…”your name. Your full name, your address and your old phone number. Written on the inside cover of a notebook dated three years ago.”
The judge turned the notebook toward me. My name, in his handwriting, at the top of the first page. Below it, a list of dates. The yoga studio I used to go to. The bakery near my old apartment. The color of my car, two cars ago.
Three years ago, I’d had a strange spring. Flowers on my car, with no card. A note on my windshield that said “Have a nice day,” that I thought was sweet. A man at the bakery who always seemed to be leaving as I came in. Then I moved across town for work, and it stopped, and I forgot about it.
He hadn’t forgotten about me.
“Juror 7,” the judge said gently, “you’re excused from this trial. You’re not in trouble. You’re a witness now.”
It happened fast after that. The judge replaced me with an alternate juror, and the trial went on. The defendant was escorted out of the courtroom that afternoon, and the district attorney filed new charges by the end of the week. Jury tampering. Stalking. Me.
A detective sat with me for three hours and walked me through everything I could remember from that spring. The bakery. The flowers. I didn’t think I’d have much to tell her. I had more than I thought.
It turned out I wasn’t the only one in that notebook, either. There were six other women. One of them was the woman whose trial I’d been sitting on. She’d come forward. The rest of us hadn’t even known.
The first trial ended with a guilty verdict two weeks later. My case came after. I testified for forty minutes. He looked at me the whole time, smiling that small, private smile. I didn’t look away. That was the part I was proudest of.
He’s serving eight years.
The woman from the first trial found me on the courthouse steps afterward. She was holding a sandwich, and she sat down next to me, right where he’d taken my picture, and offered me half. “I figured we should take this spot back,” she said. So we did.
I’m growing my hair out again. Not for anyone. Just because I liked it long.
