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thank you very much for your time and patience. We have our jury.”
    Okay, maybe it is a little bit funny.
    Actually, hysterical is more like it. It’s 12:30 on
Monday and we’ve been dismissed for the day. “Report back to the courthouse
tomorrow morning at nine thirty sharp,” the bailiff tells us, handing out our
special parking passes. “Place these on your dash and you’ll get in to our
jurors’ lot. It’s located directly under this building, where the spots are not
metered. No need for quarters!”
    “Great!” I exclaim.
    Carrie is not amused. “I’m on a case. I knew it. This
sucks.”
    “Indeed!” I add. “Wanna go shopping? Get some lunch?”
    She studies me hard before responding. I meet her eyes,
which are rimmed in too much black eyeliner. She’s older than me, by about a
decade, perhaps. End of her forties. “Lauren, I gotta get back to work. If this
case is going to go on for a full week like they say, then I need to use this
time to get set in the office.”
    “Oh, of course!” I nod in agreement. “I just thought, you
know, something quick before heading back to work.” I look at my watch. “I
guess I should just go now, too. If I hurry, I can be there in time for sixth
period.”
    We head down in the elevator together, Carrie checking her
watch and me pushing back some cuticles on my right hand.
    In the glossy marble hallway on the first floor, we part
ways. “Well, see ya tomorrow, I guess,” Carrie says with a nod, half-distracted
by thoughts of work.
    “Yeah…see you then.” I wave, turning the other way and
pushing through the heavy glass doors of the modern high-rise.
    The crisp sun surprises me, and I look up to see that the
clouds have disappeared.
    My mind knows that I should return to work, to the overachieving
students in my sixth-period honors class, all of whom read more than I assign,
even though I ask them not to. Do you know what it’s like to read the rumble
scene of The Outsiders aloud to an audience that has heard it all
before?
    It’s a drag.
    I find my minivan, drop some more quarters into the meter,
and keep on walking.
    Bye-bye, sixth period. So long, Ponyboy. It’s a beautiful
day indeed, I think, as I head down the street in search of a salon and a
deluxe mani-pedi.

Chapter 4
    “No, you did not!” Kat screams in my ear.
    “Yes, I so did!” I scream back. The ladies in the nail
salon are shooting me dirty looks, so I cradle my cell phone under my ear,
collect my stuff, and head outside. “I got on a civil case. For an entire
week.”
    “I hate you.”
    “I know. I would hate me, too, if I were you, stuck in school.
Kat, you were so right .”
    “Now, that’s a shocker.”
    “They also selected jurors for a criminal case today,
manslaughter or something, and that one’s supposed to go on for like two or
three weeks, but, you know, the one I got on is still pretty good.”
    “Manslaughter.” Kat sighs. “What a beautiful word.” There
is silence on both ends as we let this sink in. “So, where are you now? At the
courthouse?”
    “Nope. Salon! Got out at twelve thirty,” I say, finding my
way back to the parking lot behind the county office buildings.
    “Will you come visit me in my prison cell later, like you
said you would? I’ve really got something to tell you.”
    “Why so mysterious?” Gingerly, I reach into my bag for my
car keys, trying not to smudge my nails.
    “Because the Oompa Loompas are on their way back from
art.”
    “Catchy. You should use that term at the open house next
year.”
    “I should find a new job, is what I should do.”
    “Yes, I believe we’ve been over that one before. Maybe
teaching isn’t your calling.” I start the car and pull into traffic.
    Kat is quiet for a minute and I switch to speakerphone.
When she speaks again, her voice is barely above a whisper. “Maybe it isn’t.
But then…what is?”
    I sigh, thinking about my own questions and uncertainties,
my own life’s dilemmas. “I