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He simply shook his head and went back to dipping his fries into his ketchup.
“OK. Are you going to ask me about me?”
I noticed how he thoroughly chewed and swallowed before answering me, then dabbing his face with a napkin. Man, this dude. Wound so tight, I could bounce a quarter off his asshole, I’d wager.
“Fine. You got a husband? Boyfriend?”
“Nope. Single as can be. Young, wild and free,” I chirped. I tried to wink at him but he seemed to be looking over my head, trying to avoid eye contact.
Undeterred, I continued. “Parents? Middle child of three, as you know. Mom’s still around but we don’t see each other much. Dad had a secret second family, and left us all behind when I was a kid. Mom never remarried because she’d lose alimony, but she let her douchebag boyfriend move in and he was a creep. Mom didn’t believe me when I told her I caught him in my room, watching me sleep at night. More than once. So, I left home at seventeen and never looked back.”
I finally stopped talking and saw him staring at me intently for the first time. He seemed to have forgotten his fries, his hands clasped together on the table.
“What’s wrong, Sam?” I had to ask because his jaw looked tight. Something I said made him ... what? Uncomfortable? Angry?
“What happened to your brother and sister, if I may ask?”
I could not help but smile at the way he asked that. “Dee was already away at college when I left. She didn’t speak to me for a long time because she said I’d abandoned the family just like dad had. We’re working on that. My younger brother Raven came and found me a year after I’d moved out to ask if he could come live with me. Mom kicked him out after he came out as gay. So we lived together for a while and now he’s studying to be a teacher. I’m the only one who never made anything for myself.”
Sam leaned back and said, “Well now, I know that ain’t true.”
“Kind of you to say, but it’s hard not to feel inferior, as a 25-year-old cashier at a farm supply store, in a family with a soon-to-be teacher and a lawyer.”
He laughed a derisive laugh. “Ridiculous.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing wrong with being a cashier. You tell your sister to kiss your grits.”
“It’s more of a fuck you and kiss my ass kind of relationship. But, like I said, we’re working on it.”
He seemed to bristle when I cussed, but said nothing about it directly.
I wanted to ask him what his story was, but I didn’t get the chance.
Instead we were hustled back to the courtroom for a long afternoon where only one witness was examined and cross examined. It was pretty intense. The witness we heard from was the first responder to the scene of the crime, who described Senator Jacobsen dead in his bed.
Based on his testimony, we learned that there did not appear to have been a struggle, but there was a bottle of sleeping pills left out next to the bed.
When asked, he said that “Mrs. Jacobsen seemed distraught but not to the degree that most loved ones appear to be at the scene of their spouse’s death.” There were some objections and some were sustained, others were overruled. I didn’t understand all of it.
It’s a lot to take in. He described the state of the house when he arrived, the state of the bedroom, the appearance of the victim, and the bed clothes—everything in exhausting detail.
During dinner at Chili’s with the other jurors, somebody brought up the fact that they wouldn’t be able to sleep after the day’s testimony. Juror Number 3, as if waiting for this moment her whole life, suddenly brightened up and told the entire table that she happened to have a cure for that.
“I have all kinds of remedies for anything bothering any of you, all you have to do is ask. I brought my entire case of oils with me, and I have no problem sharing.”
I kept my head down and ate my black bean burger. I wanted to roll my eyes in Sam’s direction, but he had been driven back to the hotel early, saying he was tired.
“Seriously,” said Number 3, who introduced herself as Betty. “Lavender will help you sleep. And I have all kinds of blends for anxiety, the flu, arthritis.”
I bit my tongue so hard I thought it might bleed. She might have had a point about lavender, but real illnesses need more than just essential oils.
I tuned her out eventually, reminding myself I’m going to have to get along with all of these people for the foreseeable future, so I should keep my mouth shut.
Later that night, in my room, I finished the Fuck Off cross stitch and added a tiny flower. I had tried working on my next cross stitch design, a Christmas-themed vagina, but it didn't hold my attention.
I can’t very well play a board game by myself, so I knocked on the door of the juror named Betty, one door down from me. She opened it a crack and looked me up and down. “Yes?”
