29 Adam
29 Adam
H ? i An, Vi ? t Nam
“Your pants are too tight. And you are skinnier than a mantis during a famine.”
“Yes, Bà N ? i,” Adam answers, placating his grandmother.
Bà N ? i pinches the flesh along his neck as if he were a prize cow waiting for auction. It’s not a light pinch. In fact, it hurts
like a motherfucker. Adam grimaces and rubs the spot, which will bruise like a love bite. Except not at all like that. Of
course it figures that his father’s mother would have his same intense brand of physicality. Whereas his father is still hardy,
if stout, Bà N ? i looks like the crone that comes out of every fairy tale remake, blustering about thwarted fates and the end of the world.
Well, she might if she weren’t wearing a Chanel suit with a crocodile-skin bag squatting by her thin ankles.
Stooped form aside, Bà N ? i remains a force. She holds most of the purse strings from her late husband’s fortune and doles it out with what Adam has
privately felt to be rather random methodology. He’s never been the beneficiary of her financial support, which suits him
just fine. He’s learned that the Quy ? ns’ brand of generosity comes with many, many conditions.
Despite her habitually harsh words, Bà N ? i has a soft spot for Adam, for reasons unknown to anyone. She requests to see him every time he’s in H ? i An. Perhaps it’s because he looks like his late grandfather, a stoic man who served in his share of wars and died only a decade earlier in his eighties. Or maybe it’s because Adam never fails to bring Bà N ? i her favorite brand of chocolate bonbons, the one thing she eats with any real abandon. Just now, there’s a streak of chocolate
on her cheek. Adam isn’t sure whether to say anything, but then his mother reaches over with a wet handkerchief and wipes
it off for her mother-in-law.
Bà N ? i waves her away. “Do I look like I need a nursemaid, Sáng?”
“Oh, no, M ? , you’re looking as youthful as ever. Really, I’ve always said you’re in your prime—”
“Sáng, shut up. I’m here to talk to my grandson. If I wanted to talk to you, I have three hundred and sixty-four other days
to be bored out of my wits. Now, B ? o, skinny boy, what trouble have you gotten yourself into?”
She gives him a fond look and pats his hand encouragingly. Her home isn’t nearly as large or ostentatious as the Quy ? n estate, but there’s a grandeur to it all the same. The salty breeze flows through the open windows, dancing with the drapes.
All the furniture is antique, yet well-tended and timelessly elegant. Adam has always felt peaceful here.
When he was a child, and when his ?ng n ? i was alive, he’d often find excuses to visit his grandparents, scrambling underfoot even when they paid him no mind. He was
the only grandchild who clamored to be around them as a kid—though now, as mercenary adults, all the cousins find excuses
to see Bà N ? i, claiming filial devotion, much to her shrewd-eyed dismay.
Adam answers, “Ruby’s started a new company, and I’m working for her. A luxury matchmaking tour.”
“Matchmaking! Why, that’s how your ?ng n ? i and I met. Of course, he was madly in love after seeing my picture for just a few seconds. ? i gi ? i ? i, was I a beauty. Things have changed since then. People got uglier for one. How’s the tour going?”
“We’re finishing our inaugural one now, and our guests are very pleased. It’s gone off pretty well, all things considered.
Ruby planned everything out meticulously. There’s a ninety percent success rate.”
“Only ninety percent?” Bà N ? i asks curiously.
He hesitates. “Well, yes. We had a few... incidents. A tour guest left. And there was the thing with the police.”
“The police!”
Mrs.Quy ? n speaks up. “It’s nothing you need to hear about, M ? .”
Bà N ? i shoots Adam’s mother a withering look. “Do I look like a child, Sáng? Should I cover my ears anytime an adult speaks? Go
sit in the garden. You’re bothering me.”
“M ? —” Mrs.Quy ? n begins.
But, without another word, Bà N ? i points at the French doors leading to the garden. With an aggrieved sigh, Mrs.Quy ? n obliges. Adam admires the hell out of that performance. If only he could command his parents—and a certain Anglophile ex-boyfriend—out
of the picture with a mere gesture.
Bà N ? i pours herself a cup of tea and hands Adam a piece of sesame candy. “Eat this, B ? o. You’re too skinny. All due respect, but your mother is an idiot. Your father too. Of all my children, I have found no worthy
heir. Foolish, superficial creatures. It’s enough to make me wish for an early death.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Well, you’re the only one. Now, tell me more about this tour. Don’t leave anything out because of my aged sensibilities.”
“Or you’ll send me to the garden to play?” He smiles.
After a severe look from Bà N ? i, Adam acquiesces and gives her the non-PR-sanctioned version of the tour. He doesn’t leave out a word about Connor’s black
eye and the police coming to take ?? c away, Fen’s girlfriend swooping into town to rescue her, even Evie’s confrontation with his father. Bà N ? i listens with her keen, watchful expression, snickering in some parts, asking him to repeat others.
When he finishes, she grabs his knee with one knobby hand.
“You are in love with this Evie woman,” she says simply, a statement of fact.
He gapes at her. “How did—that is—”
She raises an eyebrow until he finally sighs and nods. “I’m in love with Evie.”
“And your father doesn’t approve.”
“He has threatened to cut us off if I don’t end it with her. He thinks she’s too American.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Bà N ? i demands.
“Outspoken, I suppose. Disrespectful?”
He sees his mother wandering around the gardens, talking into her cell phone in what seems to be a very emphatic way. She
kicks at a bench.
“What horseshit.” Bà N ? i snorts. “Your father would say that. He married the meekest little pigeon there ever was. Always had a type. Liked people he could boss around. But
he can’t boss your Evie around, can he?”
“No,” Adam answers, grinning at the image of Evie standing up for him at dinner.
“And you like that, huh, my boy?” she asks slyly.
“Yes, I do.”
Bà N ? i slaps her legs with her hands and grabs her cane. With a hard thrust, she pokes him in the chest. Once, twice. He grimaces
again, rubbing his pectoral. “Listen here, B ? o. Your father is a fool. What’s more, he’s a damn bully. I raised him—or someone did, I guess a nursemaid might have—so I
know his flaws better than anyone. And we can all learn new tricks, even me at my old age, but he doesn’t want to. So I’m here to tell you that his opinion doesn’t matter. Do you hear me? You love this Evie? You go be with her. Marry
her. Have babies with her.”
“We’re not there yet, Bà N ? i,” he protests.
“Well, get there. You’re not getting any younger. My eyesight is going, and even I can see that gray hair starting to sprout
around your ears. Did you know that sperm depreciates every year in quality, not to mention Evie’s eggs?”
“Bà N ? i, please don’t discuss Evie’s eggs. Or my sperm, for that matter.”
Another jab in the chest. “My point, skinny B ? o, is that I will not let you walk away from someone you love enough to tell me about. Do you know that I had to hear about that Lana woman after you’d already proposed? I can hear it in your voice. Evie Lang is your mate. For every dollar your father withdraws from your sister’s company, I will add twice as much of my own. So don’t fret about the money.”
“I wasn’t planning on walking away from her because of the money, Bà N ? i.”
“Then what?”
Adam eyes the cane with a mixture of respect and consternation. “She lives in America. And I live here. It’s just impossible.”
“You know what’s impossible, skinny B ? o? A man falling in love with a woman through a picture. Her feeling the same. The two of them, married for over sixty years,
through more than half a century of war and overeager GIs and silly French coquettes and troublesome children who are still
the plagues of my life. But that is what happened with your ?ng n ? i and me. What I mean to tell you is this: Don’t be a coward.”
Love bravely. Adam opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. What does loving bravely mean in this context? Moving across the world? Would
it be so bad? Of course it wouldn’t. Nothing would be bad with Evie by his side. He could start over, work at the very bottom
rung of a company, grabbing coffee for supercilious businessmen, as long as he had her to come home to. If the only thing keeping him back is his ego, is that any excuse to walk away from this fascinating, infuriating
woman who has needled right under his skin, into the very folds of his soul?
It is not. Nothing is worth walking away from Evie for.
Seeing the play of emotions across her grandson’s face, Bà N ? i gives a satisfied tut. “Thank God you’re better at listening to sense than your father. Now that that’s settled, go summon
your mother, will you? She’s going to melt out there in the heat. And you tell your sister, Ruby, to come see me. She’s not
a bad kid either. And I want to hear about this business of hers. I have a feeling she’ll be looking for a new partner soon.”
When they arrive back at the estate, Adam rushes to Evie’s quarters. He doesn’t see her anywhere in the halls. He pounds on her door, again and again. No one answers. Then he races outside and scans the beach. The usual suspects are lounging in the sand with their beach reads and SPF 70. But no Evie.
Just as he’s getting on his motorbike to ride into town, he sees Ruby running toward him. For once, she has none of her usual
self-satisfied aplomb. In fact, she looks rather ashen.
“BB, wait,” she calls.
He idles the engine. “If you’re going to talk me out of seeing Evie—”
“I don’t have to,” she says heavily. “Evie left this morning while you were at Bà N ? i’s house.”
“She’s gone ahead to H ? Long Bay early?” He can hear the confusion in his own voice, but he doesn’t understand the emotions racing across Ruby’s
face—a little fear, guilt, and disappointment.
His mind is crammed with questions. Why didn’t she wait for the rest of the tour group? Does she know how to get around there
without them? Will she be all right on her own?
And then Ruby says the words that make him hunch over his handlebars, as if he’d been punched in the chest.
“B ? o, Evie has gone back to America.”
Adam turns the bike off. He stares at his sister. “What do you mean, she’s gone back to America?”
She places a hand on his arm and says, “I don’t know much. I saw that she got the flower arrangement from some man named Atlas.
Then she told me that she was sorry, she had to go back earlier than anticipated. She said she wished us the best of luck.
That she will leave a good review.”
He laughs bitterly and without humor. “She’ll leave us a good review.”
“I know.”
Ruby pulls him to her, and though at first he resists, he at last lets himself sink into his sister’s arms. Not that he can
feel them. He’s numb. Utterly, irreversibly brokenhearted.
“She left,” he repeats. If he says it often enough, maybe he’ll believe it.
“It’s for the best, B ? o,” she says soothingly. “Soon we’ll be sailing into the majestic bay, completing a successful tour. And you—you’ve proven yourself to be more than capable of being our CMO. I can’t thank you enough. Don’t you see? This is just the start for Love Yêu. The road ahead is lined in gold. And I want to travel it with you, my brother.”
These words of approval and gratitude, the ones he’s been chasing all his life, fall on deaf ears. It doesn’t feel good to
hear them. Truthfully, he can’t feel anything, except the crushing loss. For Ruby, the future might look bright. But without
Evie, he sees nothing but a string of endless, dark nights, in which his arms remain empty, and his heart cold. No amount
of material success can soothe such a loss.
Why didn’t she wait to say goodbye, at least? What could be more important than the question between them, that tremulous
and beautiful gap, waiting to be filled by their story? He starts his bike again and rides away from his sister, his family,
ignoring her pleas for him to stay. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but it doesn’t matter now. He has no direction, no purpose,
only the heaviness of certainty. It happened again. He’s been betrayed and left behind, with nowhere to pour the love in his
heart. He should have known better than to trust a stranger.