Lauren Takes Leave Read Online Free PDF

outstretched. He
yawns.
    I tear off the top portion of the paperwork and hand it
over to him.
    “Now just have a seat and wait. You may be called today,
you may not.”
    “Really? Because I was kind of hoping…”
    “To get it over with today, I know,” he says.
    “To get some change for the meter, actually, so that I
don’t get a ticket and wind up back in court!”
    He shrugs, letting me know how deeply unmoved he is by
both my pressing need for quarters and my sad attempt at irony.
    I enter a rather large lecture hall, like the kind of
place where college Psych 101 would meet. It’s all blond wood and modern in
feel. The open, airy quality is not what I was expecting from a county courthouse.
I select a spot in the very front section of the room to seem more eager for
service and, therefore, less likely to get picked for it. I expect to get some
direction from a judge, but none is forthcoming. So I reach into my bag and
start chipping away at the paperwork.
    During the first hour I grade an entire class set of
ridiculously depressing essays, rife with grammatical inventions, and write out
checks, including an overdue payment for our electricity. For the first time in
a long time, I feel productive, ahead of the game. The room has a soft hum
about it as people go about their work. It’s calm and silent, buzzing with
thought like a library.
    I stand and stretch, taking a look around. About fifty people
are scattered around the room, heads bent over books and notebooks. Not having
cell phones and computers inside the courthouse has a curious effect on us all.
Without the ringing, beeping, and pulsing of an immediate connection to the
outside world, it’s almost as if there is no outside world at all. Real time is
suspended.
    I have nothing I have to do, nowhere I have to be, nothing
I have to worry about. I am unreachable, unfindable.
    I kind of love it.
    I dig in my faux-leather school bag, remembering the
chick-lit paperback I’ve been carrying around with me for the past few months. Good
thing I don’t own a Kindle or I’d be staring at the ceiling tiles right about
now. Finding my place in the story, I settle back into my seat and disappear. The
next time I check my watch, another forty-five minutes have flown by.
    That’s when it hits me: Kat may have a point about jury
duty.
    This may just be the best day of my entire life.

Chapter 3
    It’s just so quiet here. Like a spa. Or an ashram.
Too bad they don’t serve organic unsweetened teas and let us walk around in
terrycloth robes and slippers.
    A worrisome thought pops into my head about ten minutes
later, as I’m finishing another chapter of this awesome book about absolutely
nothing. What if this is it? What if I get excused later on and I have to go
back to school tomorrow?
    That can’t happen. It just cannot .
    I must find a way to stay here, in this tranquil place,
with all these peaceful people, and hide from real life for as long as is
humanly possible.
    The truth—absurd as it may be—is this: I need to get
placed on a jury. I want t o get picked for a jury.
    A baritone voice breaks my trance. “Jurors 203 and 204,
and all jury summons numbers 211 to 221. Please come to the front and enter the
juror waiting room to my left,” the judge says, pointing with his gavel.
    My heart is beating fast with anticipation. I want to jump
up quickly, but now I have to think of appearances in the opposite way that I
had previously. Take your time, Lauren, look like this is the last place you
want to be. I catch one woman looking my way and roll my eyes at her, like, ain’t it a bitch?
    But, really, I’m like, juror waiting room, hooray ! That’s
one step closer to reaching my new goal. I’ve made it to the next round! Feeling
a bit jittery, I collect my belongings (slowly) and follow people out.
    The juror selection process is kind of like being a
contestant on American Idol, only without any talent other than being
American.
    The waiting room is aptly