It began promisingly: a string section played the melodic line from “Over the Rainbow” in rich, torchy tones. A flute came in with a few decorous trills, obviously meant to suggest a happy bluebird flapping its way across a pastoral scene. Not that she was prey to obvious sentimentality, but something about this particular song always got to Jane, and she felt a little catch in her throat. The orchestra pulled back and in a soft voice cracking with emotion, Anderton sang her first word, a gentle, sibilant “some.” This was followed by an odd second of silence during which you could hear Anderton gathering her breath. And then came a shattering “WHERE,” like a clap of thunder directly overhead. Another moment of disorienting silence was followed by a rushed, breathless “ovah the rainbow” as if she were speaking the line.

It wasn’t simply that the voice was aggressively loud—like Jane’s old gym teacher screaming at her for doing clumsy jumping jacks—but it also had a gravelly quality that made you want to clear your own throat as you listened. And this was before she started belting down cocktails! Then there was the bizarre lack of consistency in her pronunciation, from the crass, Bostony “ovah” in the first line to the absurdly pretentious “eau-verre” a few verses later.

Jane tapped the tape player. “Do you mind if I lower it a bit?”

“No, not at all.”

That helped. This was one singer who’d never be accused of subtlety, but once Jane let herself relax into the song a bit more, she found that there were some audible gradations of the overpowering belt. She sang in character, if not always on key. Anderton ended with a remarkably understated and touching “why oh why can’t I?” as if she genuinely wanted to know. The music faded out and Desmond ejected the tape.

After a moment of reverential silence, he said: “Well?”

When Jane was alone in her car, she tended to listen to pop music of the blandest sort. If she was in the right mood, she could tear up listening to one of those fashion models with a microphone singing a cornball rendition of the latest mush from an animated Disney film. Dale, who claimed to know something about jazz, had taken her to hear singers he considered great; mostly she’d found them to be show-offs who put perfectly beautiful melodies through a meat grinder. In general, she hesitated to venture much of an opinion about music since some expert was always coming along and telling you why your taste was contemptible. If it was a choice between listening to more of this tape and tuning in to a religious fanatic call-in show, she’d probably opt for the latter. And yet, against all odds, she found herself shaken by it, and perhaps a little haunted.

“I don’t know if it’s good,” she told Desmond, “but it’s . . . real.”