The Six Rules of Maybe

caught it.
    His head appeared. His hair was all tousled, and one curly lock fell over his forehead. “I thought that Dean was an engineer,” he said. He took the wire from me. “Thanks.”
    “He is an engineer. Computer engineer.”
    “That’s even worse. Dick wad can’t even hook up a VCR properly. I can’t stand that guy. ‘I think Americans are so pompous and judgmental,’” he said in a high Dean-accented voice, with his cheek against the cabinet.
    “You sort of sounded like the queen of England.”
    “You should hear my Nixon,” he said.
    “I can’t understand what she sees in him. I just can’t.”
    “Maybe he’s one of those things people either love or hate, like beets,” he said.
    I laughed. “Ha. You are the one who notices life, remember, like you told me?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I guess we’re an awful lot alike,” he said.
    He leaned back behind the cabinet again, and I could hear thescritching of wires against wood. “There. That should do it. Hey, thanks. My trusty assistant there wasn’t much help.” Zeus was curled up in front of the couch, snoring. He snored like an old man.
    “They always ask to go on their break, just when you need them,” I said.
    “Ever since he joined the dog union he’s been impossible.” Hayden reappeared again. “Okay, let’s try it.”
    He sat down on the couch. I shouldn’t have sat beside him because of how much I wanted to sit beside him, but I did anyway. He picked up the remote and pointed it toward the TV. One of Mrs. Martinelli’s old exercise tapes started up. A dark-haired studly guy appeared; he was on a Hawaiian beach, surrounded by six women on round mats, all with their legs in the air.
    “Let me hear you!” the stud said. “Seven, eight, nine, ten. Feel your buttocks burn!”
    “No wonder Mrs. Martinelli watches so much TV,” I said.
    “I’m sure this got her heart rate up, all right.” The muscled leader was now lunging side to side as if he were in a duel. Robin Hood and his merry Lycra-clad women.
    “I’m sure Mom appreciates your help,” I said.
    “Take that, Dean Neuhaus,” he said. “Sucker engineer.”
    Zeus began to dog-dream growl, accompanied by a half-suppressed dog-dream bark, a funny little wuf that made his lips flubber. “Zeus is chasing bad guys in his sleep,” I said.
    “He’s a hero in his own mind.”
    We watched his furry butterscotch chest go up and down with sleep, as the exercisers on TV squatted down, their arms straight out in front of them.
    “Maybe he’s ripping Dean Neuhaus’s pant legs to shreds,” I said.
    “Buddy Wilkes’s neck,” Hayden said.
    He looked at me and I looked at him, and I couldn’t help it. I took his hand. I held it and I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but I didn’t care. I wanted to lean over, kiss him. I wanted that bad. I let that thought in, allowed it for just a moment, and it felt good. But for now, I just squeezed his hand. He squeezed back as if it were the most innocent thing in the world. My skin on his—it didn’t feel innocent, not to me.
    “It’s really hard to understand,” he said.
    “It’s going to be okay,” I said again, and again the words felt echoey and vacant. I’d never wanted to help anyone like I wanted to help him. I could love him the way he deserved to be loved. I wanted to give him so much that it was an actual ache. My heart felt like it was taking up ninety-five percent of my body.
    “You’re going to love someone properly, Scarlet. I can tell that.”
    I couldn’t speak. Any words I might say were caught in my throat. It seemed possible that my real voice would be locked inside forever.
    “God, is it a million degrees in here, or is it just me? Jesus.” He let go, wiped his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt.
    “I’ll open some doors,” I said.
    Hayden turned his eyes to the tight bodies on the TV. “I bet that guy’s about eighty now,” he said.
    I didn’t wait to talk to Mom about Juliet this time. I would handle this myself, if no one else would. Hayden could get hurt. That baby could. And that baby wasn’t just Juliet’s baby, it was all of ours. I could feel him move under my hand. If you held very still, that baby rolled and turned against your palm. I imagined he was having the most peaceful underwater time he might ever have. Nomatter what I felt, at least, at the very, very least, he deserved to be born into a parental land