“Well, you know about this National Independence Center thing?” Did I ever. “Well, Friedman is on the board and she’s pretty high up. And this center is a pretty big thing, I guess. Well, Condi Rice was apparently on the short list to speak at the opening. You can imagine the public image boost that’d give her. Anyway, your boss pretty much roadblocked her speaking unless the administration made some sort of public overture toward the third. Enter Adams. Nominating Adams is the perfect solution. Bush wanted her all along. She’s on the third. Friedman would have to be appeased. Except—”

“Except this is her worst nightmare and they don’t know that”—I finished Kevin’s sentence for him—“but what could Friedman have wanted? What could the Bush administration offer to a court of appeals? They all already have life tenure. There’s no chance in hell they’d ever have nominated Friedman to the Supreme Court even before the manhole incident.”

I suddenly realized that we were in a public place and quickly surveyed the scene. Family of four. Young married couple. Famous blueberry/banana/strawberry pancakes. Want more coffee? The sheer normalcy gave the illusion that someone had hit the pause button on everyone but us.

“Kevin? Why would Friedman do that? Am I missing something here?”

“Sheila, you’re not. It’s not at all obvious. According to our secretary, Friedman wanted Haskell to get the nod. She has absolutely no idea that the only person Bush was considering from the third was Adams. I think she just assumed that Haskell would be the natural pick and—”

“Judge Haskell is her only comrade on the bench.” I finished his sentence again. Now it made sense. Judge Haskell was Friedman’s only true friend on the court. He was legitimately nice to her. Then again, he was nice to everyone. He’d been appointed by Clinton but was not a rabid liberal by any stretch of the imagination. A lauded moderate, with an eloquent flair. He was fifty-five, handsome, and probably didn’t even have half a skeleton in his closet. The kicker—he was African American. Good-looking, perfect age, black, moderate—a perfect choice for an administration mired in right-wing controversy. Then again, there already was one black man on the Supreme Court. The Bush administration, indeed the country, wasn’t ready for another.

While Friedman was unquestionably bright, she’d not considered that Judge Adams could attain the one thing she herself so badly wanted in life—a slot on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Friedman’s hatred had made her impervious to the reality that she had, in effect, garnered the nomination for Judge Adams. Not since the hipster invasion had something been so ironic.

Heart palpitations. Dizzy. Sweating.

What if Adams got confirmed during my tenure?

Rapid pulse. Dizzier.

Death penalty.

Drop of sweat on lap.

I’m rilly rilly counting on you Sheba.

Swish.