Chambermaid

  I reached for a pair of disgusting brown cords on the floor, my heart pounding in my chest, my head, my fingers. Next to them was a pair of filthy red and green socks. In a state of pulsating shock, I lifted them, wiped my armpits, and put them on my feet. I blurted incoherent nonsense to Puja and James. And then I was out.

  I opened the door to my apartment building and fell down the stairs, landing splat on the sidewalk. I nearly lost a limb or two, but at least nobody witnessed the fall. Even the driver of a bus stuck on the corner had deserted for warmer pastures. Crawl. Skid. Slide. In the middle of Market Street, I nose-dived onto a sidewalk snow bank to avoid getting smooshed by a snowplow driven by a very cold-looking man willing to decimate anything and anyone in his path.

  The only thing propelling me toward 6th and Market was the knowledge that I—Sheila Raj—was an essential employee to the city of Philadelphia during this crisis. Important business was going down in Friedman’s chambers and I was needed. The fire department. Police. EMT. And judicial clerks. We were the backbone of the city during crises. Why was I mad? I should have been proud.

  Did I mention the courthouse was closed? I had to buzz and buzz and buzz. The lone ranger let me in only after I’d explained which judge I clerked for (“Oh yeah—Friedman’s clerks—you people are the only ones around here during storms”). There was no phone-in-the-bucket nonsense. No ID carding. Instead, the guy smiled wanly and waved me through. I felt sort of bad for him. Without his petty friends, the mean and nasty security guard seemed rather pathetic. He was like Puff Daddy without his entourage—big teeth with nothing to say. I was sort of bummed that the elevator was empty. For the first time, a weather conversation would have been fascinating.

  I got off on the thirteenth floor. Heading toward my cubicle, I was blindsided by the judge, who took the corner like a NASCAR racer, arms outstretched. She came to a screeching halt an inch away. Arms up. Down.

  “WHY DID YOU THINK THE COURTHOUSE WAS CLOSED?!!!!! WHY DID YOU EVER THINK IT WAS CLOSED???” Honesty seemed like the best policy.

  “Be-be-be-cause it is?” Drats! I couldn’t even say that without a question mark. She knew she’d won. And smiled.

  “Well, we have A LOT of work to do. Get in here now!” I flicked an icicle from my droopy eyelash, and followed the carny to her circus, which was in full swing by now. Toothless octogenarian running like a bull from one end of the red office to the other screaming. Very pregnant suburbanite was brave matador, trying to preserve her safety while simultaneously egging on said bull. Actually, Kate was standing over Janet’s desk. Horrified. Any lingering anger I had toward her was instantly gone. The bull had been screaming at her all morning because the rest of us hadn’t made it to work.

  Kate and I exchanged knowing glances as I walked into the torture chamber. I sat down, freezing, waiting for my order. Once seated, looking like roadkill, the judge suddenly regained composure, patted her matty bun, and smiled.

  “You know, we got that rehearing, Sheba.”

  I’d slid my way to work, risked death and hypothermia just so the judge could tell me that Nelson’s petition to have his case heard en banc had been granted? This happened a week ago, and the judge, Matthew, and I had had an extensive conversation on the matter just before the weekend.

  “Ah, yeah, Judge, it’s—”

  “Haven’t I told you people a million times not to wear your coats inside. It makes me hot!” I removed my coat, no longer enjoying the circus.

  “Anyway, the en banc is scheduled for May.” The judge smiled. “As Adams must sit on the case, considering she penned the majority opinion, that means that her little confirmation hearings will have to be delayed for a few months.” I nodded, just as I had when the judge told me the very same thing forty-eight hours earlier. After all, Adams’s hearings were originally supposed to take place a few weeks earlier, at the beginning of February. The delay had been international news. “So, that gives you more time to get the information we were talking about.” Something snapped.

  “Judge, I’ve told you that I’ve exhausted my avenues for information on Judge Adams. I cannot in good faith ask my friends and colleagues to fabricate bad things about Judge Adams just for your pleasure.” I stopped. She was silent. I braced myself.

  Her neck tightened and her matty bun quivered. “Wasn’t that a powerful soliloquy, Sheila. Maybe if you reserved such passion for your work, your memos wouldn’t be rilly rilly bad.”

  I stood up, put my coat back on, and returned to my cubicle, unwilling to acquiesce once again to the judge’s penal system for failed emissaries. Matthew and I had been working tirelessly on the Nelson case. We’d spent the month bowing happily to the judge’s every wish, which included finding, reading, and rereading pertinent death penalty cases, making copies of them, and shuttling them to various judges’ chambers.

  The battle lines were being drawn and Judges Adams and Friedman were negotiating alliances for their respective sides. In the end, Judge Friedman was able to convince eight of the twelve active judges on the third circuit, more than the simple majority required, to hear Nelson’s case en banc.

  This was no small victory for the judge, who’d become a centerpiece for the national debate on the death penalty, civil liberties advocates serving as her biggest fans. Considering the somewhat somber view these particular individuals had taken of the Bush administration’s phone tapping program, I didn’t think that espionage would do much to bolster Friedman’s currently untarnished image.

  As I stared at the gray-blue clouds hovering over Camden, the judge careened into my cubicle.

  Spoken: “Did you bring lunch?” (Unspoken: You maid, you can’t get lunch because you were late. In fact, I want you to clean my bathroom because Eddie didn’t come today.)

  Spoken: “No.” (Unspoken: I didn’t even get to change my underwear.) The judge suddenly transformed into a magician, producing two mangled packets of ramen from behind her back.

  Correction: untarnished public image.

  “Here”—she thrust them an inch from my eye—“take one and give the other to Kate. Bob can’t eat them anymore. Too much salt.” I reached for the petrified pork and chicken, doing the math. If she’d bought the packets when Bob could still eat salt, they were at least two decades old.

  “Thanks, Judge,” I managed to say, staring down at the microwavable witches’ brew.

  “You are most welcome,” she smiled. I smelled tuna fish on her breath.

  “You know, that Evan and that Matthew, I just can’t count on them like I can you and that pregnant one.” This was her peace offering.

  “Thanks, Judge.”

  “She’s rilly rilly fat,” the judge said with a lowered voice, pointing to the back, before retuning to the torture chamber.

  I walked to the back, like a cop delivering bad news.

  “Hey, Kate. How are you?”

  “I’m, um, I’m kind of tired.” Kate glanced at the clock. “It’s only, um, eleven-fifteen in the morning and I, um, need to take a nap.” And she did. Right on her desk. I placed her ramen next to her conked-out face.

  “Where’s Markhew? Where is he?” the judge screamed at me from the torture chamber.

  “Judge, his train stopped miles outside of Philly. He’s walking here. I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can”—I reached for the phone—“I can call him.”

  “No! No! No! You cannot use the phone—haven’t you been here long enough to realize that?”

  An e-mail popped up—it was from Puja.

  “Are you OK? We’re worried sick. After you left, the judge called here, screaming at me, thinking it was you. I explained to her that I was your sister and that you were on your way to work. She said that she was a federal judge and then hung up on me. Please let us know you’re OK. She’s even scarier than you said. XOXO, Puj.”

  Never before had the judge called me at home. For some reason, that was one boundary she’d respected. This was definitely unusual. I peered to my left. Ac
t 2 was in full swing. Small judge behind big desk. Twitching. Agitated by nothing to do. Click. Speakerphone. First on her list. Judge Fleck. No answer. Judge Haskell. No answer. Judges Stevens, Greenman, and Newburg. Nothing. It was when nobody picked up at Judge Adams’s chamber that she slammed down the phone, jumped up, and started hollering.

  “Nobody around here works. Nobody but me. ME ME ME! And to think that that woman is going to be a Supreme Court justice!” I crouched. “Damn it! Shit! This is ridiculous.” I tilted my head for a better view. Bun tilted to the side, hanging on for dear life.

  “Shit. Damn. Damn it. Fuck. Fuck it.” And my personal favorite. “Fuckshit.”

  At that moment, every American should have breathed a deep sigh of relief, knowing that the third branch of their government—the federal judiciary—was in good hands.

  Suddenly, her bun came to a rest. She sat down, clearly pooped. Who wouldn’t be after that performance? But I was mistaken. It was time for accolades not for a nap. The judge started clapping, wide-eyed. She was ecstatic. Euphoric. The courthouse was a nuclear wasteland, and we were the only survivors. Not only did she, the general, make it out alive, but she’d saved her troops. Me and comatose Kate. Just as she was about to bestow herself a Medal of Honor, her phone rang. She picked it up instantly. It was her niece Dana, whom she occasionally referred to as her “best friend.”

  “Aunt Judgie, what on earth are you doing at work?”

  “Well, Dana, being a judge is not like being a housewife. I actually have a LOT of work to do.” Work included muttering, pacing, slinging profanities, specifically ruining her maids’ days as part of a grander scheme to ruin their lives.

  “But, how did you get there? The roads aren’t even plowed!”

  “I drove.” The judge was standing now, patting her bun.

  “But what about Uncle Bob?” Bob Shmob.

  “Oh, he’s fine. The nurse’s aide couldn’t come but he’s just fine by himself.” The plot thickened. She’d left her fatally ill, demented husband at home all alone during a blizzard and managed to drive through two feet of snow, just to come to work to yell at her employees. Dana wasn’t amused.

  “You know what, Aunt Judgie, I think you’ve really lost it. You’ve never left Bob home alone, without a nurse. Why are you at work? I just heard on the news the courthouses are all closed!”

  “I don’t have time for this. You wouldn’t understand. How could you? You don’t do anything all day.” Click.

  Inexplicably, the sight of me was beginning to agitate her. I started to remove my coat again, hoping that might help.

  “Hey, Sheila.” I turned around to find Matthew standing behind me, left leg exposed, his pants ripped from ankle to thigh. Above the waist, he resembled an overaged rib eye with frostbite marbling. Matthew dropped his duffel bag to the ground, cracking a miniglacier from the zipper, and hobbled into the torture chamber.

  “Hello, Judge,” he managed, “I’m here. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He turned to leave.

  “Matthew, how nice of you to join us”—she glanced at her watch—“and it’s only three-thirty in the afternoon. If we could all hold such hours.”

  Exhibiting superhuman self-control (or a frozen tongue), Matthew said nothing, left the torture chamber, and settled in for an afternoon of sitting up dead at his cubicle.

  Shortly thereafter, Kate sauntered through the clerks’ cave. Unfortunately, she’d timed her visit at the exact moment as the judge.

  “All you ever do is walk around. And you’re fat!” the judge said, jumping on the word fat, which caused her to resemble a strange, elderly rap artist.

  “Um. Judge. I’m pregnant.” Kate looked like her water was about to break.

  “I cannot believe you’re pregnant. I do NOT approve of my law clerks getting pregnant or married while they are here. It is only one year. And you have been bestowed the honor of working for a federal appeals judge. To think!” The irony was that Kate, the pregnant one, was the only person who’d risked her life—on her own volition—to get to work that morning.

  “Judge. I apologize if you think me to be disrespectful.” Kate suddenly stood up straight and lost the stutter. “I’m more than happy to return—immediately—to my job at the staff attorney’s office if you see fit.” Two clerks down in less than a year. That, combined with the manhole incident, Bob’s illness, and Adams’s nomination, was enough to send the judge to an early grave, a place where, I was convinced, she’d still manage to wreak havoc.

  “Kate. Of course I don’t want you to return to the staff attorney’s office. I have the best law clerks in the whole world.” The judge had instantly become Pollyanna, leaving Kate defenseless.

  “Um. OK, Judge,” Kate muttered, removing her fat self from sight.

  “Sheera. She’s weird,” the judge said, pointing to the back as she put on her sunglasses. “Paranoid, that one. You heard the whole thing. Did I say anything that would inspire such threats on her part?” Kate threatened to live in the suburbs her whole life. She didn’t threaten people.

  “I don’t know, Judge.”

  “This is my lesson. I’ll never hire another staff attorney. They’re not that smart. At all events, I’m off to do a little shopping. Need new sneaks. I’ll be back later.” She was getting new Reeboks and I hadn’t had a chance to put on a bra.

  Kate left about five minutes after the judge, leaving me, Matthew, and the security guard downstairs as the lone inhabitants of the courthouse.

  “Do you realize that I just walked three miles through a blizzard to get here?” Matthew said, pulling up a chair by my cubicle. “And the bitch just leaves? What are we supposed to do all day?”

  “Well, we can eat this,” I suggested, handing him the ramen. Matthew didn’t crack a smile.

  “Between the judge and Heidi, I’m seriously considering giving up women altogether. Remind me to ask Kevin whether men are any better.”

  “Whoa—what happened with Heidi?” I asked, a tad buoyant.

  “Ugh.” Matthew shook his head. “You know how my sister flew out this past weekend from Idaho—well, Heidi was supposed to come up on Friday night to hang out with us, mind you the first and only weekend I’ve asked her to come to Philadelphia rather than my traveling to New York. Anyway, at the last second, she called and said that she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t come. She must have made a miraculous recovery because she ended up going to some concert that night at Webster Hall.”

  “So, she didn’t come up at all during the weekend? She didn’t come see your sister at all?”

  “No. And I just don’t know what to do—we’ve been together for four years, Sheila. What am I supposed to do? I mean, can I just break up with her because she chose a stupid boy band over my family?”

  “Well, is it just the boy band?”

  “No, it’s not,” he said, turning his head to look at me directly. “I don’t know, I’ve just felt differently about her since starting this clerkship.”

  “Well, what do you—” The phone rang.

  It was the judge. “Has anyone called?”

  “No, Judge, nobody has called.” She hung up.

  “Well, what are you going to do?” I asked, returning to Heidi.

  “Oh never mind, I’ll figure it out,” Matthew said, scooting his chair back a few inches. “Anyway, why don’t we take advantage of today to get to the bottom of Robbie N?” Robbie N was our pet name for Robert Nussbaum, who’d come under our scrutiny since Kevin mentioned his affiliation with the mayor. Google had elicited the following information: In the three years since Robert took over his father’s tar company, he’d grown the business substantially. According to one finance news Web site, there were rumblings of an IPO on the horizon. He had a daughter, a divorce, and a cat named Tumbler, whose coy picture came up under Google Images. Then the trail went cold. There wasn’t a shred of evidence linking him to the mayor. Until something concrete turned up, I couldn’t tell the judge that Robert Nussbaum had publicly
hugged Judge Adams’s husband. After all, Joe Adams was a beloved mayor and I trusted that plenty of people had make-believe relationships with him. It wasn’t long ago that I’d convinced myself that I was friends with Al Gore after he gave one of his global warming lectures at Columbia.

  “Yeah, I’d love nothing more than to get to the bottom of Robbie N,” I answered. “I just wish there was some way to find out about who’s contributed to the mayor’s campaign. It’s so ridiculous that it’s not public, unlike federal campaigns.”

  “Yeah, but the judge already told the clerk of the court about the calls you got from Robert Nussbaum, so you have to presume that if they hadn’t before, they’d certainly by now done background checks on that. I mean, Adams is recused from so many cases because of her husband and his campaigns,” Matthew said, scratching his head.

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “Maybe he just called our chambers solely because he witnessed Friedman during oral arguments. That’s probably it.”

  “Oh—I meant to tell you”—Matthew popped up—“I was telling my sis about the case this weekend and we started poking around the Internet and found an insane article online about Izzie Nelson—remember Dell’s sister, the one who was raped by Peter?” I nodded, mesmerized. “Anyway, about three years ago, Time magazine did a ‘Where Are They Now’ piece. You know, where they normally profile Corey Haim or Corey Feldman? This time they profiled Izzie Nelson, who is now some tough high school principal in Erie, Pennsylvania. She talked about how her brother’s ‘horrid lawyer’ has compelled her to spend her adult life convincing kids to graduate, go to law school, and ‘fix the legal system.’ Oh yeah—in her free time she makes and sells T-shirts with human hair and fingernail clippings glued to them.”

  “What? Fingernail clippings?” I asked, fascinated.

  Matthew nodded, standing to answer his cell phone. It was his sister, who’d been unable to fly back to Idaho because of the storm.

  “I’m out of here. Apparently the trains just started running again,” he said. He zipped up his coat and stared at me. “Do you want to come? You know, um, out to my uncle’s house for the night—you can meet my sister?”