“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.