The Vacationers

by Emma Straub

Franny and Sylvia were quite content to sloth themselves into oblivion, to ossify on the sofa with a book or the godforsaken television blasting away. He could hear their muscles beginning to atrophy, but then, miraculously, they could still walk, and did, when properly motivated.

Islands, being harder to get to, naturally separated some of the wheat from the chaff, which was the entire philosophy behind places like Nantucket, where children grew up feeling entitled to private beaches and loud pants.

Being eighteen was like being made out of rubber and cocaine. Sylvia could have stayed up for three more days, easy.

A good swimming pool could do that—make the rest of the world seem impossibly insignificant, as far away as the surface of the moon.