She resumed: “You do realize that for the sitting, you’ll have to get the judge together. Get her orange notebook. Xerox copies of the oral argument schedule. Give me and her an original and you people get the rest. Put her copy on her chair and the cases should go on the other chair in there.” She motioned inside. I nodded, pretending like I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Got it. Thanks, Janet.”

She clenched her jaw. That was my cue to leave.

Janet hadn’t warmed up a lick since my first day on the job. This was not for my lack of trying. I practically kissed her ass on a daily basis. She repaid me with assault and battery. At first, I had let it slide. After all, the judge treated Janet and Roy like crap. Friedman had once told me in passing that we—the law clerks—were never to eat lunch with them, because “they do not have JDs and will not be able to follow anything you say.” In addition to being societal lowlifes, according to the judge, Janet and Roy were also responsible for anything and everything that went wrong in terms of logistics, and never once did the judge reward them with kindness. The judge didn’t even say hello to them. Roy dealt with the abuse by incessantly surfing medieval Internet sites.

Janet was different.

She was strangely obsessed with pleasing the judge, like a battered wife who constantly wanted to make her violent husband proud. As for the rest of us—Janet treated us the way the judge treated her. With every passing potshot from the judge, Janet’s ego dropped below sea level, leaving her a seething piranha in search of a raw piece of meat to chew on. Her personal life didn’t seem to help matters. Thanks to her morning conversations with Eddie and my excellent eavesdropping skills, I was able to piece together one sad story. Janet was a devoutly religious Bible banger who spent Sundays passing around collection baskets at her church. She had moved into her parents’ house in the suburbs after a dicey divorce years earlier. While her parents were long gone, her brother was still there. Brother and Janet were in their fifties and both still single. I wondered if incest was banned by the Ten Commandments.

She had two cats, which her brother hated. She enjoyed knitting sweaters for her cousins’ babies and broiling pork products. She loved children but had none of her own. She didn’t drink or smoke but did positively adore bright pink lipstick. And those Pound Puppies! All things considered, I couldn’t blame her for being mean and nasty. I’d probably be a seething bottom-feeder too if my brother kicked my cats and wanted to feel me up.