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

that surprised them both. She had olive-colored, creaseless skin that belied her age, and a ponytail that looked mussed from the airplane, an off-center whale spout. Lawrence thought she looked like one of the Spice Girls after a decade out of the spotlight, slightly worse for wear.
    “Of course,” Charles said. “How could we forget?”

    Franny was waiting at the baggage claim, rubbing her hands together. When Bobby and Carmen rounded the corner and came into view, she squealed and jumped awkwardly in her slip-ons, one of which slid off her foot and skidded a few inches across the slick polished floor. She hurried back into it and ran across the room, as slowly as if through molasses. Bobby stooped down to let himself be folded into his mother’s arms.
    “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” she said, rubbing his back. Franny felt terrible about keeping Bobby in the dark about Jim, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you explained over the telephone. Now that he was in her clutches, she thought it would be so much easier if information could be passed telepathically, like on a science-fiction television program, just
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from one brain to the next. “Oh, yes.”
    “Hi, Mom,” Bobby said, blinking his eyes at Carmenover his mother’s shoulder. “You can let go, really, I’ll be here for weeks.”
    “Oh, fine,” Franny said, and reluctantly pulled back. “Carmen, hello,” she said, and quickly gave her a kiss on the cheek. “The flight was okay?”
    “Fine,” Carmen said, smiling. “We watched movies.” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, stretching out her calves.
    “Great,” Franny said. “Did you happen to run into Charles? He should be around here somewhere.” She looked past Carmen, back down the hall they’d come from. Sure enough, Charles and Lawrence were pulling their suitcases behind them, laughing. Franny’s eyes misted over, as if she thought he wouldn’t really have come. She took a few steps past Bobby and Carmen so that they wouldn’t be able to see her start to cry. Charles finally saw her and began to walk more quickly, scooping her up like a long-lost lover after a war.

    Franny’s Chinese fire drill went off without a hitch: Bobby and Carmen and Lawrence got in Charles’s rental car, and Charles got into Franny’s car, and off they went. Carmen could drive stick, and so she drove the first car, while Charles drove the second. Lawrence was too tired to complain, and if Charles had perked up enough to go grocery shopping, that was better foreveryone, wasn’t it? Charles waved limply from the passenger-side window as the car drove away, Lawrence now the captive of the two strangers he wanted to come on vacation with the least.
    “It’s so good to see you, Lawrence,” Bobby said. “I haven’t seen you since before you guys got married. When was that, a year ago? Two years ago? I know it was in the summer.” Carmen jerked the car forward and merged into the airport traffic.
    “It’ll be three years next month,” Lawrence said, closing his eyes and briefly thanking a godlike figure that the Spanish drove on the right side of the road. “You know what they say about time.”
    “What’s that?” Bobby said, lowering his window shade to take a peek in the mirror. For a moment, he caught Lawrence’s eyes and smiled. Bobby was sweeter than his sister; in fact, he was sweeter than the entire rest of the family. As far as Lawrence could tell, Bobby had no hard edges whatsoever, a quality one didn’t often come across in people who had grown up in Manhattan. Lawrence felt his shoulders relax a bit.
    “Oh, you know. It flies.” Lawrence crossed his arms and stared out the window. His own family had never been on vacation together, not since he was a child. Even then, he didn’t think they’d done more than one or two trips to a smoky campsite, where they’d all slept in the same dank, mildewing tent. It seemed like folly to imagine that one could fill a house (or a