Love the one youre with

The Americans by Robert Frank, which comprised a series of photos he took in the 1950s while traveling across the country. I was mesmerized by his black-and-white images, each a complete story unto itself. I felt as if I knew the stocky man bent over a jukebox, the elegant woman gazing over her shoulder in an elevator, and the dark-skinned nanny cradling a creamy white baby. I decided that this sense of truly believing you knew a subject, more than anything else, was the mark of a great photograph. If I could take pictures like that, I thought, I would be fulfilled, even without a boyfriend.

Looking back it was perfectly clear what I should do next, but it took Margot to point out the obvious-one of the many things friends are for. She had just returned home from a business trip to Los Angeles, rolling in her suitcase and pausing at the kitchen table to pick up one of my freshly developed photographs. It was a color photo of a distraught teenaged girl sitting on a curb on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, the contents of her purse spilled onto the street around her. She had long, curly red hair and was beautiful in that adolescent, no-makeup way that I didn't fully recognize at the time because I was so young, too. The girl was reaching out to retrieve a cracked mirror with one hand, the other was barely touching her forehead.

'Wow,' Margot said, holding the photo up close to her face. 'That's an amazing picture.'

'Thanks,' I said, feeling modest-but proud. It was an amazing picture.

'Why's she so sad?' Margot asked.

I shrugged, telling her I seldom talked to the people I photographed. Only if they caught me taking their picture and talked to me first.

'Maybe she lost her wallet,' Margot said.

'Maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend,' I said.

Or maybe her mother just died.

Margot kept studying the picture, commenting that the girl's bright red knee socks gave the photo an almost vintage feel. 'Although,' she added in her usual, fashion-obsessed way, 'knee socks are coming back in. Whether you like it or not.'

'Not,' I said. 'But duly noted.'

That's when she said to me, 'Your photos are pure genius, Ellen.' Her head bobbed earnestly as she wound her soft, honey-colored hair into a bun and fastened it with a mechanical pencil. It was a haphazardly cool technique I had tried to emulate a hundred times, but could never make look right. When it came to hair or fashion or makeup, everything I copied from Margot fell somehow short. She nodded once more and said, 'You should pursue photography professionally.'

'You think so?' I said offhandedly.

Oddly enough, it was something I had never considered, although I'm not sure why. Perhaps I was worried that my enthusiasm would exceed my ability. I couldn't bear the thought of failing at something I cared so much about. But Margot's opinion meant a lot to me. And as insincere as she sometimes was with her Southern pleasantries and compliments, she was never that way with me. She always gave it to me straight-the sign of a real friendship.

'I know so,' she said. 'You should go for it. Do this thing for real.'

So I took Margot's advice and began to look for a new job in the photography field. I applied for every assistant's position I could find-including a few for cheesy wedding photographers on Long Island. But without any formal training, I was once again turned down by everyone and ended up taking a minimum-wage position as a film processor in a small, boutique-y photo lab with ancient equipment. I had to start somewhere, I told myself, as I took the bus to dreary lower Second Avenue on my first day and unpacked my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in a drafty back room that smelled of cigarettes and bleach.

But, as it turned out, it was the ideal first job thanks to Quynh, the Vietnamese girl who was married to the owner's son. Quynh spoke little English, but was a pure genius with color and taught me more about custom printing than I could have learned in any class (and more than I eventually did learn when I finally went to photography school). Every day I watched Quynh's thin, nimble fingers feed the film and twist the knobs on the machines, adding a little more yellow, a little less blue to yield the most perfect prints, while I fell more in love with my fledgling chosen profession.

So that's where I was when I got that infamous jury summons. Although still quite poor, I was fulfilled, happy, and hopeful, and none too anxious to put my work (and pay) on hold for jury duty. Margot suggested that I ask Andy, who had just started his third year of law school at Columbia, for his advice on how to get excused. So I gave him a call, and he assured me it would be a cinch.

'You can't lie on voir dire,' he said as I listened, impressed with the Latin term. 'But you can exaggerate your bias. Just imply that you hate lawyers, don't trust cops, or resent the wealthy. Whatever it seems they're looking for.'

'Well,' I said. 'I do resent the wealthy.'

Andy chuckled. He could tell I was kidding, but he also must have known from Margot how broke I always was. He cleared his throat, and continued earnestly, 'Impetuous body language can do the trick, too. Look pissed off and put out to be there. Like you have more important things to be doing. Keep your arms crossed. Neither side wants an impatient juror.'

I said I would definitely take his advice. Anything to get back to my regularly scheduled life-and my much- needed paycheck.

But all of that changed in a flash when I saw Leo for the first time, a moment frozen in my mind forever.

It was still early morning, but I had exhausted my stash of magazines in my tote bag, checked my watch a hundred times, and called Quynh from a pay phone to give her a status report, when I sat back in my chair, scanned the jury room, and spotted him sitting a few rows diagonally in front of me. He was reading the back page of the New York Post as he nodded to the beat of a song on his Discman, and I suddenly had a crazy urge to know what he was listening to. For some reason, I imagined that it was the Steve Miller Band or Crosby, Stills and Nash. Something manly and comfortable to go with his faded Levi's, a navy fleece pullover, and black, loosely tied Adidas sneakers. As he glanced up at the wall clock, I admired his profile. His distinctive nose (Margot would later dub it defiant), high cheekbones, and the way his wavy, dark hair curled against the smooth olive skin of his neck. He wasn't particularly big or tall, but he had a broad back and shoulders that looked so strong. I envisioned him jumping rope in a bare-bones, stripped-down gym or running up the courthouse steps, Rocky style, and decided that he was more sexy than handsome. As in, the 'I bet he'd be great in bed' definition of sexy. The thought took me by surprise as I wasn't accustomed to assessing strange men in such a strictly physical way. Like most women, I was about getting to know someone first-attraction based on personality. Moreover, I wasn't even that into sex. Yet.

As if reading my mind, Leo turned in his seat and shot me a wry, intelligent look that said, 'I busted you,' or maybe just, 'Jury duty sucks, doesn't it?' He had deep-set eyes (so deep set that I couldn't quite tell the color) that somehow managed to look mysterious under yellow fluorescent lights. I held his gaze for what felt like one dangerous beat before pretending to concentrate on the droning bureaucrat at the front of the room who was explaining what constituted a valid medical excuse for at least the fifth time.

Later Leo would tell me that I appeared flustered while I would vehemently deny it, insisting that I barely noticed him at all. Either way, we would agree that that was the moment jury duty no longer completely sucked.

For the next hour, I was acutely aware of Leo's every small move. I watched him stretch and yawn. I watched him fold his newspaper and stow it under his chair. I watched him saunter out of the room and return with a pack of peanut butter crackers which he ate openly despite the No Food or Drink signs posted around the room. He never once looked back at me, but I had the feeling that he was aware of me watching him and this fact gave me a strange thrill. I wasn't about to call it anything as crazy as love at first sight-I didn't believe in things like that-but I knew that I was intrigued in an inexplicable, unprecedented way.

And then my jury-duty fairy godmother granted my wish. Our names were called, in a list of other names, and we ended up side by side in a jury box, mere inches apart. There was nothing grand or gilded or movie-set worthy about the small courtroom, yet there was still a sense that something somber and important was about to unfold, a tension that made sitting so close to Leo feel wildly intimate. From the corner of my eye, I could see his sturdy forearm crisscrossed by blue veins and was taken aback by a fluttery longing that was reminiscent of that high school crush I had on Matt, and my euphoria when he sat next to me one morning in our musty auditorium during a