The Six Rules of Maybe

else, too—that premeditated acts were alwaysthe worst ones.
    “I don’t need money,” I said. “I’ll eat something here. Actually, I’m not feeling too well. I think I’m sick.”
    Mom put a distracted hand up to my forehead. “You feel fine,” she said. “It’s the heat. Take some vitamins. Go to bed early.”
    “I might be really sick. I might need you,” I said.
    She rolled her eyes. “You?” She laughed. “You’re fine.” She was right. I wasn’t the sort who needed things. Even when I was sick, I felt a pride about getting my own ginger ale and Kleenex.
    “Hot date, huh,” Hayden said to Mom. He caught my eye, tightened his jaw in fellow Dean hatred. He had no idea. I noticed that the ring box was missing from the counter where it had sat for weeks. It was in her purse, I guessed. Her fingers had probably touched it as she had rummaged inside. By the end of this night, she’d be wearing that ring.
    “Dean and I are having dinner,” Mom said. I could smell her perfume. Her hair looked stiff from hair spray and was high off her neck like Juliet’s. She wore a slinky black sleeveless blouse. It wasn’t the kind of blouse you wanted your mother to wear. It was a blouse with ideas.
    “When you recover from your sudden illness, you and Hayden can order a pizza,” Juliet said. Of course—you made plans for other people only when you wanted them busy and out of your way.
    “Yeah, come on, sister-in-law. We can watch some stupid television. Distract ourselves from the fact that it’s a hundred degrees out.” Hayden tipped the last of the beer into his throat.
    “Mom’s got a huge collection of old videos now,” Juliet said.
    It was the second time she had used the word huge . If there was a time to believe in the subconscious, maybe this was it. Huge described what she was about to do. Enormous, disastrous, monumental. BuddyWilkes must have changed his mind about Elizabeth Everly. Juliet and his history together, whatever it had been, and whatever it still was—I guess it was just too powerful to let go of.
    Mom was right—sometimes the bad guys did win. Sometimes, even if you tried your whole life to keep things going in their best direction, to hold things in their truest places by your sheer will, rightness could slide through your fingers so fast, you could feel the actual strength of badness. You could stand there in your own kitchen one summer night and find that all of your control had suddenly run out, the way a car with a broken gauge suddenly runs out of gas in the middle of some dark nowhere.
    Hayden and I were alone for the night, then. It was hard not to be aware, aware, aware of this. The heat made sweat gather at the base of my neck, behind my legs. I worked on the Clive Weaver project, made my nightly, unanswered call to Nicole, but I felt restless. I looked for Kevin Frink’s Volkswagen, which was not out by the curb or anywhere on the street, as far as I could tell. My window had been repaired from Jeffrey and Jacob’s rocket, but with all the windows in the house open, I could know if he was driving up. It seemed important to hear Kevin Frink coming.
    “Scarlet!” Hayden called up the stairs. “Come on, let’s get out of here. It’s too hot to stay inside.”
    I was no different, maybe, from my mother or sister, who had walked right into something destructive to themselves or others. I didn’t do the responsible thing and mentally argue the pros and cons of going with him on that night in particular. I knew where my sister was, that she was taking something that wasn’t hers, or giving away something of hers that she couldn’t or shouldn’t give away twice.
    “One sec!” I called back to him. I actually hurried. So fast that Icaught the toe of my sandal on the carpet and nearly lunged forward. The edge of the bed caught me; I did not catch myself. I rushed on a swipe of lipstick. Mascara. A clean-smelling perfume I had snitched from Juliet’s drawer a long time ago, when she was still living here.
    “You look great,” he said when he saw me. Both he and Zeus looked up at me from the bottom of the stairs. I flushed. “You’re going out with a piece of crap.” He pointed to himself, in his ragged shorts and T-shirt.
    “No worries,” I said. I thought he looked great too. He was one of those guys who looked even better the messier he got. After he mowed the lawn and he was unshaven and his hair was damp with sweat … You didn’t mind the smell