3 Adam
3 Adam
H ? Chí Minh City, Vi ? t Nam
By the time his sister, Ruby, arrives, Adam Quy ? n is already in a foul mood. He eyes her as she sweeps onto the plastic stool across from his with her dark sunglasses perched
on her nose, though it’s nearly nighttime in the overcrowded, beer-drenched District 1 in H ? Chí Minh City. Around them, the cloud of pollution from commuter traffic has begun to dissipate, leaving a sticky film of
humidity. There are throngs of tourists already inching toward the bars and indoor clubs, sweat mustaches peppering their
upper lips.
A few women—Vietnamese and Anglo alike—eye Adam in his tailored navy slacks and white button-down. His sleeves are rolled
up, which is basically a flashing lighthouse signal for lusty women everywhere. The slacks, though, are wet from the Tiger
Beer someone just spilled on him. He’s got his arms crossed, and his brow is thunderous. The picture of unapproachable.
He doesn’t pay attention to any of the women, even though typically, he might have flirted with a few just for kicks. To keep
in practice. Lord knows he’s not looking for anything longer than one night of escape.
But he can’t focus on the display of beautiful women in front of him at the moment. All he wants is a shower, then a long
sleep after the day he had rushing around Ruby’s matchmaking business, Love Yêu Tours, answering calls and setting up meetings
with interested investors. Explaining Ruby’s clever little pun to foreigners.
If it had been anyone else, Adam would be halfway to his high-rise by now. But Ruby summoned this meeting, and technically, she’s his boss—although a highly haphazard one, as their whole staff might concur in the privacy of their offices. There are days when she disappears without warning, only to return with a spiraling list of impossible demands for everyone in the office, especially Adam.
“Why are you sulking now, Baby B ? o?” Ruby coos. She flags down a server for two Heinekens.
A muscle in his cheek twitches. No one calls him B ? o anymore but his parents. Adam is easier for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that he works with many American
and Australian investors, for whom Adam is simpler to remember. It annoyed him at first, having to swap his name for the ease
of foreigners, but in actuality, he’s become Adam Quy ? n completely: impenetrable exterior, hard jaw, a force to be reckoned with in business. Ruby, too, changed her name from Thu
when she began operating as a public figure after founding Love Yêu. But his sister’s use of his Vietnamese diminutive is
purposeful. She likes to remind him of his place as both her younger brother and employee.
Adam gestures toward his pants. “Drunken accident from some tourist on a post-college pleasure cruise. And the beer is warm
here.”
“It’s Sài Gòn. The beer is warm everywhere. And they don’t care,” Ruby says, gesturing at a group of young men awash in sunburns and sputtering out loud jokes to every passing
woman.
“I hate tourists.”
“You hate everyone —well, except for pretty women who look like Ng? Thanh Van. Besides, we need those tourists,” Ruby says serenely. “They could
be looking for gorgeous Vietnamese spouses too.”
Ever the opportunist, his sister.
She orders a spicy green papaya salad and glistening skewers of nem n ?? ng. As he serves them both, she looks down at her phone with a frown. He knows what she’s reading. The press release on the
first matchmaking tour is due to come out in the morning, and Adam sent her the draft right before he left their office—the
last to leave, as usual.
“So what’s wrong with it?” Adam asks, trying not to grit his teeth.
She bites her lip. “Well, BB. It’s not exactly terrible .”
“Come off it. I can take your feedback.”
“This press release just feels a little soulless. You’re talking about a great romantic tour at all the finest luxury hotels,
with the most sumptuous food and once-in-a-lifetime experiences that only we can make happen.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re too understated, Ruby?”
She screws up her face, then lets it fall. “We must be the best, Adam. Do you know how much competition is out there? It’s a bloodthirsty arena, the Vietnamese tourism industry.
If we offer the romance without any of the seediness, the guests will understand we’re onto something new. Something that
transforms fleeting attraction into an epic love story.”
“Do you even believe any of this yourself?”
“Do I need to?”
Ruby, ever practical and rigorously competitive, has never had compunction about whittling a situation to her desires, stripping
away the emotion to reveal that thin, sturdy core that matters most to her: success. Sure, she can speak the language of romance
when it serves her purposes, prettify any commercial transaction. That’s what makes her so good at her job. She can talk about
heritage and mountaintops and soulmates until she turns blue in the face. But at heart, she’s a pragmatist. To her, there
is a price on everything. Including love.
Even her own marriage to Th?ng seems to run like an assembly line powered by their mutual ambition and utter lack of dependency
on each other. Th?ng spends most of his time traveling to Australia for work. Often, they seem less like lovers and more like
allied soldiers in an invisible war, armored and loyal to the last.
Adam studies his sister as she raises her arms theatrically.
“These men and women will be making the memories of a lifetime while falling head over heels with someone who’s experiencing
all that right along with them.”
“I said that in the release,” he protests.
Ruby squints at her screen. “You did not. You wrote, and I quote, ‘Love Yêu aims for the most efficient results for our clients.’ I know you worked at a bank before coming on to Love Yêu, but could you sound any colder?”
“I’m not a writer. You knew that.”
“Well, perhaps we need to hire you a writer someday. After the tour. But for now, is this really the best you can do, BB?”
Adam drags a tanned hand through his hair. “I’ll give it another shot, okay?”
“You know I can’t give you any passes because you’re my little brother.”
“Yeah.” He knows because Ruby tells him—and the whole staff of Love Yêu—at least once a day.
“I have faith in you.”
He swigs his beer, biting back his words. He’s good at his job, and Ruby knows it. Before signing on to work as the chief marketing officer for Ruby’s fledgling company—which
had somehow won funding from a couple of investors, in addition to their father—he was making more money than he could spend
as a hedge fund manager for H ? Chí Minh City’s elite. Banks were clamoring to poach him. There was talk of him becoming the youngest VP in the company’s
history. And now he’s reduced to being his sister’s charity hire.
Sure, he’s not the most poetic of the bunch. But he’s good at maintaining professional relationships, and he’s determined
enough to wedge doors open for them. Ruby was the one who convinced him to leave his job, saying that she couldn’t trust anyone
else with her precious company, and their parents had urged him to do it, saying that it could become a family business. An
empire. Ruby, to them, has always been a sure bet.
And after that mess with his former girlfriend of three years, Lana, he was ready to exit the world of high finance anyway.
Start over, where no one knew about his humiliation. Though, in retrospect, is it really starting over if you’re just hitching
your wagon to your big sister’s star?
Now Ruby’s studying him with a mix of concern and speculation. The look that says she’s plotting something. He wonders if she’s remembering Lana too, and the failed marriage proposal that nearly all their friends and family witnessed firsthand. He can’t shake the image of Lana staring back at him with wide, fearful eyes, pressing her lips tightly as she shook her head faster and faster. No, no, no. She didn’t even have to say it. He knew before he finished speaking that they were over.
“BB, the truth is, you’re not going to really sell Love Yêu unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. After all, have you ever heard of a chef serving a dish without tasting
it first? You’re just a bystander, not a true advocate for the brand. And, I’m sorry to say, it shows.”
“Excuse me? You’re not going on any matchmaking tours, Ruby.”
“Well, I’m married.”
Adam bites his tongue in order to avoid talking about Ruby’s marriage. Last time Adam saw him, Th?ng was sporting a tribal
tattoo and a new earring, both marks of a midlife crisis if he’d ever seen one. Ruby said she liked the earring, but the telltale
tic along her right eye revealed that she was lying.
She continues, “And as a matter of fact, I am going on the first matchmaking tour. Someone has to keep the ship aiming straight. And you’re going with me.”
“Like hell I am.”
Ruby slips her sunglasses over her head, making a shiny black crown with them. To others, she might seem formidable. To Adam,
she is still the annoying know-it-all who’ll always be their family’s only Golden Goose, no matter how much Adam tries to
prove himself.
She purses her lips in her most imperious expression. “You are if you’re going to stay CMO of Love Yêu. We’ve been preparing
for this for so long. The stakes are unbelievably high.”
“Ruby.” The music from the club next door pounds into Adam’s skull. “I’m not doing it.”
“Listen, BB, I’m not saying you have to fall madly in love. In fact, maybe it’s better if you don’t. But you must know what
it is we’re all about. And you will never be able to tell just from testimonies or photos. You are in the perfect position
to experience it yourself—young, handsome, successful. You’re exactly the kind of client we want to attract.”
“I’m not a client,” he stutters. “I’m the CMO.”
“Exactly. And we’re a start-up. We all put in the hours—and yes, I know you work yourself to the bone here. So maybe you look
at this tour as a kind of vacation. You just have to sit back and take notes. Enjoy the most luxurious accommodations our
country has to offer. It isn’t the worst torture.”
“You’re patronizing me.”
“Only a little. Anyway, you’re going, and that’s it.”
“Want to bet?”
Ruby is unbothered. “You’ll see that I’m right someday. And see if you can work the word unforgettable into this dry little press release.”
Adam throws a handful of bills on the table and shoots a glare back at his sister, who’s already turned to spear a piece of
papaya, chewing with the carefree equanimity of a Cheshire cat who’s eaten all the canaries. Avoiding the winding groups of
drunken revelers singing Vi ? t ballads at the top of their lungs, Adam stalks back to his apartment in District 2.
He passes the B ? n Thành Market, where vendors are preparing for the night market. His favorite fruit vendor waves a spiky bunch of rambutans
in recognition. A few blocks later, he’s in front of his apartment building, a boxy, futuristic high-rise with huge glass
windows bolstered by shiny steel inlays. He usually takes pride in walking through the doors of the building, into the sumptuous
lobby with its plush carpets and busy, well-heeled residents. It’s a reminder of his accomplishments, even if they are tied
tightly to those of his family.
“Mr.Quy ? n,” the concierge greets. “Your father left this note.”
The concierge slides a piece of paper across the counter. Why the elder Quy ? n can’t leave voicemails like a normal overbearing father is beyond Adam’s comprehension. But of course, with a voicemail,
his father would miss the opportunity to drop in unannounced, dragging his imperious gaze over Adam’s apartment while offering
unsolicited business advice.
Adam unfolds the note and reads his father’s brusque handwriting: Dinner on Saturday. Don’t be late. He closes his eyes. Another family dinner where his parents fawn over Ruby and cast his own shortcomings on him. It’s enough to make him want to disappear up the mountains on his motorbike. Stage his own death. How much would it cost to forge a new identity?
“Thank you,” Adam says, crumpling up the paper.
“Have a good evening.”
“You too,” Adam says, trying for a smile.
As he opens the door to his modern, immaculate apartment, he understands that his privilege has always shadowed him, even
in that brief time when he attended Stanford for his MBA, when he was just a sweatpants-clad student like everyone else. A
blissful year of freedom. Yet nothing would have been possible without his father’s money. He wouldn’t exist the way he does without it. But that doesn’t mean he’s ever stopped wanting to prove that he’s more than a
rich kid.
In his apartment, he takes a long shower, then wraps himself up in a robe. He fingers the sash, remembering how he and Lana
would sit in their matching robes on their deck, watching the stars come out above that blistered horizon as they talked about
the future. They had such clear plans: Both would rise to great heights at their finance firms, then they would buy a big
apartment in the heart of the city; a house by the beach too. They’d have three kids and take vacations to Thailand and France,
where she’d show him around all the places where she’d studied as the expat daughter of a Vietnamese diplomat. When he thought
of the later decades of his life, he saw himself with her.
But the dream died before it even began, with that very public and ill-fated proposal. After that night, he lost trust in
women, yes, but more than that, he lost trust in his own instincts. Now all he has is a few hurried affairs that last a night,
maybe a week at most. And work, always work. It’s enough because it has to be.
He fires up the computer and logs in to the server where he keeps the marketing documents. He opens the press release, which is completely marked up by Ruby with comments like “Snooze!” and “But what are they supposed to feel ?” With a sigh, he rolls his neck, then perches his fingers over the keyboard.
Love Yêu: the Unforgettable Matchmaking Tour.
Come join us... come aboard... come escape into...
For the first time in the history of... unforgettable shit
DELETE DELETE DELETE.
Since it’s their inaugural tour, there are no candids, only stock photos that Ruby found, where gorgeous models stare, awed,
into picturesque vistas of temples and beaches. Some hold hands, while others laugh, their heads inclined toward each other
in intimate conversation. It’s all meant to look romantic yet luxurious, a far cry from the traditional Vietnamese matchmaking
tours, where paunchy white men in cargos plod onto overcrowded country buses in the hopes of finding subservient Vietnamese
wives. Ruby was very clear on that. She did not want to be another stereotype, another advertisement for colonialist yellow
fever.
And to Adam’s credit, he understands that he’s aced that part of the assignment. Due to his considerable branding efforts—including
hiring a deluxe design firm that charged them an insane amount for a logo and website—and the safeguards they put in place,
like background checks, sizable client fees, and a rigid vetting process, no one would confuse Love Yêu for a smarmy love
tour where fetishists wax poetic about their desire for “an old-fashioned lady.” If anything, Love Yêu is meant to attract
a new generation of men and women: one determined to have both love and purpose.
On board, they have a team of matchmakers who consult for Love Yêu, along with behavioral psychologists, Zen practitioners,
and couples therapists who will smooth the way for romance.
But the romance part remains opaque for him. How can he properly write about and sell the appeal of a matchmaking tour if
he doesn’t believe in lasting love himself? His cursor blinks at the end of the document, like a reminder of the romantic
dead end he slammed into at that cursed dinner six months ago. The press release is, undeniably, a soulless advertisement
for something that should be enveloped in glamour and, yes, romance.
He pounds his fist on his desk. “Damn.”
He knows then that he will be going on the matchmaking tour. Ruby is right, as she so annoyingly often is. There’s no way
he will be able to excel at his job without understanding what intangible something makes the brand so special. Without witnessing
the matches firsthand. It’s one thing to hear Ruby talk about her vision. It’s quite another to see it in action.
But Adam does not have the stomach for love. He vows that he will be an observer, nothing else. He’ll prove to Ruby that he
has fully earned his CMO title, that he can grow the company to the heights it deserves to reach. And, if anything else, this
will put enough distance between him and Lana and the memories they made together in H ? Chí Minh City.