Okay, maybe it is a little bit funny.
Actually, hysterical is more like it. It’s 12:30 onMonday and we’ve been dismissed for the day. “Report back to the courthousetomorrow morning at nine thirty sharp,” the bailiff tells us, handing out ourspecial parking passes. “Place these on your dash and you’ll get in to ourjurors’ lot. It’s located directly under this building, where the spots are notmetered. No need for quarters!”
“Great!” I exclaim.
Carrie is not amused. “I’m on a case. I knew it. Thissucks.”
“Indeed!” I add. “Wanna go shopping? Get some lunch?”
She studies me hard before responding. I meet her eyes,which are rimmed in too much black eyeliner. She’s older than me, by about adecade, perhaps. End of her forties. “Lauren, I gotta get back to work. If thiscase is going to go on for a full week like they say, then I need to use thistime to get set in the office.”
“Oh, of course!” I nod in agreement. “I just thought, youknow, something quick before heading back to work.” I look at my watch. “Iguess I should just go now, too. If I hurry, I can be there in time for sixthperiod.”
We head down in the elevator together, Carrie checking herwatch and me pushing back some cuticles on my right hand.
In the glossy marble hallway on the first floor, we partways. “Well, see ya tomorrow, I guess,” Carrie says with a nod, half-distractedby thoughts of work.
“Yeah…see you then.” I wave, turning the other way andpushing through the heavy glass doors of the modern high-rise.
The crisp sun surprises me, and I look up to see that theclouds have disappeared.
My mind knows that I should return to work, to the overachievingstudents in my sixth-period honors class, all of whom read more than I assign,even though I ask them not to. Do you know what it’s like to read the rumblescene of The Outsiders aloud to an audience that has heard it allbefore?
It’s a drag.
I find my minivan, drop some more quarters into the meter,and keep on walking.
Bye-bye, sixth period. So long, Ponyboy. It’s a beautifulday indeed, I think, as I head down the street in search of a salon and adeluxe mani-pedi.
Chapter 4
“No, you did not!” Kat screams in my ear.
“Yes, I so did!” I scream back. The ladies in the nailsalon are shooting me dirty looks, so I cradle my cell phone under my ear,collect my stuff, and head outside. “I got on a civil case. For an entireweek.”
“I hate you.”
“I know. I would hate me, too, if I were you, stuck in school.Kat, you were so right.”
“Now, that’s a shocker.”
“They also selected jurors for a criminal case today,manslaughter or something, and that one’s supposed to go on for like two orthree weeks, but, you know, the one I got on is still pretty good.”
“Manslaughter.” Kat sighs. “What a beautiful word.” Thereis silence on both ends as we let this sink in. “So, where are you now? At thecourthouse?”
“Nope. Salon! Got out at twelve thirty,” I say, finding myway back to the parking lot behind the county office buildings.
“Will you come visit me in my prison cell later, like yousaid you would? I’ve really got something to tell you.”
“Why so mysterious?” Gingerly, I reach into my bag for mycar keys, trying not to smudge my nails.
“Because the Oompa Loompas are on their way back fromart.”
“Catchy. You should use that term at the open house nextyear.”
“I should find a new job, is what I should do.”
“Yes, I believe we’ve been over that one before. Maybeteaching isn’t your calling.” I start the car and pull into traffic.
Kat is quiet for a minute and I switch to speakerphone.When she speaks again, her voice is barely above a whisper. “Maybe it isn’t.But then…what is?”
I sigh, thinking about my own questions and uncertainties,my own life’s dilemmas. “I don’t know, Kitty-Kat. I really don’t. See you in anhour or so.”
“Where you off to now?”
“Sophie’s.”
“Ooh…have fun.”
I pull up Sophie’s long, winding driveway and find aspace between the Porsche convertible and one of the handyman’s trucks. Thereis always commotion at Sophie’s. Today, several workers are on the flat-toppedroof of the contemporary glass fortress that is Sophie’s home, calling out inPortuguese as they pass tools and supplies to one another. The gardeners arehere as well, their mowers drowning out the sound of the four dogs of differentshapes and sizes barking on the other side of Sophie’s front door.
I think I ring the bell, but actually cannot hear it, so Iwait, waving and talking to the anxious pooches pawing the other side of theglass. “Where’s your mommy today, huh? Do you have lots of goodies to show me,doggies? New merch?” They jump on top of one another and push one another outof the way, nails alternatively clawing against the floor-to-ceiling windowsand tapping against the marble entryway.
“Hold on! Hold on! I’m coming!” I hear Sophie callas the churn of the lawn mowers die. She glides across the landing from the farside of the house, a brown toy poodle nipping at her heels.
Sophie is about fifty years old and very round. Because ofher amorphous size and shape, she tends to wear lots of black, flowy clothesthat carry the breeze in them and balloon up around her, so you cannot tellwhere she ends and the fabric begins. On top of the outfit is always a colorfulshawl or a scarf or a wrap of some sort that adds a bit of gypsy flare. Herhair is permanently helmeted into a stiff, glossy black bob. She wears brightlipsticks to match the shade on her long fingernails.
“Lauren!” she cries. She hugs me with one arm whilesimultaneously using her boots to kick back the dogs and close the door behindme. “Long time no see! What a nice surprise! It’s not even time yet for yourannual birthday purchase, is it? When you called, I was like, no way!And then I looked at the time and wondered why you weren’t teaching. Not thatit’s any of my business.”
