The Vacationers

“I do not understand the Internet,” Charles said. “It’s a giant void.”

Jim agreed. “A limitless void. Hey, Syl,” he said. “How’s it going over there?”

Sylvia looked up. She had the crazed expression of a child who’d stared directly into the sun, blinking and temporarily blind. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing, dear,” Jim said, laughing. Sylvia went back to the computer screen and started typing quickly.

Charles shrugged. “At least she could always get a job as a typist.”

“I don’t think those exist anymore. Administrative assistants, maybe, but not typists.”

“Fra

“Does she?” Jim wiped the back of his wet hand across his forehead. “I really can’t tell anymore. You’d know better than I.”

Charles clutched the plate in both hands, turning it over and over until it was dry. “I think she does. That bump isn’t pretty, but it’ll heal.”

“Do we need to sue that te

“And how are you?” Charles asked. He purposefully looked toward the dishes, now dry and ready to be put away, and toward his wet hands, which he toweled off.

Sylvia had started playing a video, the sound of which blasted out of her ti

“I have no idea,” he said.

Charles placed his hand on Jim’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He wanted to tell Jim that everything would be fine, and that his marriage was as solid as it had ever been, but lying seemed worse than offering a small show of sympathy.

Day Eight

THE PREVIOUS EVENING’S THREATENING WIND HAD blossomed into full-on rain. Gemma hadn’t warned them about the possibility of inclement weather, and Fra

She had somehow managed to hit herself with her racquet, that much Fra

The chest in the living room had been well stocked with board games: Monopoly and Risk, Snakes and Ladders. Charles had made a brief but impassioned speech in favor of a game of charades but was quickly shot down. They decided on Scrabble, and Lawrence was wi

“I’m pretty sure you’re cheating,” Bobby said. “I wish we had a Scrabble dictionary. Sylvia, go look one up on your computer.”

“Screw you. You’re just mad you’re losing,” she said, rearranging the tiles on her rack. She had two O’s. Moo. Boo. Loo. Fool. Pool. Polio. Sylvia always played the first word she saw, and didn’t care if she set up the next player for a double word score. She laid down MOO. “Give me seven points, please.”

Lawrence rubbed his hands quickly over his face, up and down. “Sylvia, sweetheart, you’re driving me crazy. You can do better than that, I know you can.”

“Let her play how she wants to play, Lawr,” Charles said, swatting him affectionately on the wrist. “Now, let’s see . . .” He played BROMIDE, crisscrossing Sylvia’s MOO, a bingo. Charles and Sylvia both cheered.

“You so don’t get it,” Bobby said.

Carmen was not a fan of word games, or of board games at all, and she’d been sitting in the chair on the other side of the room, flipping through Sylvia’s airplane magazines. She’d read them already, and knew the pictures by heart—this television star was looking ski

“Bobby, can I talk to you for a minute?” she said, standing up again and letting the magazine flutter from her hand to the floor.

Bobby looked at the board, and at Lawrence, and at his sister. “Play slowly,” he said, and followed Carmen out of the room and into the kitchen.

“Did you talk to your parents yet?” she asked, once they were out of earshot.

“What?” Bobby looked over her shoulder, making sure no one else was close enough to eavesdrop. It had always been one of his sister’s talents.

“About the money. It’s really not that much. And if you could just pay it all off now, the interest . . .” Bobby stopped Carmen by clamping his palm over her mouth. “Hey,” she said, and peeled it off.

“Listen, they’re my parents, okay? I know how to talk to them.” Bobby crossed his arms over his chest and blew an errant curl off his forehead.

“Okay, if you say so,” she said. “It’s just that we’ve already been here awhile and you’re sort of ru