10 Evie
10 Evie
? à L ? t, Vi ? t Nam
The breeze in ? à L ? t soothes Evie; it’s a welcome break from the close air of the tour buses and her brief stint in H ? Chí Minh City, where the humidity reduced her to a damp mess. For the first time in too long, it’s just her, alone with her
thoughts out in the world. As nice as Riley is, he’s not exactly attuned to her need for occasional moments of silence. He’s
not attuned to much in the way of emotional intelligence if she’s being frank. But she can’t deny the attention is nice. A
balm to her recently broken heart.
But was it broken? Humiliation aside, she hasn’t thought very much about Atlas since she landed in Vi ? t Nam. In fact, she’s not sure she’s ever loved anyone enough to be broken by them. Is she just a superficial human? Her MFA
colleagues wrote blistering, wounded poems about their great loves, but the only great love Evie has ever had was her father.
No other man has come close.
It was the cautionary tale she learned from Grace, before she even had the chance to date—love faithfully, if you must, but
only let them in so far. Otherwise, the loss might crush you, the way Grace was crushed by Evie’s father’s death. Grace would
be just as happy for Evie to remain alone forever, as long as she led a financially stable, relatively unscathed life. Her
motto couldn’t be further from Auntie H ? o’s. Instead of love bravely , she might as well have stitched the words love sedately into her embroidered pillows.
The truth is, on this trip Evie hasn’t had the time or inclination to do anything other than live in the present. Just that
morning, she sat at the desk and tried to write. Nothing resembling a poem came out, but she saw images forming in her mind.
The trees careening past her at Datanla Falls. The blushing cord of sunrise above the mountain silhouettes. A pair of strong
hands wrapped around her waist.
Nope. She will not think of that. Especially since he’s currently wooing perfect Talia while Evie walks the gardens alone. She refocuses on
the sights around her, describing them in her head as if she were transcribing the visual into words.
B ? o ?? i’s garden is immaculately manicured, with closely set paving stones winding around the trees and plants. The mansion sits
atop a hill amid the Love Forest—again, only the most romantic of settings for this tour. Evie has to admit how well organized
these excursions have been. The weather has also been pristine so far; sunny and mild in the highlands, kissed by a bit of
breeze. Maybe Ruby has some connection to the love gods. Knowing her, she’s probably sacrificed a whole herd of oxen to ensure
these idyllic conditions.
And it works! Evie can’t help noticing how many people are already coupled up. She tries to be happy for the couples, shuttle
her cynical self back to its mildewy cave, but mostly, she’s mired in self-pity, thinking how impossible a true match seems
to her.
That morning before breakfast—another rich meal of pastries and French-style hot chocolate—Atlas had texted her from London.
It was seven a.m. her time; one a.m. his.
Thinking of you. I’m in my hotel room in London. It’s like coming home.
Evie thought, I bet it is. England is Mecca for him; she’d once suspected he had a shrine to the king somewhere in his house, though no one—not even
Atlas—could find much to admire in that prickly monarch. She was afraid Atlas would try his hand at international sexting,
a practice neither of them was particularly suited for even when they lived in the same zip code.
When she didn’t respond, he continued, I’m going to the British Library tomorrow. You’d like it.
The bummer is that of course she would like it. Libraries were her only escape during those long years of a lonely childhood. But the British Library?
As unlikely as her ending up on a luxury tour in Vi ? t Nam.
Evie never had the same opportunities to travel as Atlas. He comes from old money, the kind that often goes to Europe on summer
breaks—or “holiday,” as Atlas is wont to say. His (repressed) father is an economist, his (anxiety-crippled) mother a well-respected
CEO of a literacy foundation. Evie has never met them, and for that she is glad; they seem to be the type of people specifically
created to summon feelings of ineptitude in mere mortals.
Atlas himself speaks four languages, not including English, and can talk to anyone about where they are from with eerie specificity.
He has a reference point for nearly anything, from obscure Russian ballet to the regional cuisine of ancient Persia. That
erudition intimidated, then enraptured Evie, who could never be accused of being encyclopedic in anything but the best way
to piss off academic autocrats.
She comes from a working-class family that was proudly careful with their dollars and took exactly one vacation a year, to
a lake in Michigan with a borrowed time-share. She put her head down in school, never looking twice at the flyers for study
abroad, knowing she couldn’t afford even a road trip to the nearest big city. Auntie H ? o had offered to fund her travel, plenty of times, but Grace had insisted that they didn’t need Auntie H ? o’s charity. She was too proud to take money from her dead husband’s sister, even if it was for her only daughter. Evie also
suspected that her mother was jealous of her relationship with Auntie H ? o.
But those summers in San Francisco were her only glimpse of a world wider than the one she lived in, with strip malls and
the same three movies playing at the theater, the same kids in every grade in school, all of whom ignored her.
So maybe being with Atlas was about more than the orgasms or the wide selection of Earl Grey teas in his pantry. He is sophisticated and adventurous and confident—qualities Evie wishes for in herself. But whenever she talked about a country she wanted to travel to, or a historical site she itched to see, he always found a way to mention, with an almost imperceptible hint of boredom, that he’d spent time there before. It made her feel so small. Evie wonders what it would be like to experience something new with someone together .
Out of loneliness or weakness, she had texted back to Atlas: Send photos of all the books. I expect a full catalog by day’s end.
With me in front of them?
Only if you’re wearing a Shakespearean wig.
They’d texted for a few minutes longer, and for a brief time, it felt like they’d slipped into their usual flow. The same
jokes, that ease of knowing how the other would respond. But of course, it was just an illusion. He’s halfway across the world.
And he lied to her. Something Evie is learning is that you can move forward, but it’s nearly impossible to slide back.
Now she leans to smell one of the amaryllis blooms in the late emperor’s garden. In the short time she’s been in Vi ? t Nam, she’s seen more species of plants and animals than she has in years. It makes a part of her ache, knowing how temporary
this sensation of discovery will be. In time, she’ll be back in America, contemplating her life anew.
A bee emerges from the heart of a flower and begins swooping around her head. She yelps. She bats it away with her hands.
It only gets more aggressively loopy.
“You demonic bastard insect!” she cries.
Behind her, a deep laugh, a hand on her elbow. Adam’s touch calms her more than it should.
“You’re not supposed to bother the native fauna, you know,” he says.
Evie is indignant. “He bothered me .”
“I think he was just flying.”
“ You also bothered me, for the record.”
He carefully steers her away from the irate bee, who begins to slow his frantic circling once Evie stops waving her arms.
“This is an apt metaphor,” she sighs.
“For what?”
“You know. The human condition. We’re doomed to seek beauty—and then be rebuffed by it.”
“More accurately, you’re probably not supposed to freak out at the first sign of an insect. Are you allergic or something?”
“I could be !”
She tosses her hair over her shoulder and begins to make her way to the palace. Then, she pauses and looks back at Adam. He’s
smiling at her in a lightly mocking way, his head cocked to one side. Handsome in a pair of navy trousers and a white collared
shirt. Does this man ever wear casual clothes? And why does he manage to look so irritatingly hot in everything?
“Go on,” he says. “I know you’re anxious to reunite with Riley.”
She begins to protest and then, catching sight of his raised eyebrow, dissolves into laughter. “He means so well.”
“Do you think Trevor Noah hates him?”
“What do you know about Trevor Noah?”
Adam frowns. “You think we’re totally devoid of access to American culture over here? That we’re all pulling water from wells
and gaping at computers like they’re shuttles from outer space? That I can’t log on to YouTube when I want?”
“Honestly? I just didn’t think you had a sense of humor.”
She winks. At that, Adam pauses, then throws his head back and laughs. She can’t help but smile, knowing she pried something
resembling human emotion from him. She’s never even seen him laugh before. It’s warm, and just a little goofy, like a kid
who’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Maybe there’s a little more to the Grumpy CMO than his tight-ass exterior.
“I have jokes,” he protests.
“Aside from your wardrobe?”
“This is bespoke .”
They walk back to the palace together, trading insults along the way, but once they arrive and look around, there’s no sign
of the Love Yêu group. Just a few tourists wandering, a small child who gives them a shy grin. They exchange a look and rush
back to the entrance of B ? o ?? i’s palace. No tour bus. No sign that anyone waited for them.
“Those mutinous assholes,” Evie gasps.
“We’re not on a boat. I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
Adam checks his phone then and shows it to Evie. Five text messages from Ruby, warning him about missing the bus. Then a final,
irate one, telling him to take a taxi back by himself. No one texted me , Evie thinks. Then she remembers that she left her phone back at the hotel anyway, so she wouldn’t be tempted to keep messaging
with Atlas. Whoops.
“Well, there’s nothing to do about it now,” he says, annoyed. “Let’s grab a cab back to the hotel.”
They slide into the back of a cab, and Adam begins to give the address of their hotel. Then Evie’s stomach lets out a loud
churning noise that sounds like the snore of an ancient sea dragon. Adam hides a grin.
“Are you hungry?” he asks innocently.
She really is. Those croissants are much too light to sustain her.
She says, “Well, those mutinous assholes are going to eat delicious ? à L ? t pizza. Let’s go get some food.”
The cabdriver, a man with a wide grin and high cheekbones, turns back and says, “ ? à L ? t pizza? That’s just a gimmick. You want some real ? à L ? t cuisine? You go for bánh mì xíu m ? i.”
“Vietnamese meatballs with baguette,” Adam translates.
Her stomach rumbles again. “What the heck are we waiting for?”
The driver takes them into town and drops them off in front of a simple stand. There are just a few plastic tables under a tarp, and a basket stacked high with golden baguettes the size of their forearms. Nothing like the grand dining rooms and endless champagne they’ve been plied with on the trip. But Evie doesn’t care. She sinks into a table, sniffing the air like a hound. She smells tomatoes and garlic, and a deep meaty scent. Her stomach devours itself as Adam orders for them.
“Can you toss me a breadcrumb while I wait?” she asks the server pathetically.
Nearby, there are shops with similar setups: soy milk vendors and coffee stands, a fabric store with brilliantly colored fabrics.
A woman sitting next to a pile of knitted sweaters, each more intricately designed than the last. Evie makes a note to buy
one for Lillian.
“Here,” Adam says. He reaches over to another table and snags a shallow bowl of boiled peanuts. “These will tide you over.”
She bites into a salty, creamy peanut and immediately starts shelling the rest. “Open your mouth.”
“I will not.”
“I have fantastic aim. I played in a junior basketball league.”
“You’ve never said anything more unbelievable in your life.”
“Come on, B ? o,” she croons.
With a beleaguered sigh, he unhinges his jaw an inch, like a child refusing to eat his peas. Evie aims a peanut into the tiny
opening between his lips, but it instead bounces off his eyebrow and slides down his shirt. She cackles as he fishes it out
and tosses it back at her. When she ducks, the wayward peanut sails past her, hitting a man behind them in the back of the
head. He glances over to find both Adam and Evie staring back in wide-eyed innocence.
“You are a menace,” Adam mutters once the man has torn his glare away from them.
She furrows her brow. “Vietnamese peanuts have a different density than American ones. That must be it.”
“And a tireless bullshitter. So where is your dad from?” Adam asks.
He leans back in his chair, so far that Evie thinks he’ll fall into the dirt. But he doesn’t. Just crosses his arms in that
charming way, raising an eyebrow.
“Can Tho,” she says between mouthfuls. “You know, the floating markets? He and his siblings—including my Auntie H ? o—used to talk about waking up at dawn as kids to watch the vendors with fruit stacked up on their boats, each so full it
looked like they were going to capsize. Auntie H ? o would bat her eyelashes until someone threw her a misshapen orange or something, and they’d all make off with their treasure.
I think that’s part of the reason why Auntie H ? o sent me on this trip; thought it’d be good for me to see the homeland.”
“She was right. I can’t picture what it’s like to live so far from your origins. Your Auntie H ? o is the one your book is named after?”
“You looked up my book.”
“The dossier,” he says. “I looked everyone up.”
Adam’s words are measured, and Evie checks to see if he’s poking at her, but he seems to be waiting for her answer.
She says, “Total stalker.”
He rolls his eyes.
A second later, the meatballs arrive, swimming in a savory tomato sauce, accompanied by halved baguettes. Adam turns his meatballs
into a sandwich—a sub loaded with jalapenos and cilantro, like all Vietnamese sandwiches—while Evie breaks off pieces of her
bread and drags them in the sauce. She stops to sigh, enraptured by the dance of flavors.
“I’m gonna have babies with this meatball. We’re going to have a gigantic meatball pram filled with juicy little meatballettes
named Cassidy and Fudrucker.”
“That good?” he asks, amused.
“ Amazing. God, I’m so glad we made the detour.” Evie takes another bite. “So, yeah, Auntie H ? o was this huge figure in my life. Just so bold and wide-open, nothing like a traditional Vietnamese stereotype of a conservative
spinster. Everything was bigger, brighter with her. She embraced life; and she taught me to do it too, whenever I visited
her in San Francisco.”
“What does embracing life look like to you?”
She stops chewing. “That’s a good question. I can’t say I’ve figured it out yet. Auntie H ? o is dead, but in some ways, she’s still here. I think about her constantly. We never did travel together, which I regret more than anything else.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your aunt.”
“Thanks. She treated people like they mattered , regardless of how old they were, or how much money they had, or what they had accomplished. Her friends were these famous,
bohemian people who’d been all over the world, and she included me in their conversations as if I had something new to contribute.
She had this way of extending community through example. Do you know what I mean?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“Well, it’s a rare trait, I guess. There was this time, when I was a teenager, when I was writing all these angsty poems.
It drove my mother nuts—I don’t blame her, truthfully. But instead of making me feel juvenile like anyone else would have
done, Auntie H ? o took me to poetry readings and set up mentoring sessions with poet friends of hers. She had no creative aspirations herself,
but she believed in the value of creative work. She believed in me .”
“As she should have.”
Evie gives a dry laugh. “I don’t know. I haven’t amounted to much.”
“She would disagree, I think.”
He looks sincere, his eyes soft and patient. His sympathy makes her want to tell him more about Auntie H ? o. It’s been so long since she truly wanted to talk about her grief with anyone. But she can’t linger in that space. Not with
him. It’s too close to intimacy. So Evie does what she does best. Deflect and make things weird.
“She would have loved Fudrucker and Cassidy like her own,” she intones. Adam frowns, seeing through her nonchalance. She turns
the question around on him. “What does embracing life look like for you? More bespoke suits?”
His expression turns stormy as he pivots away from her. At first, Evie’s worried that she’s destroyed their tentative truce.
That he’ll shut her down and insist they go straight back to the hotel.
But eventually he says, “I thought it was following this road map that my parents had laid out for me. Making a lot of money, living in their neighborhood, maybe getting a summer home somewhere like they did. I was supposed to go to medical school like my dad. When I decided to pursue business, he was lukewarm. If anything, his expectations got higher, like I had even more to prove because I set off on my own. Still, I was on track for the rest of the future they had planned for me.”
“But?”
“There was a woman. It ended—”
“Like a train wreck?”
“Like Mount Vesuvius.”
Evie ignores the jolt of jealousy that seizes her. “Ah.”
“It wasn’t just her, though months ago, I would have said she was the one who ruined my life. I’m not so sure that the future
I’d once planned would make me happy anymore. Being on this trip, seeing all these sights. This is the first time I’ve felt
alive in a while. Like shedding skin, you know? Or taking flight.” He laughs awkwardly. “Cheesy, right?”
“Not at all. I got this tattoo in honor of Auntie H ? o when she died, but also as a reminder to be braver. To allow myself to fly.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear to show him the small tattoo there. It looks like a wing. The dip of the feathers grazes
her hairline slightly. Like a kiss. He reaches across the table as if to touch it. She arches her neck to allow him access.
His fingertip is warm and so gentle that it makes her shiver.
Seeing her tremble, he leans closer. Now he’s staring at her with a darkness that isn’t annoyance, but something more unreadable.
Under the heat of his gaze, she forgets about the meal in front of her, the dozens of people going about their business. The
rest of the scene becomes a blur that makes way for his eyes, his lips.
She leans forward too. This whole day has led to this moment of assuaging her curiosity. Driving past the layers of reserve to his molten core. What makes him conflicted. What
makes him undone.
“I love it,” he says. But he’s saying something else, another message underneath that hushed voice. He’s saying he sees her desires. That he’s not afraid of them. That, despite their rough start, they are more alike than she’d ever imagined.
“You do?” Where has her breath gone? It’s hitched up along his tentative smile. It sails across the table, already landing
in the cave of his mouth, tangled with his breath.
In a second, their lips will touch. Her hunger now has nothing to do with food, and everything to do with the man in front
of her. The one who proves himself, again and again, an enigma she needs to explore.
But right before they can offer themselves to each other, there’s a dripping along her arms and shoulders. The sky is opening.
A sudden summer storm arrives hard and fast, drenching them in rain, making the dirt soggy around their feet.
“The baguettes,” Evie whispers despairingly.
“My shoes.”
Adam’s leather loafers are ruined. She braces herself for some kind of fit—the kind Atlas would have had, if any of his carefully
chosen clothing were marred by the elements.
But instead, Adam’s lips twitch, and a second later, he’s laughing in that goofy, gulping way. She can’t help joining him,
their laughter lighting up the alleyway, neither of them making a move to huddle closer to the shelter of the restaurant.
They just extend their arms, letting the rain wash down on them.
“It’s like running through sprinklers,” Evie says, delighted.
“Getting hosed down by an irate nanny after filling her pockets with pudding while she napped.”
“You have experience with that, Quy ? n?” She likes the thought of a tiny, mischievous Adam running around with his spoonfuls of pudding.
“No comment.”
“Putting it in the dossier.”
The storm soon passes, and there’s the faintest outline of a rainbow left behind, a new humidity in the air. Evie knows her hair is a puffed-up mess, with the ringlets around her forehead that appear after the rain, and that her clothes are clinging to her, but she doesn’t care. The storm is so unexpected, so refreshing, that they both forget about the near-kiss they would have surely regretted.
Then Evie sees Adam’s dancing eyes. He reaches for her hand. And her eyes slide to his lips, still quirking in amusement.
Almost. The kiss is almost forgotten.