Breach Of Promise

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said. As she drove away, she watched him in her rearview mirror, standing with his hands in his pockets, letting the snow pile onto his shoulders, still as a snowman.

Later, buried in the warm nest of her down comforter, her anger dissipated and her humor returned. Why, I’ll be damned, she thought. She and Paul were no different than the shadow jurors. Their emotional loyalty lay with their own sex, and that was that. She didn’t like the thought that followed, that Genevieve could easily have predicted their argument, right down to Paul’s descent into name-calling there at the end.

13

“Lots of lawyers have intuitive theories about jury selection,” Genevieve said. She had organized a meeting to discuss the shadow jury’s recommendations. It was late Saturday morning, and after changing the timetable to suit him, even Winston agreed to attend. They had so much to do before May that they had begun keeping long hours at the office. He let everyone know that one thing he would not do was neglect his exercise. Here he was in Tahoe and he intended to enjoy it, get out there and run in the morning even in the dead of winter, and when the weather nicened up, do some boating and swimming.

Beyond the picture window in the office across from Nina’s where Winston and Genevieve had moved in, the winter sun glared off wet new snow. Icicles twinkled on treetops, melting.

Winston smothered a yawn, and looked at his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but can we speed things up here? I’ve got a few things to do today.” He wore sweats, and his pet radio, a compact, enigmatic-looking black box the size of a thick wallet, lay on the table in front of him. His hair glistened, still dewy from the shower he had taken after his run.

“As I was saying. Clarence Darrow thought about culture and religions when he looked for friendly jurors. For example, he liked the Irish for the defense, and excused Scandinavians whenever he could. He thought they had altogether too much admiration for the law. The San Francisco attorney Mel Belli had a whole system worked out for himself. He divided people up by their occupations. For the defense, he’d pick a waiter over a salesperson, or a doctor over a secretary.”

“But not us,” Winston said. “We don’t do intuitive anymore.”

Genevieve went on as if he hadn’t spoken. Gone today was the country-fried humor and the ole girl persona. Though the Southern accent didn’t change, when she talked about her area of expertise, it toned down considerably. Genevieve even looked a little nervous. Today was her day to show she was worth the money Nina had been paying her. At two hundred an hour, her billings this month had been horrendous.

“Of course, everyone’s got fu

“Not everyone,” said Winston. “I know better.”

“Will you kindly let me finish?” asked Genevieve.

“C’mon, Winston, quit teasing. Give her a break,” Nina said. Winston folded his arms in front of him and leaned back in his chair.

“Males favor women, females favor handsome young men. Females tend not to look kindly upon other females,” Genevieve continued firmly. “Conventional wisdom.”

“Bosh,” said Winston. “Fairy tales. You know what Alexander Pope said about your precious jurors? ’Witches hang that jurymen may dine.’ Now that’s the truth. That’s the reality.”

“I agree,” said Genevieve.

“You agree?” asked Winston.

“We have to forget about conventional wisdom. People today are going to be influenced by culture, religion, TV, current events, and yes, even the state of their stomachs-our lives aren’t as narrow as they used to be. We’ll need to make our choices based on very pragmatic considerations. For example, here’s a simple recommendation for you from our panel, Nina. Lighten up.”

“You’re not the first to recommend it, but what exactly do you mean?” asked Nina.

“I’m talking about the color and style of your clothing. The big shoulders, the severe suits make you look authoritative, but they’d rather you persuaded them more softly. Go for something quite neutral with a hint of warmth. A taupey-peach. Pastels mixed with beiges. You need to emphasize the feminine in this trial. This is a case about a woman, don’t forget, and it’s classic in the sense that it’s a woman who’s getting shafted by a man.”

“Taupey-peach? You’ve got to be kidding,” Nina said.

“Other impressions were fairly uniform. They thought you seemed quite professional. They liked your ma

More smiling, Nina reminded herself, practicing.

Winston said, “What about me?”

“You know you’re good, Win. You started off well. They liked the simple statements of fact, and they liked it that you didn’t raise your voice or get emotional on them. But once you got past the essentials, I’m afraid you wandered too far afield and lost them.”

“Oh?”

“They didn’t want to hear in dollars and cents how much Lindy made, how much she should have made, how much they made when they started out, their current per a

“Don’t want them thinking about how much each one of the Markovs blows on car wax each month,” said Winston.

“That’s right,” said Genevieve, snapping open her briefcase. She handed out to each of them a report fastened inside transparent binding. “These are all my suggestions, based on telephone interviews, the demographics, the shadow jury comments, the focus groups, and so on.” At twenty-five pages long, it barely fit inside its binding. Winston picked it up and let his arm drop to his side heavily, pretending he couldn’t even hold it up.

“I’ve spoken with Lindy and told her to lose the beautiful clothes, let some of the gray show in her hair and not to be afraid to show her feelings on the stand,” Genevieve said. “This is no time for discretion.”

“She doesn’t strike me as someone who’s going to have a problem with discretion. The opposite, maybe,” said Winston.

“She needs to be warned about appearing bitter or vengeful. These are qualities our jurors derided. Andrea, playing Lindy, got a little too angry when she talked about Mike. The right mood seems to be wistful and sad for Lindy, whereas we need to be very matter-of-fact. We should be perceived as advocates who are just stating the bald facts, not too pushy, just cognizant of the weight of evidence we have that proves our case.

“Nina, when you talk with Lindy about her testimony, be sure you go over that with her. Make sure she knows how important it is to be consistent in the exact language about what was said, and make sure she uses the phrase ’expressly promised me,’ especially when it comes to that promise made in consideration stuff.

“Go over her deposition with her until she knows better than to contradict it. Our shadow felt that there were some contradictions in what Andrea said. I’ve made notes on those statements, and I know you’ll want to look them over with Lindy, so that we can be perfectly clear this time around.

“Oh, and I’m afraid the ’wedding vows’ they exchanged in lieu of a legal marriage made a poor impression. On the whole, our shadows didn’t feel it was important. We can’t ignore the fact that a religious juror might find it significant, but we should probably only touch on this event.

“Now, regarding the statement from Lindy that he repeatedly made her all those promises. The men found that humorous and pitiful, I’m sorry to say.”