Ben slowly nodded his head. He was mesmerized.

Hughes paused, carefully adjusting his glasses. “You are now charged with great responsibility. You must exercise it wisely. With that said, I know you’ll take this commitment extremely seriously. If you have the right attitude, our clerkship program can change your life. Now, are there any questions?”

Not a single hand went up.

“Fine,” Hughes said. “Then we can get you to your offices.” As he distributed the envelopes, he explained, “Take the one with your name on it and pass the rest on. The envelopes contain your security card and your Court password. The card will let you into any Court entrance, while the password will get you on to your computer. Your secretary will show you how to log on. Any questions?” Again, not a single hand. “Good,” Hughes said. “Then feel free to go to your office. The number is written on the front of the envelope.” As the room emptied, Hughes called out, “If you have any questions, feel free to call me.”

Ben headed for his office, the only one on the second floor. He had met Justice Hollis’s former clerks there during his interview last year. Weaving his way back through the Great Hall, he raced toward the elevator. The elevator operator was an elderly woman with dyed, jet-black hair. Wearing a Court uniform that was too tight for her large frame, she worked a jigsaw puzzle on a small table outside the elevator.

“Second floor, please,” Ben said. When the woman didn’t respond, he added, “Ma’am, I’m trying to get upstairs. Can you please help-”

“Don’t get in an uproar,” she drawled, without looking up. “I’ll be right with you.” After finding a place for the puzzle piece in her hand, she finally looked up at Ben. “Okay, now, who’re you here to see?”

“I’m clerking for Justice Hollis. I’m Ben Addison,” he said, extending his hand.

“I don’t care who you are, just tell me what floor you want to go to,” she said as she walked into the elevator.

“Second,” Ben said, dryly.

The second floor hallway was all marble, with red and gold carpet, but Ben barely noticed it. He was too busy looking for the room number that was written on his envelope. “Nice to see you, Justice Hollis,” he said to himself. “Hi, Justice Hollis, nice to see you. How’s everything, Justice Hollis? Nice robe, Justice Hollis-it fits great. Can I kiss your butt some more, Justice Hollis?” Finally, he saw room 2143. Outside the intricately carved mahogany doors, Ben wiped his hand on his pants hoping for a dry handshake. He grabbed the brass knob, opened the door, and stepped inside.

“I guess you’re Ben.” A woman in her late twenties peered over the newspaper she was reading. “Sorry you wasted the nice suit on me.” Dressed in khaki shorts and a forest-green T-shirt, the woman tossed aside the paper and approached Ben, extending her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Lisa, your co-clerk for the year. I hope we don’t hate each other, because we’re going to be spending quite a bit of time together.”

“Is the justice-”

“Let me show you our office,” Lisa interrupted, pulling him into the room. “This is just the reception area. Nancy ’s out today, but she usually sits here. She’s Hollis’s secretary.”

Lisa was petite with an athletic build, compact but elegant. A tiny nose balanced out thin lips and blue eyes. Lisa opened the door to a smaller room. “Here’s our office. Pretty crappy, huh?”

“Unbelievable,” Ben said, standing in the doorway. The office wasn’t large, and it was sparsely decorated, but the intricate dark wood paneling that covered the walls gave it an instant sense of history. On the right-hand side of the office were built-in bookcases, which housed the clerks’ personal library. Stocked with volumes of cases, treatises, and law journals, the room reminded Ben of the libraries that millionaires have in cheesy movies.

On the back wall hung the room’s only picture-a photograph of the current justices. Taken when a new justice was appointed to the Court, the official photograph was always posed the same way: five justices seated and four justices standing. The chief justice sat in the middle, while everyone else was arranged according to their seniority on the Court. The oldest justice sat on the far left; the newest justice stood on the far right. Although the photo was only six months old, the justices’ identical black robes and stoic stares made the current portrait almost indistinguishable from the dozens taken in years past.

Arranged on the navy and gold carpet were two antique wooden desks facing each other, two computers, a wall of file cabinets, a paper shredder, and a plush but well-worn scarlet sofa. Both desks were already submerged under a mountain of paper. “From what I can tell, the desks are from the early colonial period,” Lisa explained. “They might’ve been used by some old justices. Either that, or they’re replicas from someone’s garage. What the hell do I know about antiques?”

As he followed her into the cramped but sophisticated office, Ben noticed Lisa was barefoot.

“I guess the justice isn’t coming in today?” Ben pushed aside some papers and put his briefcase down on one of the desks.

“That’s right. I’m sorry, I was supposed to call you last night. Most of the justices take off for the summer. Hollis won’t be back until next month, so it’s as casual as you want.” Lisa leaned on Ben’s desk. “So, what do you think?”

Ben surveyed the room. “The sofa looks comfortable.”

“It’s average at best. But it’s more comfortable than these old chairs.” Darting to the side of one of the gray metal file cabinets, Lisa said, “This, however, is the best part of the office. Check it out.”

Pulling the cabinet away from the wall, Ben saw eighteen signatures written in black marker. “So these are Hollis’s old clerks?” he asked, reading through the names that covered half of the cabinet.

“No, they’re the original Mouseketeers,” Lisa said. “Of course they’re the old clerks.”

“When do we sign?”

“No time like the present,” Lisa said, pulling a black marker from her back pocket.

“Aren’t we eager?” Ben laughed.

“Hey, you’re lucky I waited for you.” With a flourish, Lisa wrote her name on the side of the cabinet. Ben signed just below and pushed the file cabinet back against the wall. “I guess you started in July?” he asked.

“Yeah. I wish I could’ve traveled more.”

“That’s where I’ve been,” Ben said. “I just got back from Europe two nights ago.”

“Bully for you,” Lisa said as she flopped down on the sofa. “So give me your vital stats-where you’re from, where you went to school, hobbies, aspirations, all the juicy stuff.”

“Do you want my measurements too, or just my shoe size?”

“I can see the measurements,” Lisa shot back. “Small feet, medium hands, average build, big ego.”

Ben laughed. “And everyone said my co-clerk would be a stiff,” he said, taking off his jacket. Ben had an oval face and a less-than-impressive jaw, but he was still considered handsome, with intense deep-green eyes and light-brown hair that fell over his forehead. Rolling up his sleeves, he said, “I’m from Newton, Massachusetts; I went to Columbia for undergrad and Yale for law school; last year I clerked for Judge Stanley on the D.C. Circuit; and I eventually want to be a prosecutor.”

“Boorrrrrrrring!” Lisa said, slouching back on the sofa. “Why don’t you just give me your résumé? Tell me about yourself. Loves, hates, favorite foods, sex scandals, what your family’s like. Anything.”

“Are you always this nosy?” Ben asked as he sat on the corner of his desk.

“Hey, we’re going to be living in this room for the next twelve months. We better start somewhere. Now, are you going to answer or not?”

“My mother is an executive for a computer company in Boston. She’s the aggressive, street-smart power-mom who grew up in Brooklyn. My dad writes a liberal op-ed column for The Boston Globe. They both went to the University of Michigan and met in a sociology class. Their first conversation was a fight: My father went crazy when he heard my mom say that salary level had a direct correlation with intelligence.”