Love the One You're With (3 page)

“You can’t lie on voir dire,” he said as I listened, impressed with the Latin term. “But you can exaggerate your bias. Just imply that you hate lawyers, don’t trust cops, or resent the wealthy. Whatever it seems they’re looking for.”

“Well,” I said. “I
do
resent the wealthy.”

Andy chuckled. He could tell I was kidding, but he also must have known from Margot how broke I always was. He cleared his throat, and continued earnestly, “Impetuous body language can do the trick, too. Look pissed off and put out to be there. Like you have more important things to be doing. Keep your arms crossed. Neither side wants an impatient juror.”

I said I would definitely take his advice. Anything to get back to my regularly scheduled life—and my much-needed paycheck.

But all of that changed in a flash when I saw Leo for the first time, a moment frozen in my mind forever.

It was still early morning, but I had exhausted my stash of magazines in my tote bag, checked my watch a hundred times, and called Quynh from a pay phone to give her a status report, when I sat back in my chair, scanned the jury room, and spotted him sitting a few rows diagonally in front of me. He was reading the back page of the
New York Post
as he nodded to the beat of a song on his Discman, and I suddenly had a crazy urge to know what he was listening to. For some reason, I imagined that it was the Steve Miller Band or Crosby, Stills and Nash. Something manly and comfortable to go with his faded Levi’s, a navy fleece pullover, and black, loosely tied Adidas sneakers. As he glanced up at the wall clock, I admired his profile. His distinctive nose (Margot would later dub it defiant), high cheekbones, and the way his wavy, dark hair curled against the smooth olive skin of his neck. He wasn’t particularly big or tall, but he had a broad back and shoulders that looked so strong. I envisioned him jumping rope in a bare-bones, stripped-down gym or running up the courthouse steps, Rocky style, and decided that he was more sexy than handsome. As in, the “I bet he’d be great in bed” definition of sexy. The thought took me by surprise as I wasn’t accustomed to assessing strange men in such a strictly physical way. Like most women, I was about getting to know someone first—attraction based on personality. Moreover, I wasn’t even that into sex.
Yet
.

As if reading my mind, Leo turned in his seat and shot me a wry, intelligent look that said, “I busted you,” or maybe just, “Jury duty sucks, doesn’t it?” He had deep-set eyes (so deep set that I couldn’t quite tell the color) that somehow managed to look mysterious under yellow fluorescent lights. I held his gaze for what felt like one dangerous beat before pretending to concentrate on the droning bureaucrat at the front of the room who was explaining what constituted a valid medical excuse for at least the fifth time.

Later Leo would tell me that I appeared flustered while I would vehemently deny it, insisting that I barely noticed him at all. Either way, we would agree that that was the moment jury duty no longer completely sucked.

For the next hour, I was acutely aware of Leo’s every small move. I watched him stretch and yawn. I watched him fold his newspaper and stow it under his chair. I watched him saunter out of the room and return with a pack of peanut butter crackers which he ate openly despite the No Food or Drink signs posted around the room. He never once looked back at me, but I had the feeling that he was aware of me watching him and this fact gave me a strange thrill. I wasn’t about to call it anything as crazy as love at first sight—I didn’t believe in things like that—but I knew that I was intrigued in an inexplicable, unprecedented way.

And then my jury-duty fairy godmother granted my wish. Our names were called, in a list of other names, and we ended up side by side in a jury box, mere inches apart. There was nothing grand or gilded or movie-set worthy about the small courtroom, yet there was still a sense that something somber and important was about to unfold, a tension that made sitting so close to Leo feel wildly intimate. From the corner of my eye, I could see his sturdy forearm crisscrossed by blue veins and was taken aback by a fluttery longing that was reminiscent of that high school crush I had on Matt, and my euphoria when he sat next to me one morning in our musty auditorium during a lackluster assembly about all the ways doing drugs could destroy our lives. I remember basking in Matt’s heavy application of Aramis cologne (which I can still sniff out in a crowd) and laughing at his wisecracks about all the ways that weed could actually
improve
your life. Come to think of it, Leo almost resembled an older-brother version of Matt, which made me wonder whether I actually
did
have a type, despite my protestations to Margot otherwise. If so, he was definitely it. And, with this observation, the DA directed his attention at Leo and said with false cheer, “Juror Number Nine. Good morning.”

Leo gave an aloof but respectful nod back.

“Where do you live, sir?” the DA asked.

I sat up straight in my chair, hoping that his voice would live up to his looks. There is nothing worse than a high, thin voice on a man, followed closely by delicate wrists, sloping shoulders, and a weak handshake.

Of course, Leo did not disappoint. He cleared his throat and out came his deep, self-assured voice with a New York accent. “Morningside Heights.”

“Did you grow up there?”

“No, I’m from Astoria,” Leo said. “Born and raised.”

Yes! Queens!
I thought, as I had already begun to fall in love with the outer boroughs. Perhaps because Brooklyn and the Bronx and Queens reminded me of home—blue collar and authentic. Perhaps because my photos away from the heart of New York’s riches were always more compelling.

The DA continued, asking Leo what he did for a living, as I thought to myself that voir dire was better than a first date. Someone else asked the questions while you got to eavesdrop. And he had to tell the truth.
Perfect
.

“I’m a writer … A reporter,” Leo said. “I cover a few beats for a small newspaper.”

Perfect,
I thought again. I pictured him roaming the streets with a spiral notepad and chatting up old guys in dark bars in the middle of the afternoon for a feature about how the city is losing all of its character and toughness.

And so it continued over the next few minutes as I swooned over Leo’s answers as much for the content as for his deadpan yet still colorful delivery. I learned that he went to college for three years and dropped out when he “ran out of funds.” That he didn’t know any lawyers—except a guy named Vern from elementary school “who was now an ambulance chaser, but a pretty decent guy in spite of his line of work. No offense.” That his brothers and father were firefighters, but that he never found the family profession “very compelling.” That he had never been married and had no children “that he knew of.” That he had never been a victim of violent crime, “unless you count being on the losing side of a couple fights.”

And with Leo’s last quip, my desire to get dismissed completely dissipated. Instead, I embraced my civic duty with a newfound fervor. When it was my turn to answer questions, I did everything Andy advised me
not
to do. I was friendly and eager to please. I flashed both lawyers my best school-crossing-guard smile, showing them what an ideal, open-minded juror I would make. I fleetingly considered my job and how much Quynh needed me at work, but then high-mindedly concluded that our criminal justice system and the Constitution upon which it was built were worth a sacrifice.

So when, several rounds of questioning later, Leo and I were selected as Jurors Nine and Ten, I was elated, a state that I intermittently returned to over the next six days of testimony despite graphic details of a brutal box-cutter stabbing in Spanish Harlem. A twenty-year-old kid was dead and another on trial for murder, and there I was hoping the evidence would take a good long while to shake out. I couldn’t help it. I craved more days beside Leo, the chance to talk to him. To know him in some small way. I needed to know whether my crush—although that term seemed to trivialize what I was feeling—was founded. All the while, Leo was friendly, but inaccessible. He kept his headphones on whenever possible, avoiding small talk in the hallway outside the courtroom where the rest of the jurors would chat about everything but the case, and he ate lunch alone every afternoon rather than joining us in the deli adjacent to the courthouse. His guardedness only made me like him more.

Then one morning, right before closing arguments, as we were settling in our jury-box seats, he turned and said to me, “This is it.” Then he smiled a genuine, slow smile—almost as if we were in on a secret together. My heart fluttered. And then, as if foreshadowed by that moment, we actually
were
in on a secret together.

It started during deliberations when it became clear that Leo and I shared the same view of the testimony. In short, we were both in favor of an outright acquittal. The actual killing wasn’t in issue—the defendant had confessed and the confession was unchallenged—so the sole debate was whether he had acted in self-defense. Leo and I thought he had. Or, to put it more accurately, we thought there was plenty of reasonable doubt that the defendant
hadn’t
acted in self-defense—a subtle distinction that, scarily enough, at least a half-dozen of our fellow jurors didn’t seem to grasp. We kept pointing to the fact that the defendant had no prior criminal record (a near miracle in his rough neighborhood), and that he was deathly afraid of the victim (who had been the toughest gang leader in Harlem and had been threatening the defendant for months—so much so that he had gone to the police for protection). And finally, that the defendant was carrying the box cutter in the normal course of his job with a moving company. All of which added up to our belief that the defendant had panicked when cornered by the victim and
three
of his gang-banger friends, and had lashed out in a state of panicked self-defense. It seemed like a plausible scenario—and definitely plausible enough to reach the benchmark of reasonable doubt.

After three long days of going around in aggravating circles, we were still in a gridlock with the rest of the panel, all of us miserably sequestered by night at a dreary Ramada Inn near JFK Airport. We were allowed to watch television—apparently the trial wasn’t newsworthy—but we weren’t allowed to make any outgoing phone calls, nor could we discuss the case with one another unless in the jury room during official deliberations.

So when my hotel room phone rang one night, I was startled, wondering who it could possibly be, and secretly hoping that it was Leo. Perhaps he had taken note of my room number on our way back from our bailiff-supervised group dinner earlier that evening. I fumbled for the phone and whispered hello into the receiver.

Leo returned his own hushed hello. Then he said, as if there had been any confusion, “It’s Juror Number Nine. Leo.”

“I know,” I said, feeling blood rush from my head to my limbs.

“Look,” he said (after three days of deliberations, I knew that he started his sentences with “look,” a quirk I loved). “I know I’m not supposed to be calling you … but I’m going crazy over here …”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by this—going crazy from being sequestered or going crazy because he was so into me. I figured it had to be the former. The latter was too impossibly good to be true.

“Yeah. I know what you mean,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “I just can’t stop thinking about the testimony. It’s all so frustrating.”

Leo exhaled into the phone and after a long silence said, “I mean, how bad would it suck to have a dozen morons deciding your fate?”

“A
dozen
morons?” I said, trying to be funny, cool. “Speak for yourself, pal.”

Leo laughed as I lay in bed, buzzing with excitement.

Then he said, “Okay.
Ten
morons. Or at least a good, solid eight.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“I mean,
seriously,
” he continued. “Can you believe these people? Half of them don’t have an open mind at all—the other half are wishy-washy half-wits that blow with whatever their lunch buddies think.”

“I know,” I said again, feeling lightheaded. I couldn’t believe we were finally having a real conversation. And, while I lay in the dark, under the covers, no less. I closed my eyes, picturing him in his bed. I couldn’t believe how much I wanted a virtual stranger.

“I never thought this before,” Leo said, “but if I were on trial, I’d rather face a judge than a jury.”

I said I might have to agree with that.

“Hell. I’d rather have a
corrupt
judge taking bribes from my enemies than this loser crew.”

I laughed as he proceeded to joke about the more outrageously off-point anecdotes that a few of our jurors had shared. He was right. It was one tangent after another in that claustrophobic room—a free-for-all of life experience with no relevance to the deliberations whatsoever.

“Some people just love to hear themselves talk,” I said. And then added, “You don’t seem to be one of them, Mr. Aloof.”

“I’m not aloof,” Leo said unconvincingly.

“Are too,” I said. “Mr. Wear-Your-Headphones so you don’t have to talk to anyone.”

“I’m talking now,” Leo said.

“It’s about time,” I said, thinking that it was easy to be brave in the dark, on the phone.

A long stretch of silence followed which felt warm and forbidden. Then I stated the obvious—that we’d be in big trouble if Chester, our bailiff babysitter, busted us talking on the phone. And about the case, no less.

“Yes, we would,” Leo said. Then he added very slowly and deliberately, “And I guess we’d be in even more hot water if I paid you a visit right now, huh?”

“What’s that?” I said, even though I had heard him, loud and clear.

“Can I come see you?” he said again, his voice slightly suggestive.

I sat up abruptly, smoothing the sheets around me. “What about Chester?” I said, feeling the good kind of weak.

“He went to bed. The halls are clear. I already checked.”