7 Adam
7 Adam
? à L ? t, Vi ? t Nam
Adam should be enjoying the sprawling views from the terrace of the ? à L ? t Palace Hotel, which looks onto the peaceful H? Xuan H??ng, a lake with gently rippling waves. An orange dawn reflects in
the water like a crushed carnation. Any other human would be thanking their personal gods for the chance to stay at the elite,
impossible-to-book hotel, buffeted by a majestic slope of mountains in the distance.
At dinner last night, the guests had gushed about their rooms, marveling at the gilded mirrors and fireplaces, the framed
landscapes. They said if these accommodations were a sign of things to come, Love Yêu Tours had already outdone themselves.
Ruby smiled smugly into her wineglass, then subjected them to an expert panel discussion on zodiac compatibility that Evie
had snored through. Not that Adam noticed her more than others. Not that he was looking for her every chance he got. Oh, no.
So what if he knows exactly where that freckle sits on her animated face? Or that he’d once caught a whiff of her perfume
and stopped, nonsensically, to close his eyes, abruptly halting the line filtering through the hotel doors? Or that, after
the elevator, he finds himself thinking of all the other tight spaces in which he could find himself with her?
This morning, Adam is oblivious to the beauty around him, absorbed instead in paging through the bursting file on the café table in front of him. It’s crammed with dossiers of the tour participants, presented to the guests upon their arrival in ? à L ? t. Each page, accompanied by a full-color headshot, details the guest’s degrees, job history, likes and dislikes, and even
whether they have been married or not.
He’d questioned Ruby about the wisdom of handing the guests all the on-paper facts about their romantic prospects in one swoop,
arguing that it removed the mystery of getting to know someone fresh, without expectations.
Ruby had only waved him off. “Do you think these guests are looking for charity cases? They are the best of the best—well,
most of them.”
She wrinkled her nose at this and continued. “And they want partners who can elevate their life. Add to it, not become a burden.
All this stuff matters. Plus, we don’t want them to think we’d just let anyone in.”
Adam protested, “But where someone went to school hardly makes them a burden .”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mr.Stanford. Save your romantic ideals for the marketing materials.”
Despite his earlier resistance, he now flips through the pages with interest, noting the facts that jump out. That Talia was
once named MissSài Gòn and now volunteers her time facilitating the delivery of solar panels to remote mountain villages.
That Riley’s book on Indochinese politics parked on the nonfiction New York Times bestseller list for three consecutive weeks, after which he’d been interviewed on The Daily Show . That Fen, the only child of a domestic aviation tycoon, has acted in a series of dramedies dubbed in six different languages.
But what he’s really interested in—even if he can’t admit it to himself—is the very brief dossier on Evie Lang. What is her deal? He tells himself it’s just professional interest on his part. He’s looking out for the company. Trying to eliminate
the outliers, anyone who doesn’t take the mission seriously.
But another part of him knows the truth—he’s just compelled by her . It has been ages since anyone has made him want to take a closer look, even if for all the wrong reasons.
Peeking out from her dossier is a candid photo, unlike the glossy images from the other guests. In it, she’s at the beach, laughing so hard that her eyes almost disappear, head tilted slightly back. He sees the tanned column of her throat, the hint of a tiny tattoo behind her ear. That wild mass of hair tossed by the wind.
She’s a professor at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Her poetry collection won some minor praise. She’s never
been married. But that’s it. The fields for likes and dislikes are totally blank. In a sea of too much information, Evie remains
the one with the least to reveal. Adam hates to admit it, but that’s precisely what makes her so interesting to him.
“This is stalker behavior, you know.”
He starts when Evie plunks down across from him, holding an enormous café au lait and a flaky croissant. She gestures at her
photo in front of him, which makes Adam redden. Her hair is swept up, and a pair of huge sunglasses rests on her nose. He’s
frustrated that he can’t see her expression, but he guesses by her tone that it’s somewhere between amusement and annoyance.
He shrugs and moves the papers to make more room for her. “It’s research. For my job.”
“And what was that again?” she asks sweetly. “You didn’t say.”
Catching his scowl, she laughs and says, “Well, I threw that whole file folder in the trash can. Would have tossed it into
the fireplace if I knew how to work it.”
“Why would you do that?”
A part of him is disappointed that she won’t see his own résumé, full of accomplishments that would impress any woman. Then
he despises himself for feeling that way. Why is he so intent on impressing this stranger?
She takes a big sip of coffee, and the foamed milk lingers on her lip. “Because I don’t care about any of that. Your medical history is hardly going to interest me—except, I guess, if you have an STD I need to know
about. But I suppose you wouldn’t put that on an official questionnaire.”
They pause awkwardly at the mention of sex. Adam slides his eyes away from her. He remembers feeling flirtatious and unguarded toward her last night in the elevator—a consequence of the extra whiskey he had before leaving the bar—but now, in the light of day, he stiffens again, reminding himself that she’s just another Vi ? t Ki ? u looking for a good time. No one to take seriously. No one to take him seriously. She’s better off with one of those Americans who’ll leave after the three weeks are over.
“Well, maybe some people like to know about the partners they get involved with,” he says finally. “It helps protect them.”
“From?” She raises one arched eyebrow.
“I don’t know. Opportunists.”
She scoffs. “This tour costs ten thousand dollars without travel expenses. Do you truly think anyone here is looking to entrap some rich spouse?”
He shrugs. “You never know.”
Riley, the Vanderbilt professor, pulls up a chair. He’s got a full breakfast plate of eggs, sausages, and thick brioche. His
glasses slide down his nose.
“Who’s looking to entrap a rich spouse?” he asks.
“According to Mr.CMO there, any one of us,” Evie replies with a twinkle in her eye. “But honestly, if I were a person who
wanted to marry a billionaire, I would probably look in America.”
“Because no one in Vi ? t Nam is worth your time?” Adam finds himself snapping.
“No, Adam ,” she says patiently. “Because I had to travel twenty-plus hours to get here. And my Vietnamese is kinda shitty.”
“It’s not bad,” Adam mutters begrudgingly.
With his mouth full, Riley asks, “So why did you come?”
Adam is asking himself the same thing. He sees Evie falter, debating what to reveal. Is she a liar? Or is she just guarded
like him?
Evie says, “Well, who’s going to turn down a trip to a gorgeous country with all you beautiful people?”
Adam opens his mouth to call her out for evading the question, but then he shuts it when she turns to him, lifting her sunglasses
to survey him.
“What are you looking for? Both of you. You put me on the spot last night, Adam,” she says. “Thanks for that.”
Riley laughs. “Yeah, he did. I think we’re all going to answer the same thing, right? We want to find our partners. Someone to make us laugh, who gets our specific brand of weirdness. I live in America, but I’m willing to move for the right person. Or maybe she’ll move for me.”
Across the way, Talia is sitting with her tablet, ankles crossed as she flicks her delicate fingers on the screen. Pin, the
banker, swoops in next to her, pointing over her shoulder at the tablet. Within moments, they sink into animated conversation.
A frustrated Connor stands with his mouth agape, clearly annoyed that Pin has displaced him.
“Speaking of moving in.” Riley grins.
Evie says, “Maybe we should tag people with a sticker to call dibs.”
“I’ll bet we can find a more civilized way to proceed.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Adam mutters. “People can be idiots when it comes to love.”
Riley asks, “What about you, Quy ? n? Who’s caught your eye?”
Adam coughs. “I’m just a spectator.”
“Sure, sure,” Riley tells him, waving a fork good-naturedly in his direction. “You keep telling yourself that. Go on enough
of these romantic excursions, and you’ll find yourself falling in love with a rock.”
“Speaking of excursions, what’s on the agenda today?” Evie asks.
“Don’t you read anything we give to you?” Adam says, throwing up his hands.
She shrugs. “I’ve had enough of homework. I prefer... adventure.”
“Chaos,” Adam mutters. She glares.
Riley saves them by answering, “We get a choice. You can have a leisurely walk to Pongour Falls or join the daredevils riding
the alpine coaster to Datanla Falls. Kind of a no-brainer for me. I love a good adventure.”
Adam leans over to Evie. “Because I’m sure you didn’t read the itinerary, alpining to the waterfalls just means sitting in
a cart and wafting along through the wilderness on a track.”
Riley looks skeptical. “I heard those carts can go pretty fast. And you’re just in a dinky box in the middle of a forest, hundreds of kilometers from the ground.”
“That’s true,” Adam says contemplatively. “Probably not the easiest, if you’re not used to it.”
Evie tosses her head. “What makes you think I need easy?”
Adam gestures at her outfit: white trousers and a silky top that accentuates the smooth gleam of her skin.
She says, “I’d change, of course. Surely you’re not alpining in a three-piece suit. Or maybe you would. Heaven forbid you’d wear something without a tie.”
“You’ve met me all of two days.”
“You were reading a dictionary on the bus ride to ? à L ? t. While wearing a tie, no less, and ignoring every single one of us. Don’t you get carsick like normal people?”
“It was not a dictionary,” he mutters. “It was Pushkin.”
“Ah, right, your typical pleasure reading. Anyway, I can’t even see you enjoying some waterfall view. Here we are in a gorgeous
place, and you’re just looking through papers, like a sad, overworked businessman.”
“And you’re spending it needling me instead of enjoying the so-called gorgeous place,” he retorts.
Riley’s eyes ping-pong between them, a bemused expression on his face.
“I’m just saying.” Evie shrugs. “We’ll all be at the waterfalls, and you’ll be holed up in your room like a cave dweller,
grunting into your belly button about how many meetings you’re missing. Mark my words.”
“My belly button ?”
“The point is: I bet you can’t go even a day without checking your email.”
He retorts, “Some of us have jobs.”
If he weren’t looking at her so closely, he wouldn’t have noticed the change in Evie’s expression, a sudden darkening of her
eyes.
“You know what they say,” she tells him. “Marrying your work is a sign of an underdeveloped emotional cortex. Overcompensation for a lack of personal connection.”
“You’re just making this up.”
The truth is, he is worried about dropping the ball at work. Even though he’s technically working on the tour—and getting paid for it—he constantly
wonders if there’s something he’s forgetting back at the office. Some way in which he’ll unwittingly bring disaster to the
company and disappoint his family. Same crippling fear as usual.
Aloud, he only says, as a sort of challenge, “I’ll see you at Datanla Falls, then?”
“Would not miss it for all the Pushkin in the world.”
He gathers his file and stands. Riley waves at him while Evie pointedly glances away, refusing to acknowledge his departure.
Adam hears Riley sighing behind him, “ Ooo-kay , then.”
What is it about Evie Lang that makes him so irritated? Her absolute lack of seriousness, despite all the hours the staff
put into making this tour a success? How she’s willing to waste a fortune on what, to her, must be little more than a whim?
Or maybe it’s just the fact that she is so self-assured, so American and independent, something Adam has never been for a moment in his life. He wonders, briefly, what it would feel like to
let go, the way she does. To just give up caring what other people think. But then he shakes his head. Appearances aren’t
everything, and no matter what she says, he has his doubts that she’s really got as much bravado as she pretends to have.
In fact, he’d bet everything in his bank account that Evie Lang will make it nowhere near an alpine coaster today, or any
day. And he’ll be right there to remind her of that.