The Six Rules of Maybe

you’d better buckle in. I’d hate to lose you.”
    The sound of that pleased me. “I’m buckled. See?”
    “All right, then.”
    “Music?”
    “Just night music.”
    “Better,” I agreed.
    The windows were down and he drove just a little too fast on the long road around the island. As he drove, you felt all of life there, stretched out and sleepy in the black night—the still cars and dark houses, the glow of porch lights and the tiny red beams of sailboats bobbing in the waters of the sound. Gardens resting, hawks not, rabbits huddling together for safety. People dreaming, toes touching other toes under quilts, fretful tossing, all of what might be waiting when morning came. The slow, permanent rhythms of the tides, of trees doing midnight growing, of humans forever tangling and untangling their own stories. I breathed it allin through the open windows, felt its grandness, and beside me, felt Hayden’s presence there too, him with his one elbow out the open window, his T-shirt sleeve flapping in the cool air.
    I watched his profile. The tick-tock tick-tock of the turn signal sounded both tired and important at that late hour. It reminded me of arrivals and departures, the sound of coming home when you were a child and it was past your bedtime, and you’d been asleep in the backseat of the car.
    The tires crunched gravel, and he pulled over at the small curve where there was a scenic view labeled with a sign. We sat there for a while, listening to crickets through the open windows. The night smelled like blackberry leaves and the ocean’s nearness, something sweet and deep and full. His presence seemed so large there beside me. I felt it in every part of me. It was bigger than the sound stretched before us, a sea of creamy blue-black tinged with silver moonlit waves.
    “Hear that hawk?” he said.
    “Yeah.”
    My voice seemed to surprise him. He looked over at me. He seemed startled. Maybe he’d forgotten who was in the car with him.
    “We’d better get back,” he said.
    He reversed out of the lot, set us on the road again. We didn’t amble and stray this time, just made a straight shot there. We were nearing home when he spoke. “She’s scared about getting close. She says she’s scared; that’s why.”
    “She’s scared about getting close,” I said. Right. She had seemed really scared of getting close when she was wrapped up with Buddy Wilkes on our living room couch. Getting pregnant on purpose sure seemed like being scared of getting close. Uh-huh.
    “You know, after …”
    He didn’t finish. I wanted to say, after what? What big crisis had she had that we didn’t know about? But I felt irritated at the direction things were going in. We were almost home. The ride was almost over, and maybe I’d never have another like it again. I picked up his pack of cigarettes on the seat. I shook one out.
    “You could teach me to smoke,” I said.
    “You don’t want to smoke, Scarlet.”
    “I do. You could teach me.” I put one between my lips. It tasted brown and sweet, sweeter than the gray, ashy smell it made when lit. I let it hang there. “How’s this? Like in the movies.” I pretended to smoke, blew out the imaginary air. I was feeling a little reckless. The wind and the night and the late hour and watching Hayden’s profile, it all made me feel like I could toss things away, everything, all. Like I would want that, and it would be good.
    “Give me that,” he said. He snatched it from my lips, and I could feel his hand brush against my mouth. His fingers, brushing against my skin.
    “My smoking days are over already? And I wanted it so much.”
    “You don’t want that, Scarlet.”
    “I don’t?”
    “It’s not who you are.”
    We pulled up to our driveway then. He cut the engine, and there in front of our still house, the night seemed quieter than quiet.
    “We don’t know that.”
    “We do know that. And it’s a good thing. It’s a great thing,” he said. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”
    We went inside again. There was the shushing of Zeus, the creaking steps, the turning door handles, in reverse. He stopped at their door. I wanted something bad. I could feel the rumble of that want filling every bit of me. If you had asked me right then what Iwanted, though, I might not even have been able to say exactly what it was.
    “Good night,” he whispered finally.
    “Good night,” I whispered back.

Chapter Fifteen
    H ey, Miss A plus.” I closed my locker and