The Vacationers

“Yes,” Sylvia said.

“Then we go,” Joan said, and they were off.

Once she got over the embarrassment of her te

Antoni was waiting for her in the office, his arms crossed. Instead of his handsome gym teacher outfit, he was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a white button-down shirt that made his skin look as if the sun had kissed each pore individually. His sunglasses hung around his neck on the cord, but when she came in, he pulled them off over his head. Antoni walked toward her, his hand outstretched. When Fra

“Oh,” Fra

The phone rang, and the girl behind the desk picked it up and started speaking quickly in Spanish. Antoni ushered Fra

“Have you had lunch?”

Antoni looked at his watch. “No, it’s early. Are you hungry? I’ll take you to the best tapas on Mallorca. Tourists aren’t allowed, but for me, they’ll make an exception. First we have a tour of the center, then we eat.”

“Well, yes,” Fra

There were thirty courts in all, in two long rows on either side of the administrative office. They ran camps for children, more serious training for competitively ranked juniors, and lessons for adults who were hopelessly past their prime but still interested in getting a better serve. Antoni looked at Fra

She’d been writing a bit over the last few months, what would ultimately wind up condensed into a first chapter, or a prologue, if she kept it at all. That was where the anger lived, the hurt. The rants about Jim and the sanctity of their union. It was crazy, what young people believed was possible, what so many earnest twenty-three-year-olds took for granted about the rest of their lives. Fra

Antoni was speaking to a student, a young girl, maybe twelve years old. She had the steely gaze of a professional but hit two slightly wobbly backhands in a row. He stood behind her, his back at the fence, and murmured words of correction. Her third shot sliced through the air like a Ginsu knife.

“Sí,” he said, and clapped twice. Fra

The roads were faster on the back of a motorcycle, the turns sharper. Jim hadn’t been on the back of a bike since he was in college, and the physical logistics were more challenging. His arms were wrapped around the pediatrician’s thick waist, and his helmet kept knocking against Terry’s. It seemed unlikely they would end up anywhere but at the very bottom of a very steep cliff, but after only about twenty minutes of silent prayer, Jim felt the vibrations of the motor slow beneath him. He opened his eyes and saw the gate for the Nando Filani International Te

“This is it,” he said. As requested, Terry had stopped outside the entrance, some twenty feet down the road.

Terry tipped the bike over to one side so that Jim could dismount. He swung his left leg over the back of the bike and felt something pop. Riding motorcycles—hell, even just getting off a motorcycle—seemed to be a younger man’s game, but Jim didn’t want to appear too stodgy. Ignoring the pulled feeling in his groin, Jim walked over to the stone wall and peered into the te

Terry was used to sitting on his bike on the side of the road, taking in the scenery, and didn’t object to waiting. He closed his eyes and turned his ruddy face toward the sun. The bike wasn’t large enough for Jim to sit on without feeling like things had taken a turn for the truly intimate, and anyway, he couldn’t stop pacing. He walked up and down the road beside the entrance. The shoulder wasn’t wide enough for a car, but the bike tucked in nicely, allowing the regular traffic to zoom by. Every now and then a car would slow and pull into the parking lot of the te