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how fast I could go without being killed. Yet I half wanted to get myself killed. Driving up the Mass Pike on the way back to school, I was pulled over by a cop for speeding. I rolled down my window. He asked for my license and registration.
    “You are going to kill yourself driving like that,” he said. I began to laugh hysterically. Right before my very eyes, the state trooper with his hat and sunglasses and uniform had changed into a fantastic creature with bugged-out eyes and hair standing up wildly on end.
    On Saturday, April 25, in honor of my twenty-second birthday the following day Tara and Lori woke me up at 5:00 A.M. and handed me a scroll. “Congratulations,” it read. “You have won an all-expense-paid vacation in the company of two people who love you very much.” They hustled me into my clothes, handed me my overnight bag all packed, and carried me off to Provincetown. We stayed at an inn, ate lobster and curled up at night under striped sheets eating Oreos.
    Six weeks later we all graduated and headed to New York City, Tara to Columbia University's School of International Affairs, Lori and I to live together and work. My last memory of college is of graduation day, caps flying in the air, mellow music playing, a frantic round of goodbye parties, and the Quad filled with parents, relatives and friends, all gathered around to wish us well in our new lives.

4
    Lori Winters New York City, July 1981–March 1982
    Lori Schiller and I loved being roommates when we were together at Tufts. So we should have been perfect roommates in New York the year after our graduation. We were both just starting out in the big city. We both had interesting jobs: I had been accepted into a training program at Manufacturers Hanover Trust; Lori had a job as a Spanish translator at the Miss Universe Pageant. We were the same age, came from the same sort of background, and we enjoyed each other's company. We even shared the same first name.
    And at first glance, Lori and I both thought the renovated McAlpin Hotel was an ideal place for two recently graduated college girls like us to make our first home. It was right in the heart of midtown Manhattan. It had a doorman. It was near the subway, and right across from Macy's huge department store. By day, the streets teemed with people, busy commuters and shoppers going about their business. The price was right too—about $500 for a one-bedroom, which in New York was downright cheap.
    Still, there was a lot of fretting when we moved in together that summer. Lori's parents hated the idea of our moving into an apartment building located in a commercial, rather than a residential, neighborhood.
    And to tell the truth, I wasn't too crazy about living there with Lori either—but it wasn't the building I was worried about. It was Lori. I kept quiet about my concerns, but they were growing every day. Lori had been such fun. She was bubbly and creative and lively and energetic. I loved her like a sister. But during the last year at school, she had just become too weird. I really didn't want to live with her anymore.
    None of us at college could put our fingers on what was wrong. At first, it simply seemed as if she was depressed because she was so fun-loving and we were all such grinds. Often it seemed she would get into scrapes just to get our goats. That business about jumping out of the airplane, for example. Here we were—a bunch of girls who were scared to go up in glass elevators and she pulled a stunt like that. We just thought she was trying to get our attention.
    By senior year, though, a secret side of Lori began to emerge. Some of us suspected she might be doing drugs. She just seemed so up sometimes, and so down other times, and we never could predict which it would be. When she refused to come out of her room, and refused to go to class some days, Tara and I got a little concerned. “What should we do about Lori?” Tara and I asked each other.
    Still, we were just college kids