T, M & S is a sort of half-way house for laid-off upper executives, a place where they can immerse themselves in their natural habitat of city-view offices, good coffee, and deferential administrative assistants. Supposedly, it’s where they can mastermind their next assault on corporate America, churning out resumes and business cards and avoiding the humiliation of having calls from prospective employers answered by their children at home.

Tammy is the office manager. She’s a slender, blonde lesbian in her twenties, with a cute, boyish face that reminds me of the youngest boy in the old My Three Sons series — spectacled, round-chinned, wide-mouthed, and scrubbed. In defiance of all stereotypes of Bay Area lesbians, she is uninterested in politics, art, or foreign film. She likes blockbuster movies, and her favorite show is a prime-time soap opera called Providence.

Today, there were almost no clients at all. I spent the day playing solitaire, tallying up client visitations for December, and moving files around.