23 Adam
23 Adam
H ? i An, Vi ? t Nam
When he spies Evie on the ground, he rushes outside to help her, grabbing her arm so that she’s held up on either side by
him and Fen. Evie’s trying to laugh, but he can see she’s embarrassed. And who wouldn’t be, with his mother and father standing
silently before them, squinting at her as if she were an insect who just crawled onto their perfect lawn. He feels a rush
of annoyance toward them.
“Ba, M ? ,” he says stiffly, “this is Evie Lang and Fen Li. They’re part of the tour group as well.”
“Ah,” his father says in a dry voice. “The adventurers.”
Evie smiles brightly. “Thanks for having us! I bet you never thought you’d host twenty people in your home. Don’t worry—we’ll
stay on our very best behavior. Well, I will. I can’t say the same about the rest of them!”
Adam finds her chatter endearing, a sign of her nerves and desire to make a good impression, but he can tell that his parents
don’t. His father has that constipated look on his face, the one he wears when he must bear an interaction he’d rather not
prolong.
Evie holds out a hand. Awkwardly, his father takes it and gives a small shake. By contrast, Fen bobs a slight bow, the more
traditional greeting for elders in Vi ? t Nam. Adam watches as Evie notices her mistake, her face falling slightly. It crushes him, her discomfort. He’s irrationally
angry at his parents for being who they’ve always been: overly formal, domineering presences with zero humor. It’s just who
they are .
So why does he want to gather Evie up and spirit her far away? Preferably somewhere dark and quiet. Like a cave.
“Pleased to meet you,” Mrs.Quy ? n replies faintly.
Mr.Quy ? n nods once and gestures to their housekeeper. “Welcome. Please follow B?ng. She’ll lead you to your quarters in the Blue
Villa.”
“Do you need some ice?” Mrs.Quy ? n asks, leaning toward Evie.
“No, I’m fine,” she blusters.
Adam resists the urge to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. To fuss over her ankle, which she seems to favor just
slightly. There’s a warm flush on her cheeks. She’s wearing torn denim shorts that skim her thighs and her usual black boots,
laced up to midcalf. The unbearably sexy combination of the shorts and the boots makes him groan inside. Despite his parents
being next to them. Despite the fact that they hardly exchanged a word after the caves. This woman will be the death of him.
As B?ng disappears with the two women, his father remarks, a faint note of derision in his voice, “What an interesting young
woman.”
It doesn’t take a genius to know which young woman his father is mocking.
That night at dinner, a casual one on the beach with shaded tables perched on the sand, the tour guests mill around the chef-prepared
dishes. They fill their plates with the usual street food favorites, like miniature bánh mì sandwiches, white rose dumplings,
and crispy wonton wrappers topped with shrimp and a sweet tomato-pineapple sauce. Everyone hums appreciatively, snagging bites
as they walk down the line.
Adam finds himself next to Evie in the food line. She’s changed out of her shorts into a floral sundress with puckered sleeves
and a tie in the front, showing just a small keyhole of skin. She’s barefoot, and he can see the thin gold of an ankle band,
glinting against the dying sun. Though it’s still hot, clouds are starting to fill the sky, creating some extra shade around
them. It’s a perfect evening.
“Cao l ? u!” she cries excitedly, picking up a pair of tongs to serve herself a portion of the thick noodles.
“Do you like this dish?” he asks.
“As long as she doesn’t have to cook it,” Fen quips.
When he gives them a questioning look, they fill him in on the day. The escape from the cao l ? u cooking class to their afternoon at the tailor. The glasses of champagne and subsequent booze-induced naps.
“Good to get that fortification in early,” he says. “My parents don’t drink.”
“That explains a lot,” Fen mutters.
Adam laughs. “I agree, for what it’s worth. My childhood would have been a different experence if they’d had a way to loosen
up.”
Growing up he doesn’t remember his parents ever enjoying a cocktail together or even sitting down to a cup of coffee before
the rush of the day. His father had work, and his mother busied herself with a thousand commitments and renovations around
their houses. Adam and Ruby, in between getting shuttled off to school, were left in one of the homes with a nanny and told
to entertain themselves however they wanted as long as they didn’t get in trouble.
At night, his father would come home to brief his mother on his day, then go up to his home office again. Perhaps that was
the model Adam had once imagined of marriage—separate yet bound by the same goals. Now he isn’t so sure that his parents’
marriage is anything to aspire to. After all, Ruby created a life modeled after theirs, and lately, she is the very picture
of misery.
Fen wanders off to find Connor to tease him about his black eye, which has only deepened in color, making him look like a
pirate with an eye patch. Evie and Adam are left alone at the table closest to the beach.
“Well.” He clears his throat.
“This place—” she begins.
At that moment, his father and mother join them, to Adam’s great surprise. They usually hover around Ruby, peppering her with
questions. But now, come to think of it, Ruby is missing from dinner. She wasn’t around this afternoon either, after the initial
introductions. He feels a smidge of concern for his sister. She’s hiding something; he’s sure of it.
His father snaps a linen napkin onto his lap, then reaches over to adjust the flowers on the table, so they sit dead center, rather than an inch too far to the right. Only he would have noticed such a discrepancy. Adam feels his body seizing up. He’s already pulling out his table manners though it’s only a casual dinner, sitting a little more upright now, with one hand on his knee. Playing the dutiful son. He glances down at his clothing—a button-up shirt and chinos—and feels the urge to straighten a tie he’s not wearing. His parents just have that effect on him.
Evie, by contrast, offers them a warm smile. She lifts her hand toward the ocean. “This is spectacular! How do you keep yourself
from spending all your time out here? I would never leave.”
“I work in H ? Chí Minh City,” Mr.Quy ? n tells her, picking up a piece of seared tuna with his chopsticks, peering closely at it as if it could twitch back to life.
Adam remembers his distaste for sushi or anything even remotely undercooked. His father enjoys knowing that his food is fully,
irrevocably dead. “My work doesn’t allow much time for leisure. Not like my children.”
Here, Mr.Quy ? n shoots Adam a small frown. Love Yêu hasn’t gotten the number of investors their father would like, and he’s been emailing
Adam almost daily about their progress in wooing more. Adam has been working late nights, cold-emailing and applying to VC
funds around the world, but it’s never enough.
“You must not get lazy!” Mr.Quy ? n says, over and over again. No one but Adam’s own father would ever accuse him of laziness.
Mr.Quy ? n believes Adam’s time is better used in the office, rather than on the tour. Once, Adam would have agreed with him. But now?
He can’t be sorry for this taste of living, away from the constant grind of the city, the fluorescent lights and endless traffic.
The tour has taught him a new way to live. A slower, more deliberate way. And he’s not sure he wants to go back to the old
life.
Before he can say anything, Evie’s hand squeezes his knee. How does her touch manage to excite him and lower his blood pressure at the same time? Because she’s magic. A magical, addictive little sprite who tastes like honey and salt and orchids after the rain.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Evie says lightly, in response to his father. “I think your children are pretty hardworking. They
put together an entire business, after all. I doubt Adam and Ruby take much time for themselves.”
Not accustomed to contradiction, Mr.Quy ? n drags his sharp gaze onto her. “Well, they’ve been gallivanting around the country for weeks.”
“It’s a matchmaking tour , Ba,” Adam says, irritated. “The whole point is the traveling part.”
“Matchmaking. What do you know about matchmaking!” he snorts.
Adam’s mother carefully picks out all the toppings in her seafood salad until all that’s left is lettuce, sitting limply on
the plate. She sighs. “I could have taken you to the finest matchmaker, B ? o. That mess with Lana could have been avoided entirely.”
Never mind that she pushed them together in the first place. Picked out the wedding flowers before they were teenagers. How
easy it is to rewrite history when you have no accountability, only fingers ready to point in blame.
Again, Evie speaks up. “I think you’ll agree that he can hardly be blamed for her mistakes, Mrs.Quy ? n. LYT has made excellent matches already in just these two and a half weeks. Most of the guests are paired up and madly in
love. What other tour could boast such results?”
As if in confirmation, guests mill in pairs around them, smiling blissfully into one another’s faces. Some are holding hands.
Others feed their partners playfully, feet touching under the table. Adam feels an unexpected swell of pride, from both Evie’s
defense of him and the sight of what Ruby has accomplished. What they have accomplished together. These couples may not be guaranteed forever partnerships leading to marriage and kids and golden
anniversaries, but they’re happy now . That’s more joy in the world than before the tour began, and that’s nothing to scoff at.
For the first time in his life, Adam finds himself valuing present happiness over a notion of future prosperity. He turns to smile at Evie, but before he can, his father’s voice cuts through his thoughts, like a dagger through silk.
“Results like police threatening to press charges against a guest?” Mr.Quy ? n asks caustically. “Oh, yes. I heard about that from Ruby. She was hysterical. I knew this would be too much for you.”
Adam flushes. “It’s been handled.”
“With my money.”
“You are one of the company investors,” Adam reminds him.
“Perhaps I’m beginning to second-guess that decision, B ? o.”
Evie’s eyes widen and ping-pong between them. He can almost hear her thoughts: What have I gotten myself into? She’ll do what Lana did every time Mr.Quy ? n laid into his children. What Ruby’s husband did. What Adam’s own mother did. They ducked their heads and waited until it
was over. No one was a match for Mr.Quy ? n’s diatribes, so they didn’t even try. It was a kind of abandonment, even if they were all physically sitting in the same
place.
Adam hates to admit it, but tuning out the poison has become second nature to him as well, even if it costs him something
every time. Like stepping out of your body. Letting yourself be stung by the wasp because it would take too much effort to
run.
But he should have expected the unexpected from Evie. Because Evie is Evie, she doesn’t sit back or cast her eyes to her plate
like the others would. Instead, she places her chopsticks down with the confidence of a knight throwing down the gauntlet.
She says, “With all due respect, you shouldn’t second-guess anything, Mr.Quy ? n.”
“Excuse me?”
“Love Yêu is an extraordinary experience. Ruby is one of the few women who work in this space, and she’s created something so unusual, so compelling, that people from other countries have spent thousands of dollars for a chance to participate. And Adam is the backbone of the organization. No one can doubt how much he does behind the scenes. The two of them will guard your investment. They’ll surprise you, make no mistake.”
Adam places his hand over Evie’s on his knee and rubs a thumb over her knuckles. This woman.
Mr.Quy ? n demands, “And what do you know about business, young lady, to be advising me ? Tell me: What do you do for a living?”
“I’m—a poet.” There’s a slight deflation of her zeal. Adam hates seeing her confidence wither.
He speaks up. “She’s a fantastic, award-winning poet. She’s the poet laureate of her hometown. Only a few people are successful
in the way that Evie is.”
“Ah.” Somehow his dad manages to put a lifetime of superciliousness into that one tiny syllable.
Adam clenches his fists. If he says anything to hurt Evie...
Mr.Quy ? n continues, “So given your area of... expertise, MissLang, perhaps you might stick to advising on literature, instead
of matters you don’t fully understand.”
“Ba,” Adam begins, his voice shaking in anger. “You are a surgeon. You know less about business than me. Admit that, even
if it’ll kill you to do it.”
“And who paid for all that business experience, B ? o?” Mr.Quy ? n asks, piercing him with an intensely disapproving gaze.
“Does anyone want dessert?” Mrs.Quy ? n asks, shifting in her chair.
There are two large, rose-colored splotches on Evie’s cheeks now. She says, head held high, “I might not have an MBA, Mr.Quy ? n, but I’m offering my perspective as a guest on this tour. As a person with firsthand experience, and one who has taken the
time to get to know your children. Take it or leave it. Actually, I think you’ll probably leave it. But know that you’re missing
out.”
Mr.Quy ? n narrows his eyes at her and wads up a napkin in one hand as if to throw it. But she cuts him off.
“Now, I think Pin is getting attacked by the birds, so I will just go and rescue him. Good night, Mr. and Mrs.Quy ? n. B ? o.”
She slides him a small smile.
His heart nearly bursts as he watches her leave the table, tripping lightly in the sand. He wants to clap for her. Few people
have ever dared to stand up against Mr.Quy ? n, much less walk away from him in the heat of confrontation. Usually, they batten down and take it, like sailors sitting
through a storm.
Adam can tell it enrages his father to be thus dismissed. But he doesn’t care. Something gathers in Adam’s chest. Hope—and
a deeper emotion. Love? The word, bubbling up in his mind, renders him temporarily speechless. Giddy, even.
Across the table, his father’s expression darkens. Timid fear begins to emerge in his mother’s, like she’s bracing herself
for unpleasantness. His father chews on a bite of noodle, dragging out the silence. Bending their attention, as always, toward
his will.
“And this is why we would do well not to associate with Americans,” Mr.Quy ? n says finally. “They will never understand our values.”
Mrs.Quy ? n nods. “She seems very outspoken.”
Adam snarls, “I think Evie understands values just fine, Ba. Maybe you are the one who focuses on all the wrong ones. Perhaps if you spent less time criticizing your children, you could invest
some of that effort into self-improvement.”
As he stalks away, he hears his mother gasping. His father’s fist, pounding once on the table. Shaking in anger, calling Adam’s
name. But this time, Adam doesn’t look back. He joins the rest of the tour group, laughing as they run through the flock of
birds like children, Evie in the midst of it all with her arms outstretched, her head lifted toward the sky. Without hesitating,
he runs with them.