Matthew nodded, standing to answer his cell phone. It was his sister, who’d been unable to fly back to Idaho because of the storm.

“I’m out of here. Apparently the trains just started running again,” he said. He zipped up his coat and stared at me. “Do you want to come? You know, um, out to my uncle’s house for the night—you can meet my sister?”

“That sounds great, but I’ve got my own sister in town, so I need to get home,” I replied, strangely disappointed that I couldn’t snowshoe out of Philadelphia with Matthew.

“Right, I forgot that Puja was in town. Please tell her hello,” he said, throwing his bag over his shoulder. “But I’m not leaving you here alone. Just walk out with me, it’s after five, and she’s shopping, for Christ’s sake.”

The judge reappeared the moment Matthew and I were about to leave. She sauntered in, holding at least a dozen bags, completely dry. It was as if she’d spent the afternoon shopping in Beverly Hills.

“Where are you two going?” she sneered.

“Home,” Matthew answered point-blank. The judge ignored Matthew, turning to me instead.

“Sheila, you’ll be interested to see my new things. Come now.”

“I’ll see you both tomorrow.” Mathew walked out the door, leaving me with front-row seats to the most unanticipated fashion show of the year. The judge shoved me into a chair in the torture chamber, which she instantly transformed into a runway of shoes. Reeboks, Nikes, Birkenstocks. Every comfortable shoe ever made she catwalked before my very eyes.

With each pair, she demanded: “What do you think?” What did she think? That she was Naomi Campbell modeling Manolos? She was a small lady in deeply discounted tennis shoes. And I was the loyal—and moronic—sherpa carrying her hefty ego. It wasn’t until the third pair of Birkenstocks (in an impossibly hideous purple) that I decided that I’d had enough. I stood up to go as the judge pulled the second purple shoe over her clammy foot.

“Judge, I am so sorry but I’ve got to get home. I do love all of your shoes but—”

“No no no.” Her hat trick of noes without an ounce of anger nearly knocked the wind out of me. “Sheila, please, sit, let’s talk,” she begged, wiping a tear from her eye. I hoped that she wanted to discuss the National Independence Center and the Japanese internment victims, the only other time I’d ever seen her shed a tear. “Everyone leaves me. Why do you have to leave me? Why?”

I sat, staring down at her purple sandals hoping this was a rhetorical question. I hoped that she would yell at me for something. Maybe tell me how stupid I was or that she was a federal judge. That would be much easier than what was quickly becoming highly uncomfortable silence.