The Hotel New Hampshire

'Because Mother thought she'd be here with Nasty,' Franny said, 'and that way -- stuck up on the fourth floor -- they could have some privacy from you kids.'

'From us kids, you mean,' I said. 'Where's Junior sleeping?'

'Not with me,' Franny said crisply. 'Junior and Sabrina have their own rooms on the second floor.'

'Sa-bree-na?' I said.

'That's it,' Franny said.

Sabrina Jones! I thought, and experienced a catacylsmic closing of the throat. Seventeen and six-foot-six, I imagined; goes about 185, stripped and towel-dried -- and she can bench-press 200 pounds.

'They're here,' Lilly came and told us at the switchboard, in her wispy voice. The sight of the size of Junior Jones always took Lilly's breath away.

'How big is she?' I asked Lilly, but of course everyone looked enormous to Lilly; I would have to see Sabrina Jones for myself.

Frank, indulging in a moment of overt self-consciousness, had dressed himself in his bus driver's uniform and was playing doorman at the Hotel New Hampshire. He was carrying Bitty Tuck's luggage into the lobby; Bitty Tuck was the kind of girl who had luggage. She wore a sort of man's suit, but it had been tailored for a woman, and even a sort of man's dress shirt, with a button-down collar and tie, and everything -- except the breasts, which were extraordinary, as Junior Jones had observed: they were impossible to conceal even in the most mannish costume. She flounced into the lobby behind Frank, who was sweating with her luggage.

'Hi, John-John!' she said.

'Hi, Titsie,' I said, not meaning to let her nickname slip out, because only Junior and Franny could call her Titsie and not receive her scorn. She looked at me scornfully and rushed past me, embracing Franny with the strange shrieks her kind of girl seems to have been born making.

'The bags go to 4A, Frank,' I said.

'Jesus, not now they don't,' Frank said, collapsing with Bitty's luggage in the lobby. 'It will take a team effort,' he said. 'Maybe some of you fools will get excited enough to actually have fun doing it, during the party.'

Junior Jones loomed in the lobby, looking capable of hurling Bitty Tuck's luggage up four floors -- including Frank with the bags, I thought.

'Hey, the fun is here,' said Junior Jones. 'Here's the fun, man.'

I tried to see past him, or around him, to the doorway. For a terrified second I actually looked above him, as if his sister, Sabrina, might be towering there.

'Hey, Sabrina,' said Junior Jones. 'Here's your weight lifter.'

In the doorway was a slender Negress, about my height; her high, floppy-brimmed hat perhaps made her appear a little taller -- and she wore heels. Her suit -- a woman's suit -- was every ounce as fashionable as Bitty Tuck's attire; she wore a cream-coloured silky blouse with a wide collar, and it was open down her long throat to just a glimpse of the red lace of her bra; she wore rings on every finger, and bracelets, and she was a wondrous bitter-chocolate color, with wide bright eyes and a wide mouth smiling, full of strange but handsome teeth; she smelled so nice, and from so far away, that even Bitty Tuck's shrieks were diminished by the scent of Sabrina Jones. She was, I guessed, about twenty-eight or thirty, and she looked a little surprised to be introduced to me. Junior Jones, who was awfully quick for his size, moved far away from us fast.

'You're the weight lifter?' said Sabrina Jones.

'I'm only fifteen years old,' I lied; I would be fifteen very soon, after all.

'Holy cow,' said Sabrina Jones; she was so pretty I couldn't look at her. 'Junior!' she yelled, but Junior Jones was hiding from her -- all the many pounds of him.

He had obviously needed a ride from Philadelphia, and not wanting to disappoint Franny by not showing up for New Year's Eve, he had acquired his older sister, and his sister's car, under the pretense of getting her a date with me.

'He told me Franny had an older brother,' Sabrina said, sorrowfully. I suppose Junior might have been thinking of Frank. Sabrina Jones was a secretary in a law firm in Philadelphia; she was twenty-nine.

'Fifteen,' she whistled through her teeth, which were not the bright white of her brother's gleaming mouth; Sabrina's teeth were perfectly sized and very straight, but they had a pearly, oyster hue to them. They were not unattractive teeth, but they were the only visibly flawed part of her. In my insecurity, I needed to notice them. I felt cloddish -- full of bananas, as Frank would say.

There's going to be a live band,' I said, and regretted saying so, immediately.

'Hot dog,' said Sabrina Jones, but she was nice; she smiled. 'Do you dance?' she asked.

'No,' I admitted.

'Oh well,' she said; she was really trying to be a good sport. 'You do lift weights?' she asked.

'Not as much as Junior,' I said.

'I'd like to drop a few weights on Junior's head,' she said.