The Vacationers

“And the prices? Coming back up?” Jim nudged one of the steaks with the end of his tongs.

Bobby shrugged. “Not much. You know, it’s still pretty rough. Not everywhere is like Manhattan. I mean, like, your house is worth, what, six times what you paid for it? Five times what you paid? That’s amazing. It’s not like that in Florida.”

“You could always move back, you know. You want to sell our house?” Jim laughed at the thought of it; he wasn’t serious. Who sold a limestone on the Upper West Side? Even if it was too big? Even if they got a divorce? Jim thought they would ride it all out, he was almost positive, and if they were going to ride it all out, they were going to do it in their house. Feet first, that’s what they liked to say. Every time they repainted a ceiling or fixed the crumbling 1895 wires in the basement—feet first, that was the only way they were leaving the house. Now Jim didn’t know. Fra

“Wow, I mean, that would be an incredible opportunity, Dad.” Bobby looked at him through the fallen curls on his forehead. Jim hated it when Bobby had long hair—it made him look too soft, too young, like a goddamn baby deer. Just like Fra

“Oh, I wasn’t . . . Moving back, yes. That would be lovely. I don’t think we’re quite ready to hand over the keys to the house, though, chum.” Jim hoped his voice sounded light.

“Right, no, of course.” Bobby pushed his hair out of his eyes and reached for the tongs. “Mind if I flip?”

“Of course,” Jim said, taking a step back, and then another, until he felt something prickly on his neck. He turned around and was surprised to find that he’d made it all the way to the trees at the edge of the manicured section of the yard, before the land dropped down steeply and led, eventually, to an ancient-looking town, where Spanish fathers and sons had tended olive trees and raised sheep together for centuries, working in tandem, like two parts of the same organism.

Bobby had retired quickly after di

Part of the fun of going on vacation with so many people was supposed to be that you didn’t all have to be together all the time—that was what Fra

“Let me help,” Lawrence said, pulling the door to the kitchen closed behind him. They were in sweaters now. In New York, they would still be shvitzing, the concrete of the sidewalk and the buildings acting as heat conductors, keeping everyone glistening from June through September. It was a lovely night in Pigpen, clear and dark. Once the sun went down, the only lights were the ones in the house across the way and down the mountain’s slopes. It reminded Lawrence of Los Angeles, only with a quarter as many houses and actual oxygen.

“Oh, thanks,” Fra

“Mine, too,” Lawrence said, projecting into the future, his arms already wrapped around a small body swaddled in cotton. A tiny thrill shot up his spine. “I mean, you should see Charles’s studio.”

“Oh, I know,” Fra

Fra

Lawrence reached out for the garbage, and then held it against his chest. He stood between Fra

“Listen,” he said. “I’m really sorry about earlier. About saying something about the magazine, to Jim. I honestly don’t know what happened, but I do know that I put my foot in my mouth.”

Fra

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence said, not sure if he was apologizing for worsening Fra

“It’s okay,” Fra

Lawrence sat down on the lounge chair next to Fra

“He fucked an intern.” She moved her hands and waved them around, as if to say “Abracadabra!” “I know, that’s it. Jim fucked an intern. A girl at the magazine, barely older than Sylvia. Twenty-three years old. Her father is on the board, and I guess she told him, and so here we are.”

“Oh, Fra

“No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, we’ve been married for thirty-five years, it is not fine for him to have sex with a twenty-year-old. A twenty-three-year-old. As if there’s a difference. I don’t know. Thank you. Sylvia knows some, but Bobby doesn’t know anything about it, I’m pretty sure, and I’m trying to keep it that way for as long as possible. Maybe forever.”

It was strange that Charles hadn’t told him. Lawrence felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment, his own, not on Fra