When there was no answer from her invisible parents, Sylvia shuffled the rest of the way into the room, and into their bathroom. Her mother traveled with a small pharmacy—sleeping pills, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, antacids, antidiarrheal tablets, Benadryl, calamine lotion, Band-Aids, Neosporin, floss, nail clippers, nail files, the works. Sylvia rooted around until she found the pills she wanted and swallowed them down with a gulp of water from the sink, which felt so good that she did it a few more times, lapping straight from the tap like a dog. She looked at herself in the mirror and began a semi-thorough investigation of her pores. Her face was blotchy, and there were little pimples on her nostrils. She smiled widely, and then bared her teeth. As long as Bobby didn’t try to speak to her, she’d be fine. The thought of seeing Carmen wasn’t appealing, but then again, it never was. Sylvia turned around and wobbled back in the direction of her bedroom.
Her parents’ bed had been hastily made, with the thin cover pulled up to the pillows, but nothing tucked in. On Franny’s side (it was the left side, with the messy stack of books and magazines and two half-full glasses of water), the pillows were dented and askew. On Jim’s side, they were perfectly straight, as if her father’s head hadn’t moved all night. Sylvia walked around to his side of the bed and sat down. She pulled back the cover and put her hand on the bottom sheet, feeling for warmth. There was no trace of her father in the room except for his empty suitcase and a pair of his shoes tucked neatly beside the dresser.
Sylvia had always known that her parents had issues—that was the word people liked to use. They fought, they belittled each other, they rolled their eyes. Everyone’s parents were like that when no one was watching. Sylvia had never actually confirmed that with any of her friends, but it had to be true. It was like discovering that Santa didn’t exist, or the Easter Bunny, or that no one actually liked their extended family. This was doubly true for parents who had been married as long as Franny and Jim. It was a normal part of life, being annoyed at the person you were always with. Healthy, even. Who wanted parents like on fifties television, with pot roasts and implacable smiles? Even so, Sylvia had never even entertained the possibility that one of her parents had cheated on the other one until she started hearing the whispered fights through the walls. Now instead of seeming normal, it all just seemed sad. Her head still throbbed, and her mouth was dry again. Sylvia pushed herself back up to standing, even more mad at Bobby for helping the whole world go to shit, instead of just their parents.
The werewolf movie had gone back for reshoots, which meant more work for Lawrence. He wasn’t surprised—it was the bad movies that needed the most coddling, from the actors to the producers to the location scouts. He stood with his back to the fridge, laptop in his arms. The director had had a last-minute change of heart about the ending (Christmas for all, werewolf love) and had instead shot a version in which Santa Claws had leapt to his death from the sleigh. Reshoots were necessary, and the remainder of the fake hair had already been returned. It was the sort of thing that would have taken him days even if they were at home, but from Mallorca, with the spotty Internet, Lawrence saw the rest of the vacation sliding from mediocre but tolerable to actually hellish. They should have just gone home when they got the e-mail, whatever the end result. Charles seemed to be slipping, too, purposefully avoiding conversations they’d spent the last year having incessantly, and Lawrence worried that he’d changed his mind.
Franny and Charles were sitting at the kitchen table, munching on pieces of fruit and reading magazines—Franny had finally come into possession of Sylvia’s airplane reading material, and was glued to an article. Charles had his sketchbook out and was drawing, but Lawrence doubted he was paying much attention, choosing instead to read over Franny’s shoulder. Franny was one of the earliest hurdles in their relationship—Charles’s parents were ancient and infirm, unlikely to put up a fight about his suitors, but Franny was vocal. Her opinion mattered. They’d gone to a dinner party at the Posts’, the table filled out by another couple (the Fluffers, Franny called them later—“Just pretty window dressing, so that you wouldn’t notice me taking notes”), whom they hadn’t seen since. The food was divine—Franny had cooked for days, and it showed, with dishes more elaborate than anything Lawrence had ever eaten except on holidays at his grandmother’s house. There was a salad with pieces of grapefruit in it, and asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and a rack of lamb with the kind of mustardy crust that Lawrence thought you could get only at a restaurant. She’d been friendly and warm, as Charles had said she would be, but there was no mistaking the glint in her eye. Franny was judging every word that came out of his mouth, the way he cut his meat, the way his hand searched out Charles’s thigh under the table. Not for anything funny, of course, just to squeeze, for reassurance.
Franny pointed to something on the left-hand side of the page, and Charles erupted into laughter. She leaned into his shoulder, an easy, comfortable motion she’d done thousands of times over almost forty years, since two years before she and Jim were married. Lawrence and Charles had been together for almost eleven. Even now that they were married, sometimes it felt like he could never catch up. Lawrence was just about to interrupt their cozy moment and ask what had been so funny when Bobby, looking significantly worse for wear, shambled into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Franny said, sitting up straighter. “Do you want some breakfast?” She scooted out from behind the table and around to the fridge, where there were now three people crowding into a very small space.
“Sorry,” Lawrence said, “let me get out of the way.” He swung his laptop over his head, like a suitcase he didn’t want to soil after jumping overboard, and waded back to Charles.
Bobby opened the fridge and stood there, red-eyed and blurry. “There’s nothing to eat.”
Franny made a noise. “Don’t be ridiculous. What are you in the mood for? Want some pancakes? French toast?”
“That makes you fat,” Bobby said. “I need protein.”
Without bristling at his surly tone, she continued. “Eggs? Maybe some bacon and eggs?” Franny looked up to him for approval. Bobby’s eyelids hung at half-mast.
“Fine,” he said, but he didn’t move or close the door. Franny reached around him to grab what she needed from the refrigerator shelves. He stood still, a statue that smelled of dank armpits and a night of fitful sleep.
“I think Carmen’s already up and at ’em,” Charles said, nodding his chin toward the window. They all turned to look. She was alternating between jumping jacks and burpees, up down, up down, out in, up down, up down, out in. Bobby turned the slowest of all, and let out a thin wheeze of air when he saw her.
“She’s pissed,” he said. “She only does doubles when she’s pissed.”
“What’d you do, tiger?” Charles said, amused.
Bobby shrugged and dragged himself over to the table. Lawrence scooted over to make room, and Bobby collapsed into the nearest seat. “Nothing. God. Nothing.”
“Women.” Charles said, rolling his eyes, then quickly shrugging toward Franny. I don’t know, he mouthed.
“You know what they say about women . . .” Lawrence started, but the look on Bobby’s face made it clear that whatever joke he was about to tell wouldn’t be worth it. They all sat in silence, waiting for Bobby’s breakfast to be ready.