It was the first time in eleven years that a judge had spoken to her on the record during a proceeding. Mina lifted her hands from the keys. She was aware, as she drew breath, of the B in the word she needed, sitting behind her teeth like a stone.
"Yes, Your Honor," she said. Yes had no stones in it. She had chosen it on purpose. "That's accurate. We didn't discuss the case. I didn't know he was a juror until he left."
"How did you find out?"
"He dropped his summons."
Judge Moy looked at Remy over her half-glasses for a long moment, and then at Mina, and then, unaccountably, at the electric fan, as if consulting it.
"Counsel?" she said. "Any objection to Mr. Agostini?"
Sy Feinberg rose an inch from his chair. "None, Your Honor. I think the plaintiff would welcome a juror who volunteers information nobody asked him for."
Sterling Pratt rose all the way and buttoned his jacket. "The defense has no objection, Your Honor, provided the court admonishes the juror and the reporter appropriately." He paused. "And provided the gentleman promises to find another place to eat."
"There is no other place to eat," said Judge Moy, with feeling. "Mr. Agostini, you are going to hear me give the jury an instruction in a moment that you must not speak to the parties, the attorneys, the witnesses, or any member of court staff about anything at all until this trial is over. I'm going to ask you now, specifically: can you follow that instruction as it pertains to the reporter? Not a word, not a note, not a nod, for the next six weeks?"
Remy looked at her. She did not look back. She looked at her machine, at the paper tape coming out of it in its patient folds, and waited for his answer so she could type it.
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes, Your Honor. I promise.
At five-fifteen, after what felt like eighteen hours of her life, Remy Agostini was sworn in as Juror Number Seven, and Judge Moy gave the jury the admonition in her plain unhurried voice, and adjourned until nine the next morning. The jurors filed out through the side door to the jury room. He went last. He did not look at her, which was correct, and which she noticed with a precision that was not correct at all.