The judge must have forgotten that we had finished all of the work for the October sitting weeks ago and were already halfway through November. This meant every case being argued the following week had been fully researched and briefed in the form of a bench memo and all cases that didn’t get oral arguments had been disposed of in nonprecedential opinions. Translation: We were over a month ahead. Nonetheless, the judge still ranted about our being behind and being slow, and I had started to buy the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker. The woman could have brainwashed Charles Manson.

Every time I shut my eyes, visions of a small woman with a large bun danced in my head. Sleep deprivation was preferable. And so I plucked my hair for about two hours before showering up and heading to chambers. I wondered if the rain gods had picked that morning to piss on me out of sheer spite. The only thing worse than insomnia is insomnia followed by a rain storm. And the only thing worse than mental abuse and loneliness is the paranoid self-absorption that follows, leading one to believe that even the weather is out to get them.

The line at Dunkin’ Donuts spilled out the door. Soaked and sorry, I took my place in the back. “I’ll have the large coffee with skim AND a glazed doughnut.” Blank stare. “Um. A glazed and my usual coffee.” I pointed to the donut.

“Yah. You nevah get do-nuh.” Yes, I also had never shot up drugs but was considering joining the guys outside.

“Um, yes, you’re right, I normally don’t get a doughnut. Today I want a glazed.” Patience was wearing thin. It was also wearing on the not-so-thin, wet UPS deliveryman behind me. Stares all around. “You know what, forget it. Just the coffee.” He forgot it. I couldn’t believe it. A kid twenty years younger than me put me on a diet at a doughnut shop filled with people three times my size.

Coffee in hand, I breezed by Duane (“Hey, little lady! psst!”—I was wearing a knee-high plaid skirt) and headed to security. I recognized the girl in front of me as one of Kevin’s coclerks from a cell phone picture he’d furtively taken in chambers.

“Hey, you’re one of Judge Adams’s clerks, right?” I ventured to ask.

“Yeah, I’m Betsy. How did you know that? And I don’t mean to sound rude, but who are you?” She eyed me curiously.

“Oh, I know Kevin, your coclerk, and my name is Sheila, Sheila Raj, and I clerk for Judge Friedman.”

“PHONE IN THE BUCKET, PHONE IN THE BUCKET.” The security guard forced Betsy through, but she politely waited for me at the other end.

“Wow. How’s that going?” Betsy asked excitedly.