“If you’re looking for an excuse to learn some bankruptcy law, this case is it.”

Julia, a relative of the owner, retains more job security than a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. If she has ever managed to repress a hostile thought in her life, none of the lawyers on our floor has witnessed the blessed event.

“This is just the first installment,” I whisper cryptically, looking across the waiting room at my new client, a young woman who looks, as most women do these days to me, young enough to be my daughter.

Julia tugs at the imitation black leather skirt that barely covers her crotch. Not a woman to let the weather dictate her wardrobe, she seems to outdo herself each day. Her hips should sweat off a couple of pounds before lunch, and she won’t even have to stand up.

“Oh sure!” she says.

“And the Tooth Fairy’s gonna place it under your pillow.”

I resist the temptation to tell her why I took this case. If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll never hear the end of it.

“What’s my new client’s name again?” I ask, bending my head so the woman won’t read my lips. From a distance of twenty feet, she looks as fresh and wholesome as the proverbial farmer’s daughter. With thick brown hair framing a face as round as a globe, her greatest asset is her youth.

“Jeez!” Julia huffs.

“When are you getting tested for Alzheimer’s?” She prints a name on her pad. I try to focus without my reading glasses. Gina Whitehall, I make out, squinting at Julia’s grandiose but nearly illegible handwriting.

“Before long you’re gonna need a map just to get to work.”

“You’ll be old one day, too,” I mutter, about to pass out from Julia’s overly sweet cologne. For the better part of every morning she will give off an odor that suggests she has spent the previous night swimming in a vat of artificially flavored fruit juices whose bottom is pure NutraSweet.