I read through the e-mail several more times before we pull into the driveway, and quickly jot I accept back to Georgie. It’s a part-time gig, which is perfect for me because it will give me some time to try out stay-at-home motherhood and the perilous PTA. Georgie says I’ll have to prove myself over the summer before she can offer me a more substantial salary in September. That is, if I want to continue into the fall. She says the position requires two full days on campus, but that I could stay over in Boston one night a week at staff housing and commute back and forth via train.
Good thing I’ve tried that train and I know it works.
And Boston isn’t that far.
From New York…and Nantucket.
So, for now, anyway, it looks like I’m keeping my day job. I won’t be storming into Martha’s office tomorrow to resign alongside Kat, which is probably a blessing in disguise. I’ll take my time and make sure Doug’s project really pans out first, wait until his company gets back on its feet before I formally resign.
In the meantime, I’ll get to carry that little sparkly secret around with me for the rest of the school year, knowing that I am charting a new path for my own future, and that, although it might be risky, it will certainly be rewarding.
I’d say it was quite a productive week, all in all, culminating in one of the best Sundays on record.
Chapter 40
Late that night, Doug and I sneak quietly down the stairs, turning off lights as we go. I’m careful to avoid that third step, the one that always creaks and brings Becca from her bed before she’s drifted soundly off to sleep.
Somehow, though, she hears me anyway. My heart drops into my stomach as I realize she’s standing right behind me on the landing between the first and second floor.
“You woke me up!” she yells, her fists clenched by her side, tiny balls of rage.
“Shh!” I say. “Don’t wake your brother.” Doug starts to climb back up the stairs to help me with Becca, but I shoo him away.
“I can if I want to!” My daughter’s got some seriously powerful lungs.
“No, you cannot!” I whisper-shout back. I’m about to get into a screaming fight with her, I know it. This will wake Ben, who will then want to play on his DSi or go on the computer. It will take me another hour to get them both back to bed, thereby shattering my precarious sense of domestic bliss and squelching any interest I might have had in having sex with Doug tonight.
Which makes me think of Tim Cubix.
Tim Cubix and star charts.
“Hey, Bec!” I say, making my voice sound full of wonder and excitement. “Do you want to draw a star on your door?” I make sure to be vague enough to keep her wanting more information.
“Why?” she asks, her huge blue eyes not quite trusting me yet. At least she’s not screaming bloody murder.
“Because,” I whisper, gently guiding her back toward her room. “That’s what good girls do. They get stars.” She nods several times to let me know that this makes perfect sense. I reach into her art supplies and tape a purple piece of construction paper to her bedroom door. I hand her a marker.
“And then, once you get enough stars, the stars turn into presents!” I explain. She nods again and concentrates on neatly making the five points. Then she places the cap back on the marker and hands it to me so she can slide back in under the covers.
I blow her a kiss good night and touch the star chart.
Because I know that, in some cases, the star himself is the actual present.
A moment later, I slip into the darkened kitchen to face the piles of mail, kid artwork, magazines, and newspapers that Doug and I still have not cleaned up, and which look like hilly landscapes against the smooth countertop of the kitchen island.
Doug joins me from the sunroom and the two of us scan the scene.
I feel like grabbing a big trashcan and dumping it all, without sorting or deciding exactly where the paper trail of our lives should go. Doug sighs, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.
“The last thing I want to do right now is face this mess.” I mean it literally, but it feels like a metaphor.
“We have to,” he says, turning on the sharp overhead lighting. I squint. He dims it so that the atmosphere mellows.
“That’s better. Where to begin?”
“Think of it as spring cleaning. We’re clearing out the old baggage so that we can start fresh, with our new lives, tomorrow morning.”
“That’s optimistic of you,” I say, picking up some old mail and looking through it.
“After today’s funeral, I believe in miracles. I believe in fate, in destiny, in…” He trails off, searching for the right term.
“In the transformative powers of jury duty?” I ask, fingering a crisp, unopened blue envelope from the Alden County Courthouse. It’s addressed to Doug.
“Good one,” he says. I pass the envelope to him as proof that I’m not joking.
He reaches out to take it from me, but misses. We both watch as the blue envelope slowly falls in the empty space between us, as if being carried on a gentle breeze. It lands softly at Doug’s feet.
“It’s like the thing is daring me to pick it up,” Doug says.
I smile knowingly.
Then, in one swift movement, I reach down, grab the envelope before he can, and rip the seam open.
After all, I’ve had some practice with these things.
I unfold the paper within and scan the printed information, reading aloud. “Mr. Doug Worthing…Your services are requested…yadda, yadda, yadda…County Courthouse…yadda, yadda…ten a.m. on Monday, April seventeenth.”
I look up from the paper, spooked. “But…that’s tomorrow!”
“Huh.” He nods, a small smile playing on his lips.
“Did you know about this? Did you…plan it?” I ask. He says nothing. “Doug?!”
“No.” He smiles.
I shake my head disbelievingly.
“Honestly!” Doug balks. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy your entertaining reaction to the news.”
I return to the paper, my heart beating fast. “Failure to show up on appointed date…yadda, yadda…incarceration or fines!”
“Now, we wouldn’t want that,” he says.
“Doug! This isn’t funny!” I say. “Jury duty’s not a joke, you know.”
“Oh yes, Lauren, that I know. Sometimes, jury duty is truly a matter of life or death.” His dimples are fully creased. “Life or death in Miami.”
“Doug!” I say. “You can’t go! Laney’s on vacation and I have to go back to work tomorrow, and I could really use your help.”
“Lauren, I’d love to be able to assist you, really I would. But, see, America needs me.”
I try to pout. I try to seem defiant, cocksure, like Jodi on the verge of getting her way.
Doug’s not having it.
“First of all, do we even need Laney anymore?” he asks.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m being serious. When the kids were small, we needed her. But now, they’re in school all day. Laney’s a terrible housekeeper. She’s lazy and overly dramatic and…”
“Probably stealing my stuff,” I conclude. I think about life without Laney. Without waiting for her to show up, without wondering whether the laundry is done, without finding out there is no more milk only upon opening the refrigerator to pour some milk. Mostly, I think about Laney sitting in my house all day, flipping through magazines and waiting for my kids to get off the bus.
What a colossal waste of time and money.
I think about what a relief home life without Laney would be.
“Can we just…do without her?” I ask, a lightness growing in my chest. “Can’t we do this—raising a family, taking care of our home, juggling work responsibilities—just you and me, together?”
Doug inhales and exhales theatrically, like he’s about to make a big concession. “I tell you what. I’ll take the kids to the bus each morning, so that you c
an get to school on time. But beyond that, I can make no promises, in the short term, anyway. After all,” he says, “I start jury duty tomorrow.”
And then Doug smiles, snatching the envelope from my hands, a definite twinkle in his eye.
Epilogue
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, life is a series of trials. And whether we like it or not, a jury of our peers continuously judges our actions and bears witness to our everyday embarrassments and triumphs.
I mean, who hasn’t dabbled in adultery, petty larceny, and the occasional inebriated foot-in-the-face debacle from time to time, right? Maybe you were caught in the act of such impropriety. Maybe not.
Fact: we all need to break out of our molds once in a while, so that we don’t become…moldy. Stuck. Predictable. Bored to the point that we go looking for distractions instead of solutions.
And that was me.
But for all the wrong choices I made, I also learned from my risk-taking, probably a hell of a lot more than I would have learned by sitting in a real courtroom, listening to a rehashing of others’ mistakes, or by hiding behind my desk in a sixth-grade classroom. By kicking up my heels this past week—both literally and figuratively—I have come to better appreciate human nature, in all its complexities and shades of gray.
Fact: No one is to me now what she appeared to be on Monday. Not even I am.
And that is why, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, your services are no longer needed. I have decided in favor of myself. I am not guilty.
Well, not guilty any more than you are. No offense. See that guy over there? He’s done something he’s not proud of, and yet he’s lived to tell the tale. And same with the woman sitting next to you on the train every morning, and the barista who prepares your double espresso, and the piano teacher, the soccer coach, the dry cleaner. What I’ve learned this week is that there is a slippery slope of crimes and misdemeanors swirling invisibly all around us.
Jodi and Kat and I have lied and cheated and stolen. Turns out, we humans are all capable of outstanding acts of generosity one minute and incredible acts of mean-spiritedness the next. We are corrupt, immature, and fabulous. Luckily, we have the capacity to love and forgive and to support our friends and family even when they take leave of their senses.
Especially when they take leave.
In summation, this great country of America is grateful for your service as a sequestered juror in the now infamous case known as Lauren Takes Leave. And, on a personal note, I wish to thank you for being impartial as you listened to my side of the story, which may or may not be fictional.
I hope that, should life present you with small, open windows of opportunity, you choose to slip through occasionally, just to see what’s out there on the other side. Grab control of your life by taking a vacation from it. Swim with dolphins. Invent your own cocktail. Pretend to be someone else.
Whether or not you chose to return to your place of work after that—or ever again—is entirely up to you.
And upon returning from your adventures, however innocuous they might be, may you, too, find an attentive, intelligent, attractive, and—above all—forgiving jury of your peers waiting to hear all about it.
This case is dismissed.
Questions and Topics for Discussion
by Julie Gerstenblatt
To invite Julie Gerstenblatt to your book club either in person or via Skype, e-mail her at [email protected].
Before I began writing full-time, I was a middle school English teacher. And that is why, even though Lauren Takes Leave is a bona fide beach read and all I want for you to say when you reach the end is “wow, that was fun,” I had to include discussion questions at the end. I am used to assigning homework.
So, here’s what I’m thinking you should do. Get a bunch of your friends to read the book, too, and then have a really informal book club meeting at someone’s house. Or at a bar. Or, for authenticity, in Miami. You can be as committed to this endeavor as you wish. Make sure to drink a bit and to discuss a lot of other topics before getting to these questions. That’s what my book group does and it works really well. In fact, try not to spend more than ten minutes discussing the novel, because a night out is a night out, and I’d hate to deny you that by bumming you out with symbolism.
Below the questions is the recipe for a great and easy cocktail favored by my book group. I call it the Literati.
Okay, here we go.
1. Have you ever felt like Lauren, Kat or Jodi? When? With whom do you most identify and why? Who are you the least like?
2. Many characters in the novel feel a sense of ennui, which can be defined as weariness and dissatisfaction that leads to a kind of boredom or complacency. Think of what causes this ennui in Lauren, Kat, Jodi, and others, from MC Lenny to Laney the babysitter. How do they each respond to that tedium in their lives? Do you think they are right or wrong? How do you handle those feelings in your own life?
3. This book takes elements from three of my favorite texts and mashes them up. If you are at all familiar with the movies Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Thelma and Louise, or Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest, here is your chance to show off your knowledge. You can refer to the quotes that begin the novel for some guidance. Please pass me one of those homemade chocolate-chip cookies. Now discuss.
4. The novel is constructed around Lauren’s week, both while on jury duty and while on leave from her responsibilities. At the beginning, middle, and end of that week, she talks directly to the reader, speaking to them as “ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” What did you make of these sections and their role within the novel?
5. How do you feel about the relationship between Lauren and her husband, Doug?
6. There are many supporting characters in the novel. Discuss their roles, and share what you think of them, including, but not limited to:
Laney
Lenny Katzenberg
Tim Cubix
Lee Moncrieff
Martha Carrington
Professor Georgina Parks
Leslie Koch
Shay Greene
7. Which character changes the most, do you think?
8. The book’s plot contains many twists and turns. As you were reading, what surprised you? Also, how do you feel about the ending of the novel?
9. I write with humor. Skim back through the book—what scenes or bits of dialogue made you laugh?
10. I also try to write with a purpose. I use humor as a vehicle for showing the world back to itself, by holding a mirror up to some of the unseemly truths hidden there, under the fun façade. What are the darker sides of human nature and society that Lauren Takes Leave highlights? (Hint: greed, infidelity, selfishness…)
11. Does your life have a soundtrack, like Lauren’s? If so, what’s on it? (Also, the music really is available through iTunes, and you can select the Lauren mix or the Kat-and-Jodi mix.)
12. Do you believe more in justice or forgiveness? (This is a question I stole from a deck of conversation starters used at parties.)
13. Looking back on the entire book, do you think Lauren had to take leave?
14. At this point in the evening, are you still drinking? If you are a mom, did you discuss your children, their teachers, and some local scandal? Did you try the dip? It’s fantastic. Did you pick a book for next month yet? If not, check out my website for some favorite picks. I promise I won’t make you read The Importance of Being Earnest. Oh, and thanks so much for reading Lauren Takes Leave.
The Literati
1/3 each of:
prosecco
St. Germain (elderflower liqueur)
San Pellegrino
The Crazy Literati
2/3 prosecco
1/3 St. Germain
(Who needs the San Pellegrino!?)
Acknowledgements
Many people helped me write this novel, although a good number of them are not aware of this fact. So, cheers to my writing gurus, living and deceased, both those I actual
ly know and those I pretend to know: Elizabeth Berg, Nora Ephron, Helen Fielding, Peter Hedges, John Hughes, Stephen King, Sophie Kinsella, Kathleen Reilly, Roger Rosenblatt, Blake Snyder, Peter Trachtenberg, Jonathan Tropper, Lois Van Epps, and Oscar Wilde.
Special thanks to all the friends who supported Lauren and me in so many ways over the past few years. (Unlike the above, these people should be aware of the fact that I know them.) They include, but are certainly not limited to, Helen Breitwieser, Lauren Fabiano, Erica Faulkner, Anne George, Ursula Guise, Abby Hoffman, Kiki Hoffman, Howard Neuthaler, Serena Perlman, Susie Quill, Ray Sabini, Amy Song, and John Talbot. In particular, I raise my arms over my head with a boom box in hand—à la John Cusack in Say Anything—to shout out my love to Annabel Monaghan, Julie Seifer, Gabrielle Tullman, and Jeannine Votruba, because you guys are the best. Of course you read the book, perhaps in various stages of its development. But more than that, you spoil me with the truest kind of friendship. In grand moments like these, when words fail me, I turn to musical theater. To quote Broadway’s Wicked, “And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend.”
Thanks to my family, especially my grandmother, Rose Katz, my mother, Ronnee Segal, my father, Norman Medow, my brother, Greg Medow, and my aunt JaJa. For as long as I can remember, you have provided me with the perfect environment for a (young/growing/now middle-aged) writer, one filled with unconditional love and an endless stream of entertaining stories.
Corny but true: Thanks to SoulCycle, who helped me spin my tale.
This self-published novel is not really “self” published. Team Lauren was assembled in the eleventh hour, and is made up of an incredible group of creative, insightful, and—perhaps most impressively—fast-working artists. These are the people who said yes to me, which is the best word to hear after so much no, and so much silence. Thanks to my editor, Caitlin Alexander, who made my novel better by trimming the fat and keeping the funny. To Gary Tooth, graphic designer extraordinaire, and to Liz Starin, an incredible illustrator, for taking my vision of the book’s cover and bringing it to life with whimsy and artistry. To Sarah Silverton, a gifted photographer who always makes me smile, even when not in possession of her camera. And to my publicist, Amy Rosen, who, with sheer force of enthusiasm, will help bring Lauren Takes Leave to audiences far and wide.
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