The Vacationers: A Novel by Emma Straub Read Free Book Online

didn’t make any sense, not to Jim, but he wasn’t going to argue with her. This was the problem with including Charles and Lawrence: Franny would do anything to rearrange plans in order to be with Charles twenty-four hours a day for as many days as possible. It didn’t matter that Charles was married now, or that the rest of her family was here, and the vacation was ostensibly about spending time with Sylvia. The plan had been to use the trip as a celebration for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, too, but that idea, that it was to be in some way a celebration of their marriage, now seemed like a joke with a terrible punch line. Once Charles arrived, Franny would start laughing the way she had when she was twenty-four, and the rest of them could start setting one another on fire for all she cared. That’s what best friends did: ruin people for everyone else. Of course, Franny would have said that Jim had already ruined everything.
    Jim ambled into the bathroom and dug his toothbrush out of the dopp kit. The tap water tasted like old metal, but it still felt good to brush his teeth and wash his face. He purposefully took longer than usual, in part because he wasn’t sure how the night would go. How the night went, so went the vacation. If Franny had softened on the airplane, or in the beautiful house, or while unpacking, that would be a welcome sight. When hecame back into the bedroom, Franny was sitting up in bed with
Don Quixote
on her lap. Jim pulled back the thin coverlet and started to slide in, but Franny put out a hand, flat.
    “I would prefer if you slept in Bobby’s room. For the night,” she said. “Obviously not once they get here.”
    “I see,” Jim said, but he didn’t move.
    “Sylvia sleeps like a hibernating bear, she’s not going to hear you,” Franny said, opening her book.
    “Fine,” Jim said. “But we’ll have to deal with this tomorrow, you know.” He picked up the novel he was reading from his nightstand and made his way to the door.
    “Yes, we’ll have to deal with this, won’t we?” Franny said. “I love that you make this seem like it’s my choice.” She opened her book and turned her attention to somewhere far, far away.
    Jim pulled the door closed behind him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

Day Three
    WHEN LAWRENCE DUCKED INTO THE MEN’S ROOM, Charles leaned against the terminal wall, pulled his wheeled suitcase so that it rested against his feet, and shut his eyes. They’d left their house in Provincetown at three o’clock the previous afternoon in order to get to Boston Logan for their evening flight, and flying coach was more exhausting than he remembered. Lawrence was the thrifty one—if Charles had come alone, he would have sprung for business class, at the very least. He was fifty-five years old. What was he saving the money for, if not for transatlantic flights? Lawrence would have scolded him, had he been able to hear Charles’s thoughts. This was a conversation they had on an extremely regular basis. Just because a baby hadn’t come along yet didn’t mean that one wouldn’t, and then wouldn’t he feel guilty about those thousands of wasted dollars floating somewhere over an ocean?Weren’t organic apples/private school/tennis lessons worth it? They were, Charles would always agree, even though he had lately come to believe that their shared dreams of having a family would soon go the way of the dodo, at which point they could resume their happily selfish lives. Almost all of the other couples they’d met at the adoption agency already had their babies—one, if not two—and Charles thought there might be something written in invisible ink in their letter to the birth mothers.
I’m conflicted,
maybe, or
I don’t know, do we look like good parents to you?
    The terminal smelled like disinfectant and heavy perfume, a mixture that gave Charles a headache on the spot. He shifted his body to the right, so that he was facing the stream of