“Try it again,” she said. It was the floor above Ronda Ray, and at the opposite end of the hall from her; it was across the hall from Iowa Bob, who was out.
“Do it,” Franny said. We were scared. We had no guests in the Hotel New Hampshire, but there had been one hell of a sound from 3E.
It was Sunday afternoon. Frank was in the bio lab and Egg and Lilly were at the movie matinee. Ronda Ray was just sitting in her room, and Iowa Bob was out. Mrs. Urick was in the kitchen, and Max Urick was playing his radio behind the static.
I put on 3E and Franny and I heard it again.
“Oooooooooo! “ went the woman.
“Hoo, hoo, hoo! “ went the man.
But the Texan had gone home, long ago, and there was no woman staying in 3E.
“Yike, yike, yike! “ said the woman.
“Muff, muff, muff!” said the man.
It was as if the crazy intercom system had made them up! Franny held my hand, tightly. I tried to switch it off, or move it to another, calmer room, but Franny wouldn’t let me.
“Eeeep!” the woman cried.
“Nup!” said the man. A lamp fell. Then the woman laughed, and the man began to mutter.
“Jesus God,” my father said.
“Another lamp,” Mother said, and went on laughing.
“If we were guests,” Father said, “we’d have to pay for it!”
They laughed at this as if Father had said the funniest thing in the world.
Turn it off!” Franny said. I did.
“It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?” I ventured to say.
“They have to use the hotel,” Franny said, “just to get away from us!”
I couldn’t see what she was thinking.
“God!” Franny said. “They really love each other—they really do!” And I wondered why I had taken such a thing for granted, and why it seemed to surprise my sister so much. Franny dropped my hand and wrapped her arms around herself; she hugged herself, as if she were trying to wake herself up, or get warm. “What am I going to do?” she said. “What’s it going to be like? What happens next?” she asked.
But I could never see as far as Franny could see. I was not really looking beyond that moment; I had even forgotten Ronda Ray.
“You were going to take a bath,” I reminded Franny, who seemed in need of reminding—or some other advice.
“What?” she said.
“A bath,” I said. “That’s what was going to happen next. You were going to take a bath.”
“Ha!” Franny cried. “The hell with that!” she said. “Fuck the bath!” said Franny, and went on hugging herself, and moving in place, as if she were trying to dance with herself. I couldn’t tell whether she was happy or upset, but when I began to fool with her—to dance with her, and push her, and tickle her under the arms, she pushed and tickled and danced back, and we ran out of the switchboard room and up the stairwell to the second-floor landing.
“Rain, rain, rain!” Franny started yelling, and I became terribly embarrassed; Ronda Ray opened the door to her dayroom, and frowned at us.
“We’re having a rain dance,” Franny told her. “Want to dance with us?”
Ronda smiled. She had on a shocking-orange nightgown. There was a magazine in her hand.
“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 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 “ movie,” Franny said to Jones. “How come you 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, shelikes him, anyway,” I said. “He is her friend.”
“What?” said Egg.
It was almost Thanksgiving. Junior was staying with us for Thanksgiving vacation, 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 nobody 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 Japanese whom Frank knew from his taxidermy project; the Japanese 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 fashion, and eventually even ate some. Egg, of course, would spend the day shouting “What?” to the tragically incomprehensible Japanese boy. And Junior Jones would eat, and eat, and eat—making Mrs. Urick nearly detonate with pride.
“Now, there is an appetite!” 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.