The Vacationers

The Post family of Manhattan's Upper West Side sets off for a two-week vacation on the Spanish island of Mallorca, ostensibly to celebrate daughter Sylvia's high school graduation and parents Franny and Jim's thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. Beneath the surface, the trip is shadowed by crisis: Jim Post, sixty, has been forced out of his position as editor of Gallant magazine after having an affair with Madison Vance, a twenty-three-year-old editorial assistant whose father sat on the magazine's board. Franny Post, a food and travel writer, knows the truth and has been furious for months, giving herself these two weeks to decide whether to stay in the marriage. Eighteen-year-old Sylvia also knows. Their twenty-eight-year-old son Bobby, who lives in Miami, does not. On the overnight flight, Sylvia sits alone in coach and writes a pre-college to-do list that ends with "Lose virginity" (13).

The vacation party is large. Bobby brings his girlfriend of nearly seven years, Carmen, a personal trainer about a decade his senior whom the Posts have never fully embraced. Franny's best friend Charles, a fifty-five-year-old painter, comes with his husband Lawrence, who does accounting for the film industry. They have rented a pink stone house in the mountain foothills from Gemma, a wealthy British gallerist, in a town they nickname Pigpen because they cannot pronounce its real name, Puigpunyent.

Tensions surface immediately. Franny banishes Jim from the master bedroom on the first night. Sylvia meets Joan, her twenty-year-old Mallorcan Spanish tutor, a handsome medical student, and is mortified when he sees her in towels after a shower. Franny openly flirts with Joan, noting that the age gap between herself and the tutor mirrors the gap between Jim and Madison.

As the group settles in, competing secrets emerge. Lawrence discovers an e-mail from their adoption agency: A birth mother has selected their letter, and a baby boy named Alphonse may be theirs. He is desperate to tell Charles, but Charles is absorbed in consoling Franny. When Lawrence accidentally asks Jim about his job at Gallant in front of Franny, she collapses into Charles's arms. That evening, she tells Lawrence the truth about Jim's affair, asking him to keep it from Bobby.

Bobby carries his own burden. His real estate career has stalled, and he has been secretly working as an assistant trainer at Carmen's gym while selling supplement powders through a pyramid-scheme-like arrangement. Carmen pressures him to ask his parents for money, but he keeps stalling.

The days settle into uneasy rhythms. Sylvia's lessons with Joan shift from workbook exercises to conversation, and she finds herself increasingly drawn to him. Franny discovers a local tennis center and impulsively books a lesson with Antoni Vert, a former Spanish tennis star she admired in the 1980s. She accidentally knocks herself unconscious with her own racquet during the lesson, and Antoni drives her home.

In a private conversation, Charles confesses to Franny that he once cheated on Lawrence early in their relationship. Franny is furious, rejecting his implication that everyone makes mistakes.

Rain traps the group indoors. That evening, Bobby takes Sylvia to a nightclub in Magaluf, leaving Carmen behind. He drinks heavily and disappears into the bathroom with a young British tourist. Sylvia catches them emerging, Bobby's shirt unbuttoned and lipstick on his face, and pummels his stomach. In the car, Bobby begs her not to tell Carmen.

At dinner the next evening, Carmen retaliates against Bobby for excluding her by publicly revealing his supplement powder side business and the roughly $150,000 in credit card debt he has accumulated. In bed that night, Jim and Franny discuss Bobby's troubles, their first real conversation in months. Jim reaches for Franny's face, but she has already rolled away; when she does not shrug off his hand on her back, it feels like a small gain.

The crisis breaks open at a beach outing. In the beachside bathroom, Jim tells Bobby the truth about his affair, hoping to model honesty. Meanwhile, Franny presses Sylvia, who reveals Bobby's nightclub infidelity. When Jim and Bobby return, Franny erupts publicly, shouting about Jim sleeping with an intern and Bobby sleeping with a stranger. Jim unhelpfully corrects that Madison was not an intern but an editorial assistant. Charles punches Jim in the eye and escorts Franny and Sylvia away. Terry, a British motorcyclist and pediatrician whom Jim befriended on the flight to Mallorca, happens to be at the beach, examines Jim's eye, and confirms nothing is broken.

The aftermath reshapes the household. Jim hides in Gemma's study, replaying the moment he confessed to Franny and watched her turn her book facedown on her thighs. Carmen goes for a walk with Bobby through Pigpen, where they stumble upon a street wedding. Bobby mocks the bride's arms, suggesting she needs exercise. Carmen realizes he will never marry her, breaks up with him on the spot, and walks back up the hill alone.

Charles confesses his affair to Lawrence, who reveals he already knew and forgave him years ago. They embrace; Lawrence tells Charles he is going to be the father of his children.

Joan picks Sylvia up for a day out. When she mocks a Mallorcan singer, he scolds her for being a typically arrogant American, lecturing her about Franco's suppression of regional culture. She apologizes, and their dynamic shifts. He drives her to a hidden cove accessible through a tunnel in the mountainside, where they swim and he asks permission before kissing her. They have sex on a blanket, Sylvia's first time. She returns home radiant.

That same day, Franny visits Antoni for a long lunch she frames as a journalistic interview. Jim, anxious about losing her, enlists Terry to follow Franny on the motorcycle. After watching from a distance, Jim reveals himself when Franny pulls over on the road home. She cannot help laughing. He tells her he loves her and does not want to lose her. They kiss on the roadside.

The next morning, Lawrence finds the e-mail they have been waiting for: The birth mother has chosen them. He and Charles are getting baby Alphonse. They book flights home. Franny makes celebratory pancakes, and at breakfast Jim kisses Franny on the forehead. She lets him.

Joan cancels their next session with a casual e-mail: "Had fun at the beach" (273). Sylvia is stung but absorbs the blow. Gemma arrives unexpectedly, commandeering the master bedroom and forcing Jim and Franny into the vacated downstairs room. There, changing the sheets together, Jim pushes Franny gently onto the bed and reminisces about bringing Bobby home from the hospital. They have sex for the first time in months.

On the final day, Joan comes to say goodbye. Sylvia grabs his chin and kisses him while Bobby snaps a photo. She reflects that love is sometimes one-sided and sometimes just a moment shared on a beach, and that Joan did her a favor.

At the airport, Bobby faces a choice. His flight is booked to Miami, but Carmen has not written, and there is nothing for him there. He gets a standby ticket to New York, deciding to figure out his life from his parents' house. As the plane takes off, Franny weaves her fingers through Jim's and rests her cheek on his shoulder. "We made it, Jim," she tells him (295). She wraps both arms around his, her grip firm. She will have to forgive him without forgetting what he did, but she is ready for whatever turbulence lies ahead.