Chambermaid

  “Nice to see you, too, Betsy,” I snapped. “Actually roughly forty percent of people fail the bar. And I’m not sure how giving someone a new sentencing because they had a shitty lawyer can be construed as being on the losing side of a case.”

  “And—Judge Friedman is not crazy. She may be tough. But she’s not crazy,” Matthew added defensively in the I-can-talk-shit-about-my-family-but-you-can’t vein.

  “Whatever. I just wonder what could possibly be next.” Betsy winked and walked away.

  “What a bitch,” Matthew blurted. “And what is she talking about something happening next?” It was the Supreme Court nomination, and I’d surprisingly managed to dispel it from my mind. That is, until now. My stomach had crept into my esophagus and I needed out—immediately.

  “Matthew, let’s leave. I really need some air.”

  “Fine by me,” Matthew said, scanning the room. “It looks like Evan is safely nestled between Brian and a Debbie Downer I don’t recognize. I think our job is done.”

  We escaped the Vegas and after a seconds-long internal battle, I decided to let Matthew in on my supreme secret.

  “Matthew, hey, I actually know—” His phone rang.

  “Hang on a sec, Sheila. Hey, Heidi. No, no. I’m so sorry about that. All right. OK.” He looked at his watch. “Uh—OK. I’ll go now. Um, er, love you, too.

  “Ugh! Heidi had a really”—he used his hands to make fake quotation marks—“painful day at work and is insisting that I head to New York for the night. So, I gotta catch the next train out. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, running down the street.

  I called Sanjay who was in between patients and couldn’t talk. Had he been this busy at the hospital while I was in law school? Maybe he had and I hadn’t noticed until now—the first time in our relationship that a little moral support would have been nice. I found solace in a foot-long meatball sub. Whoever said that alcohol was the cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems must never have been to Subway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  This court is a family, and there will be times that I will make remarks about my family members. They will not be repeated beyond the chambers door. Even if I occasionally blow off steam, remember that these judges are my colleagues and will be my friends long after you are gone from here.

  —Judge Aldisert, United States Court of Appeals

  for the Third Circuit

  The news broke the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It made Black Tuesday seem like a deep-tissue massage. Sanjay called, instructing me to turn on CNN (he’d generously handed me down his nine-inch TV when he got a flat screen). Wolf Blitzer was voicing over a documentary on Judge Linda Adams. Her modest beginnings in Pittsburgh. The daughter of a Sears manager and an elementary school teacher. Valedictorian of South Pittsburgh High School. Student government at Penn State. Law Review at Temple. Private practice. Court of appeals judge. Three lovely daughters. The creepy Kenny G background music was the backbreaking last straw, sending me into fetal position. If CNN’s love song to Adams broke this camel’s back, I could only imagine what was being broken at the judge’s happy house—poor Bob. The phone forced me from my embryonic state. It was Sanjay again.

  “Don’t you think it’s interesting they’re not saying anything about the mayor?” he asked casually. Normally, I’d be outraged by such a comment, attributing female achievement to the husband. But in this case, it was true. Joe Adams had been Philadelphia’s mayor for four years and was widely credited with the city’s rebirth. As such, not since Jackie O had a first lady been as popular as Linda Adams. Weeks earlier, the mayor had been reelected by a landslide. Everyone in our chambers pretended like the election never happened.

  Foolishly, Kate had asked if she could take an extra ten minutes at lunch to vote. The judge simply stated: “I do NOT have time for my law clerks to wander around the city during working hours.” I found Kate’s request to be more irritating than the judge’s response—she should have known better than to ask for such favors as exercising her constitutional right. The rest of us did.

  As far as I was concerned, Philadelphia didn’t even have a mayor. And if it did, I surmised it was probably Judge Friedman. Judge Friedman clearly agreed. She never even called Judge Adams to congratulate her. Yet another huge elephant in chambers. The place was like an invisible safari.

  “Yes, I do think it’s weird, Sanj. Listen—I need to get to work. I’ll call you later,” I muttered and hung up.

  Resolving to pull myself together, I walked to the courthouse and approached security.

  “Hello. I’m putting a phone in here”—I slowly placed my cell in the famous bucket—“but I have a card for it.” I showed the he/she my card. Stares all around. Was I speaking Cantonese?

  “Phone in the bucket! Phone in the bucket!” He/she screamed suddenly. Was this a joke? I walked through the metal detector without setting off the buzzer. “Do you have a red phone card?” He/she inquired. This exercise in futility earned the same security guard a second peep at red phone Reno in less than ten seconds. Taking control of one’s life in an irrational environment wasn’t easy. Logic, efficiency—those things permeated the private sector. This was the government.

  Brian was standing at the elevator bank, making my already lucky day that much luckier. “Can you believe it about Adams?” he asked hungrily, clutching a Philadelphia Inquirer.

  “Good morning, Brian. How was your weekend?” I asked, calmly. What I really wanted to know was whether his mom had moved in with him.

  “Did you hear? Did you hear about Adams?” Ding! Thirteenth floor. I stepped off the elevator and headed straight for my cubicle. Adhering to my mother’s motto that if you ignore it, it’ll go away, I dispelled the Supreme Court from my mind and returned to Dell Nelson. No matter that the death penalty felt less menacing than a judicial nomination. Before I could turn on my computer, Janet materialized.

  “So. Ah. Sheila. Hi,” she said, pulling on her cross violently.

  “Oh, good morning, Janet. What’s up?” I smiled.

  “You heard about Judge Adams, right? I mean—”

  “Dude, what’s going on around here,” Medieval Roy said and skidded to a stop, right next to Janet. He started petting what looked like a roach on his chin. “I mean there are, like, TV people outside. What’s goin’ on?”

  “Judge Adams just got nominated to the Supreme Court.” Janet paused. “I mean—DUH!” I wondered if she’d picked up that bit of outmoded pop-culture lingo from the kids at church or the Lifetime channel.

  “Judge Adams . . . the Supreme Court . . .?” Roy gazed toward the ceiling, pretending to ponder something profound. What he meant was: Who is Judge Adams and what is the Supreme Court?

  “Roy, Judge Adams, you know, a judge on this court was just asked by President Bush to be a justice on the Supreme Court—you know, in Washington DC.” I stopped to allow the information to sink in.

  “Hey, you like my goatee, Sheila?”

  “Yeah, it looks good, Roy. Really, um, good.”

  While Roy’s goatee wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes, it was the manner in which Janet was manhandling her necklace that was causing alarm. “Roy—you are so stupid. You don’t know—”

  “Holy shit!” Matthew burst into the clerks’ cave, not whispering. “Is anyone else totally freaked out about this? Jesus—the place is swarming with reporters.” I must have just missed the media.

  DING! Thirteenth floor, going down!

  Everyone scurried to their respective holes like a pack of scared mice.

  “Sheila, Matthew—in my office. Now. And shut the door behind you,” the judge commanded, clapping her way through the clerks’ cave, greasy ponytail in tow.

  We entered the torture chamber and sat warily.

  “Sheila,” she murmured, her back facing us. “You’re a smart lawyer.” Huh? “You graduated from a top law school.” Huh? “Do you think Judge Adams is qualified”—she turned dramatically, sunglasses still perched
on her nose—“to sit on the Supreme Court?” It was too bad Joseph Heller had croaked—there was an amazing sequel to Catch-22 to be had. I didn’t speak, hoping this was one of those questions that really wasn’t a question. Tick. Tock. The judge sat and folded her hands. “Well?” It turned out to be a question after all. I didn’t have a good answer.

  Yes, Judge Adams was qualified—as qualified as any other person sitting on that bench. Would she have been nominated but for nepotism? Probably not. Was she the best candidate out there? Definitely not. But let’s face it—are any of them? Clarence Thomas was a common sexual harasser and had less to say than Matthew’s mute reader. And had Tony Scalia not become a judge, he’d probably be president of the Promise Keepers. Wasn’t it relative, really?

  “Well, Judge,” I began. “I don’t know mu-mu-much about Judge Adams to be ho-ho-honest.” The judge reached for a pencil. “She seemed to be bright based on the sitting we’ve had with her. I don’t agree with her-her-her take on Dell Nelson. But other opinions I’ve read of hers seem sound.” I shrugged my shoulders, admittedly a weak diplomatic summation.

  “Interesting. You think a sound opinion here and there qualifies someone for the Supreme Court?” She smirked, pulling on her pony with one hand, cradling the pencil with the other. “What about you, Matthew? Do you agree with your colleague here—that occasional sound opinions qualify you for the Supreme Court?”

  “Um. Judge, that’s not really what I said,” I interrupted. “What I mean—”

  “Seems to me you haven’t said much of anything. Did you even learn anything at Cornell?” No, in fact I hadn’t, seeing as I’d never stepped foot in Ithaca in my life.

  “I went to Columbia, Judge.” The last thing I wanted to be mistaken for, even momentarily, was a non-top-five-law-schooler.

  “Well, none of my colleagues can understand how she got nominated. Well, that’s not true—it was her husband. But we’re all very concerned about someone like Adams on the Supreme Court.” She smiled, twirling her ponytail. I wondered what dance her bun would have done at that moment—the tango? Salsa? “Don’t get me wrong. We’re all very happy for Linda—she’s a very nice person. But the Supreme Court? I don’t think so.” Krumping, definitely.

  “Matthew,” she continued, “I understand that the two of you are just best friends with Judge Adams’s clerks.”

  Sweat stains had crept down to Matthew’s elbows. “Well, I don’t know if friends—”

  “No! No! No!” She pounded one fist, using the other to yank her sunglasses free, revealing puffy eyelids. “As you people know, Judge Adams’s confirmation hearings will be scheduled at some point. A bunch of us are really concerned about her ability to do the job”—she lowered her voice—“and her ethics. This whole Dell Nelson fiasco and that dead man’s brother is a good example of that.” The puffiness left her eyes, leaving them shriveled jelly beans. I wished Ronald Reagan were there to eat them. “What we discuss in here doesn’t leave these doors. Then again, I trust that you people never ever speak of what happens in here with the outside world!” Before our very eyes, she appeared to turn green, as a tail crept from under her desk. “I want you two to find out everything about Judge Adams from your little play friends up there. Whom she speaks to. How her opinions get written. I have a feeling she doesn’t work at all. And maybe she has some, well, less than savory people with whom she cavorts. Most important, do it in an inconspicuous way. Your friends should think you want to know, not me.”

  I was stunned. Judge Friedman was a lot of things—evil and gross came to mind—but a spy?

  Matthew returned to his sitting-up-dead position and didn’t stir even when the judge’s phone started ringing.

  “Roy! Roy! Damn it. He’s good for nothing,” she barked and answered the phone herself. “Oh, hello, Doctor,” she said, cupping her hand over the receiver. “Get out and shut the door.”

  Without speaking, Matthew and I rocketed out of the courthouse, zigzagging our way past live trucks and satellite dishes. One male reporter, a dead ringer for Tammy Faye Baker in drag, shoved a microphone in my face: “Do you know Linda Adams? Do you?!”

  We collapsed into a booth at Joe’s Shanghai, steam from the soup dumplings fogging up both of our eyeglasses.

  “Well, this is a nightmare,” Matthew said, wiping his glasses with a cloth napkin. “And what on earth is the judge talking about?”

  “First of all, for the sake of full disclosure—I’ve known about this nomination thing for a while, but Kevin made me swear on my life not to tell anyone, so I couldn’t tell you. Well, actually I was going to tell you the other night before you took off for New York. Anyway, as for what the judge is talking about. I think it’s exactly what it sounded like.”

  “Damn! I wish I’d stuck around. Advance notice would have been nice, especially considering how annoying my night in New York was.” Matthew paused to take a bite of a dumpling. “Anyway, what are we supposed to do? Spy on Judge Adams? And what does Dell Nelson and a dead man’s brother have to do with any of this? Is she saying that Adams is unethical because she doesn’t think that Dell Nelson should get a new hearing? Wrong?—yes. Unethical?—I don’t think so.”

  Matthew had gotten up to speed on the basics of Dell Nelson’s case over the past few weeks. But we’d yet to sit down and discuss the details. It had occurred to me that we couldn’t even start writing the dissent until Judge Adams sent us her opinion. Dissents, after all, were written in opposition to the majority opinion.

  “Well, it’s maybe partially that,” I said and pushed my greasy plate away. “But what I think she’s really pissed about is that call I got from Peter Nussbaum’s brother. And I can’t blame her for that. You have to admit—it’s pretty messed up that the guy (a) knew how Friedman was voting for sure on the case and (b) knew to call my line directly and actually got the number, which is unlisted.”

  “You know I totally forgot about that. And you’re right, it is weird,” Matthew said, halfway amused. “But, it almost seems normal in this case. The briefs in the Nelson case read like a trashy novel. The drugs. The money. Had there been any juicy sex scenes, Heidi would probably want to take them down the shore for beach reading.”

  “Speaking of—is Heidi in Fort Lauderdale for Thanksgiving?” I asked, signaling the waiter for hot tea.

  “Yup. She’s at her sister’s place. Something about Thanksgiving in South Florida seems strange”—he paused—“but who am I to judge? I’m spending Thanksgiving by myself with a TV dinner. Hey, I have a good one.” Matthew perked up. “Would you rather spend Thanksgiving with Roy and his wife or”—he paused to reflect—“give the Judge an hour-long foot massage in the torture chamber.” Matthew’s would-you-rathers had accelerated, both in quantity and quality, revealing an innate talent for the game.

  “It’d have to be the massage,” I said, wincing. “Can you imagine what Roy must eat for Thanksgiving? And what he wears? Roasted hyena with an armored thong. No thanks.”

  “Yeah . . . but her feet.” Matthew shuddered. “Anyway, my vote is that we lay low and hope she just forgets about the spying game. She forgets about eighty percent of everything, so maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  The feeding frenzy surrounding the courthouse had intensified during the forty-five minutes we’d been at lunch, leading me to believe that Linda Adams’s nomination would probably fall within the 20 percent of things the judge remembered.

  Shortly after returning to chambers, the judge sauntered over to my cubicle, sunglasses on, carrying three plastic bags full of briefs. “Sheba. You will be pleased to know that Eddie found my bridge this morning.” She tapped on her tooth.

  I found myself saying the most improbable thing. “Wow. That’s great. What a lovely bridge!”

  “Eddie found it under my desk. You people are clearly blind if he found it and you couldn’t.” As if cleaning her toilet everyday wasn’t horrendous enough. Now Eddie was doing reconnaissance on her teeth. “Just don’t screw up what we ta
lked about earlier,” she said with a wink. “I’m leaving now but we have lots to do. We are rilly busy.”

  Leaving? It wasn’t even 2 PM. “Hey, Janet. What, ah, what’s up with the judge?” I asked sweetly, meandering to her desk. Janet was petting a shimmering book titled Holiday Scrapbooking.

  “Ah, oh. Yeah—she’s going to Mark’s house for Thanksgiving.” She motioned me closer to whisper in my ear. “She’s not coming back until Monday but I don’t want you know who to know that.” She nodded menacingly at Roy’s back.

  “She’s taking a day off? But I thought she never did that?” I leaned forward, awkwardly cupping my hand around Janet’s ear.

  “This is a first,” Janet whispered in a hush. “Apparently, Mark insisted that he wanted to spend what would probably be his last Thanksgiving with Bob and demanded that they stay through the weekend. So Sheila, it’s your lucky day—or days, I should say.” Telling secrets was fun.

  My phone rang as I returned to the clerks’ cave.

  “Sheila Raj.”

  Heavy breathing—not this again. “This is Robert Nussbaum and I’ll never get to spend another Thanksgiving with my brother because of that—” Click.

  Cheers erupted outside. I peered below and saw a speck that must have been Linda Adams dazzling the crowd. Cheers again. My chest tightened, evidencing a scarcity of air. The room went out of focus. I don’t recall any thought processes, but a daring plan had definitely been set in motion.

  I turned off my computer, collected my belongings, and marched over to Matthew. “The judge won’t be back until Monday. Nor will I—I’m going home to Virginia for Thanksgiving. You’re welcome to join.”

  During the holidays, Washington DC’s Union Station serves as an overzealous understudy to the North Pole. A forest of glimmering Christmas trees. Hundreds, thousands, millions of frenzied holiday-makers decking the halls. Even the Amtrak employees seemed a smidgen merry. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was home.