The Vacationers

by Emma Straub

Having a daughter whose company he actually enjoyed was one of Jim’s favorite accomplishments.

Teenagers and younger children did not need to sit in business class, let alone first—that was Franny’s philosophy.

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.

Franny thought that the major accomplishment of her life was producing two children who seemed to like each other even when no one else was looking,

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.

Life would be so much easier, Franny often thought, if one were permitted to select romantic partners for one’s children.

He wiggled a hand by his ear, the universal sign for crazy.

Everyone at the gym said that forty was the new twenty-five, and they were right.

WAITING FOR A BABY WAS LIKE WAITING FOR A HEART attack—at a certain point, you had to just surrender and make other plans, not knowing if you’d have to cancel.

The Internet was excellent for confirming one’s worst fears about the human race.