Lauren Takes Leave Read Online Free PDF Page B

named, with lots of seating and
several clocks. I grab a chair around one of the circular tables and smile to a
woman across from me. Then I open my book and scan the first page again: Three
women step off a plane. It sounded like the start of a joke. A guy named
Josh watches this scene unfold at the airport, thinking it might be a nice way
to start a short story. Please, Elin Hilderbrand, take me with you to
Nantucket, I beg. Conjuring up the smell of hydrangeas in July, I find my place
on the bottom of page seventy-six.
    Two pages later, a different bailiff enters the room and
clears his throat. “Will those people just called from the jury selection room
please follow me.”
    “Where are we goin’?” some guy calls out from the back.
    “Voir dire,” he announces. “Room 704. Please stay together
as we approach the elevator banks.”
    “I cannot believe this,” a woman complains as we step onto
the elevator together. “Just my luck. You ever get one of those feelings, like
something is supposed to happen? No matter what?” she asks me, running her
hands through her cropped blond hair. “As soon as I got the summons, I just knew I’d get picked.” She shakes her head slowly back and forth, almost talking to
herself. “I just knew it, goddammit.”
    “Me, too!” I say, framing in a new light the magical
moment this morning as the bus pulled away from the curb and the blue envelope
floated 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 suit
pipes in. “I just started this job and can’t afford to be out.”
    “Take it up with the judge,” comes a monotone response
from the bailiff, staring up at the lit numbers. He must hear this kind of
babble 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 out
of 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, pushing
against the air for emphasis. “Racist, sexist, communist, whatever it takes. I’m
goin’ in as a total asshole.”
    “Shouldn’t be too hard,” the woman with short hair sings
under her breath.
    “What was that, sweetheart?” he asks, moving toward us as
the elevator doors open. He’s a stocky guy, wearing ripped jeans splattered
with 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 that
strategy works for you!”
    “ Sweetheart! ” she adds. We power walk to keep up
with 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 the
air as we are ushered into a big room with modern windows. A few rows of white
folding chairs are neatly lined up in the center of the room, but the bailiff
instructs us to sit in other chairs around the perimeter of the room for now.
    Entering behind the bailiff are two men in suits. One is
tall with sandy hair and the other is short, with jet-black, slicked-back hair
and a goatee. Right away, I don’t like him.
    I’m so impartial.
    Think like a juror, become a juror. This little
mantra enters my mind and I hold fast to it. Think like a juror, become a
juror. No one is guilty until proven so. No, wait. That’s wrong. Put it in
the positive. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
    The tall guy speaks first. “Ladies and gentlemen, good
morning. I am Mr. John Silvan, and to my right is Mr. Thomas Parnell. We are
the lawyers on this case. We are here to speak with you this morning because we
need to assemble a jury.”
    “And we need to do it quickly,” Parnell adds.
    Silvan nods his head. They both clutch clipboards with
little pieces of paper attached to them. I feel like I’m in CSI: Alden . That’s
why, in my head, I’ve