“Oh my God! J before O. I failed. I failed! I should have been before stupid-ass Julio!” I ran into James’s bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.

Kevin yelled after me: “Sheila. You’re probably in the first department still. Just calm down.” Easy for him to say.

Matthew put his arm around me and my cell phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Claustrophobia set in.

The first department—server is busy. This was a hideous dream. Point, click. Server is busy.

Server is out to lunch. Pace, splash. Phones were ringing everywhere. Nobody was answering. Even Kevin, James, and Matthew looked worried now. Server is Dead.

FUCK!

Ring. Ring. Ring. It was my friend Rachel from law school. I hadn’t talked to her since the bar. I inexplicably took the call.

“Hello?”

“CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!” she screamed. For what? Being a sweating drunk?

“Huh?”

“Congratulations. You passed!”

“What? What are you talking about, Rachel?”

“Haven’t you checked the Web site?!”

“Yes, but I can’t get on. Did you actually see my name somewhere?” She had, along with just about everyone else we knew at Columbia. There were two glaring omissions. Greg Jenkins and Samantha Watts from our first-year section weren’t on the list. It sucked for them.

Matthew quickly found his and Heidi’s names on the California site. Relieved, the four of us opened a bottle of wine, popped in some Rolling Stones, and settled in for a long, hard search of every law clerk we knew. First on the list was Brian. Pass. We surmised that he and his mom were getting busy at that very moment. James confirmed that his coclerks passed before Kevin did the same for his. It was Matthew’s and my turn to find Evan. First department. No Evan Andrews. Not in the fourth, either. I wasn’t fond of the guy, but I’d never wish him failure of this magnitude. Not with the judge as his boss. I said a silent prayer that he’d mistakenly been placed under the second or third—where all the kids from upstate were. Not there, either.

“Are you sure his last name is Andrews?”

“Yes. I am positive.”

“What about his first name? Maybe it’s, it’s Sarah? Or maybe his name is really Ginger Anderson?” Nope. His name was definitely Evan Andrews. And he’d failed. The first law clerk to the Honorable Helga Friedman to have failed the bar. Potentially the first Harvard Law grad to have failed. Maybe Professor Chemerinsky taught Coping with Bar Exam Failure at the famed Clerkship Institute?

“Wow. She’s really going to kill him. I feel so bad for him. I don’t know what the poor kid is going to do. It’s going to be heinous.” I shook my head as “Gimme Shelter” played appropriately in the background. “Her husband’s about to croak. And now, Evan the clerk failed the bar.”