“You’re not trying to look down my blouse, are you?”

she asks suspiciously, as I straighten up.

“Not for all the tea in China,” I assure her, dutifully smiling at my new client. About once every couple of months Julia wears a see-through blouse with a purple bra underneath and then threatens to sue for sexual harassment if any of the lawyers lose eye contact with her for even an instant.

As I escort Gina Whitehall back to my office, Julia, apparently through for the day, frowns at me as she picks up one of the innumerable women’s fashion magazines she brings to the office. My friend Clan Bailey, whose office is around the corner from mine, has remarked that as Julia’s skirts get shorter and her blouses sheerer, the reception area is taking on the atmosphere of a cheap escort service. As little money as Clan and I make from practicing law, maybe we should consider starting one.

“Mr. Page,” Gina Whitehall says in a shy voice as she sits down across from me, “I can’t pay you very much.”

What else is new? I stare at this slightly plump, buxom girl, who looks as if she ought to be studying for a geometry quiz instead of sitting in a lawyer’s office. She is wearing the uniform of the young: jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes without socks. She is fair-skinned and has bright Kewpie-doll blue eyes that will forever make her appear younger than her chronological age.

“Well, don’t worry,” I lie boldly, making a virtue out of necessity, “you can’t be old enough to be in too much trouble.”

Red splotches of color appear on both cheeks like warning lights on a dashboard; and as quickly as the most tormented of my female divorce clients, she bursts into tears. I push the box of tissue toward her, wishing I had canceled her appointment.

“They want to take my baby!” she gasps between sobs.

There is no mascara or makeup to smear, and the tissue comes away clean from her face.