“This food is shit,” the young adult muses, though his plate is heaping. Tamra winces, seemingly at his choice of language. “I’m Cam,” he says, eyes flicking between Tamra and me in a bare-bones introduction.
“Nice to meet you, Cam,” Tamra says in what I deem an innate need for politeness.
“Sydney, hi,” I offer.
“How ’bout that Tenley Storms today?” Cam leans in and grins at Damon like they’re old buddies evaluating the “talent” at a bar over beers and a bowl of dirty nuts. Damon gives him a slight lift of the chin in a gesture I find indecipherable.
“We are not allowed to talk about the trial,” Tamra gently scolds. “Not until deliberations.”
“I’m not asking if you think Margot Kitsch offed her husband. I’m simply referencing something that happened today. How are we supposed to sit in the same room all day, listen to the same information, and then be expected not to talk about it?” Cam says, a forkful of green beans positioned in front of his mouth.
We all exchange glances. He’s got a point. But I also need to stay in Judge Gillespy’s good graces.
“Tamra’s right,” I say. “No trial talk.”
She smiles at me with gentle appreciation, then grimaces at her plate again.
“Okay, okay. How ’bout a game then? To get to know one another? We’ve got so much time to kill.”
“Poor choice of words,” Tamra mutters to her green beans.
I look around the room at the other tables. Our fellow jurors are conversing lightly, seem to be exchanging general pleasantries, but mainly keeping to themselves.
We have Cam.
“Like an icebreaker? What is this, summer camp?” Damon says, crossing his arms, and his biceps grow. I take in the words etched along his left wrist:I’LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT WHEN I SEE YOU AGAIN. He’s mapped a world on his body since I last saw him.
“It’s pretty much summer camp, isn’t it? Except at this summer camp, instead of playing dodgeball or color wars, we have to sit and listen all day.” Cam rips a roll in half and shoves one side into his mouth. “How ’bout two truths and a lie? Could be fun,” he says, his words muffled through the bite.
“Is the fun here in the room with us?” Damon asks dryly.
I close my eyes while Tamra exhales forcibly beside me.
“But wait, you two already know each other, right?” Cam says, pointing at me, then Damon, undeterred. My hope that the other jurors (and the judge and attorneys) would forget this detail once the trial began is squashed.
Damon shakes his head dismissively. “Ten years ago. We don’t know each other anymore.”
Despite his words being true, and almost exactly what I conveyed to Judge Gillespy myself, they somehow sting. I consider if he is downplaying our history to support the judge’s decision to keep us on the jury or if he’s still as callous as he once was. Regardless, we’re now committed on all fronts to minimizing our past. It should be fine. We are, after all, residuals of the don’t-talk-about-it generation.
“I’ll go first,” Cam says, clearly not reading the lack of enthusiasmfrom the table. “I have forty-six tattoos, I’m thirty-two, and I once shattered my pelvis falling off a cliff at the Grand Canyon while trying to get the perfect selfie.”
We all stare silently, unblinking, across the table at Cam. It’s as though he’s rehearsed for this moment.
“I find all three of these things to be lies,” Tamra says finally.
I nod in agreement.
“Nope, two are true.”
“There’s no way you have forty-six tattoos,” Damon says, looking around at the exposed bare skin of his ankles, wrists, neck, and face.
Cam shakes his head. “There are indeed forty-six. Strategically placed.” I can tell Cam wants us to give him more—ask to see some of his ink, balk at the impressiveness of forty-six tattoos and his inevitable explanations for the meanings of each. We don’t.
“You’re not thirty-two,” I say.
Cam points at me and smiles. “Correct. Almost twenty-one,” he says.
“More tattoos than years on the planet,” Tamra muses.
