by Knox, Abby
“All you gonna drink is sugar water?” he asked me. I like the way he sometimes answers a question with a question.
“I thought cowboys lived on Mountain Dew?” I remarked.
He didn’t say anything, only raised one eyebrow at me. That look creased his forehead, giving me serious Daddy vibes, and I liked it. I kind of want to make him a daddy for real and have ten of his babies right away. Oh man. I like him way more than I should, I thought to myself. Does he even know how sexy he is?
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m in my late 20s, have been single for so long, and I’m starting to get baby fever from watching Juror Number 8 crochet baby blankets all day. That’s gotta be it. My head was clouded by being stuck with these same people all day, combined with hunger.
We ate in comfortable silence and I was careful to keep that silence when I drained my cup by not making any noise with the straw. I find that extra annoying myself.
“So. You got a wife or what?”
His face changed—darkened even more, if that’s possible.
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?”
“Jenga?” I asked.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Wren, I mean Juror Number 11. You know me.”
“We’re not allowed to talk to each other when our security detail isn’t watching.”
I reminded her, “We can talk to each other but just not about the c—“
But I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence because she’d already closed the door.
Rude. Paranoid and rude.
I padded over to where the security guard was sitting at the end of the hall. “Hey, Officer Max, you wanna play Jenga?’
“I’m working. You should go back to your room.”
“Is that the rules?”
“Well, it’s not the law, but….”
“Great. So let’s play.”
“I can’t. I’m working.”
“Fine,” I sighed and tried the next door down from the rude lady.
And who in the world should answer it but the man himself. Sam.
“Jenga?” I ask.
He waits a beat. And while he does, it gives me a chance to study his face. He looks shocked, angry, surprised, and flushed.
And shirtless. Holy shit, he’s shirtless in his Wranglers and I think i might die. I knew he filled out them cowboy shirts quite nicely. His broad shoulders and defined pecs, tanned and sculpted over years of hard work, are even easier to look at than I’d imagined. Unencumbered by a shirt, his treasure trail tempts me to let my gaze drop lower, and linger below his navel.
“What’s that?”
“Huh? Oh! It’s a party game. Can I come in?”
His face blanches. “No! I mean, no, you cannot come in.”
“Oh. Well you wanna come to my room and...?”
“Heck no.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, I was in the middle of a workout. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt.”
“Oh. OK. What kind of a workout?”
“Nothing. No kind of workout.”
“What?”
He pushes into the hallway. “Can I help you with something?”
“I just w
anted to know if you wanted to play Jenga. I’m bored and I don’t have anyone to talk to.”
Sam’s eyes narrow. “Try reading a book. I have several that ought to put you right to sleep.”
I sigh. “I guess I just need some company.”
“Well, it ain’t polite for me to be alone with a woman in a hotel room unless she’s my wife.”
I have to put my hand over my mouth. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard, Sam.”
We have what appears to be a mini staring contest before he growls and gives up, heads back into his room for a moment to grab a shirt, and follows me down the hall.
“Hi, Officer Max,” I chirp. “We’re just going to go down to the lobby to party.”
Sam sounds exasperated. “We’re not partying. It’s games. Party games. That’s it.”
Officer Max shakes his head and talks into his radio. He says some coded numbers and stuff. “OK, you can head on down and the security officer on the main floor will meet you in the lobby.”
Sam puts his hands up. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
I slip my arm through his to guide him along. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
He’s blushing but I’m not totally sure why. We walk down to the main floor where we are greeted by a new security officer, who leads us through a vending room. “Snacks!” I shout and make a beeline for the nearest machine that has Cool Ranch Doritos. “I have a little bit of change. Officer, do you want anything? Sam?”
They both decline.
All of these grumpy men who are part of my life for the foreseeable future had better loosen up. “Suit yourself,” I say with a shrug. My steps have a little more pep as I carry my soda, Doritos, as well as some gummy worms into the lobby area. We seat ourselves around a posh looking coffee table in the modern lobby and I explain to him how to play the game.
“Fine, let’s get this over with. I’m tired,” Sam says.
I laugh. “It’s like 9 p.m. What time do you normally go to bed?”
I start the game by taking my first turn, and we chat back and forth comfortably. He seems to relax as long as he’s not making eye contact.
“I go to bed at 9. Get up at 4.”
“Oh my god, why?”
“Because I have three hundred head of cattle to tend to. Why? When do you go to bed?”
I shrug and move another piece. “Oh, it depends. I have to be at work at 7 a.m., so I go to bed anywhere from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., depending on how much fun I’m having.”
Sam moves a tile. “What kind of fun is keeping you awake at those hours?”
“I like to watch movies. Sometimes I binge one rom-com after another until I fall asleep on the sofa. Wild times.”
He eyes me with a twinkle. “Which one’s your favorite?”
I smile wide. “While You Were Sleeping.”
He nods, seeming to take in the information. “Well. That ain’t near enough sleep for a body like yours. I mean for somebody like you. Or anybody.”
I glance up and catch his eyes darting back up to my face, as if he’d just been looking down my top. Glancing down, I see the problem. When I knot the bathrobe in front of me, it seems to put Sam at ease again.
“So, why’d you become a vegan?” he asks.
I’m pleased he’s the least bit interested. “Saw a documentary once. Really freaked me out. That’s about it.”
He nods. “Fair enough.”
Wow. I expected a cattle rancher to get up in arms about food documentaries. But he’s surprisingly passive about the subject. “What do you get for protein then?”
I tell him I mostly eat beans and tofu along with veggies and lots of rice. I tell him about my favorite meal at the high end vegan place in town, which I have to save up for. “Split pea soup with cashew cream, and avocado chocolate pudding for dessert. It sounds disgusting, but it’s wonderful.”
He seems like he’s taking it all in, and I feel like I’m talking too much.
“So why aren’t you married?” I ask, point blank, taking my turn in the game again.
Sam eyes me over the slowly growing tower of Jenga tiles, pursing his lips under his thick, silver mustache. “I almost was. Once.”
My heart begins to race a little bit. He’s opening up.
Maybe I can get him to open up a little further.
“What happened?”
He adds another tile and sits back, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He doesn’t look happy that I asked. “I was an asshole. It was a long time ago.”
The words sound so cold and mean, it’s almost like he’s talking about his worst enemy.
I try to convey all the compassion I feel for him when I say, “Sam, I’m sure whatever happened was not all your fault.”
“No,” he says. “I got cold feet. About a week before the wedding, I called it off. I was a young chicken shit who didn’t know what I wanted. And now I’m paying for it by being old and alone. Is that what you wanted to know?”
Sam’s forehead shows deep grooves when he asks me that. The way he’s looking at me, you’d think I was punishing him. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this. But if you want to talk, I’m a good friend and a good listener, and I like talking to you...”
Sam abruptly stands.
“Listen. This ain’t gonna work. You need to go to your room, and I need to go to bed.”
Disappointed, I go to pick up the Jenga pieces but he’s already cleaning up. I hear him utter something about the two of us getting into trouble if we don't go to our rooms sooner rather than later.
He continues to stew all the way back up in the elevator to our shared hallway. I have to laugh when I wonder what he thinks we’re going to get into trouble about. When the elevator doors open, Officer Max is there to see us back to our rooms, but Sam still follows me, which is weird because he looks as mad as a wet hornet.
“Well, if you’re mad, then why are you walking me back to my room?” I ask.
“Because it’s the right thing to do. A woman shouldn’t walk back to her room alone at night.”
I could point out that we have guards watching over us 24/7, including Officer Max who has got legs like tree trunks, but I let the point lie.
It’s cute that Sam is protective of me. In fact it gives me a thrill.
“Should we try again tomorrow night?”
“No. No, we should not. I’m sorry you never had a good example of how a man should treat a woman. I’m sorry you had terrible parents. But I ain’t your daddy and I never will be. So just get me out of your head because I ain’t here for that.”
What in the world is he talking about? And then I realize as we reach my door, he thinks I’m being friendly because I see him as some kind of father figure I never had, which could not be further from the truth.
I stand in my doorway and hold it open to stare at him, utterly bemused. “That’s the most words you’ve said to me yet, Sam. Have a good night!”
He’s off to his own room before I can say anything else.
Slam.
Huh. I guess he doesn’t like me.
* * *
The next morning’s testimonies are pretty interesting, with an exam and cross-exam of one key witness for the prosecution.
“She told me she was at her wit’s end with him.” The statement comes from the defendant’s neighbor lady and supposed friend.
“And did you ever hear Mrs. Jacobson talk about harming or killing her husband?”
“No. Well, only in a joking kind of way.”
“Please tell the Court the joking kind of way—as you put it—you heard the defendant talk about harming her husband.”
“Well, she said she wanted to suffocate him in his sleep with a pillow.”
The prosecutor follows with, “And do you think she is capable of suffocating her husband?”
“No, I do not,” the neighbor says.
“And what did Mrs. Jacobsen say to you on the morning of October 18th when she came to your door?”
The witness then begins to cry. It is pretty convincing, but it looks fake to me. I’ve fake cried many times in my life, and she’s even better at it than I am. She recounts how her friend burst into her kitchen, sobbing, and said, “I did it. Oh, Jean, I did it. I can’t believe it; I snapped. I’m in trouble.”
The prosecution looks over at us, the jury, to see if we are seeing what she’s seeing. Oh yeah, we’re seeing it. We’re seeing a big fat liar give an Oscar-worthy performance right now.
Several of the jurors around me shift in their seats. One or two can be heard sniffling. I can’t believe they’re buying this.
Later, things get more intense when the prosecution brings out the crime scene photos. As crimes go, it’s not the most gruesome, I suppose. But still, nothing prepared me for how shocked and unsettled I am seeing pictures of actual death. I’ve only ever been in the presence of the dead while at a funeral. And I’ve seen plenty of death while watching crime documentaries. This feels different. Even though suffocation by pillow seems like a no-mess kind of killing, the images of that face leave me shaken.
After the two witnesses’ testimonies, we recess to the jury room and the bailiff takes our orders for lunch. I’m ravenous, but when I look over the menu of the sandwich place everyone else has agreed to, I see there’s not much for me to eat. I don’t know what I want to order, but I’ll try to deal with it.
“I’ll just have a veggie sandwich, no cheese,” I say.
For the first time all day, Sam pipes up. “You need protein.”
“It’s fine, Sam,” I say.
“Come on, look at her. She eats like a bird anyway,” says Juror Number Seven. Juror Number 7 is kind of a dick.
I can almost feel the solar flares of hot anger spiking off of Sam when he replies in a calm voice that sounds like he could do some real damage with those fists if he wanted to.
“Don’t comment on her or anyone else’s appearance again. And what she eats is none of your friggin’ business.”
My stomach feels like it’s on a roller coaster ride. And it’s not finished because Sam now turns to the bailiff. “Can you please go and get her a proper hot meal from that vegan place? It’s not far from here.”