“Don’t laugh. He ran over my foot.” James motioned to his right foot. His big toe resembled a globe with a smattering of black-and-blue continents. I placed my hand over my mouth, trying not laugh. “And then he did it again. But he didn’t even realize he was doing it. So, there I was in front of all those people, literally getting run over, and I had to pretend like everything was totally normal. I managed to hit the power switch on the thing and wheeled him out of there. Limping.”

“OK, you win.” Getting run over by a nearly dead, power-hungry man in an out-of-control electric bike in front of a courtroom of people beats getting grounded from lunch.

My cell phone rang. It was Kevin. “Hey, Sheila. Jana and I are about twenty minutes away from Ralph’s. See you in a few.” Click! Drats! I’d totally forgotten about dinner with Kevin, his coclerk Jana, and James. Ever since the clerks’ (un)happy hour(s), James had struck himself a fantabulous deal—he and Jana would sleep together about once a week. No strings attached. The best part about it was that Jana had started being super nice to Kevin, so as to not jeopardize the setup with James.

“Oh no. I totally spaced on tonight. I have zero personality right now and have a feeling Jana will think I’m a dud,” I explained. James grabbed his wallet and keys before delivering a dose of reality.

“Sheila. Listen I hate to break this to you. I don’t think today is either a particularly bad or good day for your personality. This is kind of how you’ve been since we’ve started this clerkship thing. So, get off your ass and let’s go. And Jana is really nice. Trust me.”

Forty minutes later, I found myself sitting at a table covered with a red-and-white-checkered cloth desperately trying to be one of the gang.

“So, Jana, I understand you went to Virginia,” I said. Considering I already knew she clerked for Judge Adams, law school was next on the list.

“Yes, I did.” She smiled proudly. “And I understand you work for Judge Friedman. I hear that she is one interesting judge,” she said, with a knowing wink.

“Yes, she is interesting.” I tried winking back, but since I’d never mastered the art, it ended up as more of an unpleasant squint. James and Kevin had been sitting mysteriously silent, each slurping an entire carafe of wine through a straw. Ralph’s was the kind of place where such behavior was not noteworthy or kitschy.

“What about you? How do you like clerking for Adams,” I asked, gently returning to what I had a feeling was Jana’s favorite subject—Jana.