The Vacationers: A Novel (21 page)

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a little crazy. My brother’s girlfriend just went home.”

Joan slid onto his seat and ran a hand through his hair. “She was too old for him anyway, no?”

“Maybe,” Sylvia said. “But I don’t think that was the problem.”

“So, you liked Blu Nite? It’s a good club, right?” Joan did a little dance, shimmying his shoulders and biting his lower lip.

“It was okay,” Sylvia said, feeling like she was going to be a virgin forever no matter what, and that Joan wouldn’t touch her for a million dollars, because why would he, and that she should just give up. “How about we do irregular past participles?” She opened her workbook. They had only a few more days on the island, and she was starting to feel like it was the end of summer camp. Her pathetic seduction had failed. If it hadn’t happened yet, it wasn’t going to, and so she should just do some work and maybe place out of a few Spanish classes at Brown. She should have packed some makeup, and some high heels, and a whole other personality.

“Okay,” Joan said. He was wearing a pink shirt, and it made his tan skin look like brown sugar covered with honey. “And maybe tomorrow, we have our lesson out? I want to show you the rest of the island, yeah?”

“Okay,” Sylvia said. Her face was on fire instantly, actually burning and painful. She picked up her glass of water and pressed it to one cheek and then the other. “Whatever.”

Jim was still hiding out in the office next door, on the other side of a very thin wall, but Charles didn’t think he could wait any
longer. He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for Lawrence to come out of the bathroom. Lawrence opened the door, his towel slung low around his waist. He absently examined the graying hairs on his chest.

“These are new,” Lawrence said.

“You’re beautiful,” Charles said.

Lawrence raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, my dear. You feeling feverish?”

Charles shook his head, his lower lip stuck out. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? I’m not the one you punched in the face.” Lawrence took off his towel and swung it onto the bed. He opened the drawer with their underwear in it, and took out a clean pair.

“Not that.” Charles loved watching Lawrence get dressed. It was always the same—underwear first, then a shirt, then socks, then pants. He pulled his socks all the way up, even in the summertime, though his spindly calves could never keep them there. Lawrence’s hair was wet and nearly black, and fell neatly along his part—Charles missed having hair, though it was better that Lawrence did, anyway. That way, Charles always had something lovely to look at. “I just wanted to tell you something. I mean, I want to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.” Lawrence still wasn’t paying much attention. He sat down on the bed next to Charles in order to put on his socks.

“Just, you know, in light of all this new information.” Charles stuttered on the word
information
.

The stuttering made Lawrence pay attention. “Mm-hmm.”

“Before I say anything, I just want to say how much I love you, and how much I want us to have a family together, or not, whatever the universe decides. But I love you, and you’re my husband, my only husband, forever, okay?” Charles shifted in his seat, and pulled Lawrence’s damp towel onto his lap, stroking it like a dog.

“You’re actually scaring me.” Lawrence crossed and uncrossed his legs. “Just spit it out.”

“It was a really long time ago,” Charles said. “Like, a hundred years. You and I were just starting to get serious.”

“Was this before or after we got married?”

“Before, before!”

“Are you about to tell me about that idiot kid, the bohunk art handler from the gallery?”

Charles looked up from the towel, tears in his eyes. He nodded. “I’m so sorry, my love, it was so stupid. I mean, it was the definition of stupid.”

Lawrence reached over and clamped his hand on Charles’s knee. “I know. You were just getting your ya-yas out. I knew it then, you fool.”

“You did?” Charles put one hand on top of Lawrence’s, and the other against his chest. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Because it didn’t really matter. I knew when it was over. And that was so long before we got married. It was your midlife crisis.” He smiled.

“So when’s your midlife crisis?” Charles asked.

“Marrying you.” Lawrence stood up, bringing Charles with
him. “I forgive you. Just don’t ever do it again. You’re going to be the father to my children.”

“I won’t,” Charles said. “I want to be Daddy, though, is that okay? I think I’m a Daddy. You know,
Can I have a pony, Daddy? Want to have secret ice cream cones before Dada comes home, Daddy?
Don’t you think?”

“I do,” Lawrence said, and kissed his husband.

The news about Carmen spread through the house quickly, and when Sylvia set the table for dinner, she put out only six plates, which was better math, anyway. Despite his well-documented mixed feelings about the relationship, Bobby wasn’t taking it very well, and he slumped on the bench, in the seat closest to the wall. Jim put his ice pack back in the freezer and sat opposite Bobby. His eye was darker than it had been the day before, a shiny brown circle, like a panda bear. Franny and the boys were making dinner—bacalao on toast, shrimp in a garlicky sauce, wilted greens. Tapas at home.

“I feel like shit,” Bobby said, to anyone.

Sylvia slid onto the bench next to Bobby. She didn’t feel like talking to her father, and didn’t have much interest in her brother, either, but he was too pathetic to ignore.

“I’m sorry about Carmen,” she said. “She wasn’t as bad as I thought. The fact that she broke up with you like that actually makes me like her more.”

Bobby crumpled further, his head only a few inches above the table.

“Sylvia,” Charles said, setting down the platter of shrimp. The smell was rich and buttery, and made Sylvia’s stomach gurgle. “Take it easy on him.”

“No, she’s right,” Bobby said. He sat up straight and put his elbows on the table. “It’s my fault.”

Sylvia shrugged, content to have made her point. Franny and Lawrence brought over the rest of the food and sat down, Lawrence as buffer zone between Jim and Charles, though Jim didn’t seem angry, and neither did Charles. A détente had been reached.

“I’ve had my heart broken, too, you know,” Sylvia said. “You people do not have the monopoly on this. I want you to know that.”

Franny leaned forward so that she could see her daughter. “What? Sweetie! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Right,” Sylvia said. “Because that’s a normal thing to do, to tell your mother when someone cheats on you with your best friend and then you want to chop up their body into little pieces. I don’t think so.”

Jim and Franny both scrolled through all of Sylvia’s friends in their minds, trying to picture the likeliest candidate for betrayal.

“Katie Saperstein,” Sylvia said. “Stupid fucking Katie Saperstein.”

“With the horn?” Franny asked, incredulous.

“With the horn,” Sylvia said, equally mystified. She could tell everyone about how the reason that Gabe preferred Katie to
her had to do with how many blowjobs Katie had given, but decided not to.

“You’re so lucky,” Bobby said.

“Excuse me?” Sylvia said.

“You’re just starting,” he said. “In less than two months, you’re going to be in a whole new place, surrounded by thousands of new people, people who have no idea who you are, or where you come from, or what your story is. And then you can be whoever you want. This kid, whoever he is, he doesn’t matter. You’re at the very beginning. It’s good.” He looked up from his empty plate.

“Want some?” Sylvia said, offering the plate of shrimp to her brother. “It’s really fattening.”

“I’d love some.” Bobby leaned his head against his sister’s shoulder for a split second, an affectionate tap.

“Me, too,” she said. “This looks good, Mom.”

Franny made eye contact with Jim across the table, slightly bewildered but pleased. “Thank you,” she said, and then folded her hands in her lap. If she’d been a prayer, she would have prayed for her children, two sweet souls deep down inside, but instead she was a cooker, and passed them the bowl of sea salt. “Here, put this on top.”

Franny licked some powdered sugar from her finger. She had been feeling inspired and had tried to bake her own
ensaimadas
, the delicious and flaky pastries that were all over Mallorca. Yeast and shortening and flour and milk, all coiled up like a sugary snail. Islands were such funny creatures, when it came to food. Most of the normal things were imported and therefore upcharged, and so many of the local delights were flown out on airplanes. It felt like a book, maybe—
Tiny Islands
. What people eat in Mallorca, in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, in Corsica, in Taiwan, in Tasmania. There would be a lot of travel, of course, probably several months’ worth. All through the lens of life after infidelity—everyone was writing books like that, a woman rediscovering herself after love gone wrong. Maybe she’d ask Gemma if she could come back in the fall, after Sylvia was at school. Mallorca by herself. Franny pictured herself sitting in the exact same spot by the pool a few months down the line, the air just warm enough to swim a few laps and then hustle back into the house. Maybe Antoni would come over and they could practice serving with invisible racquets.

Bobby had limped up to bed right after dinner, and Sylvia was parked in front of the television with Lawrence. One of his movies was on television, miraculously, dubbed into Spanish, but with the push of a button, the actors were speaking English again. It was Toronto made to look like New York, and Sylvia loved to point out the myriad inaccuracies—the subways were wrong, the streetlights, the buildings. Jim was back in Gemma’s study, an ice pack pressed against his face, and so it was only Charles and Fran for the nighttime swim.

The lit-up houses on the other side of the valley were like
polka dots in the darkness. Every so often, one would turn black, or another would brighten, stars dying and coming back to life. Franny didn’t want to get her hair wet, and had on a shower cap over her tiny paintbrush of a ponytail. Even so, the short hairs that had fallen out were already soaked and sticking to her neck. Fran did a few laps with her head held high like a Labrador swimming for a stick, and then gave up, tossing the cap aside and diving under.

“I feel like an otter,” she said. “A nocturnal otter.”

“Water is very cleansing.” Charles was swimming in place at the deep end, waving his arms and legs around under the surface.

“Did you read that on a tea bag?”

“Maybe.” He splashed her as she swam by. “Also, remove after five to seven minutes and add honey.”

Franny flipped onto her back and winked at him, though she wasn’t sure he could see her eyes. In New York, darkness was a relative concept; there were always other people’s windows illuminating the night sky, and sweeping headlights. Here, there was nothing except the stars overhead, and the houses across the way, both of which seemed equally magical and far away.

“I always thought that having little kids was supposed to be the hardest part,” Franny said. “You know, taking care of someone who was completely dependent on you. Teaching them to speak, to walk, to read. But it’s really not true. It doesn’t end. My mother never told me that.”