Jan, laughing, eyes sparkling. Probably about 45, looked a decade older than that if you actually stopped and saw her, which, with that smoky laugh and those eyes, you never did. What you saw, as she took a drag and waved that cigarette around as she talked, seemed about thirty.

That smoky, husky voice sounded kinda sexy, but every now and then it would drop off the deep end into a bottomless pool of hacking. She would look up sideways kind of between coughs and you would see the fear in those eyes which usually held nothing but pure joy and she would be telling you not to look please don’t look, please, please help me.