The judge was standing in front of Janet’s cubicle when I returned.

“Hi, Judge. How are you?” I asked, smiling.

“What does that mean? That is a totally irrational question!” She marched off toward her elevator.

Had I accidentally told her to fuck off or something? Maybe I’d developed Tourette’s and nobody had the heart to tell me? Had my mother taught me bad manners? Maybe “How are you” was irrational?

Ding! Thirteenth floor, going down.

I reached for the phone to call Puja. I was hoping she could shed a little light on my irrationality.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

I swiveled my chair around. There was Janet, standing with her hands on her hips.

“Ah, I was going to call my sister?” Another statement-turned-question in less than ten minutes.

“Well, you cannot use the telephone. I don’t know who you think you are, but the only time law clerks and secretaries can use the phone is to answer it for the judge.” Full stop. She clenched her hips.

“O-K. What about emergencies? Can we not call nine-one-one, say, for fires or death, or—”

“Only the judge has emergencies.” Janet returned to her desk.

“Oh, and Sheila, don’t think about using the Internet. She gets really mad about that one,” Janet hollered from the other room.

Terrific. That left staring as the only option for procrastination. It started to make sense. Staring seemed to be everyone’s favorite pastime. The judge had stared at me all morning. Aside from Janet’s ten-second lecture, all she and Roy had done since I’d arrived was stare (Janet in a not so nice way, Roy in a brain-dead sort of way).

The place was a training camp for mimes.

I set in for a good long stare at Camden, New Jersey, but was forced to resume working once the judge returned from lunch. In fact, I was knee-deep in laborese when she sauntered through the clerks’ room, the bags hanging from her hands and arms signaling her departure for the day. Laura and I turned to face Her Honor. I stopped myself from saying anything that could be perceived as subrational. You know, like “Good night” or “Bye.”

The judge’s lips turned downward.

“Oh. I forgot to say earlier. There are no vacations. I do not take a vacation, so why should you?! After all, I’m the judge and you are my clerks and if I’m not going anywhere, why should you?!”

Laura and I simply nodded. It was perfect. What better thing to hear on your first day of work than it’d be another 364 days until a day off.

“Sheba, you are rilly rilly thin,” the judge said.

Huh?

And then the judge glared in Laura’s direction.

OH GOD!