'Right,' said Egg. 'But can I take him to Vienna? When we go, I mean -- can Sorrow come?'
'I suppose he'll have to come,' Mother said. Her voice had the same resignation in it that I'd heard in her voice in my dream -- when Mother had said, 'No more bears,' and then drifted away on the white sloop.
'Holy cow,' said Junior Jones, when he saw Sorrow sitting on Egg's bed, one of Mother's shawls around Sorrow's shoulders, Egg's baseball cap on Sorrow's head. Franny had brought Junior to the hotel to see Frank's miracle. Harold Swallow had come along with Junior, but Harold was lost somewhere; he'd made a wrong turn on the second floor, and rather than come into our apartment, he was wandering around the hotel. I was trying to work at my desk -- I was studying for my German exam, and was trying not to ask Frank for help. Franny and Junior Jones went off looking for Harold, and Egg decided against Sorrow's present costume; he undressed the dog and started over.
Then Harold Swallow found his way to our door and peered in at Egg and me -- and at Sorrow sitting naked on Egg's bed. Harold had never seen Sorrow before -- dead or alive -- and he called the dog over to the doorway.
'Here, dog!' he called. 'Come here! Come on!'
Sorrow sat smiling at Harold, his tail itching to wag -- but motionless.
'Come on! Here, doggy!' Harold cried. 'Good dog, nice doggy!'
'He's supposed to stay in this room,' Egg informed Harold Swallow.
'Oh,' said Harold, with an impressive roll of his eyes to me. 'Well, he's very well behaved,' Harold Swallow said. 'He ain't budging, is he?'
And I went to take Harold Swallow down to the restaurant, where Junior and Franny were looking for him; I saw no reason to tell Harold that Sorrow was dead.
'That your little brother?' Harold asked me, about Egg.
'Right,' I said.
'And you got a nice dog, too,' Harold said.
'Shit,' Junior Jones said to me, later; we were standing outside the gymnasium, which the Dairy School had tried to decorate like a building of parliament -- for the weekend of Junior's graduation. 'Shit,' Junior said, 'I'm really worried about Franny.'
'Why?' I asked.
'Something's bothering her,' Junior said. 'She won't sleep with me,' he said. 'Not even as just a way of saying good-bye, or something. She won't even do it once! Sometimes I think she doesn't trust me,' Junior said.
'Well,' I said. 'Franny's only sixteen, you know.'
'Well, she's an old sixteen, you know,' he said. 'I wish you'd speak to her.'
'Me?' I said. 'What should I say?'
&
nbsp; 'I wish you'd ask her why she won't sleep with me,' Junior Jones said.
'Shit,' I said, but I asked her -- later: when the Dairy School was empty, when Junior Jones had gone home for the summer (to whip himself into shape for playing football at Penn State), when the old campus, and especially the path through the woods that the football players always used, reminded Franny and me of what seemed like years ago (to us). 'Why didn't you ever sleep with Junior Jones?' I asked her.
'I'm only sixteen, John,' Franny said.
'Well, you're an old sixteen, you know,' I said, not exactly sure what this might mean. Franny shrugged, of course.
'Look at it this way,' she said. 'I'll see Junior again; we're going to write letters, and all that. We're staying friends. Now, someday -- when I'm older, and if we do stay friends -- it might be the perfect thing to do: to sleep with him. I wouldn't want to have used it up.'
'Why couldn't you sleep with him twice?' I asked her.
'You don't get it,' she said.
I was thinking it had to do with her having been raped, but Franny could always read me like a book.
'No, kid,' she said. 'It's got nothing to do with being raped. Sleeping with someone is very different -- provided it means something. I just don't know what it would mean -- with Junior. Not yet. Also,' she said, with a big sigh -- and she paused. 'Also,' she said, 'I don't have exactly a lot of experience, but it seems that once someone -- or some people -- get to have you, you don't ever hear from them again.'
Now, it seemed to me, she had to be talking about her rape; I was confused. I said, 'Who do you mean, Franny?' And she bit her lip a while.