The Hotel New Hampshire

“It’s seven o’clock,” said Lilly. “I’ve been away for three hours!”

“Go have dinner with Frank!” Franny suggested.

“I had lunch with Frank!” Lilly cried.

“Go have dinner with Father!” Franny said.

“I don’t even want to eat,” Lilly said. “I’ve got to write—it’s time to grow.”

“Take a night off!” Franny said.

“The whole night?” Lilly asked.

“Give me three more hours,” Franny said. I groaned quietly. I didn’t think I had three more hours left in me.

“Aren’t you getting hungry, Franny?” Lilly said.

“There’s always room service,” Franny said. “And I’m not hungry, anyway.”

But Franny was insatiable; her hunger for me would save us both.

“No more, Franny,” I begged her. It was about nine o’clock, I think. It was so dark I couldn’t see anymore.

“But you love me, don’t you?” she asked me, her body like a whip—her body was a barbell that was too heavy for me.

At ten o’clock I whispered to her, “For God’s sake, Franny. We’ve got to stop. We’re going to hurt each other, Franny.”

“No, my love,” she whispered. “That’s exactly what we’re not going to do: hurt each other. We’re going to be just fine. We’re going to have a good life,” she promised me, taking me into her— again. And again.

“Franny, I can’t,” I whispered to her. I felt absolutely blind with pain; I was as blind as Freud, as blind as Father. And it must have hurt Franny more than it hurt me.

“Yes you can, my love,” Franny whispered. “Just once more,” she urged me. “I know you’ve got it in you.”

“I’m finished, Franny,” I told her.

“Almost finished,” Franny corrected me. “We can do it just once more,” she said. “After this,” she told me, “we’re both finished with it. This is the last time, my love. Just imagine trying to live every day like this,” Franny said, pressing against me, taking my last breath away. “We’d go crazy,” Franny said. “There’s no living with this,” she whispered. “Come on and finish it,” she said in my ear. “Once more, my love. Last time!” she cried to me.

“Okay!” I cried to her. “Here I come.”

“Yes, yes, my love,” Franny said; I felt her knees lock against my spine. “Hello, good-bye, my love,” she whispered. “There!” she cried, when she felt me shaking. “There, there,” she said, soothingly. “That’s it, that’s all she wrote,” she murmured. “That’s the end of it. Now we’re free. Now that’s over.”

She helped me to the bathtub. The water stung me like rubbing alcohol.

“Is that your blood or mine?” I asked Franny, who was trying to save the bed—now that she had saved us.

“It doesn’t matter, my love,” Franny said cheerfully. “It washes away.”

“This is a fairy tale,” Lilly would write—of our family’s whole life. I agree with her; Iowa Bob would have agreed with her, too. “Everything is a fairy tale!” Coach Bob would have said. And even Freud would have agreed with him—both Freuds. Everything is a fairy tale.

Lilly arrived coincidentally with the room service cart and the bewildered New York foreigner who delivered our multi-course meal, and several bottles of wine, at about eleven in the evening.

“What are you celebrating?” Lilly asked Franny and me.

“Well, John just finished a long run,” Franny said, laughing.

“You shouldn’t run in the park at night, John,” Lilly said, worriedly.

“I ran up Fifth Avenue,” I said. “It was perfectly safe.”

“Perfectly safe,” Franny said, bursting out laughing.

“What’s the matter with her?” Lilly asked me, staring at Franny.

“I think it’s the luckiest day of my life,” Franny said, still giggling.

“It’s been just a little event among so many for me,” I told her, and Franny threw a dinner roll at me. We both laughed.

“Jesus God,” Lilly said, exasperated with us—and seemingly revolted by the amount of food we had ordered.

“We could have had a most unhappy life,” Franny said. “I mean, all of us!” she added, attacking the salad with her fingers; I opened the first bottle of wine.

“I still might have an unhappy life,” Lilly said, frowning. “If I have many more days like today,” she added, shaking her head.

“Sit down and dig in, Lilly,” said Franny, who sat down at the room service table and started in on the fish.

“Yes, you don’t eat enough, Lilly,” I told her, helping myself to the frogs’ legs.

“I had lunch today,” Lilly said. “It was a rather gross lunch, too,” she said. “I mean, the food was all right but the portions were too big. I only need to eat one meal a day,” Lilly said, but she sat down at the table with us and watched us eat. She picked an especially slender green bean out of Franny’s salad, eating half of it and depositing the other half on my butter plate; she picked up a fork and poked at my frogs’ legs, but I could tell she was just restless—she didn’t want any.

“So what did you write today, Franny?” Lilly asked her. Franny had her mouth full, but she didn’t hesitate.

“A whole novel,” Franny said. “It was truly terrible, but it was something I just had to do. When I finished it, I threw it away.”

“You threw it away?” Lilly asked. “Maybe some of it was worth saving.”

“It was all shit,” Franny said. “Every word. John read a little of it,” Franny said, “but I made him give it back so I could throw the whole thing out. I called room service and had them come pick it up.”

“You had room service throw it away for you?” Lilly said.

“I couldn’t stand to even touch it any longer,” Franny said.

“How many pages was it?” Lilly asked.

“Too many,” Franny said.

“And what did you think of what you read of it?” Lilly asked me.

“Trash,” I said. “There’s only one author in our family.”

Lilly smiled, but Franny kicked me under the table; I spilled some wine and Franny laughed.

“I’m glad you have confidence in me,” Lilly said, “but whenever I read the ending of The Great Gatsby, I have my doubts. I mean, that’s just so beautiful,” Lilly said. “I think that if I can’t ever write an ending that perfect, then there’s no point in beginning a book, either. There’s no point in writing a book if you don’t think it can be as good as The Great Gatsby. I mean, it’s all right if you fail—if the finished book just isn’t, somehow, very good—but you have to believe it can be very good before you start. And sometimes that damn ending to The Great Gatsby just wipes me out before I can get started,” Lilly said; her little hands were fists, and Franny and I realized that Lilly clutched what was left of a dinner roll in one of them. Lilly didn’t like to eat, but she could somehow manage to mangle a whole meal while deriving no nourishment from it, whatsoever.

“Lilly, the worrier,” Franny said. “You’ve got to just do it, Lilly,” Franny told her, kicking me under the table again as she said “do it.”

I would go back to 222 Central Park South a wounded man. In fact, I wouldn’t realize until after our enormous meal was over that I was in no condition to run for about twenty blocks and a zoo; I doubted that I could even walk. My private parts were in considerable pain. I saw Franny grimace when she got up from the table to get her purse; she was suffering the aftermath of our excesses, too—it was just as she had planned, of course: we