The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller, Amanda Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

dozen or so of us rolled out our sleeping bags on the floor like teenagers.
    We also began meeting a lot of nice guys. A couple of guys would always just happen by to see if Lori was there. Her job was fun too, helping the Spanish-speaking Miss Universe contestants find their way around the city. One day she came home with Miss Colombia's banner, which had been given her as a thank-you. All my fears melted away.
    But the good times didn't last.
    Before too long, Lori's moods began to swing again. At times, she would take to her bed, refusing to leave, refusing to go to work. Bringing people home became a problem.
    The guys she was dating began drifting away, without saying much to me. When Lori did leave her room, she became hostile and aggressive. I had been set up to date my sister-in-law's cousin. The guy was nothing great to look at, but I liked him all right, and had him over a couple of times. One day when I brought him home, Lori was there.
    “What is that thing on your face?” she said to him, with a not-quite-joking air. He had a mustache. “That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen, and you're pretty creepy too.” I was taken aback. I tried to pass it off as a gag, and we left quickly.
    Soon, however, it became hard to have people over at all, Lori was so belligerent. You are ugly. You are fat. Why did you come over here anyway? We don't want you around.
    Tara was living in her own apartment up by Columbia, and I found myself calling her all the time, wondering what I should do. I tried to talk to Lori's parents too, but it was hard to explain what was happening. Lori's parents had never seen her get really bad. She always wanted them to be so proud of her that she would never admit she had problems. Often she said she didn't want to bother them. What's more, just being with them seemed to make her happy. When they were around she always seemed more normal and the vivacious, funny, lovable Lori would just seem to take over for a while. So they never knew about the days she wouldn't get out of bed. But sometimes I got so concerned myself that I called them. Lori's mother would listen to my stories, and in a very friendly motherly way, brush them aside.
    “Oh, don't worry about that,” Mrs. Schiller would say. “Lori is just in one of her moods. It will pass.”
    I always felt better after talking with her mother. Her parents knew her a lot better than I did and they didn't think her problems were such a big deal. I was just getting all upset over nothing.
    Wintertime in New York is wonderful. And wintertime in New York around Herald Square where we lived is especially magical. Every street corner has its Salvation Army Santa with his bell and brass bucket for change. People with kids and strollers crowd around Macy's to see windows filled with moving figures, ice skaters, ballet dancers and reindeer. Just as the song says, there really are hot chestnut vendors, filling the air with the smell of roasting.
    And on every street corner, there are the three-card monte games. One eye out for the police, their games perched precariously on cardboard boxes, these con men prey on passersby. Nearly every New Yorker knows, or quickly learns, that no matter how easy it seems to turn over the right card, no matter how many times the dealer lets you win when the bets are small, no matter how fervently you believe that you are the one who can beat the system, you will never, ever win. The games are completely crooked, and anyone who falls for them is a dope.
    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