Staying Cool

1

Ambiguity got no respect in the Jury Room.

There were no shades of gray, no maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t.

It’s cut and dried, said Leo, the foreman.

I was leaning forward attentively, more out of politeness than necessity. I hadn’t been cooped up with him for days for nothing; I had already guessed how he was going to vote.

The fluorescent light cruelly illuminated the knobby ridge of his pate, despite what had obviously been painstaking efforts to conceal it with hair combed over from one side of his head. His face shone with sweat and a measured enthusiasm. He sold insurance.

Under the circumstances, cut and dried was probably not the most tasteful expression to have used, but he did have a point. The state had put on a convincing case against the defendant—Jesus Ramon Garcia—and the Jury Room held an air of conviction.

Leo let his words hang in the air a minute and then turned to the rest of us for confirmation. That had been his pattern throughout the period of our unnatural intimacy: first bluster, then a pause for approval.

Next to him, Hazel, an elderly housewife, nodded agreement slowly. She was very sincere, the sort of retired person who likes to serve on juries because it is interesting. She had confided to me at the beginning of our service that she owned a very valuable thimble collection. She’d invited me to come and see it when this was over. I’d said I would.

If you mean, she said precisely, that Mr. Garcia appears to be guilty, I’d have to agree. But—

What do you think, Alvino? Leo interrupted. Every man on the jury interrupted every woman on the jury whenever he felt like it. Maybe it was a Deborah Tannen thing, because the men never seemed to notice they were doing it, and, of course, the women were too chicken to bring it up. It was bad enough to be confined with a group of strangers day after day without picking fights over nonessentials.

Alvino Louis owned a very successful exotic car agency in San Pedro. He was black and lived in Palos Verdes, haven of the affluent and gentrified. He had more than once expressed his determination to get this over with as soon as possible, although he had promised to give his fellow jurors a good deal on a car if we stopped by afterward. He usually exhibited a salesman’s buoyancy, but today he looked grim. I suppose we all did.

He glanced at his watch, then back at Leo. Guilty. He rolled his eyes. The dumb bastard.

Marta? Leo asked.

We all looked at her. Marta was the only one who came close to fulfilling the jury of his peers requirement in that she was a pleasant, grandmotherly Latina from a part of town not generally distinguished by its prosperity. That hardly made her the peer of an eighteen-year-old punk with a juvenile record as long as the phone book, but the counsel for the defense had fought to keep her on the panel, as much as he had fought for anything. A court-appointed attorney for an indigent defendant could hardly be expected to muster the enthusiasm or the resources to mount an all-out attack on the prosecution’s case, especially given the weight of the evidence and the unfortunate air of undesirability that hung about his client. He did his best, but he had the hangdog aura of a predetermined loser.

Marta appeared uncomfortable under the scrutiny. She ran her hands over the edge of the Formica table. It was dark brown, like the paneled walls. It was not a room for levity. I don’t know, she said heavily. I think…I think he is not so bad a boy as he wants everyone to believe. She shook her head. But there is so much evidence. The police…the weapon, everything. She sighed.

Does that mean you think he did it? Alvino asked impatiently. Leo glared at him.

Marta nodded. I guess so.

It was bashing in the head of a prominent Westside businesswoman when she (presumably) discovered the defendant burglarizing her office. The weapon was an Erté statue—a female figure with elongated, outstretched arms and dressed in a romanticized twentieth-century version of Egyptian costume.

In most of the crime novels I’d read, the lawyers seemed to spend a lot of time on the victim’s life. The prosecution wants to do it so the jury has some emotional involvement with the dead person; the defense is looking for something that lets their guy off the hook. One of the troubles with having read a lot of Patterson or Turow or Grisham is that, when you end up on a jury, you see how you’re being manipulated, or at least you think you do. No one asks you about your taste in fiction when they’re doing voir dire (except perhaps in the OJ case, where they asked everything), but maybe they should.

Still, in this case, the victim was almost more mysterious than the crime. Natasha Ivanova was a fortyish Russian émigré who ran a very exclusive matchmaking (as opposed to dating) service. This was not, her assistant and heir apparent had stressed on the stand, one of those tacky organizations that—she’d visibly shuddered—sent out direct mail solicitations and questionnaires about lifestyles and compatibility. This was a service selecting appropriate spousal material for those whose incomes ranged from the merely well-off to the truly breathtaking, and its discretion amounted almost to paranoia. Famous clients were hinted at but never named. Something about the victim’s business seemed to be the subject of numerous whispered conferences in the courtroom (approach the bench) and the judge’s chambers. The defense usually emerged from these encounters looking still more harassed and defeated, but, of course, we weren’t supposed to speculate as to what they might be about.

As if, as my teenage daughter would say. But titillating details were not forthcoming, and the dry, scientific recitation of experts slogging through the physical evidence didn’t bring the victim to life. Even the photographs were clinical. Her slim, Donna Karan–clad body was sprawled facedown on a rug that looked like Isfahan, though I couldn’t tell for sure without seeing it in person. Her face was turned slightly toward the camera, but it was expressionless. A mass of dark hair hid the back of her head and the dented skull that had leached blood into a pool beneath it. Her left hand rested tranquilly, outstretched, in front of her, the wrist turned in slightly, as if she were consulting her Cartier watch one last time. A tasteful death, on the whole.

I had seen the photographs so many times they had lost their ability to move me. I certainly wasn’t tempted to laugh, but I didn’t feel like weeping, either. Natasha Ivanova was just a corpse, albeit a fairly stylish one, and little I heard in the courtroom made her much more than that. According to the testimony presented, she had no enemies. She was generous to charities and kind to puppies and children. She’d arranged the gift of two Siberian yellow-throated martens to the L.A. Zoo from its counterpart in Moscow. An interesting choice, I thought. I’d seen them myself once or twice. They were hyperactive weasel-like animals with an endearing playfulness and a powerful odor, the only two of their kind in the U.S. They were supposedly here on a breeding program, but the keeper said that, despite strenuous bouts of frenetic sex, they’d turned out to be duds at procreation.

Ivanova’s human clients apparently met with greater success. They were not only satisfied, but enthusiastic enough to recommend her. Of course, none of them took the stand; presumably, they were off enjoying their newfound nuptial bliss on the slopes of Gstaad or Aspen. The service’s fees ranged from $7,500 to $30,000, depending on the degree of personal attention you got from the owner herself.

Even the number was unreal to most people on the jury. I mean, Leo had announced with just enough swagger to let us know that datelessness had never been a problem for him, can you imagine laying out that kind of dough just to land yourself with the old ball and chain? He twirled his wedding ring around on his finger, probably subconsciously.

Poor Mrs. Leo, whoever she was, welded for life to a character out of a fifties sitcom. I hope she was insufficiently conscious of the degree of her misfortune, but I doubted it.

Marta squirmed uncomfortably on the hard chair. I just feel so sorry for his mother, she said.

So did I. She came every day of the trial, sitting quietly in the back. I hadn’t realized who she was—although there weren’t many spectators—until she approached Ramon as court adjourned one day and tried to speak to him before he was taken back to the jail. She’d lifted a hand toward him. He had looked at her briefly and turned away.

It might have been defiance, or maybe shame. I didn’t know him well enough to say, but his mother had looked devastated. She used to clean the victim’s offices. Ramon had stolen her keys.

Marta sighed. Maybe the police are lying, she said wistfully.

Leo snorted.

Well, they do sometimes, you know… she said.

It’s not unheard of, Alvino agreed dryly.

Look, people, Leo interjected, could we just get on with this? This is just a preliminary head count, to see if we can come to a quick verdict. We don’t have to debate the entire justice system right now. He sat back in his chair. Do we?

Nobody answered.

He looked at me. Ellen?

I know why the prosecutor wanted me on this jury. I was chosen at the end, after two days of being forced to listen to the same questions asked over and over again for each prospective panel member (no reading in the courtroom, please), so I had quite a bit of time to think about it. The public defender had almost exhausted his peremptory challenges, and since he had no reason to dismiss me for cause, he had to accept me.

I’m sure both of them thought I was the closest thing to the dead woman’s counterpart that they were going to find in the jury pool. We were about the same age—okay, I probably had a year or two on her, but Elder-hostels and AARP cards were only a decade (or less) away, the pre-cellulite era a fading memory. I have a genteel occupation. Plus—and this is the part that probably counted most—I look Anglo and affluent (the two Big As), the kind of person likely to view the other side of the tracks with horrified suspicion. The kind of person, in point of fact, most likely to convict a gang-banger brown defendant who didn’t even know enough to show up in a coat and tie at his own murder trial.

Ha. Well, at least a partial ha. The fact is, I did think Ramon was guilty, and I have no sympathy for burglars/killers, whatever their socioethnic credentials. But the truth about me was a lot more complicated, and I wasn’t exactly what I looked like.

Mrs. Laws, the prosecutor had asked me, are you presently married?

I looked him in the eye. My husband died, I told him.

I see, he said deferentially, looking down. I’m sorry to hear that.

The last time I’d had to report for jury duty was only a few months after my husband’s death. The case was a medical malpractice suit, and the plaintiff’s attorney asked me what my husband died of and whether I had been perfectly satisfied with his medical care, or whether I believed his doctors could have done something more to save his life. I broke down, with a whole roomful of people—prospective jurors, the lawyers, the plaintiffs and defendants, and all the staff—watching and listening. It was like having your therapist’s notes broadcast to the crowd at a football game. They got me out of there fast, but it still makes me angry to think about it.

Thank you, I said formally.

Have you seen other men since your husband’s death?

I looked at him. I beg your pardon?

He stepped back. What I mean is, do you date other men?

What was next, my gynecological history? Sometimes, I said as calmly as possible, but mostly not.

And why is that? he asked, not wanting to look at me.

He’s just doing his job, I reminded myself. It made me tolerate him a little better, so I answered as honestly as I could. Initially because I had a child who had just lost a father, and I didn’t want to complicate her life any more than I had to. And because now I don’t really want to get married again, so there isn’t much point.

So you’ve never used a dating or matchmaking service?

No.

Would you consider using such a service?

No.

Do you feel that there’s anything wrong or distasteful about using such a service?

I thought about it. Not if you’re careful, no.

And would you consider running a matchmaking service a respectable occupation?

He meant: Would I think the victim deserved what she got because she was some kind of latter-day Heidi Fleiss, pimping for rich people, or would I buy the noble matchmaker description? It depends, I told him.

Depends on what, Mrs. Laws?

On whether that’s really what’s involved.

He seemed reasonably satisfied. The defense attorney had a different focus. Did I think immigration was a problem in the U.S., particularly immigration from Mexico? Did I employ any domestic help? Did I think gangs were out of control? Did I know anyone well who’d ever been involved in a homicide?

Well, this was Southern California, for heaven’s sake. If this was a melting pot, a lot of what was in the olla was menudo. People were hurling themselves at the border every day, running across freeways and packing themselves into mobile deathtraps just to get into el Norte. Some politician or other was always ranting about the high costs of illegals, and every bare wall from the corner market to the freeway overpasses was a palimpsest for gangland testosterone. There were advantages and disadvantages. What was a good liberal supposed to say?

At least I could tell him that I cleaned my own house. There hadn’t been any murders in the family, either. What I didn’t volunteer was that my father had been one of those enterprising Mexican immigrants, a smooth operator who outfoxed the migra by getting my thoroughly Anglo mother with child and marrying her in a civil ceremony marked by its brevity and lack of glamour. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is understandably skeptical about such unions, and my father hung around for a couple of years to complete the follow-up interviews and evaluation before skipping town with his green card and the slightly used Packard my mother’s parents had grudgingly given her as a wedding present.

That’s my mother’s version of the story, anyway. There are plenty of reasons to be somewhat suspicious of her particular chapter in Seduced and Abandoned, vol. 150. The family record with men isn’t the greatest, to say the least. We drive them away, or they die before their time. There are all kinds of variations on the theme—compulsive womanizers, alcoholic weaklings, genetic diseases that kick in unexpectedly—but the results are always the same. A family full of women, alone. I’d spent half my daughter’s formative years trying to shield her from the curse.

My mother went to extraordinary lengths to purge herself of the Latin Influence, so to speak—about which, more later. We didn’t have riotous Cinco de Mayo celebrations. I wasn’t even allowed to take Spanish in high school. She made me take French instead, which was fun but totally useless in Southern California. We moved to an apartment in a respectable but dull blue-collar community while my mother was paid near-starvation wages as a sales clerk in different stores in the Del Amo Shopping Center, one day to become the World’s Largest, at least for a while.

I went to school with a few other Hispanic kids, who were mostly quiet in class and kept to themselves. I began to perceive that my background would not be treated as advantageous if it were known. I didn’t look the part—I have brown hair and green eyes—and since my mother treated my Mexican heritage like a terrible secret, I did, too. I absorbed the poison gradually, drop by drop, until Don’t say anything—the unofficial family motto—became mine, too. After a while, when somebody asked about my surname—Santiago—I told them it was Spanish for St. James. That was true; I just didn’t mention where it had gone after it left Old Spain.

Rescue, in the form of a whopping scholarship from the State of California, brought me to UCLA. The government’s benevolence inspired my gratitude; it changed my life. At college there was a bit more celebration of ethnic diversity than there had been in high school, but most of the Chicano students I met there were on edge and angry, concerned with getting their rights. I didn’t blame them, but I didn’t identify with them, either. I was far too intoxicated with scholarly pursuits to become an activist. In a rush of blinkered optimism, I majored in art history. I fell in love. I got engaged. I graduated. I got married and changed my name. I had Andrea.

So, the Anglo part wasn’t the Absolute Truth. (Absolute truth is a mirage anyway. It disappears as you try to get closer.) Neither was the affluence. My business—I’m an art consultant—takes me into some very expensive homes and businesses, and I have to look the part. There’s an art to that, too. The clients won’t hire you if you show up in a housecoat, but the women don’t feel comfortable if your clothes look as if they cost more than theirs. Panache—the hardest thing of all to achieve—can carry you through if you can carry it off. I try, and sometimes I succeed. But my bank balance is nothing to write home about.

Ellen? Leo prompted me again. My history wouldn’t have interested him much. Getting things over with obviously did.

Are we just— Hazel began, before I could open my mouth.

It’s Ellen’s turn, Leo said succinctly, raising his eyebrows at Alvino.

I turned to her. Just what? I asked with a smile. The only person less likely to command attention than a middle-aged widow was an elderly one who dithered. Shadows of the things to come.

She twisted her hands worriedly. "I know I said I think he’s guilty. But shouldn’t we…don’t we have an obligation to review the evidence? I mean, we can’t just vote, can we?"

There were several groans. We can do anything we want to, Leo told her. The OJ jury came back in a couple of hours, and look how long his criminal trial took. I don’t think we have to discuss anything, unless the rest of you want to.

I would feel better if we talked before we voted, Marta said, with surprising firmness.

I agree, I told her. I turned to Leo. We don’t necessarily have to go over every bit of testimony and evidence, but before we vote to convict, it wouldn’t hurt to touch on the major points. After all, it’s a murder conviction, and the kid probably didn’t even mean to do it.

That doesn’t make any difference in this case, Eric, a bouncer at a local nightclub, corrected me eagerly. If somebody dies because you committed a felony, they’ve got you for murder. They explained that to us.

Not any felony, Leo said. Just certain ones.

Like burglary, Alvino said in a bored tone.

Did they tell us that? asked Pat. Pat taught physical education to junior high schoolers. The occupation had done more to expand her biceps than her understanding. She reminded me of my P.E. teacher at that age, an Amazon with a passion for field hockey and a propensity to yell out bully! rather more often than the sport necessitated.

Leo sighed. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go over the evidence again, he conceded.

I can guess why the prosecutor wanted me to be on this jury. I’m just not sure why I agreed to be on it.

The judge may give you a hard time, but you can always get out of it if you don’t cave in. Sure it’s a civic duty, but a murder trial—even a fairly perfunctory one—poses a significant hardship on the self-employed. The five-dollar per diem doesn’t quite make up for the fact that if you don’t work, you don’t make any money, and if you aren’t available, sometimes the clients call somebody else.

Besides that, an awful lot of the process is tedious. You wait around while things you aren’t privy to are happening. And what you do get to hear isn’t a lot more interesting. If it wasn’t quite cut and dried, as Leo said, there weren’t a lot of surprises, either. It was far too easy, as the days flowed along, to forget that one person had died, and the other’s entire future was on the line.

So why was I here?

I notice that I’ve been planting a lot of excuses for why what happened, happened. But let me be as honest as I can. Usually, I preferred art to life—it was more satisfying in construction and generally more interesting. But recently I’d experienced one of those autumnal moments of revelation when I realized that most of life’s big experiences were going to pass me by. I’d already had my allotted share, and there weren’t going to be any more. My husband was gone, and my child was almost grown-up. My mother was senile. Replacement hormones were just around the corner. In fact, I’d reached the age when just about everything is measured by how much you have left of what you used to have, period. True, I had friends and a job that I liked (for the most part), but I’d already made my big life choices, and now all the consequences unrolled predictably before me into the future.

Maybe a nice, messy murder trial would shake things up. Or maybe not. Who knows how the subconscious works? Still, here I was, although I had plenty of better things to do than rubber-stamp a guilty verdict, which is all that it seemed likely to come to anyway.

So who wants to start? asked Leo.

Start what? asked Pat.

Can we get a break? asked Eric.

Christ, we just got in here, muttered Alvino. Let’s get the show on the road.

I’ll start, then, said Leo, as if Eric hadn’t spoken. If everyone agrees.

Alvino sighed and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. His leg twitched nervously. If he’d been a kid, they would have diagnosed him with Attention Deficit Disorder.

What we have, said Leo solemnly, "is a defendant who had access to the victim’s offices, because he’d copied his mother’s keys. So he had the means. He knew she was well-off, again because of his mother. He went at an hour when you’d reasonably expect no one would be there—really early in the morning—to burglarize the place. The victim came in unexpectedly—her assistant testified that she sometimes came in very early to work, because she made telephone calls to Europe and the East Coast. The kid wouldn’t have known that. Anyway, she must’ve surprised her killer—let’s say it was Ramon—and he picked up the nearest heavy object and whacked her over the head from behind. So there’s motive. Maybe he meant to kill her; maybe not. It doesn’t matter, because, as we know, a death that results from a felony such as burglary—even if you were hit in an accident by the getaway car—is murder. Is everybody with me so far?"

Everybody was.

Right. So let’s think about the evidence against him. In the first place, his fingerprints were on the murder weapon. In the second place, the police found some of the stuff from the dead woman’s office in his car. And—

Someone called the police and reported a possible burglary on the premises shortly before they picked him up, Alvino helped him out.

Or so they say, said William, who was, if I remember correctly, an engineer at TRW.

Well, why would they lie about it? asked Hazel.

More groans. Most of us were such cynics. First the government, then the police. Expert witnesses. Credibility was a scarce commodity these days.

Well, even if you discount that, they had the goods on him. Motive, means, opportunity, and evidence! concluded Alvino. I concluded that he, too, was a reader of crime fiction.

Leo cleared his throat self-importantly to remind us Who Was In Charge. Against that…against that, we have…what? He raised his shoulders and eyebrows in an eloquent shrug.

He says he didn’t do it, volunteered Marta.

Alvino rolled his eyes.

Well, what do you expect? Leo asked with irritation. Of course he says that.

But—

They always say that, he added with authority. Don’t they?

I guess so, said Marta.

"Besides, he told the cops she gave him all that stuff in his car. Because his mother used to work for her. That’s total bull—"

There is one thing, though, I suggested.

Leo glared at me. What?

Well, why didn’t he plea-bargain? After they caught him with stolen goods and found his fingerprints on the Erté—

The what? asked Pat.

The statue.

Oh, right.

His lawyer had to know it would look pretty bad for him after that. I’m sure the DA would have offered something less than first-degree murder. He was only seventeen at the time. So why wouldn’t he go for it?

I don’t think we’re supposed to speculate on that, Hazel said timidly. Leo had squashed most of the life out of her, and she wasn’t about to put up any more resistance. Besides, she had a point.

Well, okay. You’re probably right. But it still makes me wonder, I told her.

You can wonder, Alvino said grimly, but you gotta use your head. Who else could have done it? They never found anybody else with a motive to kill her, much less anyone placed at the scene of the crime. Even if you don’t like it, we have to face the facts. The kid did it.

Nobody said anything.

Does anybody want to talk about it any more? Leo asked. He looked pointedly at Hazel, who shook her head.

Put it to a vote, man, urged Alvino. Please.

Leo drew himself up. Hazel? he asked.

Bad choice. She could never feel comfortable being the first to state an opinion, no matter how strongly she held it. She looked away. I’m not…I need…I’m not quite ready, she pleaded.

A woman is dead, Leo said sternly. Do you want her murderer to get away with it?

Hazel gripped the table in panic.

Come back to her, said Alvino. I’ll start, okay? I vote guilty.

Leo turned his head ostentatiously away. Eric?

Guilty.

Marta?

I could almost hear her swallow. I agree. Guilty.

Ellen?

This is what I remember: The fluorescent fixture hummed. The tabletop had lines of fake wood grain stretching unbroken the entire length. A chair scraped against the leg. The air-conditioning blew down my collar from the vent above. Everybody was looking at me expectantly. My mouth was very dry.

But that’s it. No crisis of conscience, no inner voices, not even an accelerated heartbeat. Not a single clichéd emotion. No hesitation, or not much. No doubts, reasonable or otherwise.

Guilty, I said.

No excuses.

2

Alvino looked at his watch. This is great! We might get out of here in time to get a decent dinner. I definitely want to celebrate the end of this trial.

We haven’t finished voting yet, Marta reminded him, a bit coolly.

He looked embarrassed. Oh, right. I’m sorry. I guess I was jumping the gun. I didn’t mean to sound…

We know. It’s okay, Marta told him.

The votes tallied eleven-zero in favor of conviction. There was only one person left to poll.

Leo turned majestically to Hazel, preparing himself for his Leading Role in the courtroom as foreman. Well? he asked her, imperfectly concealing his anxiety about the outcome under a bullying tone. Have you decided?

Hazel shifted on her chair. She’d confided that her hip replacements bothered her after more than a few minutes on the hard seat. Yes, I have, she said.

She paused dramatically. All eyes were on her. It was clear that she was enjoying her moment as the center of attention and had no desire to rush out of the spotlight. At length, she nodded. I vote guilty.

There was a collective exhalation of withheld breath.

Thank God, Alvino murmured.

I’ll call the bailiff, said Leo, straightening his tie.

It’s one thing to come to a verdict with reasonable confidence in the jury room; it’s something different when they announce it in open court. I couldn’t look at the defendant. I couldn’t look at his mother. I fixed my gaze on the burnished wood of the railing in front of me while the judge read out, We, the jury, find… et al. The rail was rich and glossy, like a coffin. I raised my eyes.

Ramon took it like a tough guy. He stood perfectly still, holding himself erect while his attorney slipped an arm around him. His cheek muscle twitched, but that was all. His bravado made him seem younger and more vulnerable than at any other moment in the trial; it also made me feel a little bit sorry for him.

But not as sorry as I was for his mother. She crumpled in her chair, devastated beyond tears. She kept shaking her head no. Another attorney came up beside her, offering his arm. She waved him away.

I sneaked a look at Marta, who was sitting next to me. She had tears in her eyes. Even Leo looked distraught. When the judge thanked us for our service, for doing our duty, I felt numb.

The prosecutors were engaged in a ritual of applause—warm handshakes all round. It was more tasteful than an orgy of backslapping, but the sentiment was the same. In another case, they would have been sharing quiet congratulations with the victim’s family and friends, but there was no one here to see justice done to Natasha’s killer. It was odd, now that I thought about it. How could someone who’d made matchmaking her life’s work have ended up completely alone?

We were free to go. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, despite invitations from both the prosecutors and the defense. I felt squeezed out, like a used washcloth. Hazel pressed a piece of paper into my hand with her phone number written on it. She wrote mine down in a purse-sized address book with little flowers on the cover. She promised to call me about getting together.

Despite our proximity for days and days, I did not entertain feelings of nostalgia about saying good-bye to the other jury members. I liked them well enough, and some more than that, but I was thoroughly tired of the whole experience and eager to put it behind me. I pined for a normal life. I wanted to be able to go the bank. I wanted to pick up the dry cleaning. I needed to work. Besides, I’d developed a definite distaste for Formica. I did not look forward to a juror reunion on the next anniversary of sending Ramon to jail.

The others seemed to feel the same. We said goodbye quickly with perfunctory promises to keep in touch that faded with our smiles as we left. Alvino was already sprinting away on long legs, hurrying toward the parking lot.

I just wanted out. If this was an adventure, I didn’t want any part of it. I never expected to see anyone connected with the trial again.

My mistake.

Home. I parked the car in the numbered space and walked over the little bridge and down the path to my townhouse. It was a pain to navigate such a distance with a sack full of groceries, but the grounds—complete with stream, flowers, and drought-tolerant landscaping—were exceptional for beachside property. Best of all, the other side of both floors of my townhouse gave onto a first-class view of the ocean. It wasn’t untrammeled Malibu—there was a pier and a lot of loud restaurants—but the beach was so close that you could smell the Bain de Soleil and hear the excited shrieks of little kids jumping the waves.

I love the ocean, though I’m not so wild about the beach.

The ocean has sea lions barking from the buoys at dawn, sand dabs, and whitecaps.

The beach has blondes in abbreviated bathing costumes and thin thighs, who flip you the bird when you try to zigzag across the bike path on your way to the sand. The beach has a dedicated coterie who think volleyball is an academic major. The beach has No Parking, except at three A.M. when people with a predilection for boom boxes decide to take a walk. The beach also has its share of wackos with short fuses, though maybe not as many as you’d find, say, on an average city block in downtown L.A. or uptown Manhattan.

If you have unlimited funds, you can have the ocean without the beach, although in that case the trade-off is a constant wrangle with the California Coastal Commission, which takes the quaint and increasingly anachronistic view that the shoreline belongs to the Public, who cannot be denied access no matter how much you paid for your property. Still, I have done art installations in Malibu beach houses, and I can vouch for the undeniable attractions of Keeping It All to Yourself. Since I’m unlikely to have the option, I’ll never know whether my egalitarian principles would stand up to the temptations of material success.

I couldn’t complain, though. I put the sack down in the kitchen (so small it should probably be called the galley) and twisted the rod of the vertical blinds. It was nearly eight o’clock at night, and the sun was just going down into the water. A couple of late sailboats were out in the harbor, and the restaurants hadn’t cranked up the weekend volume yet. The daytime crowds had gone home. In short, a perfect evening.

There was a small pile of peanuts, unshelled, on a stand I’d erected on one corner of the balcony. I’d put them out in the morning for the Mad Squirrel, but he apparently hadn’t come by. Squirrels were notoriously, well, squirrelly, but I still worried about him. He earned his moniker by sitting on the utility wires shrieking his lungs out for minutes on end, his tail held overhead to effect a daunting headdress—a big, bad, juvenile-delinquent squirrel. He had a wild stare, too, direct and intense, like a street person whose eye you’d never want to catch. The Mad Squirrel knew what he wanted, and he usually asked for it. Maybe tonight it wasn’t peanuts.

I wanted to pour myself a glass of chardonnay and watch the rest of the sunset from my balcony, but if I did that I could never bring myself to listen to my messages. Even though the jury hadn’t been sequestered, out of touch didn’t begin to describe my regular life. Every day I came home to an onslaught of messages from increasingly irritated people who were apparently sure that the jury duty story was just a ruse to cover my holiday in Antigua. I spent an hour or so each night attempting to answer calls from clients, my mother, artists, and phone solicitors who snookered me