“Sir,” Fleck had upgraded the cop from son to sir, “my friend Helga was in a hurry to get home to her husband. Her husband is really sick.” Young police officer glanced at drunk nana and looked sick with disgust. I couldn’t blame him. She had that effect on me, too. Fleck was undeterred. As chief judge of the third circuit, it would be mortifying for him if Friedman had to serve time. “She was in a hurry to get home and get back to him. Please let this go. She’s an old woman with a sick husband.” Drunk nana sobered right up.

“Tell him I’m a JUDGE,” she ordered, nudging Judge Fleck. He ignored her. Lucky for the judge, the cop just wanted her to go away. He looked at Judge Friedman much in the way the security guard had looked at me that morning, before turning to Judge Fleck.

“Fine, I’ll let it go. But please tell your old lady friend with the sick husband that if she does this again, I’ll make sure she spends a little time in prison.” He then stormed off.

Matthew and I approached the judge, and I gently tapped her shoulder. “Judge? Seems like everything is under control. We’ll see you tomorrow. Bye, Judge Fleck.”

“WAIT. WAIT! SHEILA! I’ll drive you home.” No way was she driving me anywhere!

“You know what, Judge, I am in a huge hurry so . . .” I fumbled, attempting to come up with an excuse. No need—the judge already had lost interest in me. The woman had created the biggest spectacle in Philadelphia since the signing of the Constitution and what did she do? She turned to Judge Fleck to bad-mouth the police officer.

I must have unconsciously broken into a jog because Matthew was out of breath when he caught up to me several blocks from the courthouse.

“Sheila,” he panted, “wait up. I just missed my train and the next one’s not for over an hour. So, I thought maybe you’d want to grab a drink or something?”

“Sorry about that—I just couldn’t be there another second,” I apologized. “I’d love to get a drink but I really need to get to Banana Republic before it closes to—well, you know,” I pointed to the shoulder pads.

“Well, I for one think your suit is very, um, well, very ah—retro? But, I’d be happy to go with you, I mean, if, if that’s OK by you?” He looked down sheepishly, fidgeting with his jacket button. People never ceased to amaze me—this was a guy who’d told his boss (a federal judge!) to fuck off but felt shy to ask a colleague about shopping.

“Sure, that’d be great,” I said and touched his shoulder, attempting to put him at ease. “My boyfriend, Sanjay, refuses to shop with me anywhere, ever.”