It’s jury duty time for Martha Sophia “Sojen” Jennings. I’ve pushed it twice on account of being in England but now I am in Los Angeles and I am being called to serve.
My sister tells me that’s so random.
What? She says over the phone. That’s soooo random.
Not really, I say. It’s Jury Duty. People, do that.
I realise then that I have no memory of my parents ever doing jury duty. Why weren’t they doing jury duty?
It’s just random, she says again.
My sister lives in France, where she believes all of my problems would go away.
In France, she says. You wouldn’t think so much about your body. You wouldn’t care.
Quelle horreur! I respond. I also wouldn’t have jury duty.
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The night before jury duty, I go on Reddit and read that if you’re a freelancer, you should get in line for “tragedies” and explain the wages that you’ll miss by serving in court. I write this down in my diary - remember tragedies.
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The judge wants to know whether I have any experience with domestic violence. I nod, yes. He asks me what happened. I tell him. He says he’s sorry about that. I say it’s okay. He moves on to his next question, his qualifying question.
Given what you’ve gone through, do you think you can judge this case fairly?
Probably not, I say. Then - wish I could.
He nods, and says that he understands. He moves on to the next juror. Out of the 60 of us there, there are 30 women, and nearly all of them, and three-or-four of the men, say yes, they have experienced domestic violence.
I look at the woman sitting next to me. She is a helper for old people with dementia and she is wearing fabulous silver heeled flip flops. I lean in to whisper into her ear.
Never thought my deadbeat dad would be useful!
She starts to hoot, oh now she’s clapping, oh we are really laughing in this court house.
-
At 1:30 I hear the word - line up here for tragedies. I stand up and get in line.
First is a man with a wife at home who is eight months pregnant.
I need to get off Reddit.
Second is a woman taking care of her dying father.
I need to get off Reddit.
And then there is me.
So, I’m a freelance writer…
I leave the court room and go back out to the hallway where my neighbor is reading the news on her phone. She looks up at me and laughs - guess your tragedy wasn’t too TRAGIC!
-
Eventually, the judge does excuse me early, not because I am a writer, but because I am right, I can’t judge this case fairly.
I go back to my desk to write ads about why women need to sleep more on our periods and then, around 6pm, I drive to the grocery store and I spend so much money on supplements, I cannot stop seeing all of those women saying yes, they have experienced it, I am buying sea moss, I am buying magnesium, I am buying collagen and I am buying a tongue scraper.
-
I decide it’s time for my friend to kiss me. We’ve known each other for over ten years, too long for this not to be funny, which is why I think it’s time. I text him after the wine bar in Atwater Village. What’s up. I send it as I’m opening my door. I think it’s funny. Who texts what’s up at 1am. We just spent five hours drinking Mendocino chilled reds with twenty people we went to college with. We know what's up.
He responds immediately. What.
And then -
Do you want me to come over?
Thirty minutes of texting later, he decides it is logistically difficult.
-
A week later, we’re going to another birthday party and I’m pulling down a poster above my desk that reads LEAP AND ANGELS WILL SUPPORT YOU! in case anything happens.
In my head it goes like this.
Can I come over?
… Can’t we go to yours? I don’t usually have guys over.
What about Cole? Isn’t he always showing up?
Yeah, but that’s Cole.
What does that mean?
Cole once showed up and found my house keys in the front door with my car key attached.
That’s hilarious.
I thought someone was breaking in, but it was just Cole, holding my keys above his head and asking - OK... is this what happens when you move to a bougie neighborhood???
Ha.
One time, he knocked on my kitchen window and saw coffee beans spilled all over the floor, and he said, OK, you and I, we are the same!
What?
That night of Jack’s going away party, when everybody got Covid? Again? We ended up at that after-hours bar on Western, and in the morning when Cole came to drive me to the airport, I wasn’t here, I was in bed with his actor friend who was saying let’s not kiss and tell… but I was already texting Cole.
Which actor?
So Cole came and picked me up in his car with no seat belts, and we went to eat breakfast burritos, and then when we got home, Cole got underneath all of my quilts and turned on that Monica Lewinsky series on my old two-foot-long TV.
And he looked at me, he was so hungover on that pink sofa I used to have, wearing those sunglasses that look like ski goggles, and he saw me on only three hours of sleep, packing my suitcase for a flight to London in three hours and he said, you and I, we are the same!
That’s sweet.
Cole always says that the messier our apartments, the better our lives are doing.
Cole always says that we are, we are like, a different breed.
Cole always says that he and I, we are the same.
-
We meet up at that birthday party behind the Chateau where they’ve hired a former American Idol contestant to sing Norah Jones covers. He orders a tequila soda, I order a gin martini, and then I ask him if he’s acting weird because he’s realized he is drastically, undeniably, overwhelming, attracted to Sophia Jennings.
Wouldn’t be the first… I say.
He laughs and says we had fun.
I look at him. What does that mean.
Six hours later, we climb down Beachwood Canyon in the rain and when we get in the Uber, I am so tired I lean against his arm, and later, I think I should tell him that was not something, I was just tired and rained on and his arm was right there.
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In Ojai, my writer friend from London tells me that in every friendship with another woman, there is an element of jealousy. You really think so? I’m driving. Of course! Like with us, the tension is that you work more than me and that makes me feel bad.
She looks at me and I try to think of what my version of that is, towards her, but I can’t think of anything so I tell her, I’m just American, that’s the difference, then I ask if she wants to get tacos on the drive back to LA.
The next day, I go to lunch in Highland Park with Sara and Mollie and pitch them this idea, with a caveat. Now girls I know, like I really know at the bottom of my heart… that you are not jealous of me. And that’s ok! I can take that.
Sara is an agent and Mollie is an exec and we all laugh ha ha ha. Then Sara, maybe in an effort to make me feel better, tries to argue that she is.
I mean, you’re a writer, which is like, a coveted role… in society.
I look at her to see how far she’ll take this.
That’s cool, and we’re not so…
I check to see if Mollie is buying this. She’s nodding too quickly.
I put my hand out towards Sara and I take a deep breath and I say - honestly, it is so kind, that you think, I would ever, ever…
Long pause.
Ever, believe that.
-
In between getting better, Cole walks into my house on a Sunday afternoon and says it’s too hot in here, we should get outside, is your heater on? It is. I am hungover from Beachwood and have a space heater between my legs and a blanket over my body and he says - girl! It is not space heater weather! Let’s get OUT!
We walk across Glendale to eat bowls of broth and Vietnamese noodles and Cole tells me that he is worried. He’s worried about the inflammation in our food and the plastics in our drinking water and Trump and Biden and how many people are dying in Gaza and how immune Americans are to death and how the media is distracting us from the real threat of climate change. He says he has to get out of here, LA isn’t it, he says what he’s always said, which is Europe or Mexico, he’s gotta go.
-
Later, he asks me if I’m crying but the wind is just so strong today, it’s just that time of year, I’m right on the corner of Glendale Boulevard, we tell ourselves these things to break our hearts, our tragedies leave us open, we hope we never close again,
we wish getting better didn’t feel like losing them all over again.