The Hotel New Hampshire Part 15

'Not right now,' she said.

'Rain, rain, it's going to rain!' Franny went off dancing.

Ronda shook her head at me - but nicely - and then shut her door.

I chased Franny outside into Elliot Park. We could see Mother and Father at the window by the fire escape in 3E. Mother had opened the window to call to us.

'Go get Egg and Lilly at the movies!' she said.

'What are you doing in that that room?' I called back. room?' I called back.

'Cleaning it!' said Mother.

'Rain, rain, rain!' Franny screamed, and we ran downtown to the matinee.

Egg and Lilly came out of the movies with Junior Jones.

'It's a kids kids' movie,' Franny said to Jones. 'How come you you went?' went?'

'I'm just a big kid,' Junior said. He held her hand while we all walked home, and Franny took a stroll with him through the Dairy School grounds; I continued toward home with Egg and Lilly.

'Does Franny love Junior Jones?' Lilly asked, seriously.

'Well, she likes likes him, anyway,' I said. 'He is her friend.' him, anyway,' I said. 'He is her friend.'

'What?' said Egg.

It was almost Thanksgiving. Junior was staying with us for Thanksgiving vpcation, because his parents didn't send him enough money to go home. And several of the foreign students at the Dairy School - who lived too far away to go home for Thanksgiving - would be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone liked having Junior around, but the foreign students, whom n.o.body knew, had been Father's idea - and Mother had gone along, saying it was the kind of thing Thanksgiving was originally for. Maybe, but we children did not care for the invasion. Guests in the hotel were one thing, and there was one of those staying with us - a famous Finnish doctor, supposedly, who was there to visit his daughter at the Dairy School. She was one of the foreigners coming to dinner. The others included a j.a.panese whom Frank knew from his taxidermy project; the j.a.panese had been sworn to secrecy over the stuffing of Sorrow, Frank had told me, but the boy's English was so bad that he could have blurted out the truth and no one would have understood him. Then there were two Korean girls, whose hands were so pretty and small Lilly would never take her eyes from them - not for the entire dinner. They perhaps kindled an interest in eating that had been absent in Lilly before, however, because they ate lots of things with their little fingers - in such a delicate and beautiful way that Lilly began to play with her food in this fas.h.i.+on, and eventually even ate some. Egg, of course, would spend the day shouting 'What?' to the tragically incomprehensible j.a.panese boy. And Junior Jones would eat, and eat, and eat - making Mrs. Urick nearly detonate with pride.

'Now, there there is an appet.i.te!' said Mrs. Urick, admiringly. is an appet.i.te!' said Mrs. Urick, admiringly.

'If I was as big as that, I'd eat like that, too,' Max said.

'No you wouldn't,' said Mrs. Urick. 'You don't have it in you.'

Ronda Ray did not wear her waitress uniform; she sat and ate with the family, jumping up to clear the dishes and serve things from the kitchen, along with Franny and Mother and the big blonde girl from Finland whose famous father was visiting her.

The Finnish girl was enormous and made swooping movements around the table that made Lilly cringe. She was a big blue-and-white ski-sweater sort of girl, who kept hugging her father, a big blue-and-white ski-sweater sort of man.

'Ho!' he kept crying, at the arrival of new food from the kitchen.

'Ya-hoo,' Franny whispered.

'Holy cow,' said Junior Jones.

Iowa Bob sat next to Jones at the table; their end of the table was nearest the television above the bar, so that they could watch the football game in progress through our dinner.

'If that's a clip, I'll eat my plate,' Jones would say.

'Eat your plate,' Coach Bob would say.

'What's a "clip"?' the famous Finnish doctor would ask, only it sounded like 'Wot's a clop?'

Iowa Bob would then offer to demonstrate a clip, on Ronda, who was willing, and the Korean girls giggled shyly to themselves, and the j.a.panese struggled - with his turkey, with his b.u.t.ter knife, with Frank's mumbling explanations, with Egg's shouts of 'What!' all the time, with (apparently) everything.

'This is the loudest dinner I've ever eaten,' Franny said.

'What?' Egg cried.

'Jesus G.o.d,' said Father.

'Lilly,' Mother said. 'Please eat. Then you'll grow.' eat. Then you'll grow.'

'What's that?' said the famous Finnish doctor, only it sounded like 'Wot's dot?' He looked at Mother and Lilly. 'Who's not growing?' he asked.

'Oh, it's nothing,' Mother said.

'It's me,' said Lilly. 'I've stopped growing.'

'No you haven't, dear,' Mother said.

'Her growth appears to be arrested,' Father said.

'Ho, arrested arrested!' the Finn said, staring at Lilly. 'Not growing, eh?' he asked her. She nodded in her small way. The doctor put his hands on her head and peered into her eyes. Everyone stopped eating, except the j.a.panese boy and the Korean girls.

'How do you say?' the doctor asked, and then said something unp.r.o.nounceable to his daughter.

'Tape measure,' she said.

'Ho, a tape measure?' the doctor cried. Max Urick ran and got one. The doctor measured Lilly around her chest, around her waist, around her wrists and ankles, around her shoulders, around her head.

'She's all right,' Father said. 'It's nothing.'

'Be quiet,' Mother said.

The doctor wrote down all the figures.

'Ho!' he said.

'Eat up your food, dear,' Mother told Lilly, but Lilly was staring at the figures the doctor had written on his napkin.

'How do you say?' the doctor asked his daughter, and said another unp.r.o.nounceable word. This time the daughter drew a blank. 'You don't know know?' her father asked her. She shook her head. 'Where's the dictionary?' he asked her.

'In my dorm,' she said.

'Ho!' he said. 'Go and get it.'

'Now?' she said, and looked wistfully at her second serving of goose and turkey and stuffing, heaped upon her plate.

'Go, go!' her father said. 'Of course course now. Go! now. Go! Ho! Ho! Go!' he said, and the big blue-and-white ski-sweater girl was gone. Go!' he said, and the big blue-and-white ski-sweater girl was gone.

'It's - how you say? - a pathological condition,' the famous Finnish doctor said, calmly.

'A pathological condition?' Father said.

'A pathological condition of arrested growth,' said the doctor. 'It's common, and there's a variety of causes.'

'A pathological condition of arrested growth,' Mother repeated.

Lilly shrugged; she imitated the way the Korean girls skinned a drumstick.

When the big, blonde, out-of-breath girl was back, she looked stricken to see that Ronda Ray had cleared her plate; she handed the dictionary to her father.

'Ho!' Franny whispered across the table to me, and I kicked her under the table. She kicked me back; I kicked back at her and kicked Junior Jones by mistake.

'Ow,' he said.

'Sorry,' I said.

'Ho!' said the Finnish doctor, putting his finger on the word. 'Dwarfism!' he exclaimed.

It was quiet at the table, except for the sound of the j.a.panese struggling with his creamed corn.

'Are you saying she's a dwarf dwarf?' Father asked the doctor. Father asked the doctor.

'Ho, yes yes! A dwarf,' the doctor said.

'Bulls.h.i.+t,' said Iowa Bob. That's no dwarf - that's a little girl! That's a child child, you moron!'

'What is "moron"?' the doctor asked his daughter, but she wouldn't tell him.

Rohda Ray brought out the pies.

'You're no dwarf, dear,' Mother whispered to Lilly, but Lilly just shrugged.

'So what if I am?' she said, bravely. 'I'm a good kid.'

'Bananas,' said Iowa Bob, darkly. And no one knew if he meant that as a cure - 'Just feed her bananas!' - or if he was stating a euphemism for 'bulls.h.i.+t.'

Anyway, that was Thanksgiving, 1956, and we careened on toward Christmas in that fas.h.i.+on: pondering size, listening to love, giving up baths, hoping to properly pose the dead - running and lifting and waiting for rain.

It was a morning in early December when Franny woke me. It was still dark in my room, and the snorkling sound of Egg's breathing reached me through the open connecting doorway; Egg was still asleep. There was someone's softer, controlled breathing nearer to me than Egg, and I was aware of Franny's smell - a smell I hadn't known for a while: a rich but never rank smell, a little salty, a little sweet, strong but never syrupy. And in the darkness I knew that Franny had been cured of taking baths. It was overhearing my Mother and Father that did it; I think that made her own smell seem perfectly natural to Franny again.

'Franny?' I whispered, because I couldn't see her. Her hand brushed my cheek.

'Over here,' she said. She was curled against the wall and the headboard of my bed; how she could squeeze in beside me without waking me, I'll never know. I turned toward her and smelled that she'd brushed her teeth. 'Listen,' she whispered. I heard Franny's heartbeat and mine, and Egg deep-sea diving in the adjoining room. And something else, as soft as Franny's breath.

'It's rain rain, dummy,' Franny said, and wormed a knuckle into my ribs. 'It's raining, kid,' she told me. 'It's your big day!'

'It's still dark,' I said. 'I'm still sleeping.'

'It's dawn,' Franny hissed in my ear; then she bit my cheek and started tickling me under the covers.

'Cut it out, Franny!' I said.

'Rain, rain, rain,' she chanted. 'Don't be chicken. Frank and I have been up for hours.

She said that Frank was at the switchboard, playing with the squawk-box system. Franny dragged me out of bed and made me brush my teeth and put on my track clothes, as if I were going to run wind sprints on the stairs, as usual. Then she took me to Frank at the switchboard, and the two of them counted out the money and told me to hide it in one of my running shoes - a thick wad of bills, mostly ones and fives.

'How can I run with that in my shoe?' I asked.

'You're not going to run run, remember?' Franny said.

'How much is it?' I asked.

'First find out if she charges,' Franny said. 'Then worry if you have enough.' worry if you have enough.'

Frank sat at the controls of the switchboard like the crazed operator of some flight-control tower at an airport under attack.

'And what are you you guys going to do?' I asked. guys going to do?' I asked.

'We're just looking out for you,' Frank said. 'If you really start embarra.s.sing yourself, we'll call for a fire drill or something.'

'Oh, great!' I said. 'I don't need this.'

'Look, kid,' Franny said. 'We got the money, we have a right to listen.'

'Oh boy,' I said.

'You'll do just fine,' Franny said. 'Don't be nervous.'

'What if it's all a misunderstanding?' I asked.

That's actually what I think it is,' Frank said. 'In which case,' he said, 'just take the money out of your shoe and run your wind sprints up and down the stairs.'

'You pill, Frank,' Franny said. 'Shut up and give us the bed check.'

Click, click, click, click: Iowa Bob was a subway again, miles underground; Max Urick slept behind his static, with a static all his own; Mrs. Urick and a stockpot or two were simmering; the guest in 3H - the grim aunt of a student at the Dairy School, whose name was Bower - slept with a snore like the sound of a chisel being sharpened.

'And... good morning, Ronda!' Franny whispered, as Frank turned on her her room. Oh, the delicious sound of Ronda Ray asleep! A sea breeze blowing through silk! I felt my armpits start to sweat. room. Oh, the delicious sound of Ronda Ray asleep! A sea breeze blowing through silk! I felt my armpits start to sweat.

'Get the h.e.l.l up there,' Franny said to me, 'before it stops raining.'

Fat chance of that, I knew, glancing out the portal windows on the stairwell: Elliot Park was submerged, the water flooding over the curbs and carving ditches through the playground equipment; the grey sky was teeming rain. I pondered running a few laps, up and down the stairs - not necessarily for old times' sake, but thinking that this might be the most familiar way to wake Ronda up. But when I was standing in the hall outside her door, my fingers tingled, and I was already breathing hard - harder than I knew, Franny told me, later; she said that she and Frank could hear me over the intercom, even before Ronda got up and opened the door.

'It's either John-O or a runaway train,' Ronda whispered before she let me in, but I couldn't talk. I was already out of breath, as if I'd been running the stairs all morning.

It was dark in her room, but I could see that she was wearing the blue one. Her morning breath was slightly sour - but it smelled nice to me, and she she smelled nice to me, although I would think, later, that her smell was simply Franny's smell taken several stages too far. smelled nice to me, although I would think, later, that her smell was simply Franny's smell taken several stages too far.