A boss whose hobbies included mimery and fat jokes, a patronizing, persecuted lesbian for a coclerk, and a macraméing medievalist as a secretary? It was a bit more than I’d bargained for. Not to mention, I had not one single friend in Philly and felt deathly alone.

I’d asked Sanjay to transfer to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital for the final year of his residency. He’d scoffed at the request, citing a would-be disruption to an “impeccable group synergy.” Maybe I should have demanded it nevertheless. A live-in boyfriend, even one who had to be kidnapped, would have been welcome. And James, my friend from Columbia, wasn’t starting his clerkship in Camden until the following week.

I was all alone in Pennsylvania.

Are you there, God? It’s me, Sheila.

Chapter Three

DING! Thirteenth floor, going down!

“Roy! Roy! I smell smoke! Did you smoke in here!” Her voice was shriller than most fire alarms. I jumped out of my seat. I imagined Roy probably peed in his.

“Um. Uh. Your Honor.”

For the love of all that’s holy and good, just spit it out, Sir Felemid McDowell. I quietly arose and peered around the corner. Tall, grown medievalist shaking so fiercely his mullet and fanny pack rattled. Little woman with squinty eyes, bun touching fanny pack, shaking fist at said man.

“I don’t smoke here,” Roy managed to spill.

There. He’d said it. He didn’t do it.

“Well, I smell it and it’s awful. THERE WILL BE NO MORE SMOKING! Not here. Not there. Not anywhere!”

The judge was banning smoking? In all of Pennsylvania? The country? The world? She couldn’t do that. It’d be tough even for Congress or the United States Supreme Court to do that. Surely Roy would point out this logistical snafu. The only person who could make Roy quit smoking was Roy.

“Yes, Judge.” Just like that, he was taking it. Maybe the judge was more powerful than I’d initially thought. A little fist-shaking and she could make smokers quit.

The judge whipped around to Janet.

“Bob is not doing well today,” she barked. Bob was the judge’s husband. The word on the street was that he was a billion years old and had been trying to knock off for years. In addition to being deaf and suffering from dementia, Bob had lived through ten or so heart attacks, and each time, the judge apparently would order the doctors to electrocute him back to life.

“Sorry to hear that, Judge,” Janet replied.

“What!? What is that supposed to mean? That’s so stupid! What are you sorry about? You’re sorry!” The miracle worker had miraculously turned empathy into a curse within five seconds flat.

And now she stood in the doorway, staring directly at me. What about my prayers?

“Shaylee!”

“Yes, Judge,” I said, forcing myself to face her.

“How are you coming along with that case?”

“Um. Ahh—”