The Six Rules of Maybe

Clive Weaver. The twins sat on the sidewalk with their tennis-shoed feet in the gutter, eating Popsicles and watching Mrs. Martinelli’s sprinkler water disappear into the drain. Their mouths were purple.
    “Let’s stick stuff down there,” Jeffrey said, looking down into the darkness of the grate.
    “Let’s stick dog poop down there,” Jacob said, and they both cracked up.
    Mrs. Martinelli reappeared. She had her reading glasses hanging on her neck, and she held another sheet of paper out to me.
    I read:
    I hope this mail meets you in a perfect condition. If you do not remember me, you might have received an e-mail from me in the past regarding a multi-million-dollar Business Proposal which we never concluded. I am using this opportunity to inform you that we are awaiting your future reply, as the fate of my cocoa plantation depends on it. My sources say that your efforts, Sincerity, Courage, and Trustworthiness are widely known….
    “Morin Jude!” Mrs. Martinelli exclaimed. “She is persisting, Scarlet. Mr. Martinelli and I appreciate persistence.” She popped her glasses on her nose and admired the note.
    “Mrs. Martinelli.” I sighed.
    “Oh, I know what you’re going to say. But you can’t tell me Morin Jude sent this letter to just anyone. She chose us.”
    “Thousands of people,” I said. “Mass, mass mailing. Morin Judelives in Cleveland, or something, I promise you. Morin Jude’s real name is Buck Johnson. He shoplifts beef jerky at mini-marts in his spare time.”
    “Mr. Martinelli won that citizenship award at Rotary,” she said. I shook my head—I didn’t understand. “Sincerity, courage, trustworthiness? We protested the Vietnam War, you know.” She took her glasses off and stared at me hard. Her eyes were the light violet color of the lavender bush in her yard. The skin of her neck drooped in folds.
    “I know how tempting it is,” I said. I didn’t know at all, actually. “You’re going to have to trust me. You give any money to these people, and it’s sayonara .”
    “We wouldn’t give money .”
    “Okay.”
    “We’re not idiots.”
    “Good.”
    She clutched my wrist. Her arm had a thin gold watch on it. She was surprisingly strong. “We’ve been around the block,” she said. I think the block may have been the only thing they’d been around.
    Jeffrey’s Popsicle slid from his stick then. He wailed his protest. He held up the empty purple stick for Jacob to see.
    “Feed it to the sewer,” Jacob said, and they both cackled.
    *
    I heard the vacuum on, but there were no back and forth sounds of actual vacuuming—only the steady roar of the machine standing still. That’s why she didn’t hear me come in, either. She didn’t hear me come up the stairs or pass by Juliet’s room. There were vacuum tracks in the hall, but they stopped where Mom stood, right over the threshold of Juliet’s doorway. Her face was soft and serious. Her mouth was open slightly as if she’d been taken by surprise. She heldthe note, The Five Rules of Maybe , in one hand. She looked down at it and down at it, as that vacuum roared beside her. She looked down as if it were telling her things she’d needed to know for a very long time.
    I understood her in a way I never had before as I watched her. I felt so close to her. I saw a narrow fiber of our connection, me and her, us—not her and Juliet. Was that even a real or likely thing? It seemed so. Maybe it was deep in our bones, submerged far in the rivers of our bloodstreams, but the two of us seemed joined then by something Juliet would never feel—the hunger for things too far away to touch, the need to believe in private and impossible longings.

Chapter Thirteen
    T here was no sign of Juliet or Hayden as it grew closer to dinnertime. Mom was in the kitchen, ripping lettuce into a bowl.
    “I wish he’d stop staring,” Mom said. Zeus sat very straight next to her. So straight he was sure she’d notice his fine behavior and drop him a nibble of something. His triangle ears looked like they were trying very hard to be as upright as possible too. “It’s like he knows things about you.”
    “Zeus!” I clapped my hands, but he just kept sitting like a little soldier and staring at Mom. He could really focus for someone who also had these wild ADD moments.
    “Never mind,” Mom said. “I suppose I’m getting used to him. He’s not the worst company in the world. By the way, Dean’s coming for dinner.”
    I noticed how