Juliet had reappeared. She looked pale, even after her day in the sun. She’d tied a sarong around her hips, sleeked her hair back in a long blond braid. “Remember how we all used to sing that loudly in the car? Sweet Car-o-line, bum, bum, bum … ” She sang with that voice that could make you think about beautiful things—water droplets and tulips pushing up through frost. “Summer time,” Juliet said. “Scarlet with her teeth perpetually blue from Otter Pops.”
    “I loved that,” Mom said. “Everywhere we went, we played this. You, me, Scarlet, and Scarlet’s monkey .”
    “Jibbs,” Juliet said.
    “God, he was so dirty, and you’d never let him out of your clutches, Scar,” Mom said. “I had to sew his head back on twice.”
    “Remember when she used to get the words