“Laura. You need to do whatever it is that you need to do. What are you going to say?”

As it was, she wasn’t going to say anything. Instead, Laura left the judge a hate letter in the box in front of Janet’s desk.

Chapter Four

A clerk should never comment on the judge’s views or work habits, or offer a personal appraisal of the judge’s opinions. Even when directly asked, the clerk should say only something like, “I enjoy working for the judge and I cannot comment beyond that.”

—“Conduct, Protocol, and Ethics,” Law Clerk Handbook

Friday morning, I took a shower, dried my hair, looked in the mirror, and screamed.

Since I was a child, I’d suffered from trichotillomania, a rare disorder where one compulsively picks at his/her hair. Panic triggered picking. The night before, I’d come home, sat in the dark for hours, and picked a small bald spot on the right side of my head.

But I needn’t have worried. That spot would blend right in a few short hours from now when I was tarred and feathered. TGIF!

The twenty-five-minute walk to work did little to sooth my nerves. I headed into the Dunkin’ Donuts just across the street from the courthouse in the hopes that coffee would help. It was the same DD I’d patronized five mornings in a row. I approached the counter.

“What you haveeng?”

This was not promising. Every morning, at the same time, I’d come face-to-face with the same boy from Laos. My order hadn’t changed once. Large with skim. No mochalatta, carmelita, nolita, frappashita. Also, I was a court of appeals law clerk, practically royalty. My esteemed order should have been committed to memory.

Whoever said reality was perception and vice versa hadn’t met the ten-year-old kid numbly staring at me, with a glimmer of sympathy. The Department of Labor would have had a field day at this particular DD. Child labor laws, perhaps not big in Laos, were still fashionable in the United States. The kid should have been in school.

“A large coffee with skim milk and one sugar. Please,” I calmly asked, patting my bald spot. Honey attracts more bees than vinegar. I smiled.

“One laahj wit one sugah ant skeem!” the kid yelled to his colleague, who could barely see over the counter. Said colleague wasn’t a day older than six and seemed deaf. While my twice-removed aunt probably heard my order in New Delhi, it did not seem to register with anyone at DD. It was possible that everyone there was hard of hearing, considering the blaring Christian rock. The laminated posters of little blond girls with pigtails, plaid skirts, and knee-highs petting unicorns didn’t help. It was a moment I’d never quite envisioned for myself.

Adding to the ambience were two kids behind me. Both in Liberty Bell hats and hemmed jeans shorts.