Laura was at least thirty pounds overweight. And, the judge had just told her that in so many words. I prayed that Laura’s fixation on the Fourth Amendment had precluded her from processing the insult.

DING! Thirteenth floor, going down.

And she was off!

Just as I was about to snatch my purse and run, I felt a tap on my back.

TAP! TAP! TAP!

I swiveled around. It was Laura and she’d managed to pull up a chair right behind me. She must have caught on after all. I was prepared to provide the necessary counseling.

“Hey. Do you notice how homophobic everyone is here?”

Had she meant to say fat-a-phobic?

“Do you even know what it’s like to be a lesbian in this country?” Her mouth went improbably vertical.

I didn’t. I also didn’t know what it was like being a periodontist. But it didn’t matter. Laura didn’t seem to want an answer at all.

“Well, it’s really really hard.” She looked pained.

I was suddenly intrigued. A real-life lesbian! And she was my coclerk. I would actually have a lesbian friend! Puja had recently convinced me that lesbians were more fabulous than gay men. She’d just left a big investment bank for a loftier job with a leveraged-buyout shop. It wasn’t the insane amounts of money that wooed her but the fashionable lipstick lesbian with an even more fashionable Hamptons home where she regularly entertained the glitterati.

“Everybody is so cruel,” Laura blurted, her eyes getting bigger and bigger, mouth larger and wider. Suddenly she looked like a Moonie. I wondered if lesbian Moonies were fabulous. I had a feeling Puja would say no.

“I mean, when I was at Brown, like barely anyone outside the Women’s Studies Department would talk to me. And then at Chicago, people would just stare. Stare at me.”

“Laura, wow, I’m so sorry that—”

“Well, whatever, have a good night.” With that, she ejected herself from my personal space and returned to her cubicle, restoring a silent order.

I walked into my empty apartment that night and collapsed onto the yellow velour couch I’d inherited from my parents years earlier, while a junior at the University of Michigan. It had been a long day.

I closed my eyes and prayed. Puja and I had been raised part Hindu (Dad), part Catholic (Mom), and part Episcopalian (grade school). While incoherent in the formative years, this theological medley proved very useful as an adult. It allowed us to unabashedly beg for favors from the Man Upstairs (Catholic), drink when the prayers were or weren’t answered (Episcopalian), and ultimately not give a crap because we’d probably be reincarnated as frogs anyway (Hindu). I was at stage one and started crossing my heart, hoping to die. I needed salvation, or a little help at least.

How would I endure twelve months in such an environment?