Shirley Jackson: The Lottery and Other Stories

“It was partly open,” he said, “so I came on in.”

“Yes?” Miss Clarence said, dropping her arms.

“You’re Mrs. Roberts?” the young man asked.

Miss Clarence, trying to walk naturally over to her chair, said nothing.

“I came about the furniture,” the man said. “I thought I might look at the chairs.”

“Of course,” Miss Clarence said. “The price is marked on everything.”

“My name’s Harris. I’ve just moved to the city and I’m trying to furnish my place.”

“It’s very difficult to find things these days.”

“This must be the tenth place I’ve been. I want a filing cabinet and a big leather chair.”

“I’m afraid…” Miss Clarence said, gesturing at the room.

“I know,” Harris said. “Anybody who has that sort of thing these days is hanging on to it. I write,” he added.

“Really?”

“Or, rather, I hope to write,” Harris said. He had a round agreeable face and when he said this he smiled very pleasantly. “Going to get a job and write nights,” he said.

“I’m sure you won’t have much trouble,” Miss Clarence said.

“Someone here an artist?”

“Mr. Roberts,” Miss Clarence said.

“Lucky guy,” Harris said. He walked over to the window. “Easier to draw pictures than write any time. This place is certainly nicer than mine,” he added suddenly, looking out the window. “Mine’s a hole in the wall.”

Miss Clarence could not think of anything to say, and he turned again to look at her curiously. “You an artist, too?”

“No,” Miss Clarence said. She took a deep breath. “Dancer,” she said.

He smiled again, pleasantly. “I might have known,” he said. “When I came in.”

Miss Clarence laughed modestly.

“It must be wonderful,” he said.

“It’s hard,” Miss Clarence said.

“It must be. You had much luck so far?”

“Not much,” Miss Clarence said.

“I guess that’s the way everything is,” he said. He wandered over and opened the bathroom door; when he glanced in Miss Clarence winced. He closed the door again without saying anything and opened the kitchen door.

Miss Clarence got up and walked over to stand next to him and look into the kitchen with him. “I don’t cook a lot,” she said.

“Don’t blame you, so many restaurants.” He closed the door again and Miss Clarence went back to her chair. “I can’t eat breakfasts out, though. That’s one thing I can’t do,” he said.

“Do you make your own?”

“I try to,” he said. “I’m the worst cook in the world. But it’s better than going out. What I need is a wife.” He smile again and started for the door. “I’m sorry about the furniture,” he said. “Wish I could have found something.”

“That’s all right.”

“You people giving up housekeeping?”

“We have to get rid of everything,” Miss Clarence said. She hesitated. “Artie’s going to Paris,” she said finally.

“Wish I was.” He sighed. “Well, good luck to both of you.”

“You, too,” Miss Clarence said, and closed the door behind him slowly. She listened for the sound of his steps going down the stairs and then looked at her watch. Three-twenty-five.

Suddenly in a hurry, she found the note Nancy Roberts had left for her and wrote on the back with a pencil taken from one of the boxes: “My dear Mrs. Roberts—I waited until three-thirty. I’m afraid the furniture is out of the question for me. Hilda Clarence.” Pencil in hand, she thought for a minute. Then she added: “P.S. Your husband called, and wants you to call him back.”

She collected her pocketbook, The Charterhouse of Parma , and the Villager , and closed the door. The thumbtack was still there, and she pried it loose and tacked her note up with it. Then she turned and went back down the stairs, home to her own apartment. Her shoulders ached.

AND THE FIRST THING THEY DID was segregate me. They segregated me from the only person in the place I had even a speaking acquaintance with; that was a girl I had met going down the hall who said to me: “Are you as scared as I am?” And when I said, “Yes,” she said, “I’m in lingerie, what are you in?” and I thought for a while and then said, “Spun glass,” which was as good an answer as I could think of, and she said, “Oh. Well, I’ll meet you here in a sec.” And she went away and was segregated and I never saw her again.

Then they kept calling my name and I kept trotting over to wherever they called it and they would say (“They” all this time being startlingly beautiful young women in tailored suits and with short-clipped hair), “Go with Miss Cooper, here. She’ll tell you what to do.” All the women I met my first day were named Miss Cooper. And Miss Cooper would say to me: “What are you in?” and I had learned by that time to say, “Books,” and she would say, “Oh, well, then, you belong with Miss Cooper here,” and then she would call “Miss Cooper?” and another young woman would come and the first one would say, “13-3138 here belongs with you,” and Miss Cooper would say, “What is she in?” and Miss Cooper would answer, “Books,” and I would go away and be segregated again.

Then they taught me. They finally got me segregated into a classroom, and I sat there for a while all by myself (that’s how far segregated I was) and then a few other girls came in, all wearing tailored suits (I was wearing a red velvet afternoon frock) and we sat down and they taught us. They gave us each a big book with R. H. Macy written on it, and inside this book were pads of little sheets saying (from left to right): “Comp. keep for ref. cust. d.a. no. or c.t. no. salesbook no. salescheck no. clerk no. dept. date M.” After M there was a long line for Mr. or Mrs. and the name, and then it began again with “No. item. class. at price. total.” And down at the bottom was written ORIGINAL and then again, “Comp. keep for ref., and “Paste yellow gift stamp here.” I read all this very carefully. Pretty soon a Miss Cooper came, who talked for a little while on the advantages we had in working at Macy’s, and she talked about the salesbooks, which it seems came apart into a sort of road map and carbons and things. I listened for a while, and when Miss Cooper wanted us to write on the little pieces of paper, I copied from the girl next to me. That was training.

Finally someone said we were going on the floor, and we descended from the sixteenth floor to the first. We were in groups of six by then, all following Miss Cooper doggedly and wearing little tags saying BOOK INFORMATION. I never did find out what that meant. Miss Cooper said I had to work on the special sale counter, and showed me a little book called The Stage-Struck Seal , which it seemed I would be selling. I had gotten about halfway through it before she came back to tell me I had to stay with my unit.

I enjoyed meeting the time clock, and spent a pleasant half-hour punching various cards standing around, and then someone came in and said I couldn’t punch the clock with my hat on. So I had to leave, bowing timidly at the time clock and its prophet, and I went and found out my locker number, which was 1773, and my time-clock number, which was 712, and my cash-box number, which was 1336, and my cash-register number, which was 253, and my cash-register-drawer number, which was K, and my cash-register-drawer-key number, which was 872, and my department number, which was 13. I wrote all these numbers down. And that was my first day.

My second day was better. I was officially on the floor. I stood in a corner of a counter, with one hand possessively on The Stage-Struck Seal , waiting for customers. The counter head was named 13-2246, and she was very kind to me. She sent me to lunch three times, because she got me confused with 13-6454 and 13-3141. It was after lunch that a customer came. She came over and took one of my stage-struck seals, and said “How much is this?” I opened my mouth and the customer said “I have a D. A. and I will have this sent to my aunt in Ohio. Part of that D. A. I will pay for with a book dividend of 32 cents, and the rest of course will be on my account. Is this book price-fixed?” That’s as near as I can remember what she said. I smiled confidently, and said “Certainly; will you wait just one moment?” I found a little piece of paper in a drawer under the counter: it had “Duplicate Triplicate” printed across the front in big letters. I took down the customer’s name and address, her aunt’s name and address, and wrote carefully across the front of the duplicate triplicate “1 Stg. Strk. Sl.” Then I smiled at the customer again and said carelessly: “That will be seventy-five cents.” She said “But I have a D. A.” I told her that all D. A.’s were suspended for the Christmas rush, and she gave me seventy-five cents, which I kept. Then I rang up a “No Sale” on the cash register and I tore up the duplicate triplicate because I didn’t know what else to do with it.