Speechless Read Online Free Page A

face with powder. She selects a tube of lipstick from a tray of at least two dozen and applies it, blots and checks her teeth. When she pulls out a mirror and starts back-combing her short chestnut bob, I finally rumble to a stop, overcome by the realization that I am so boring people forget I’m in the room even while I am speaking.
    The Minister eventually looks over her mirror at me and says, “I must make a call if you don’t mind…. Thank you, Lily.”
    Thus dismissed, I retreat to my cubicle. I’ve always known that my downtown polish is only skin deep. It’s no surprise that the Minister saw right through me to the shack in the suburbs where I started out.

3
    I ’m still studying the sample speeches Margo gave me because I don’t have much else to do. I can barely concentrate anyway, knowing that there’s a baited rattrap under my desk. It’s well out of pedicure range, but if that baby ever snaps, I will too.
    Laurie says the rodents have been running amok since the building’s refurbishment project kicked off three months ago. The construction has rousted them from their usual lairs and despite the best efforts of a pest-control company, every employee in the building must have a rattrap in his or her office. According to the running tally on the staff-room chalkboard, five rats have already met their end in the trap lines. Laurie has the Rat Guy on speed dial. No matter how bad my job may become, his is definitely worse.
    I check my trap every morning, less worried about finding a dead rat than about finding a half -dead one. Elliot once awoke to a strange noise in the night and found a bloody, mangled rat dragging a trap across the hardwood floor of his hip downtown loft. It was as big as a dachshund, he claims, and its heartrending squeals drove him to seize the only weapon at hand—aplunger—and put it out of his misery. I keep a sturdy umbrella in my cubicle for just such an occasion. A speechwriter must be prepared for anything.
    To date, Margo has assigned only stupid, make-work tasks. I suspect it’s part of her plan to beat the “attitude” out of me before it surfaces. She already senses it’s there, because I can’t even feign enthusiasm for my list of chores. Mind you, I’ve done worse in my time than pick up dry cleaning and book appointments. It’s just that I’m anxious to start writing speeches—surprisingly so, given that all this came about so recently. The Ministry of Education would only give me an eight-month leave, so I don’t have long to get something out of this job. When I hesitantly raise the issue with Margo, she says, “Oh, I can’t see your writing speeches for months, Libby,” she says. “There’s so much you need to learn first.”
    She tells me to dust the collection of “art” given to the Minister by students in her travels around Ontario. A learning opportunity, to be sure. My attitude must be showing, because Margo lifts her thin upper lip and bares a row of tiny, perfect teeth.
    “We don’t stand on ceremony around here, Libby,” she says. “Even the Minister pitches in.”
    I doubt the Minister has ever turned her hand to dusting this papier-mâché beaver family, or the clay moose for that matter. Whenever I see her, she’s checking her makeup or patting her stomach to make sure it’s still flat. Not that I dare talk back to Margo. I may be twice her size, but she scares the hell out of me. Her smile is eerily reminiscent of the doll in the Chucky movies, especially now that she has a fresh, carroty henna. I’m relieved when I hear that my field training is to commence. At least it gets me out of my cubicle.
     
    I’ve been trapped for three hours in a car with two women who refuse to acknowledge I exist. It’s not as if they could miss me: I’m in the front seat with Bill, the Minister’s driver, whilethey cosy up in the rear. A retired army officer and a widower, Bill has a heart of gold under his gruff exterior, which I notice he is