Love the one you're with

four

I leave the diner in a daze, feeling some combination of melancholy, resentment, and anticipation. It is an odd and unsettling mix of emotions exacerbated by the rain, now coming down in icy, diagonal sheets. I briefly consider taking the long walk home, almost wishing to be cold and wet and miserable, but I think better of it. There is nothing to wallow in, no reason to be upset or even introspective.

So I head for the subway instead, striding along the slick sidewalks with purpose. Good, bad, and even a few mundane memories of Leo swirl around in my head, but I refuse to settle on any of them. Ancient history, I mutter aloud as I take the stairs underground at Union Station. Down on the platform, I sidestep puddles and cast about for distractions. I buy a pack of Butterscotch Life Savers at a newsstand, skim the tabloid headlines, eavesdrop on a contentious conversation about politics, and watch a rat scurry along the tracks below. Anything to avoid rewinding and replaying my exchange with Leo. If the floodgates open, I will obsessively analyze all that was said, as well as the stubborn subtext that was always so much a part of our time together. What did he mean by that? Why didn't he say this? Does he still have feelings for me? Is he married now, too? If so, why didn't he say so?

I tell myself that none of it matters now. It hasn't mattered for a long time.

My train finally pulls into the station. It is rush hour so all the cars are packed, standing room only. I crush my way into one, beside a mother and her elementary-age daughter. At least I think it is her daughter-they have the same pointy nose and chin. The little girl is wearing a double-breasted navy coat with gold anchor buttons. They are discussing what to have for supper.

"Macaroni-and-cheese and garlic toast?" the daughter suggests, looking hopeful.

I wait for a "We just had that last night" sort of parental objection, but the mother only smiles and says, "Well, that sounds perfect for a rainy day." Her voice is as warm and soothing as the carbohydrates they will share.

I think of my own mother as I do several times a day, often triggered by far less obvious stimuli than the mother-daughter pair beside me. My mind drifts to a recurrent motif-what would our adult relationship have felt like? Would I distrust her opinion when it came to matters of the heart, intentionally rebelling against what she wanted for me? Or would we have been as close as Margot and her mother, talking several times a day? I like to think that we would have been confidantes. Perhaps not sharing-clothing-and-shoes, giggly close (my mother was too no-nonsense for that), but emotionally connected enough to tell her about Leo and the diner. His hand on mine. The way I feel now.

I cobble together the things she might have said, reassuring tidbits like: I'm so glad you found Andy. He is like the son I never had. I never cared much for that other boy.

All too predictable, I think, digging deep for more. I close my eyes, picturing her before she got sick, something I haven't done lately. I can see her almond-shaped hazel eyes, similar to mine, but turning down slightly at the corners-bedroom eyes, my father always called them. I picture her broad, smooth forehead. Her thick, glossy hair, always cut in the same simple bob that transcended trends or era, just long enough to pull back in a squat ponytail when she did housework or gardening. The slight gap between her front teeth and the way she unconsciously covered it with her hand when she laughed really hard.

Then I conjure her stern but fair gaze-befitting a math teacher at a rough public school-and hear these words uttered in her heavy Pittsburgh dialect: Listen here, Ellie. Don't go giving this encounter any crazy meaning like you did with him the first time around. It doesn't mean a thing. Not a thing. Sometimes, in life, there is no meaning at all.

I want to listen to my mother now. I want to believe that she is giving me guidance from some faraway place, but I still feel myself caving, succumbing to the memory of that first chance encounter at the New York State Supreme Court on Centre Street when Leo and I were both summoned to jury duty on the same Tuesday in October. Prisoners trapped together in a windowless room with bad acoustics, metal folding chairs, and at least one fellow citizen who had forgotten to apply deodorant. It was all so random, and as I foolishly believed for a long time, romantic because of the randomness.

I was only twenty-three years old, but felt much older due to the vague fear and disillusionment that comes with leaving the safety net of college and abruptly joining the real-world ranks, particularly when you have no focus or plan, money or mother. Margot and I had just moved to New York the summer before, right after we graduated, and she landed a plum marketing position at J.Crew's corporate office. I had an offer for an entry-level position at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, so had planned on moving back home to live with my father and his new wife, Sharon, a sweet-natured but slightly tacky woman with big boobs and frosted hair. But Margot convinced me to go to New York with her instead, giving me rousing speeches about the Big Apple and how if I could make it there, I'd make it anywhere. I reluctantly agreed because I couldn't stand the thought of separating from Margot any more than I could stand the thought of watching another woman take over my house-my mother's house.

So Margot's father hired movers to pack up our dorm room, bought us one-way tickets to New York, and helped us settle into an adorable two-bedroom apartment on Columbus and Seventy-ninth, she with a brand-new corporate wardrobe and crocodile briefcase; me with my useless philosophy major and stash of T-shirts and cutoff jean shorts. I had only $433 to my name and was in the habit of withdrawing five dollars at a time from the ATM, an amount that, shockingly enough, couldn't score me a pastrami sandwich in the city. But Margot's trust fund, set up by her maternal grandparents, had just kicked in, and she assured me that what was hers was mine because, after all, weren't we more like sisters than friends?

"Please don't make me live in a hovel just so you can afford half the rent," she'd say, joking, but also quite serious. Money was something that Margot not only didn't have to think about but didn't want to think about or discuss. So I learned to swallow my pride and ignore my prickly hot neck every time I'd have to borrow from her. I told myself that guilt was a wasted emotion, and that I'd make it up to her one day-if not monetarily, then somehow.

For almost a month during that first vivid summer in the city, I spiced up my resume with exaggerations and fancy fonts and applied for every office job I could find. The more boring the description, the more legitimate the career seemed because at the time I equated adulthood with a certain measure of hosiery-wearing misery. I got a lot of callbacks, but must have been an abysmal interview, because I always came up empty-handed. So I finally settled for a waitressing job at L'Express, a cafe on Park Avenue South that described itself as a Lyonnaise bouchon. The hours were long-I often worked the late-night shift-and my feet hurt all the time, but it wasn't all bad. I made surprisingly good money (people tip better late at night), met some cool people, and learned everything I ever wanted to know about charcuterie and cheese plates, port and pigs feet.

In the meantime, I took up photography. It started as a hobby, a way to fill my days and get to know the city. I wandered around various neighborhoods-the East Village, Alphabet City, SoHo, Chinatown, Tribeca-as I snapped photos with a 35-millimeter camera my father and Sharon had given me for graduation. But very quickly, taking photos became something more to me. It became something that I not only loved doing, but actually needed to do, much the way authors talk about their urge to get words down on paper or avid runners just have to go for their morning jog. Photography exhilarated me and filled me with purpose even when I was, literally, at my most aimless and lonesome. I was starting to miss my mother more than I ever had in college, and for the first time in my life, really craved a romantic relationship. Except for a wild, borderline-stalker crush I had on Matt Iannotti in the tenth grade, I had never been particularly focused on boys. I had dated a few guys here and there, and had sex with two college boyfriends, one serious, one not so much, but had never been anywhere close to being in love. Nor had I ever uttered-or written-those words to anyone outside of my family and Margot when we both had a lot to drink. Which was all okay with me until that first year in New York. I wasn't sure what had changed inside my head, but perhaps it was being a real grown-up-and being surrounded by millions of people, Margot included, who all seemed to have definite dreams and someone to love.

So I concentrated all my energy on photography. I spent every spare cent on film and every spare moment taking pictures or poring over books in the library and bookstores. I devoured both reference guides to technique and collections by great photographers. My favorite-which Margot bought me for my twenty-third birthday-was The Americans by Robert Frank, which comprised a series of photos he took in the 1950s while traveling across the country. I was mesmerized by his black-and-white images, each a complete story unto itself. I felt as if I knew the stocky man bent over a jukebox, the elegant woman gazing over her shoulder in an elevator, and the dark-skinned nanny cradling a creamy white baby. I decided that this sense of truly believing you knew a subject, more than anything else, was the mark of a great photograph. If I could take pictures like that, I thought, I would be fulfilled, even without a boyfriend.

Looking back it was perfectly clear what I should do next, but it took Margot to point out the obvious-one of the many things friends are for. She had just returned home from a business trip to Los Angeles, rolling in her suitcase and pausing at the kitchen table to pick up one of my freshly developed photographs. It was a color photo of a distraught teenaged girl sitting on a curb on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, the contents of her purse spilled onto the street around her. She had long, curly red hair and was beautiful in that adolescent, no-makeup way that I didn't fully recognize at the time because I was so young, too. The girl was reaching out to retrieve a cracked mirror with one hand, the other was barely touching her forehead.

"Wow," Margot said, holding the photo up close to her face. "That's an amazing picture."

"Thanks," I said, feeling modest-but proud. It was an amazing picture.

"Why's she so sad?" Margot asked.

I shrugged, telling her I seldom talked to the people I photographed. Only if they caught me taking their picture and talked to me first.

"Maybe she lost her wallet," Margot said.

"Maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend," I said.

Or maybe her mother just died.

Margot kept studying the picture, commenting that the girl's bright red knee socks gave the photo an almost vintage feel. "Although," she added in her usual, fashion-obsessed way, "knee socks are coming back in. Whether you like it or not."

"Not," I said. "But duly noted."

That's when she said to me, "Your photos are pure genius, Ellen." Her head bobbed earnestly as she wound her soft, honey-colored hair into a bun and fastened it with a mechanical pencil. It was a haphazardly cool technique I had tried to emulate a hundred times, but could never make look right. When it came to hair or fashion or makeup, everything I copied from Margot fell somehow short. She nodded once more and said, "You should pursue photography professionally."

"You think so?" I said offhandedly.

Oddly enough, it was something I had never considered, although I'm not sure why. Perhaps I was worried that my enthusiasm would exceed my ability. I couldn't bear the thought of failing at something I cared so much about. But Margot's opinion meant a lot to me. And as insincere as she sometimes was with her Southern pleasantries and compliments, she was never that way with me. She always gave it to me straight-the sign of a real friendship.

"I know so," she said. "You should go for it. Do this thing for real."

So I took Margot's advice and began to look for a new job in the photography field. I applied for every assistant's position I could find-including a few for cheesy wedding photographers on Long Island. But without any formal training, I was once again turned down by everyone and ended up taking a minimum-wage position as a film processor in a small, boutique-y photo lab with ancient equipment. I had to start somewhere, I told myself, as I took the bus to dreary lower Second Avenue on my first day and unpacked my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in a drafty back room that smelled of cigarettes and bleach.

But, as it turned out, it was the ideal first job thanks to Quynh, the Vietnamese girl who was married to the owner's son. Quynh spoke little English, but was a pure genius with color and taught me more about custom printing than I could have learned in any class (and more than I eventually did learn when I finally went to photography school). Every day I watched Quynh's thin, nimble fingers feed the film and twist the knobs on the machines, adding a little more yellow, a little less blue to yield the most perfect prints, while I fell more in love with my fledgling chosen profession.

So that's where I was when I got that infamous jury summons. Although still quite poor, I was fulfilled, happy, and hopeful, and none too anxious to put my work (and pay) on hold for jury duty. Margot suggested that I ask Andy, who had just started his third year of law school at Columbia, for his advice on how to get excused. So I gave him a call, and he assured me it would be a cinch.

"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."

"Really?" I said. I could think of nothing else to say.

"Yes. Really… So?"

"So?" I echoed.

"So can I come see you? I just… want to talk. Face to face. Alone."

I didn't really believe that was all he wanted-and a large measure of me hoped that it wasn't. I thought of how much trouble we'd be in if we got caught together in a jury-duty booty call, and that we owed it to the defendant to follow the rules-that our reckless behavior could result in a mistrial. I thought of how unsexy my Steelers T-shirt and cotton panties were and that I had nothing nicer in my hastily packed suitcase. I thought about the conventional girly wisdom that if I said yes-and then something did happen-that Leo might lose respect for me and we'd be over before we could begin.

So I opened my mouth, poised to protest, or at the very least, deflect. But instead, I breathed a helpless yes into the phone. It would be the first of many times I couldn't say no to Leo.