“Chloe,” I correct.
“Who’s she?”
“Nobody new, that’s for sure.” I’ll have to bury the newChloe dustcover that the bag came with in the back of my underwear drawer. Noneed to invite further suspicion.
I’ve tried to talk to Doug about my feelings, really Ihave. It’s not like I want to lie. I’d love to be able to come home and say, Lookat my gorgeous new pocketbook! Don’t you just love it? And he’d sigh andsay, It’s just what you’ve always wanted. I’m so happy for you. Butanyone with a husband knows that that’s about as realistic as a Disney princessmovie. And so, the big purchases get hidden. They come into the house when he’snot home, the shopping bags magically disappear, and then the items getseamlessly added into the rotation as if they were there all along.
It doesn’t matter if the conversation is about shopping,or about traveling, or, most recently, about feeling these urges to party likeit’s 1999. He always shuts me down. We don’t have money. We don’t have time.Can we talk about this later? When I’m not exhausted from work?
I finish hanging the dry cleaning and raise my voice over theshower. “I’m going downstairs to watch TV. You coming?”
“In a few. I have to return a call from my client at Bankof America first.”
“Okay.”
“What’s for dinner?” Doug shouts, as an afterthought.
“Nothing!” I say. Since returning to work when Beccaturned two, I have sucked at making dinner, and Laney has not been a greathelp. Why is preparing dinner nightly my job? Why are all the things Idid when not working—like scheduling doctors’ appointments, getting presentsfor birthday parties, going to the supermarket and dry cleaner’s—still myjob exclusively now that I work full-time again, just like Doug? Sometimes Iwonder who put me in charge.
And then I wonder what would happen if I just decided oneday not to be.
Chapter 6
Tuesday
I roll down the window of my car and pull up to thesecurity booth at the courthouse parking lot. As instructed, the special jurorpermit is on my windshield, and I motion to it while saying good morning to theguard. He barely looks up from his newspaper as he waves me through. “Thanks!”I call. “Have a nice day!”
Making my way up to the main entrance, I’m feeling rathercheerful indeed. My first day as a juror! I have purchased a new notepad forthe occasion, as suggested by the bailiff yesterday, to jot down any technicalnotes from the case that I might need to recall during deliberation. Whilewaiting in line at the metal detector, I sip my coffee and imagine the jurydeadlocked. Flipping through my notebook, I will find the one loophole to knockthe whole case wide open. Juror number four saves the day!
Law & Order has messed with my head.
I enter the juror waiting room attached to our courtroomon the fifth floor. “Morning,” I say to the group.
“That it is, doll,” Sweetheart says. No one looks up.Carrie gives a little wave, but her eyes are glued to her BlackBerry.
“You smuggled yours in, too?” I ask. She nods faintly inreply, not looking up from her screen.
It was a risky move, but I really wanted to listen to anew mix I made off of iTunes, so I hid my phone deep in my pocketbook and toldthe security guard that I didn’t have my phone on me.
I thought I was being such a rebel. Apparently, I was onlyfollowing the herd.
No one’s chatty this morning, so I take out my iPhone andpretend to be busy. Something catches my eye as the incoming e-mails unrolldown the screen. There’s a message from “lkatzenberg.” Lenny. I scroll backthrough the uploading messages to find it, but just then a bailiff enters andclears her throat. I drop the phone into my pocketbook.
“Hello, jurors, my name is Delilah and I am the bailiffassigned to this case.” Delilah is such a feminine name for this woman standingbefore me, with no makeup on her cocoa skin and her black hair pulled backtightly into a bun. Women in uniforms always look like men to me, even if theyare wide hipped and big bosomed like Delilah. She fingers the gun in herholster and I snap back to attention.
“The judge and the lawyers for the case are in chambersright now, preparing for the start of the trial. Until the judge tells me tocall you in, you will stay here. In this room, you may eat, you may talk toeach other, and”—she looks my way—“you may use your cell phones, as long as theother jurors don’t mind.” She then tells us how to find the bathrooms on thefloor and warns us to be prepared to wait for a while. “Could be up to an hour,give or take, depending.” She shrugs before leaving the room.
“Depending on what?” Sweetheart asks after she’s gone.“That doesn’t make no sense!”
“Any,” Carrie says emphatically. “Doesn’t make anysense.”
“Exactly.” He nods in agreement and smiles at her. Carriereturns the smile hesitantly. Then she looks my way and rolls her eyes.
One older woman takes out some Sudoku puzzles and anotherone picks up the novel she’s been reading. A young guy gets up to stretch andtells us that he’ll be on a call in the hallway. “Come get me if the judgeneeds us, okay?” I remember him from yesterday, the guy with a new job. Poorthing. He thinks work matters.
Then I remember the e-mail. Leonard. I can’t remember ourlast exchange, exactly, except that I had the feeling I’d somehow pissed himoff. In the midst of all the junk e-mails from department stores, I find hisnote.
Subject: New Video
From: [email protected]
Date: April 10
Hey All,
I have posted my new video on YouTube. Please take a look,and share the link if you like it. (If not, forget I ever mentioned it.)
MC Lenny
I’m a little bit disappointed that this isn’t a personalmessage, a shout out or joke just for me. But the video intrigues me, asalways. I plug my headphones into the phone and click on the link, which takesa moment or two to load.
Leonard is
