The juror selection process is kind of like being acontestant on American Idol, only without any talent other than beingAmerican.
The waiting room is aptly named, with lots of seating andseveral clocks. I grab a chair around one of the circular tables and smile to awoman across from me. Then I open my book and scan the first page again: Threewomen step off a plane. It sounded like the start of a joke. A guy namedJosh watches this scene unfold at the airport, thinking it might be a nice wayto start a short story. Please, Elin Hilderbrand, take me with you toNantucket, I beg. Conjuring up the smell of hydrangeas in July, I find my placeon the bottom of page seventy-six.
Two pages later, a different bailiff enters the room andclears his throat. “Will those people just called from the jury selection roomplease follow me.”
“Where are we goin’?” some guy calls out from the back.
“Voir dire,” he announces. “Room 704. Please stay togetheras we approach the elevator banks.”
“I cannot believe this,” a woman complains as we step ontothe elevator together. “Just my luck. You ever get one of those feelings, likesomething is supposed to happen? No matter what?” she asks me, running herhands through her cropped blond hair. “As soon as I got the summons, I just knewI’d get picked.” She shakes her head slowly back and forth, almost talking toherself. “I just knew it, goddammit.”
“Me, too!” I say, framing in a new light the magicalmoment this morning as the bus pulled away from the curb and the blue envelopefloated toward me. She looks at me questioningly. “I mean, me, too. Goddammit.”
“I have so much to do at work,” a young guy in a suitpipes in. “I just started this job and can’t afford to be out.”
“Take it up with the judge,” comes a monotone responsefrom the bailiff, staring up at the lit numbers. He must hear this kind ofbabble all the time.
“I did,” the suit replies, sounding defeated.
“Well, maybe you won’t be right for the case,” I add.
“Yeah,” the guy from the waiting room agrees. “To get outof a case, I plan on being a total ist,” he confides.
“An ist?” several of us echo back.
“You know.” He gestures, his right hand raised, pushingagainst the air for emphasis. “Racist, sexist, communist, whatever it takes. I’mgoin’ in as a total asshole.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” the woman with short hair singsunder her breath.
“What was that, sweetheart?” he asks, moving toward us asthe elevator doors open. He’s a stocky guy, wearing ripped jeans splatteredwith paint. Seven hundred keys jangle from his hip as he pushes through the crowd.
I turn and smile. “Oh, it was nothing! She just hopes thatstrategy works for you!”
“Sweetheart!” she adds. We power walk to keep upwith the bailiff as he takes us down a long hallway.
“By the way, I’m Lauren.”
“Carrie. Glad to meet you.” She makes a little wave in theair as we are ushered into a big room with modern windows. A few rows of whitefolding chairs are neatly lined up in the center of the room, but the bailiffinstructs us to sit in other chairs around the perimeter of the room for now.
Entering behind the bailiff are two men in suits. One istall with sandy hair and the other is short, with jet-black, slicked-back hairand a goatee. Right away, I don’t like him.
I’m so impartial.
Think like a juror, become a juror. This littlemantra enters my mind and I hold fast to it. Think like a juror, become ajuror. No one is guilty until proven so. No, wait. That’s wrong. Put it inthe positive. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
The tall guy speaks first. “Ladies and gentlemen, goodmorning. I am Mr. John Silvan, and to my right is Mr. Thomas Parnell. We arethe lawyers on this case. We are here to speak with you this morning because weneed to assemble a jury.”
“And we need to do it quickly,” Parnell adds.
Silvan nods his head. They both clutch clipboards withlittle pieces of paper attached to them. I feel like I’m in CSI: Alden. That’swhy, in my head, I’ve decided to call everyone by their last names. I amimagining the crisp television theme music playing in the background as theseguys speak.
“This is a civil case in which a mother is suing a daycarefor neglecting her child,” Silvan explains.
Oh shit. Really? I sink back in my chair, instantlydeflated. Of all the voir dires in all the world, I have to walk into this one.Child neglect! I bet when the lawyers sat down this morning to imagine an idealjury, they were like, You know, what we really need to balance out this jurywill be a mother of two who is also a teacher. Someone really on the inside,with lots of experience and bias. As soon as I open my mouth, I am sogetting kicked out of here.
Parnell picks up where Silvan left off. “Now, whether theaccused did or did not do this, and to what extent the law is in the daycare’sfavor or the working mother’s favor, is what you will decide if you are placedon this case. For this trial, you will merely look at the facts, hear fromseveral witnesses, and examine the law to decide if the facility and its ownersare at all guilty of any wrongdoing.”
“Now, I am going to call forward a few of you to sit here,in the twelve seats in the center of the room,” Silvan says.
I’m the fourth one called. Carrie is also called, as isSweetheart. Before long, there are twelve of us seated, two rows of six, with acircle of others looking on.
There are a lot of people here trying to get out ofjury duty, but I am not one of them. I take a furtive look around the room tosize up the competition.
There’s one. She’s a gray-haired black woman actually knittingin the corner. She’s got all the markings of your typical juror—old, domestic,with time on her hands—and I scowl at her, trying to will her away.
