Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [18]
One evening in December around early twilight Lori came in. Her eyes were bright and there was a wildness about her, a kind of new energy.
“I lost my bracelet,” she said, distressed.
“Your new bracelet? The one your parents gave you?” Her parents had recently given her a beautiful, and very expensive, diamond bracelet.
“Yes. I lost it,” she repeated.
I thought she had dropped it somewhere, and we would have to go look for it. But that wasn't it at all.
“I lost it at three-card monte. I thought I had them. I thought I could beat them.” She was excited, frightened, overheated. “I used some twenties. I lost them. Then I put down everything in my wallet. I lost it all. I was out of money so I put down my bracelet, and lost that too.” It was clear she was worried. She was upset about losing the bracelet, and she didn't want to tell her parents. But she was also upset that she had lost. She felt invincible. She felt like she should not have lost, could not have lost.
Her funk had turned. Her agitation had begun.
A few days later, she called me. A group of people from work were getting together for holiday drinks in a bar in midtown. Could I join them?
After the Miss Universe Pageant ended, Lori had begun working in the personnel department of a big real estate company. I had wanted to meet the people she worked with, so I was glad to come. Besides, I felt I should keep an eye on her. I just didn't know what she was likely to do.
There were over a dozen people crowded into a small area by the bar, and the mood was jolly by the time I got there. But when I saw the look in Lori's eyes, I knew there was going to be trouble. They had that bright, out-of-control look that came just before she got wild. And it wasn't long before she started lashing out. Because of her job, she had access to confidential personnel files. In a loud voice, she began telling the group just what was in those files.
“You're on probation, and you're probably going to get fired,” she announced to one co-worker, while the others listened on, stunned.
“You asked for a raise, but you're not going to get one because your boss thinks you goof off too much,” she told another.
One by one, she went around the room, dishing up dirt on each person present. Everyone was too astounded to stop her, and in fact, no one knew how. As everyone grew angrier and angrier, I tried futilely to brush it off.
“Lori's such a kidder,” I said to one, before grabbing Lori's arm and making for the door.
On the way home, she grew calmer.
“Maybe I shouldn't have said all those things,” she said to me, looking abashed.
“Lori, you can't do stuff like that,” I said. “You are going to get fired.”
And the next day, she was.
A few weeks later, she got a job selling insurance. She seemed fearless, venturing out into neighborhoods where no other salespeople dared go, into immigrant neighborhoods where she couldn't understand her customers, and they couldn't understand her.
One day she came home with an engagement ring. A Chinese man she had met—or maybe he was Filipino—was in love with her and wanted to marry her. Her father was flabbergasted.
“We've never even met this man,” Lori told me he said. “How can you be thinking of marrying him?” The ring vanished, and the subject was dropped.
I began to think of marrying myself. I wasn't in love with the guy I was dating. But I began thinking: Why don't I just marry him? That way I can get out of here without hurting Lori's feelings. It was crazy. We had signed a two-year lease and I began thinking: There's only nineteen months to go, there's only eighteen months to go … It was like a marathon.
My parents were upset. I was in an intense training program,