table, pulled out a chair, and sat heavily. She looked without interest at the pile of mail. I went into the living room.
'Hello, Jessica,' I said.
She'd been rouged and lipsticked crudely for the occasion, but the patches of color only heightened the pallor of her skin. The dead hair had been brushed straight down and then lifted and held in place with a black bow. She looked like a teenage Miss Havisham.
'Is Dick coming?' she asked.
'Not right now,' I said. 'Maybe later, though.'
She clenched both her thin fists and tightened her mouth childishly. 'He likes to make me wait,' she said. 'He enjoys it.'
'Wait for what?'
'The little yellow ones.'
Mrs. Fram coughed in a tubercular fashion in the next room while I evaluated this. 'Don't you have enough left for today?'
'Of course I do,' she said impatiently. 'Enough for tomorrow too. But he knows I get nervous when I get low. He likes it. I know he does.'
'No, he doesn't,' I said. 'He just doesn't want you to have too many of them. He's just being careful.'
'That's what he says. That's what Aunt Hermia says too.'
'Well, and they both care about you, don't they?'
'I guess so,' she said reluctantly.
'What does your mother say about it?'
'Her,' Jessica said. 'What does she know?'
'Is Aunt Hermia really your aunt?'
'No.' Jessica gave a spiteful little smile. 'She's the dragon at the door,' she said, 'and I'm the fair maiden. We should have a house with a tower so I could sleep in the very top room, and we could chain Aunt Hermia to an iron post next to the front door.'
'And where would your mother sleep?'
'On the floor if she wanted to. She does about half the time anyway. Sometimes she sleeps standing up, like horses are supposed to.'
'Jessica,' I said, 'You never Speak anymore, do you?'
'No,' she said, looking directly at me for the first time. 'That's finished. It ended when I got sick.'
'And what's wrong with you?'
'I've got a Wasting Disease,' she said with a certain amount of pleasure. 'I can't pronounce it, but Dick says it's getting better.'
'Have you tried to Speak?'
'You can't try. Don't you know anything? It's either there or it isn't.'
'What is?'
'The Voice, silly. What else?'
'And where does the Voice come from?'
'I don't know. I don't remember hearing it. I just know that I heard the tapes later, and it was my voice saying all those things, except not my voice exactly.'
'When was the first time you Spoke?'
'I was twelve.'
'Where were you?'
'In Dick's office. His office then, not his office now.'
'And what happened?'
'He was examining me.'
'For what?'
'To see if I could be the Speaker,' she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 'Anna was dead.'
'Was he examining other little girls too?'
'Sure. Lots. He even examined Angel, and she was only seven then.' She smirked unpleasantly. 'Imagine a seven-year-old Speaker.'
'What kind of an examination was it?'
'Dick and Mr. Brooks were looking for a Speaker,' she said as though that explained everything. 'Everybody wanted to be the Speaker. Every little girl in the Church. You got to wear all those pretty clothes and have your picture taken and be famous. Who wouldn't want it?'
'I'm sure they all wanted it. But you were the one who got it, weren't you?'
A glow of pride suffused her face. 'I was the only one who heard the Voice,' she said. 'I was the only one it wanted to talk to.'
'And how did Dick examine you?'
She started to say something, glanced up at me, and then closed her mouth. After a moment she rearranged the quilt and crossed her hands demurely on top of it. 'If Dick sent you,' she said, looking at the top of the quilt, 'how come you have to ask all these questions?'
'We're going to write a book,' I lied. 'Dick and I. A book about you.'
'What are you going to call it?'
'Jessica Speaks. '
'Will it have my picture in it?' There was real pleasure in her face. It almost made her look young.
'On the cover.'
'One of my good pictures, one of my then pictures. It'll be one of those, won't it?'
'The prettiest we can find.'
She took a sidelong peek at the dining-room door. 'Not her,' she said softly.
'No. Just you.'
'Fine,' she said.
'So you see, I need to get as much information as I can in your own words.'
She nodded gravely and regarded her hands. 'Okay.'
'Tell me about the examination.'
'Just a regular exam. You know, my pulse and my blood pressure. My eyes and ears and stuff.'
There was no way to avoid the question. 'Did you have to get undressed?'
Real color appeared beneath the rouge. 'Sure,' she said.
'And was your mother in the room?'
'Not then,' she said. 'She came in while I was Speaking. She says she saw me sitting on the table and Speaking. She was real happy about it. She liked Dick then. I don't remember her until after.'
'After what?'
'After I'd finished Speaking.'
'Your mother liked Dick then?'
'Oh, sure. She was crazy about him.'
'And later?'
She looked me straight in the eye. 'Dick didn't tell you to ask me that,' she said. 'He'd have never told you to ask me anything about that.'
It was the kind of moment that always made me wish I still smoked. It would have been very nice to have something to do for a few seconds.
'You're right,' I said. 'He didn't. We won't talk about any of that. Tell me, what did it feel like to Speak?'
She tilted her chin up and gave me an evaluative gaze. Her eyes were long, widely spaced, and slate gray.
'Like I said,' she began, 'I don't remember the Voice. I just remember that it always felt like someone was holding me in his arms. Somebody a lot bigger than I was. Somebody warm, who loved me.'
'And then what happened?'
'When?'
