"It"s probably one of those awful awful circuses," Franny said. "The kind with goats and chickens and those everyday junky animals everyone"s seen - some dumb reindeers, a talking crow. But nothing big, you know, and nothing exotic." circuses," Franny said. "The kind with goats and chickens and those everyday junky animals everyone"s seen - some dumb reindeers, a talking crow. But nothing big, you know, and nothing exotic."
"It"s the exotic ones I"d just as soon not not have around here," Mother said. have around here," Mother said.
"What acts?" said Iowa Bob. acts?" said Iowa Bob.
"Well," Father said. "I"m not sure. Trapeze, maybe?"
"You don"t know what animals," Mother said. "And you don"t know what acts, either. What do do you know?" you know?"
"They"re small," small," Father said. They just wanted to reserve some rooms, and maybe half the restaurant. They take Mondays off." Father said. They just wanted to reserve some rooms, and maybe half the restaurant. They take Mondays off."
"Mondays off?" said Iowa Bob. "How long did you book them for?"
"Well," Father said.
"Win!" my mother said. "How many weeks will they be here?"
"They"ll be here the whole summer," Father said.
"Wow!" cried Egg. "The circus!"
"A circus," said Franny. "A weirdo circus."
"Dumb acts, dumb animals," I said.
"Weird acts, weird animals," Frank said.
"Well, you"ll fit right in, Frank," Franny told him.
"Stop it," Mother said.
"There"s no reason to get anxious," Father said. "It"s just a small, private circus."
"What"s its name?" Mother asked.
"Well," said Father.
"You don"t know its name?" asked Coach Bob.
"Of course I know its name!" Father said. "It"s called Fritz"s Act."
"Fritz"s act act?" Frank said.
"What"s the act?" I asked.
"Well," Father said. That"s just a name name. I"m sure there"s more than one act."
"It sounds very modern," Frank said.
"Modern, Frank?" Franny said.
"It sounds kinky," I said.
"What"s kinky?" said Lilly.
"A kind of animal?" Egg asked.
"Never mind," said Mother.
"I think we should concentrate on the Exeter weekend," Father said.
"Yes, and getting yourselves, and me, all moved in," said Iowa Bob. There"s lots of time to discuss the summer."
"The whole summer is booked in advance?" Mother asked.
"You see?" Father said. "Now, that"s that"s good business! Already we"ve taken care of the summer, good business! Already we"ve taken care of the summer, and and the Exeter weekend. First things first. Now all we have to do is move in." the Exeter weekend. First things first. Now all we have to do is move in."
That happened a week before the Exeter game; it was the weekend when Iowa Bob"s ringers rang up nine touchdowns - to match their ninth straight victory, against no defeats. Franny didn"t get to see it; she had decided not to be a cheerleader anymore. That Sat.u.r.day Franny and I helped Mother move the last things that the moving vans hadn"t already taken to the Hotel New Hampshire; Lilly and Egg went with Father and Coach Bob to the game; Frank, of course, was in the band.
There were thirty rooms over four floors, and our family occupied seven rooms in the southeast corner, covering two floors. One room in the bas.e.m.e.nt was dominated by Mrs. Urick; that meant that, together with the fourth-floor resting place of Max, there were twenty-two rooms for guests. But the headwaitress and head maid, Ronda Ray, had a day-room on the second floor - to gather herself together, she"d said to Father. And two southeast-corner rooms on the third floor - just above us - were reserved for Iowa Bob. That left only nineteen rooms for guests, and only thirteen of those came with their own baths; six of the rooms came with the midget facilities.
"It"s more than enough," Father said. This is a small town. And not popular."
It was more than enough for the circus called Fritz"s Act, perhaps, but we were anxious how we were going to handle the full house we expected for the Exeter weekend.
That Sat.u.r.day we moved in, Franny discovered the intercom system and switched on the "Receiving" b.u.t.tons in all the rooms. They were all empty, of course, but we tried to imagine listening to the first guests moving into them. The squawk-box system, as Father called it, had been left over from the Thompson Female Seminary, of course - the princ.i.p.al could announce fire drills to the various cla.s.srooms, and teachers who were out of their homerooms could hear if the kids were fooling around. Father thought that keeping the intercom system would make it unnecessary to have phones in the rooms.
"They can call for help on the intercom," Father said.
"Or we can wake them for breakfast. And if they want to use the phone, they can use the phone at the main desk." But of course the squawk-box system also meant that it was possible to listen to the guests in their rooms.
"Not ethically ethically possible," Father said, but Franny and I couldn"t wait. possible," Father said, but Franny and I couldn"t wait.
That Sat.u.r.day we moved in, we were without even the main-desk phone - or a phone in our family"s apartment - and we were without linen, because the linen service that was going to handle the hotel laundry had also been contracted to do ours. They weren"t starting service until Monday, Ronda Ray wasn"t starting until Monday, either, but she she was there - in the Hotel New Hampshire - looking over her dayroom when we arrived. was there - in the Hotel New Hampshire - looking over her dayroom when we arrived.
"I just need it, you know?" she asked Mother. "I mean, I can"t change sheets in the morning, the morning, after after I wait on the breakfast eaters - and I wait on the breakfast eaters - and before before I I serve lunch to the lunch eaters - without having no place to lay down. And between lunch and supper, if I don"t lay down, I get feeling nasty - all over. And if you lived where I lived, you wouldn"t wanna go home. serve lunch to the lunch eaters - without having no place to lay down. And between lunch and supper, if I don"t lay down, I get feeling nasty - all over. And if you lived where I lived, you wouldn"t wanna go home.
Ronda Ray lived at Hampton Beach, where she waitressed and changed sheets for the summer crowd. She"d been looking for a year-round arrangement for her hotel career - and, my mother guessed, a way to get out of Hampton Beach, forever. She was about my mother"s age, and in fact claimed to remember seeing Earl perform in Earl"s casino years. She had not seen his ballroom dancing performance, though; it was the bandstand she remembered, and the act called "Applying for a Job."
"But I never believed believed it was a real bear," she told Franny and me, as we watched her unpack a small suitcase in her dayroom. "I mean," Ronda Ray said, "I thought it was a real bear," she told Franny and me, as we watched her unpack a small suitcase in her dayroom. "I mean," Ronda Ray said, "I thought n.o.body n.o.body would get a kick out of undressing no would get a kick out of undressing no real real bear." bear."
We wondered why she was unpacking night nightclothes from the suitcase, if this day dayroom was not where she intended to spend the night; she was a woman Franny was curious about - and I thought she was even exotic. She had dyed hair; I can"t say what colour it was because it wasn"t a real colour. It wasn"t red, it wasn"t blonde; it was the colour of plastic, or metal, and I wondered how it felt. Ronda Ray had a body that I imagined was formerly as strong as Franny"s but had grown a little thick - still powerful, but straining. It is hard to say what she smelled like, although - after we left Ronda - Franny tried.
"She put perfume on her wrist two days ago," Franny said. "You following me?"
"Yes," I said.
"But her watchband wasn"t there then - her brother was wearing her watch, or her father," Franny said. "Some man, anyway, and he really sweated sweated a lot." a lot."
"Yes," I said.
Then Ronda put the watchband on, over the perfume, and she wore it for a day while she was stripping beds," Franny said.
"What beds?" I said.
Franny thought a minute. "Beds very strange people had slept in," she said.
"The circus called Fritz"s Act slept in them!" I said.
"Right!" said Franny.
"The whole summer!" we said, in unison.
"Right," Franny said. "And what we we smell when we smell Ronda is what Ronda"s watchband smells like - after all that." smell when we smell Ronda is what Ronda"s watchband smells like - after all that."
That was coming close to it, but I thought it was a slightly better smell than that - just slightly. I thought of Ronda Ray"s stockings, which she hung in the closet of her dayroom; I thought that if I sniffed just behind the knee of the pair of stockings she was wearing I would catch the true essence of her.
"You know why she wears them?" Franny asked me.
"No," I said.
"Some man spilled hot coffee on her legs," Franny said. "He did it on purpose. He tried to boil her."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"I"ve seen the scars," Franny said. "And she told me."
At the squawk-box controls, we switched off all the rooms and listened to Ronda Ray"s room. She was humming. Then we heard her smoke. We imagined how she"d sound with a man.
"Noisy," Franny said. We listened to Ronda"s breathing, intermixed with the crackles of the intercom system - an ancient system that ran on the power from an automobile battery, like a clever electric fence.
When Lilly and Egg and Father came home from the game, Franny and I put Egg in the dumbwaiter and hauled him up and down the four-storey shaft until Frank ratted on us and Father told us that the dumbwaiter would be used only for removing linen and dishes and other things things - not humans - from the rooms. - not humans - from the rooms.
It wasn"t safe. Father said. If we let go of the rope, the dumbwaiter fell at the speed imposed by its own response to gravity. That was fast - if not for a thing thing, at least for a human.
"But Egg is so light," Franny argued. "I mean, we"re not going to try it with Frank Frank."
"You"re not going to try it at all all!" Father said.
Then Lilly got lost and we stopped unpacking for almost an hour, trying to find her. She was sitting in the kitchen with Mrs. Urick, who had seized Lilly"s attention by telling her stories of the various ways she"d been punished when she"d been a girl. Her hair had been cut out in hunks, to humiliate her, when she forgot to wash before supper; she"d been told to go stand barefoot in the snow whenever she swore; when she"d "snitched" food, she"d been force to eat a tablespoon of salt.
"If you and Mother go away," Lilly said to Father, "you won"t leave us with Mrs. Urick, will you?"
Frank had the best room and Franny complained; she had to share a room with Lilly. A doorway without a door connected my room to Egg"s. Max Urick dismantled his intercom; when we listened to his room, all we heard was static - as if the old sailor were still far out to sea. Mrs. Urick"s room bubbled like the stockpots on the back of her stove - the sound of life held steadily at a simmer.
We were so restless for more guests, and for the Hotel New Hampshire to actually be open, that we couldn"t keep still.
Father paced us through two fire drills, to tire us out, but it only roused us to wanting more action. When it was dark, we realized the electricity hadn"t been turned on - so we hid from each other, and searched for each other, through the empty rooms with candles.
I hid in Ronda Ray"s dayroom on the second floor. I blew my candle out and, with my sense of smell, located the drawers where she"d put her nightclothes away. I heard Frank scream from the third floor - he"d put his hand on a plant in the dark - and what could only be Franny laughing in the echo chamber that the stairwell was.
"Have your fun now!" Father roared from our apartment. "When there are guests guests here, you can"t have the run of the place." here, you can"t have the run of the place."
Lilly found me in Ronda Ray"s room and helped me put Ronda"s clothes back in the chest of drawers. Father caught us leaving Ronda"s room and took Lilly back to our apartment and put her to bed; he was irritable because he"d just tried to call the electric company to complain that the power was off and had discovered that our phones weren"t connected, either. Mother had volunteered to take a walk with Egg and make the call from the railroad station.
I went looking for Franny, but she had made it back to the lobby, undetected; she switched all the intercoms to "Broadcasting" and broadcast an announcement throughout the hotel.
"Now hear this!" Franny boomed. "Now hear this! Everyone out of bed for a s.e.x check!"
"What"s a s.e.x check?" I wondered, running down the stairwell to the lobby.
Frank fortunately missed the message; he was hiding in the fourth-floor utility closet, where there was no squawk box installed: when he heard Franny"s announcement, the message was garbled. He probably thought that Father was pacing us through another fire drill; in his haste to leave the utility closet, Frank stepped in a pail and fell on all fours, his head hitting the floor and one hand touching, this time, a dead mouse.
We heard him scream again, and Max Urick opened his door at the end of the fourth-floor hall and bellowed as if he were out to sea and going down.
"Shut up your G.o.d-awful screeching, or I"ll hang you by your little fingers off the fire escape!"
That put Frank in a bad mood; he declared that our games were "childish" and he went to his room. Franny and I watched out over Elliot Park from the big corner window in 3F; that would be Coach Bob"s bedroom, but Bob was out at an Athletic Department banquet, celebrating all but the last game - yet to be played.
Elliot Park was typically deserted, and the unused playground facilities stuck up like dead trees against the dull glow from the one streetlight. The last of the construction equipment was still there, the diesel machines and the workmen"s shack, but the Hotel New Hampshire was finished, now, except for landscaping, and the only machine that had been in use, for days, was the backhoe that crouched near the front flagstone path like a starving dinosaur. There were still a few stumps from the dead elms to dig out of the ground, and a few holes to fill around the periphery of the new parking lot. A soft, glossy light came from the windows of our apartment, where Father was putting Lilly to bed, by candlelight, and Frank was, no doubt, looking at himself in his band uniform in the mirror of his room.
Franny and I saw the squad car come into Elliot Park - like a shark cruising forsaken waters for an unlikely meal. We speculated that the old patrolman, Howard Tuck, would "arrest" Mother and Egg as they were walking back from the railroad station. We speculated that the candle-light in the Hotel New Hampshire would convince Patrolman Tuck that there were ghosts of old Thompson Female Seminary students haunting the hotel. But Howard parked the patrol car behind the most obvious pile of construction rubble and shut off his engine and his lights.
We saw the head of his cigar, like the shimmering red eye of an animal, in the dark car.
We saw Mother and Egg crossing the playground undetected. They came out of the darkness, and out of the scant light, as if their time on earth were that brief and that dimly illuminated; it gave me a twinge, to see them like that, and I felt Franny shudder beside me.
"Let"s go turn all the lights on," Franny suggested. "In all the rooms."
"But the electricity is out," I said.
"It is now, dummy," she said, "but if we turn on all the lights, the whole hotel will light up when they turn the power on."
That sounded like a fine idea, so I helped her do it - even the hall lights outside Max Urick"s room - and the outdoor floodlights, which would one day illuminate a patio extending from the restaurant but now would shine only on the backhoe, and a yellow steel hard hat that dangled by its chin strap from a small tree the back-hoe had left alone. The workman whose hat it was seemed gone forever.
The abandoned hat reminded me of Struthers, strong and dull; I knew Franny hadn"t seen him in a while. I knew she had no favourite boyfriends, and she seemed sullen on the subject. Franny was a virgin, she"d told me, not because she wanted to be but because there wasn"t a boy at the Dairy School who was (as she put it) "worth it."
"I don"t mean I think I"m I"m so great," she told me, "but I don"t want some clod ruining it for me, and I don"t want someone who"d laugh at me, either. It"s very important, John," she told me, "especially the first time." so great," she told me, "but I don"t want some clod ruining it for me, and I don"t want someone who"d laugh at me, either. It"s very important, John," she told me, "especially the first time."
"Why?" I asked.
It just is," Franny said. "It"s the first time, the first time, that"s why. It stays with you forever." that"s why. It stays with you forever."
I doubted it; I hoped not. I thought of Ronda Ray: what had the first time meant to her? I thought of her night-clothes, smelling - ambiguously - like her wrist under her watchband, like the back of her knee.
Howard Tuck and the patrol car hadn"t moved by the time Franny and I accomplished turning on all the lights. We snuck outdoors; when the power went on, we wanted to see the whole hotel ablaze. We climbed into the driver"s seat of the backhoe and waited.
Howard Tuck sat so still in the squad car, he looked as if he were waiting for his retirement. In fact, Iowa Bob was fond of saying that Howard Tuck always looked "at death"s door."