First Street

Chapter 3

Spin Cycle

Elyssa Friedland & Kermit Roosevelt

 

Odessa eyed her cell phone with frustration. She was only six weeks into the job, but already the workload felt insurmountable.

The summer had been one thing. With the justices out of town, the clerks dressed casually and roamed the Court like adolescents whose parents were away. Now the adults were back, everyone wore suits, and there was more to do in a day than seemed possible. She’d hoped sharing a house with Gabriel might relieve some of the pressure, but he could be cagey sometimes when she asked his opinions on cases, and the way he sucked up to the Chief was hard to stomach.

And now her cell phone was dinging again. Another text from her ex, David.

I know you’re still using my Netflix. It keeps asking if I want to continue The Bachelor. Please cease and desist.

Moments later, David pinged her again.

And you still haven’t returned my earpods. Please send to my office at Arnold & Porter as soon as possible.

Odessa rolled her eyes. Of course David wanted her to know that he’d joined one of New York’s most prestigious firms. She typed “got it,” then opened the camera app and turned the lens on herself. There were unmistakable bags under her eyes and her hair was desperately in need of a trim. Maybe this weekend she could carve out some time for herself. Charlotte could come along to the day spa in their neighborhood—Odessa was sure they could both use the “me” time.

Gabriel’s memo summarizing the LifeCycle case was on her screen. A spin instructor had been fired after she’d gained a lot of weight. She was making a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and she’d won in the courts below. Gabriel had recommended the court reverse the lower courts without even hearing arguments. She respected Gabriel’s intellect, but something about these facts was bugging her.

Denise Lovell had put on a considerable amount of weight while working at LifeCycle, but did that mean she was no longer a capable spinning instructor?

The case brought back the worst memories from her ballet days. Teachers would hover during lunch, examining the dancers’ plates, making “suggestions” for better choices. The underlying threat loomed: put on too many pounds and lose your chance for a spot in the company. The bathroom frequently smelled like vomit after mealtimes. Odessa never did that herself, but she kept a running tally of how many calories she consumed. It was a hard habit to break, even though she’d traded in her pointe shoes for ballet flats years ago.

She decided to Google Denise, curious for a visual. The first entry was an Eventbrite invitation for a fundraiser to help her with legal costs. It was a charity ride called “Tap It Back for Denise” and more than four hundred cyclists had signed up. Odessa started reading the comments.

“Denise Lovell is the best LifeCycle instructor in Los Angeles, hands down!” read one.

“Taking Denise’s class helped me lose thirty pounds!” read another.

“Boycott LifeCycle until Denise is hired back!”

The comments went on for pages. It was clear that Denise’s classes were popular. But there was also no question that she was overweight. The picture used on the charity ride invitation showed a woman with fleshy arms, thick thighs, and a gut that couldn’t be disguised in her LifeCycle spandex. Odessa hated how much appearances mattered, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit the satisfaction she got when she caught Jack looking at her for a beat too long while they hovered over the coffee pot each morning.

A knock on the door made her jump.

“Hey, a few of us are getting breakfast in the cafeteria. Do you want to come?” Gabriel stood, as always, ramrod straight in the doorway. She couldn’t figure him out. He could be cold and competitive, but a few nights ago he’d made fajitas for the house, even remembering to make a tofu version for Charlotte. And he’d certainly made more inroads with the other clerks than she had. Gabriel often stayed late to play basketball and he was the commissioner of the clerks’ fantasy football league.

“Sure,” Odessa said. She could use more caffeine. “But can I ask you something first? I’ve just been reading your memo re: Lovell, and you didn’t include anything about how popular she was as a trainer. Did you do any research? Have a look at this.” She swiveled her screen around to show Gabriel, who leaned in closer. Odessa immediately switched over to mouth breathing. Her roommate was an ardent fan of Axe body spray. Typically, she could smell him before she could see him.

“So?” Gabriel shrugged impatiently.

“Don’t you think it’s relevant? It’s not like Denise wasn’t doing her job well. This is pure discrimination.”

“Odessa, give me a break. Fat is not a protected class. It’s not like color and gender. People can easily change their weight. It’s really not that hard. Shut the fridge! Go for a jog!”

“Seriously? Do you know many conditions can cause weight gain?” Odessa felt her face flushing with anger, her voice rising several octaves. Gabriel’s smugness was not unlike David’s. Her ex had never expressed much sympathy for her chronic pain, often saying something dismissive like, “Isn’t there some painkiller you can take?” As though undoing a decade of damage to her body were as easy as popping a pill.

Odessa continued, “If it were as simple as going for a run—”

The Chief Justice’s shadow appeared.  

“Nothing I love more than the sound of my clerks arguing. Means I hired the right mix.” He grinned widely.

Both Odessa and Gabriel straightened their backs, startled by their boss’s unexpected appearance. He was supposed to be at Sidwell Friends to watch his granddaughter’s play. Olivia Maxwell was playing a pumpkin in the fall spectacular.

“Olivia has chickenpox, the poor thing,” the Chief said. “Who was talking about running when I came in? Odessa? Nothing clears my head more than a run. You’ve got your gear here, as requested?” They nodded. “Why don’t you two lace up and work out your argument on the trail with me? Let’s meet in fifteen, shall we?”

“Sure, Chief,” Gabriel said enthusiastically. Odessa knew Gabriel had already worked out that day. She’d seen him leave at six a.m., gym bag slung over his shoulder.

“Sounds great,” she said. She looked down hopefully at her feet, willing them to perform. Even though it would hurt, she’d channel energy for Denise. Maybe she could persuade the Chief to see things her way, she thought, as she watched Gabriel launch his body into a series of ridiculous warm-up stretches.

“Fitness first,” Maxwell said, patting his modest stomach affectionately.

#

Gabriel was feeling anxious as he pounded the dirt of Rock Creek Park in a steady rhythm.

Identify the task and attack it. That was what he did; that was how he’d gotten to this moment, matching steps with the Chief Justice of the United States. Well, literally he’d gotten here in Maxwell’s car, swooping out of the Court’s underground parking lot, past the embassies strung like beads along Massachusetts Avenue.

They were on Maxwell’s favorite trail. Gabriel had pulled into the lead quickly, confident in his athleticism. That wasn’t wrong; he was obviously a better runner than the Chief, and Odessa was lagging behind both of them. But the task here wasn’t just running. Gabriel remembered his conversation with Andrew Rodriguez during the interview. I’m the Gold Star clerk. He had to please the Chief. Figure out what he wanted—that was the first task.

Gabriel shot a glance back over his shoulder. Maxwell’s face was slightly flushed; his breath came fast. Don’t give the boss a heart attack—probably a safe principle with which to start.

“Maybe we should take it easy on Odessa,” he said, slowing his pace. Maxwell nodded without speaking and Gabriel gave himself an inner pat on the back.

“So, you’ve decided you can’t run away from the conversation.” Odessa didn’t sound winded, which made Gabriel wonder why she’d been so slow. She came up between them.

The trail wasn’t wide enough for three to run comfortably abreast. Gabriel took a few steps on the untrimmed margin and stumbled over a root. This was getting complicated. If it had been a male clerk—Gabriel thought longingly of Jack—Gabriel would have been in there with an elbow, boxing him out. But he couldn’t push Odessa back, and he couldn’t pull away without embarrassing Maxwell.

Gabriel fell back another few steps and moved behind the other two, resuming the arrangement they’d had in the car. Fine, he thought. Well played, Odessa.

“The great thing about running,” Maxwell said, “is it stops me from deciding too fast.” He’d recovered his breath. “Can’t jump to a conclusion and write it down. I know the case is with me for the full three miles.”

“I agree,” Odessa said. “And in this case, I think it’s very important to look beyond the surface.”

“Of course,” Maxwell said. “Now, I know you must think it’s unfair to judge people on their appearance, but that doesn’t make it illegal.”

“It is if that’s the kind of discrimination the ADA forbids.” Odessa paused. “There’s something Gabriel’s memo didn’t discuss. Denise Lovell was one of their most popular instructors. Her students started an online petition to bring her back.”

“I didn’t see the relevance of that to the ADA question,” Gabriel put in, thinking The fuck? He’d been prepared for Odessa to disagree with him. But saying he’d left something important out of the memo was totally different. He was furious. Though he had to give Odessa credit for skipping past Maxwell’s patronizing assumptions. You must think it’s unfair to judge people on their appearance. Says the central casting White Guy with Gravitas, who also happens to be Chief Justice of the United States.

“It’s relevant because it shows she could still do her job,” Odessa said. “She was great at it. They didn’t fire her for bad performance. They fired her because they thought no overweight person could ever be a spinning instructor.”

“And why does that matter?” Maxwell asked.

“That’s what the ADA is about. The prejudice that people with certain conditions can’t function in society, when they can. With a reasonable accommodation.”

Maxwell gave a sympathetic grunt. “But obesity isn’t such a condition, is it? That’s why it doesn’t count as a disability.”

Behind him, Gabriel nodded vigorously. “All the circuits agree on that, Boss. It can get there, if the person’s reached the wash-yourself-with-a-sponge-on-a-stick level. But just being fat doesn’t do it.”

“Right, ordinary obesity doesn’t interfere with a major life activity,” Odessa continued. “But LifeCycle evidently thinks it does. They think it means she can’t do her job, even though she can, and they’re discriminating against her. It’s exactly the kind of prejudice the ADA is aimed at.”

Gabriel looked into the trees. To his left the ground fell steeply away, down to a rocky creek bed. “No, they think she can’t do this specific job. Which isn’t just teaching classes, by the way. The instructors bring in business too. LifeCycle has photos of them on their website. To suggest that you can look like them if you take their classes. Of course they don’t want a fat woman there.”

“Well maybe that’s the accommodation,” she said. “They won’t use her photo.”

“And what do the customers think when they show up and see her?”

“They’ll find out she’s a great instructor,” Odessa said. She sounded defeated. “If they give her a chance.”

“If the exercise program is supposed to give you certain results,” Maxwell said, “surely they can choose people who’ve achieved those results.”

“Her students love her,” Odessa said. “Think about what it’s like to be doing something you love, something you’re good at, and have it taken away for no reason. To be told you’ll never do it again.”

Something in her tone caught at Gabriel. Why would Odessa care so much, with her perfect figure, her flawless makeup? “Maybe she can. There are other spinning companies. Anyway, that’s not what we’re deciding. It’s not illegal to fire her, that’s all.”

Maxwell nodded. “I’m afraid I agree. The law can’t cure all unfairness. It’s shabby treatment, but sometimes appearance matters.”

Gabriel didn’t believe in victory laps, but when they got back to chambers, he decided to treat himself to a Starbucks blondie. He’d stood up for his position and impressed the Chief. Recommending summary reversal had been a daring move, but if it went his way, everyone would remember that he’d had the guts to call it. And furthermore, he was right.

He said a quick goodbye to Odessa—subdued, she was scrolling through the petitions in support of Denise on her phone—and ducked out the Maryland Avenue exit. There was a Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue just past the Library of Congress. He paid with his phone and started back. He was almost to the Court when a hand touched his shoulder.

“Gabriel! Gabriel Martinez!”

He turned, recognized the woman, and took half a step back. “Dana.”

“It’s been a while. And you’re clerking for Chief Justice Maxwell now.”

“I am,” said Gabriel carefully. Dana Jacobson had been in his class at Stanford Law. “And you’re writing for Under Their Robes.”

“So cool!” said Dana. She had bobbed hair and cat’s-eye glasses. “The clerking, I mean. Not the writing. Although that’s pretty cool, too. I just wrote this story about a big law partner who had a fake identity. He’d been a lawyer before, got disbarred, and then changed his name and started over. Imagine having to be a first-year associate twice!”

“Yeah … Listen, it’s great to see you, but the thing is I’m probably not supposed to talk to journalists.”

“I’m flattered. You think I’m a journalist!” Her tone changed. “But seriously, you can’t mean you’re not going to say a word to me. Remember 1L exams? That means nothing to you?”

Gabriel sighed. He did remember. His first year, with so much to learn. His laptop had crashed a week before exams, taking with it all his notes and outlines. Dana had shared hers without a second thought—something that impressed Gabriel because he wasn’t sure what he would have done in her place.

“No non-public information,” he said. “No pending cases. Think of me like the Court’s information officer.”

“She’s way older and not as cute.” Dana punched him on the shoulder. “Come on, I’m kidding. So how about the frozen embryo case? The Court granted a stay a while back but hasn’t ruled on cert yet. What do you think’s going to happen with that?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. Three of the conservative justices had voted to take it up, but the Chief hadn’t cast his vote yet.

“Then you can talk about it,” Dana said. “But we both know this is going to be one of the blockbusters. It’s got everything. Drama. Pathos. Unsettled law.”

“Right.” Gabriel thought of his spreadsheet. “My guess is they grant it. No inside information, just a guess.”

“Sure. Of course. And then when the case is actually heard? You think it breaks down like an abortion case?”

“Well, that’s one of the interesting things. The embryos are in a freezer. So now the Court gets to separate the issue of the right not to be a parent from a woman’s right to control her body.”

“So where do you think Maxwell goes with that?”

Gabriel shook his head. “I gave you something about the case, but Justices are off limits. You know I can’t.”

Dana raised her eyebrows in an imploring gesture. “How am I going to scoop the lamestream media?”

“With your keen legal mind, of course,” Gabriel said as he tapped her head with a forefinger.

#

After the run, Odessa was determined to take the pulse of the other clerks about Lovell, but chatter at lunch had been dominated by discussion of the frozen embryos and whether cert would be granted. Especially after Gabriel told them his journalist friend from Under Their Robes expected it to be one of the most closely watched cases of the year.

Surely, she couldn’t be the only one to sympathize with Denise, though perhaps she felt the instructor’s plight the most intensely. Her own body had betrayed her—she knew what it was like to have physical limitations that were beyond your control dictate your career choices. The limbs she’d pirouetted and arabesqued for a decade had quit on her, not with one dramatic exit from the stage, but with an excruciating withdrawal.

It started with pain in her toes after a grueling day of rehearsing for Gisele when she was seventeen. The other dancers were excited to hit a dive bar that didn’t card. Odessa wanted to join, but when she rose from her seat in the student lounge, she felt an intense stabbing in her left big toe. She managed to hobble up to her room without the others noticing her injury, mumbling something about needing to do laundry. Competition for a Supreme Court clerkship was nothing compared to the battle to become a principal dancer.

The pain spread quickly through her body over the next few weeks. Sciatica flared and ran from her right hip to her knee, her hamstrings seized, and even her hands felt alternately stiff or numb. She called her father crying.

“I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll get you to a doctor,” he said reassuringly and, for a moment, Odessa truly believed everything would be all right. There was nothing an anti-inflammatory pill and some solid Ace bandage wrapping couldn’t fix.

But the doctor’s visit wasn’t the relief she’d been counting on. Dr. Maillard had poked and prodded at Odessa’s aching body for nearly an hour, asking her to rate various pains on a scale of 1-10 (almost everything was a 10), and sent her off for imaging and a blood test. Within three hours, Odessa’s future as a professional dancer was over.

“It’s rheumatoid arthritis,” Dr. Maillard said matter-of-factly, clearly a man used to delivering this type of news. “But you can manage it.”

“What about dancing?” her father asked, because Odessa was crying too much to talk.

“That is up in the air, unfortunately,” Dr. Maillard said, but Odessa could tell from his expression that she’d never be a prima ballerina. That she’d never move to New York or Paris or Moscow to dance. What the hell else would she do with her life? It was hard to be an overachiever when you didn’t know what to achieve.

Admission to Harvard and then to Harvard Law School quickly became her new focus. Jackson was on a parallel track, though he was aiming for medical school. Fast forward ten years, and her physical condition was still affecting her daily life, despite the career change. The run with the Chief had been excruciating, though she’d managed to hide the pain. How was she supposed to keep this up all year, though? She prayed for an early frost. Surely the Chief would use the gym if it was cold out?

Back at her desk after an unsatisfying lunch, she picked up Gabriel’s Lovell memo and marched to Russo’s chambers. She might not have made any inroads with the Chief, but she suspected Susan Russo would be more sympathetic to Lovell’s plight.

Russo’s chambers were on the same floor as the Chief’s, down a long, carpeted hallway where silence reigned. In the private quarters, away from the tourists, you could hear a pin drop at most times of the day.

The sound of Jack’s laughter rang out, piercing the quiet. Odessa found herself smiling. Her roommate’s chuckle was a welcome reprieve from the solemnity. Unlike David, who was typically humorless unless he was watching the positively moronic Impractical Jokers, Jack had a lightness about him. And while she wanted to resent what that meant about him—that his life had probably been smooth sailing from one pedigreed shore to another—in light of his broken engagement, she found his enduring capacity to find joy endearing. She should make an effort to laugh a bit more herself.

When she got there, Jack was sailing crumpled pieces of paper into a garbage can while Charlotte held a stopwatch.

“Thirty baskets, sixty seconds,” she said matter-of-factly. “Your accuracy is improving about five percent every day.”

“Not bad, not bad,” he said, crumpling another piece of paper and aiming it toward Charlotte’s face. She caught it in mid-air.

“I am not a terrible athlete, despite what you might expect,” Charlotte said.

Odessa cleared her throat to announce her arrival.

“Odessa!” Charlotte said. “I’m excited for the spa this weekend.”

“Me too.” Odessa took the empty seat opposite Charlotte’s desk. It was perfectly neat; highlighters were arranged in ROYGBIV color order and a line of office supplies were organized by height.

“I know,” Charlotte said, when she caught Odessa staring. “It works for me.”

Odessa’s eyes traveled to Jack’s desk, which was far messier. Behind his stacks of accordion folders was a single framed photograph of Jack, all smiles in a St. Albans T-shirt with a shaggy golden retriever at his side, posed in front of a sprawling mansion with an endless lawn. He could seem like a walking cliché at times—a Vineyard Vines ad come to life—but often Odessa was startled by Jack’s depth and intelligence. Turning down the Chief, for instance; that was big.

“I was wondering if you guys looked over Gabriel’s Lovell memo?” Odessa asked. “It seems to me like she might have a viable claim. Her employer perceived her as disabled, therefore she would be able to make a case under the ADA.”

Charlotte wound a lock of hair around her index finger. It was one of her tells that she was thinking deeply about something.

Jack spoke first. “I think you might be right. The case is bugging me. I hate how women are so unfairly judged on their appearance.”

Odessa raised a sculpted eyebrow. She wanted to believe Jack, but it was hard to swallow what he was saying.

“Is that right?” she said, wishing she could tamp down the hostility in her voice.

“Yeah. Totally,” Jack said, oblivious. “My dad used to be all up in my mom’s business about what she ate. It was bullshit. People shouldn’t be judged based on outer characteristics. Take me, for example. Everyone assumes I got where I am because I’m a Kerridge. But I did really well in college. I got a 176 on my LSAT. Would have probably gotten into Yale even if my dad and the dean hadn’t been roommates at Andover. You get what I’m saying, Odessa.”

“Why would I, exactly?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

Jack’s face reddened. “I just thought … you might also know how it feels for people to think you got where you are because of who you are. And it sucks.”

“You do know that more than seventy percent of Americans are considered overweight or obese according to their BMI. If the courts started viewing weight as a protected class, or as a disability, we might never get through our cert petitions,” Charlotte said. “My BMI is 22.3, in the healthy range.”

“You’re amazing, Charlotte,” Odessa said, breaking into a smile. She was grateful for her roommate’s interjection. There was nothing like Charlotte spouting statistics to cool the mounting tension.

“You have no idea,” Jack cut in. “She helped me put together an undefeatable fantasy football roster.”

“It’s just stats,” Charlotte said, suppressing a grin. “I’m off to the library to do research. Russo wants me to draft a speech she’s giving to the American Constitution Society about the First Amendment.”

After Charlotte left, Jack spoke. “I didn’t mean what you think I meant.”

Odessa softened. Jack wasn’t the enemy. Neither was Gabriel. Or David, for that matter. The enemy was her pain, a constant companion even in the best of times.

“I know,” she said. Her cell phone buzzed in her hand. It was a message from Gabriel:

Chief looking 4 U. He needs your memo on Sayers stat because he’s having lunch with Rourke tomorrow.

A cert memo. On a complicated case. Ugh. Odessa looked down at her hands. The run had precipitated a flare-up. Typing, especially quickly, was going to be a disaster. Her stomach twisted into knots.

“Maxwell needs me,” she said, fighting back tears. She didn’t want Jack to think he’d upset her when what really was making her cry was that her body was failing her all over again.

#

“Ouch!”

Charlotte looked up, startled. She’d expected the Court to be mostly deserted this late at night, but here she was face-to-face with Odessa who she’d just smacked into in the hallway outside Justice Mitchell’s chambers.

“Sorry,” Charlotte stammered.

Odessa smiled through a wince. “It’s okay. I have nine other toes. But you should be more careful. I’d hate to imagine what a run-in with the Chief or Rourke would look like.”

“True,” Charlotte said. Justice Rourke was notoriously grumpy and thudded around with a gold-headed cane. “Your foot going to be okay?”

“It’s more these I’m worried about,” Odessa said, showing Charlotte her wrists. They were both supported by plastic splints.

“What happened?” Charlotte gasped.

She liked Odessa the best of her roommates. Gabriel cleaned the house with military precision, which she admired, but he took little interest in her life other than to poke around what was happening in the Russo chambers. She’d also noticed a mysterious Excel spreadsheet on his cell phone that he closed every time she walked by. Jack was nice enough, and he was diligent about bringing her a half-caf latte with soy milk every morning, but he wasn’t likely to become a friend. He hadn’t even remembered that they had gone to law school together! Odessa, though—Charlotte felt like they were bonding past the superficial.

“Come to my office,” Odessa said. “I was looking for coffee, but I’m too late.”

Charlotte nodded and quickly fell into step beside Odessa. She felt like they were on an adventure, walking the hallways together in the dark. It was sad how the smallest social overtures could make her giddy.

“So what are you doing here so late?” Odessa asked.

“Russo is running the Newman execution,” she explained. “It looks pretty straightforward, but I have to be here to coordinate with the Death Clerk in case anything happens. And double-check every argument they make and look for intervening changes in law.”

“Of course,” Odessa said. “Well, it’s nearly midnight so I guess it won’t be too much longer.” She slid a thin gold watch from under her splint. Charlotte looked at her own wristwatch. It was made of neon orange rubber and had a huge metallic face. A fashion blogger she followed had claimed it was “the” accessory for the season. Next to Odessa’s feminine timepiece, it looked absurd. Charlotte made a mental note to unsubscribe from TheFashionista’s YouTube channel.

When they reached her office, Odessa motioned for Charlotte to take a seat on the worn-in leather couch opposite the clerks’ desks. They were alone. The only sound came from the hum of the radiator.  

“So these,” Odessa said, slipping the splints off her wrists. “I have severe rheumatoid arthritis. Do you know anything about it?”

“It’s an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the joints instead of attacking viruses and—”

Odessa cut her off. “I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway, I was diagnosed as a teenager. Sometimes it’s manageable, other times it flares up and the pain is brutal. Unfortunately, it’s in my wrists now and Maxwell needs a memo from me by morning. And before you say it, I’ve tried those dictation programs. They’re terrible. Once I tried saying ‘stare decisis’ and ‘staring at my penis’ appeared on the screen.”

“Oh my God, I have the same program,” Charlotte said. “It made ‘amicus curiae’ into ‘am I bi-curious.’”

Odessa cracked up. “I’m picturing a very horny nerd in Silicon Valley.”

“Don’t knock nerds. We can be very useful. I type about eighty words per minute with a very small error rate.” Charlotte wiggled her fingers proudly. “I’ll type for you.”

“But you have the execution to deal with.”

“It’s almost over. I can do both.” Charlotte motioned for Odessa to get up from her desk chair so she could sit down.

“You’re a lifesaver. The spa this weekend is my treat. What were you doing, by the way, when you stumbled into me? Looked like some heavy texting.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Charlotte said, fidgeting slightly. Should she explain? It would all sound silly to Odessa probably. “Let’s get started on this memo.”

“Didn’t look like nothing,” her roommate persisted. “I’m gonna be here all night. I need a distraction.”

Charlotte felt shy, but this was what she was supposed to be doing to make friends. Opening up. Sharing. “Oh, fine,” she said, pulling her iPhone from the pocket of her black blazer and handing it to Odessa.

Odessa checked the screen. “Boggle?”

“Yes, Boggle,” Charlotte said enthusiastically. “It’s the best game. Do you play? I can challenge you!”

“Never played.”

“It’s an anagramming game. You know, ARTS-TARS-STAR-RATS. I’ve been playing with Robert. Your co-clerk. He’s very good at it. In our last game, he got ZENITHS for seventy-two points.”

Charlotte felt her heart accelerate. Just thinking about Robert did that to her. And now she was saying his name out loud. “Last night we played against each other until two in the morning. Do you know anything about him?”

“I think Encyclopedia Brown has a crush,” Odessa said, flexing her wrists with a grimace. “And, no, I don’t really know him, other than he’s really into Greek yogurt, narrowing the Commerce Clause, and, apparently, Boggle. Are you going to ask him out?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to hint through our games that I’d like to. I played DATE-DATES-DATER-DATERS and intentionally left out UGLY even though it was a super obvious word and the Y was worth triple points.”

Odessa’s hysterical laughter following her revelation was not encouraging. It felt like being back with her sisters, when they’d giggle inexplicably over something she’d said. It was like there was a playbook everyone she knew followed, but Charlotte was absent the day it was handed out.

“Not good?” Charlotte asked. She wasn’t going to turn down dating advice from a stunning former ballerina that Jack stared at whenever they were in the same room.

“I think we can be a tad more direct about this,” Odessa said. “With some strategy, we’ll have him eating out of your hands.”

“HANDS. SAND. ANDS. DASH. SHAD,” Charlotte said.

“Um, not exactly what I had in mind, but you’re adorable. First, we memo, then we get Robert to fall in love with you. Deal?”

“Deal.”

#

“She’s waiting for you.”

Those weren’t the first words Charlotte wanted to hear upon her arrival at the Court from Justice Russo’s assistant.

It was 7:30; Charlotte was coming in later than usual after the night with Odessa. But that was still earlier than Russo would normally expect clerks to be available, even though they both usually arrived around 7. Unless they’d scheduled a meeting … Charlotte made a mental run-through of the day’s appointments, resisting the urge to pull out her day planner. She could see today’s page in her mind anyway, the lines of color. A Russo meeting would be orange, the most visible, and it definitely wasn’t there.

“Did she ask for me a while ago?”

“About fifteen minutes,” Jessica said, and Charlotte felt her tension ease. It must be about the First Amendment speech, just a check on her progress. Charlotte had that under control.

Charlotte knocked on the door to Russo’s chambers and, hearing no response, gave it a gentle push. The door swung halfway open, making her regret it. Now what? Knock and announce, that was the rule for police. You must be invited in, that was for vampires. Russo’s procedure was closer to the latter, but Jessica had said she was waiting. Charlotte poked her head into the opening. “Boss?”

The Justice was seated behind her desk, gazing out the window. She looked up and smiled at Charlotte.

“You wanted to see me?” Charlotte asked. “I’ll have a draft of the talk by the end of the day. I wanted to put in a section on the use of free speech arguments against business regulations.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” said Justice Russo. She was dressed for business, a dark blazer over a silk sheath, but the expression on her face made Charlotte think more of a grandmother than a Supreme Court Justice. Not that grandmothers couldn’t be Supreme Court Justices, Charlotte reminded herself. “I wanted to talk about some of the cert petitions. Starting with Flaherty.”

“The embryo case,” said Charlotte. “That’s a head-scratcher. On the surface it just looks like a property dispute, which wouldn’t warrant the Court’s attention. But then there’s this Louisiana personhood law that applies to frozen embryos …”

“Right,” said Russo. A Louisiana statute, the only one of its kind, provided that cryogenic embryos were people, not property, and that courts should decide disputes based on the best interests of the embryos. “Can states decide who counts as a person?”

Charlotte searched her memory. There were cases about personhood and state law … from the late nineteenth century … about railroads. “States can create corporations. And corporations count as people under the Constitution.”

“And we know how that’s worked out.” Russo frowned. “We need to be thinking three steps ahead. That’s what they’re doing.”

“Who?” Charlotte asked.

Russo ignored the question. “The Louisiana Supreme Court decided in favor of Patricia Dunbar—the owner of the embryos. She has a right not to become a parent against her will. But what’s the next step there?”

“It’s an argument that men can use,” Charlotte said, “to say a woman has to have an abortion.”

“Or to get out of child support. But can we go the other way?”

“Say his parents win? If a state can say an embryo in a fertility clinic is a person, they can say it’s a person inside a woman’s body, too.”

“That’s what’s going on here. No wonder Rourke is so excited about it. No matter what we do, he wins.”

“There has to be a way out.”

Russo’s smile was tinged with sadness. “That’s what I want you to research. But sometimes there isn’t any way to win. Sometimes we have to think defensively about how to limit the damage. Which brings us to LifeCycle.”

“That one seemed easy at first,” Charlotte said. “Obesity isn’t a disability. But Odessa—one of the Chief’s clerks—had an interesting idea. She thinks firing someone because of the way they look is treating them as if they had a disability, which is what the ADA forbids. I don’t think the case is clear enough for summary reversal.”

“But that’s what I’m voting for,” Justice Russo said.

“Why?”

“If the court reverses on the question of whether obesity is a disability, the law doesn’t change. If we take the case up for full consideration, they might go farther.”

Charlotte felt confused. “But isn’t this an issue that should be explored?”

“They’re not going in the right direction, Charlotte. I know you came here with ideas of improving the law.”

“Clarifying it,” Charlotte said.

“There’s clarity,” Russo said. “And then there’s justice. The last time we heard an ADA case, the Court narrowed the definition of disability. Congress came back and rewrote the law to show they were wrong. But that’s not going to happen again.” She looked out the window, her expression softening.

“Do you mean we should try to stop the Court from deciding important issues?”

Russo turned back. For a moment her expression was blank. “The question is what to make of a diminished thing.”

“I’m sorry?” Charlotte recognized the quote from a Robert Frost poem but felt she had lost the thread of the conversation.

“This isn’t the Court it was. Some things go and return. Some are just lost. All you can do is hold back the night.”

Charlotte blinked. “No one can hold back the night.”

“No, of course not.” Russo looked down and back up, meeting Charlotte’s eyes. “But you can keep trying until the light is gone.”

#

Jack was wondering what had happened to the day. The sun was down, the Court emptying out, and what did he have to show for the hours? A cert memo that should have taken him half the day to write at most. He was slow with the research and writing. Slower than Charlotte, of course—everyone was. But slower than Odessa, he was starting to think, and maybe even Gabriel.

He was good at some of the job; he could make connections that other people didn’t see. That was why Russo had hired him—because of his argument that the state had already killed Marco Jimenez. But she wasn’t asking him to write speeches for her, and Odessa hadn’t seemed very impressed with his take on the LifeCycle case. And now the Court had refused to even hear it; they’d voted to overturn an hour ago without hearing from the parties, with Russo agreeing with the conservatives. He hadn’t seen that coming. Not that he’d come up with any good arguments to do anything different.

His comments to Odessa weren’t legal analysis, though. Just his ham-handed attempt to sympathize with her. It had come off wrong, but there was a grain of truth in what he said. People looked at him and thought they knew him, thought they knew how he’d gotten where he was. Why he was here.

It was something he and Emily had connected over in the beginning. She had a famous mother, and everyone assumed she wanted to follow in her footsteps, not forge her own path. Jack felt that way too. Everyone thought he’d go into politics eventually when it was the last thing he wanted to do. He should be over it by now, over her, but it still hurt, hearing the same question from a voice inside him. Why are you here?  

Jack stuffed cert petitions into his bag. If he was slower, he could work harder. He could read these at home. He could prove himself to all of them; he could … screw it. Who was he kidding? After a long and frustrating day, there was really only one place he was going.

The First Street Bar was packed. Through the crowd he could see Odessa and Charlotte, and further back Gabriel was making animated gestures to a blonde in a halter top. It was an easy choice. Charlotte, he thought. Charge d’affaires. No. Shar Pei. Even worse. Sherlock. That was good, or good enough. He opened his mouth and stopped.

There was a guy next to Odessa. An older guy, he could tell from the back, pressed up so close to her that their sides were almost touching. The guy was talking to her, leaning in. And Odessa must be into it if they were cozied up like that. Well, maybe that was what she was looking for. More power to her. It wasn’t his business.

“So, I was with Blackstone for years,” the guy was saying as Jack neared them. “But honestly Carlyle’s where you go for sophisticated private equity.” A finance bro? “And D.C.’s not so bad. Not with girls like you around.”

Jack could feel his teeth grinding. He turned in Gabriel’s direction.

“Stacey,” Gabriel was saying loudly, apparently correcting a mistake. “Of course, Stacey. Slip of the tongue.” Jack assessed the situation. Stacey’s body language was attentive but not enthusiastic. He took a step toward them. “I’m afraid it’s mostly confidential,” Gabriel was saying. “The decisions are so important that secrecy is essential. But I’ve got a couple of things I could show you back at my house.”

Sure you do, Jack thought. That’s not happening. He began formulating a sentence that would tell Stacey exactly what Gabriel had waiting for her at his house, then looked at Odessa again.

She’d shifted several feet along the bar, but the guy was still right next to her. His hand fell on her slim shoulder and she twitched it away. Wait a fucking second. That’s not happening, either. With two quick steps he pushed in between them. There was contact with the guy, and with Odessa; Jack enjoyed them both.

“O,” he said loudly. “Been looking for you!”

“Jack,” Odessa answered. He could see the relief on her face. “Where’ve you been?”

“Working late.”

He turned toward Odessa, giving the finance bro his back, and felt a tap on his shoulder. “What is this?” Carlyle guy wasn’t going away. “What, are you her boyfriend?”

Now that Jack could see his face, he liked the guy even less. He hesitated a moment. “No.”

“Then what’s your deal? Why are you here?”

Jack opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He could feel his initiative slipping away. “Why am I here?” he repeated. Fuck it. “I’m her brother.”

From behind him he heard a small snort of laughter from Odessa and a louder one from Charlotte. The guy just looked at him.

“You got a problem with that?” Jack asked, leaning forward in what he hoped was a menacing way.

The man frowned. “Wait a second,” he said. “I know you. You’re that guy. You’re …”

Before it could come out, Jack felt Odessa at his side. “No, you don’t,” she said. “You don’t know him. You don’t know me.” She tilted her head and widened her dark brown eyes. “Now run the fuck off.”

The man threw up his hands. “I was being nice to you. You don’t have to be a crazy bitch about it.”

“Wow,” said Jack, as the man receded into the crowd. “I guess you can take care of yourself.”

“Well,” said Odessa, “statistically speaking I’m less likely to end up dead if I say that with you next to me.”

“Right.” Jack nodded. “Buy you a drink?”

“No way,” Odessa said, her smile making her truly beautiful. “After that, I’m buying you one.”

“Guys?” Charlotte interrupted. “We should maybe think about collecting Gabriel.” Jack followed her gaze. Gabriel was still talking to Stacey, or at least at her. His posture had lost its military precision, and his voice wasn’t as clear, but Jack could pick up stray words. “Clerk … Chief Justice … layman’s terms …” Time to call this one. He walked over to them.

Stacey had a bright smile on her face. “Looks like your friend’s here,” she said.

Gabriel turned his head. “Oh, Jack.”

“Maybe time to head in, bud,” Jack said.

“It’s been so fascinating learning about your job and the important people you know,” Stacey continued. “You never asked me what I do. But let me tell you, I think I might be just what you need.”

Uh oh. Jack sensed trouble ahead. Gabriel just smiled. “What?”

“I’m a neurosurgery resident at Georgetown,” Stacey said. “And you’re definitely brain damaged if you think I’m going home with you.”

#

Gabriel stared at himself in the mirror. He was a good-looking guy, wasn’t he? At least as handsome as that entitled Jack, with his generic preppy looks. The guy was pasty white and could probably only bench 120, max.

He really thought he was making headway with Stacey. She certainly didn’t object when he bought her three tequila sodas in a row. But then she’d turned on him so smugly, showing off about being a doctor and calling him brain damaged. As if. He was the Chief’s favorite clerk! Maxwell had even confided in Gabriel before he left for the night that he was going to vote for cert in the embryo case. Gabriel was mostly annoyed that he got snubbed in front of Jack and Odessa. Something was up between those two. Yuck. Gabriel didn’t want to have to watch a corny romance unfold under his roof.

Gabriel eyed his laptop. He ought to update the spreadsheet before he passed out for the night. He was happy that the justices had followed his recommendation to summarily reverse in the LifeCycle case. So far, he was five for five in his recommendations. And Odessa hadn’t wanted the Chief to take up the embryo case so that was a loss for her.

He opened up Twitter. He had a new follower: @UnderTheirRobesDana. At first, he was flattered. But then he reconsidered. She was more likely after information. Well, it was a two-way street. He clicked to follow her back and scanned her feed, which contained links to her stories.

“New Clerks Arrive for Duty” was a bland article about the fresh crop of clerks. Gabriel’s ego stung that he wasn’t singled out. Charlotte was. Jack was, of course. There was also an update about his relationship status when he and Emily broke up. Even the blander-than-toast Canada-Hanna had a mention.

“Federalist Society Hosts Rourke on Hunting Expedition with the VEEP” was a piece showing a cozier-than-appropriate relationship between the most conservative justice and the executive branch.

He was about to close out of Twitter when a new tweet from Dana appeared.

BREAKING: DECISION ON CERT IN EMBRYO CASE EXPECTED SOON

Soon. Ha! She didn’t know how right she was.

The tweet included a photo. A white-haired couple sitting on a floral couch, clutching a framed photograph of a younger man. Leo. The woman was crying. Gabriel pictured his abuela. He never felt his life was lacking being raised by his grandparents. Nobody cried harder or cheered louder than his abuela at his graduation. Who was Patricia Dunbar to deprive her ex-in-laws of that kind of joy, especially when she’d have no responsibility to raise the child?

And that’s when it hit him. The media kept describing them as the grieving grandparents. But that wasn’t quite true.

He sent a direct message to Dana.

They won’t be this child’s grandparents. Patricia Dunbar won’t have any legal relationship to the baby. They’ll be PARENTS.

Her answer back was almost instantaneous: Well my sources tell me the Justices are leaning in Patricia’s favor. You know you’re not the only clerk I talk to. If you know something, you might want to tell me. Otherwise, I’ll print what I hear from my “friend.” They seem very reliable …

Gabriel was shaking. There was a leak. Among the clerks. One of the thirty-six clerks had broken the cardinal rule: never speak to the press. A passing hello, sure. What he was doing with Dana was above board. But sharing intel from behind the bench? That was grounds for immediate dismissal. If they were found out, their career would be over.

I wouldn’t trust what you hear, he managed to type back before snapping his laptop shut.

A court snitch. It turned Gabriel’s stomach. He was certain of one thing, though: he was going to find out who it was. And when he did …