The Vacationers

Fra

Friendships were tricky things, especially friendships as old as theirs was. Nudity was nothing more than a collection of hard-earned scars and marks. Love was a given, uncomplicated by sex or vows, but honesty was always waiting there, ready to capsize the steady boat. Charles closed the magazine.

“I cheated on him once. With one person, I mean. More than one time.”

Fra

“Excuse me?”

Charles leaned back against the toilet tank. There was a small square window on the short wall of the bathroom, and Charles looked through it onto the mountains, which seemed to wave through the ancient glass. “It was in the begi

“This was when I was with Johnson Strunk Gallery, remember, on Twenty-fourth? And Selena Strunk always had the cutest boys working for her, the art handlers, kids who looked straight out of some gym-bu

Fra

“Lawrence was so young, I didn’t think it could really be it. I didn’t even know if I believed in it. So I fucked around. I felt terrible about it, of course, and the whole thing was over quickly, but I never told him. So.”

“So? So? So you never plan on telling your husband that you had sex with someone else? What the fuck, Charlie?” Fra

“No,” Charles said. “And I’m not telling you because I think that what Jim did wasn’t awful, because it was. I’m just telling you because you asked. I wouldn’t want to know. And if he did, and I found out, I would probably forgive him.”

Fra

“Even if I hadn’t, Fran, that’s the truth. Marriage is hard. Relationships are hard. You know that I’m on your side, whatever your side is, but that’s the truth. We’ve all done things.”

“That is bullshit. Yes, we’ve all done things. I’ve done things like put on thirty pounds. He’s done things like put his penis inside a twenty-three-year-old. Don’t you think one of those is significantly worse?” Fra

“I am on your side, sweetie,” Charles repeated. He walked over to the side of the tub and put his hand out, which Fra

“Well,” she said, once she was safely on dry land. “Secrets are no fun for anyone. Keep that in mind.” She kissed him on the cheek and padded into the bedroom, listening for the sounds of snoring coming from all the other rooms.

Day Seven

WAITING FOR A BABY WAS LIKE WAITING FOR A HEART attack—at a certain point, you had to just surrender and make other plans, not knowing if you’d have to cancel. Charles and Lawrence had taken a trip to Japan the previous year but had put off Paris when it seemed—for no real reason, Lawrence had just had a feeling—that they might be chosen. They had spent holidays at home alone, their anxiety too toxic to make small talk. The hoops prospective adoptive parents had to jump through were legion: writing letters, making websites, culling flattering family photographs without any wineglasses in them. The goal was to make your family sound stable and appealing, to have the birth mother imagine her child having a better life in your arms. Gay men were attractive options, Charles was surprised to learn, in part because there would never be any competition as to who the child’s real mother was. They’d never actually been chosen before, though, and this time the waiting had taken on a surreal quality, like being told that you were going to win the lottery, maybe, just hang on for a week and see if the numbers actually match.

It had been Lawrence’s plan from the begi

Now the best they could do was keep themselves busy. Lawrence wished for a Rubik’s Cube, or knitting needles, not that he knew how to use either. Mallorca would have to suffice. It was a hot day, and Bobby and Carmen and Fra

The museum itself wasn’t remarkable—a few large, cool rooms, and Miró’s playful paintings and drawings on the walls. One room had an exhibition of other Spanish artists, and they walked through quickly, pausing here and there. Lawrence liked one painting of Miró’s—oil and charcoal on canvas, large and beige, with one red spot in the middle—that looked like a giant swollen breast. Charles took his time in the last room, and Lawrence and Sylvia waited for him outside.