31 Adam
31 Adam
H ? Chí Minh City, Vi ? t Nam
As Adam is jogging back to the LYT office for a virtual meeting, he bumps into someone passing in the opposite direction on
the street. He begins to apologize, but then his gaze flicks downward, into his ex-girlfriend’s perfectly made-up face. Lana
blinks once, twice, before stepping back from him. As ever, she’s gorgeously put together in a white blazer and silk trousers,
as if she’s come straight from Ibiza. The pungent note of amber in her perfume begins to give him a headache. Has her scent
always been so strong?
He takes a moment to study Lana. What does he feel? A kind of distant goodwill? A brief dart of annoyance, like he’s staring
at an incomplete task? Not heartbreak. Never, he realizes, has it been heartbreak toward her. Wounded pride, sure, and betrayal,
always. But heartbreak is reserved for another woman.
“Adam,” she says, her hand touching her hair self-consciously. “God. It’s been... ages. How are you?”
He tries to school his face into an expression of friendliness. H ? Chí Minh City is still a small enough place that they might occasionally run into one another. In this society, you play
nice. You don’t make waves. But how can he pretend, when they’ve never had the Conversation? There was no closure, only a
weird amnesia that seemed to spread over their mutual acquaintances, as if the relationship were a figment of his imagination.
Truth be told, Adam hasn’t thought much about Lana in the months since the tour ended. Or since it began. His mind has been
on other things. Other... people. What he feels toward Lana has been reduced to a dull, forgettable affection. He’s surprised
to find that his remaining hurt has little to do with their relationship and everything to do with how it ended.
He clears his throat. “Congratulations on your engagement.”
She glances at her left hand, where a four-carat emerald-cut diamond crows up at him. “Thank you. We’re very excited.”
“Well, it was nice to see you.” Adam tries to leave, really he does. But he can’t help himself. He turns and asks, “Why did
you let me propose, if you had someone else in the wings?”
She cringes, then hides her hand behind her back. “We’re going to do this, then? Here?”
“I guess not.” He begins walking away, shaking his head.
Then she calls, “I didn’t know you were going to ask. I wasn’t planning on it.”
“ We had a plan, Lana. You knew the engagement was the destination.” He doesn’t know why he’s pushing so hard. What does it matter
now? Still, he feels a sense of injustice. An unhealed blister.
She throws up her hands. “Who cares about the plan? You think there’s an easy formula for life—plug and play, like one of
your spreadsheets. But it’s not like that. You idolized me as this perfect partner, but I wasn’t. I made mistakes. We both
did.”
“I know that.” And he does. He’s reflected on his late nights, the way he’d often choose his friends or work over her. He’s
never been blameless. “I’m sorry for my part.”
She blows a bit of hair off her forehead. “Anyway, this is all in the past, isn’t it? Your father told us that you went on
a matchmaking tour.”
“My sister’s company,” he mutters.
She shoots him a sympathetic look. If anyone knows how much Adam has to prove to his family, it’s Lana. She’s been there since
the beginning.
“It’s unlike you. I didn’t think you would ever agree to something like that.”
“Things change.”
The sun is dipping below the horizon, casting peachy hues over H ? Chí Minh City. He’s reminded of other sunsets. Of a brilliant smile to rival every unforgettable sight of the tour. Evie’s
face taunts him each day, even though he refuses to look at the photographs of her. Blocked her on his phone. None of it matters.
He’s memorized every square inch of her. She’s inescapable.
Things do change. But sometimes, as much as it pains him, he wishes he could rewind to a time of possibility.
An alarm on his watch beeps. Lana studies the emotions shifting across his face, hesitating like she wants to ask a question.
“I guess I’ll see you later?”
He knows he’ll be late, which will make Ruby irate, but there’s something else he wants to say to Lana. One last thing. “Why
didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to be together anymore? It would have been cleaner. Kinder.”
Her look is sad, resigned, as she changes shoulders with her new Prada bag. The real thing, likely, and not a factory knockoff.
Lana, who’d only ever carried briefcases and utilitarian Swedish backpacks. “I’m sorry, Adam. I know I was in the wrong, the
villain in your story. I accept that. But the truth is, I still had hope for a long time. I wanted to make it work. I waited for so long for you to feel the same way about me that I felt about you. Do you know what that’s
like? To live with someone who’s only halfway there?”
Confusion crosses his face. “I was faithful.”
“I know you were. But there’s a difference between loyalty and passion. It was clear you could live without me, whereas for
a long time, I felt I couldn’t live without you. It was like watching you on a boat while I flailed in the ocean, waiting
for a safety raft. Or waiting for you to join me in the sea. You were always keeping a part of yourself back. The gold nugget
of who you were.”
Was that true? Sure, maybe he was distracted sometimes during their relationship, but it was because they’d always been working together for the end goal. The high-rise. The perfect life. He didn’t have time to hesitate, to dwell on his childhood traumas, and neither did she. Besides, the great thing about Lana was that she grew up in the same circumstances he did: wealthy, gifted, saddled with a conservative nuclear family with terrifically high expectations. She got him.
But there’s a niggling truth under all this, pinching his rib cage. When has he ever given his whole self to someone else?
Without ego, without fear of rejection? His family taught him to live life with dignity, to keep the walls so high that they
would appear impenetrable to outsiders. It was a way to protect one’s reputation. One’s legacy. Along the way, loving at a
distance became Adam’s comfort zone.
But is that any reliable circumstance for love? Doesn’t love require a measure of vulnerability? Even now, he can’t forgive
Evie for leaving him. But he would never humble himself to reach out to her first. It would mean letting all the walls down
and standing unprotected in front of someone who’d destroyed him so completely.
And that is unthinkable.
Maybe Lana is right. Maybe he’s not meant for love.
Lana puts a hand on his arm. “I’m the last person you want to hear this from, but trust me—when you feel it, you’ll know.
You won’t hold back with the right woman. You’ll let yourself be messy with her. Give her full access to your secret world.
It’ll be worth it, if you can manage to stop being so afraid.”
She gives him a last, sad smile before she turns on her heel. He fights the urge to follow her, to argue. They’ve always been
good at challenging one another, and in some ways, Adam thrived on the adrenaline of their shared ambition. But now here she
is walking away, leaving behind something shimmering, uncertain. A question that he might know the answer to.
“So, Adam, what is the secret to a good match?”
He blinks at the computer screen, through which the podcast inter viewer waits expectantly for his answer. He made his meeting just in the nick of time. She’s recording him for her Vietnamese lifestyle channel, a project he booked before he went on the tour.
They, along with Ruby, are supposed to be discussing the app, due to launch in a few weeks. It’s positioned as an alternative
for those who don’t have the time or resources to shell out a small fortune for the tour. The app focus is still on well-heeled
clients, a decision Adam has increasingly begun to resist, and the membership remains exclusive. Vetted. Ruby says it’s like
Raya for affluent Vietnamese. Beta users have been raving about the ease of the user experience and the prime selection of
candidates.
The secret to a good match. He repeats these words to himself.
If he knew, he wouldn’t be sitting in H ? Chí Minh City alone, staring at a screen in his blank cell of an office. He certainly wouldn’t be spending his days thinking
about a certain woman’s long hair, the feel of her hands as she grips his waist on a motorbike. Wondering how she could have
left without even saying goodbye.
The interviewer tries again. “Surely you must be an expert in love at this point.”
She’s a young woman with blue hair, yellow-painted nails, and a winning smile that veers onto the edge of flirtatious. Months
ago, Adam might have flirted back, in the name of publicity for Love Yêu, if not personal inclination.
But now he can do little more than clear his throat. Why does he sound like a constipated frog?
Thankfully, Ruby—another square on the screen—laughs charmingly and answers for him. “I don’t know that any of us would call
ourselves experts in love. Love is still a mysterious phenomenon. What I will say is that we’re experts in compatibility.
We lean on a team of experts and a sophisticated algorithm in order to create the ideal circumstances for a love match.”
“Doesn’t a traditional matchmaker accomplish the same results? Why go to an app—or on a tour—for this?” the interviewer prods.
They’ve been talking for twenty minutes, and Adam has no idea what anyone has said. His head is fogged. His body is bone-tired from the six-mile runs he’s taken up every morning to work off his emotions, along with the unexpected conversation with Lana. Every day since the tour has felt like a slog of epic proportions. This interview is the very least of his concerns.
But now, catching sight of Ruby’s private chat— SPEAK UP, BB —he pastes a smile on his face.
He adds, “We have measurable success, in terms of both the tour and the app. Technology doesn’t substitute for connection,
of course. But it’s a powerful tool we can’t ignore. Plus, that’s where many of our users are now. They’re busy, they’re sophisticated.
They are eager for something a little more convenient than months of matchmaker meetings to yield one candidate.”
“And how do you define measurable success?” the interviewer asks.
Again, he’s at a loss. His own experience on the tour was no traditional success. Nothing for the books. His bed is still
empty and his thoughts still full to the brim of her . He begins to shrug when Ruby again rescues the conversation.
She says brightly, “Well, let’s take one couple from our tour: Talia and Pin. When we were choosing participants, I had a
hunch that they would be suited for each other...”
Adam resists the urge to snort. Ruby had chosen Talia for him , and she could not have been more wrong about their chemistry. Of course, that would not have fit into the narrative, so
Ruby ignores that little detail. Still, he’s happy for Talia and Pin. On social media, Talia showed off a beautiful solitaire,
with Pin beaming in the background.
Ruby goes on. “They are both cerebral and philanthropy-minded. In their questionnaires, they described similar wishes for
their futures. There were other guests they could have chosen, but ultimately, they found each other.”
“Against all odds,” the interviewer says, a little dreamily.
“We just helped those odds along. They’re engaged now. And they got to meet and fall in love among waterfalls, ancient temples, and flowering gardens in the most stunning parts of our country. How many other couples get to say that? It’s a love story for the ages.”
The interviewer sighs happily. “Well, now you’re making me think I should apply for the next tour.”
Ruby winks. “You should. There’s still time to join. A fall tour would be a most romantic setting for your own story.”
The interviewer laughs. “We’ll see. And will you two be going on the next tour?”
“Hell, no,” Adam says. The words fly from his mouth before he can stop them.
Ruby’s glare singes the screen. She forces out a laugh. “I’m keeping him too busy here, doing his CMO duties.”
Attempting to save himself, he puts in, “I wouldn’t want to take up a spot that’s reserved for another couple-in-the-making.
Everyone deserves at least one fighting shot at love.”
“Well said,” the interviewer tells him.
The interview ends soon after. When he shuts his laptop, Adam thumps his head on the desk. Stupid, stupid. What’s happening
to him? He used to be able to do all this with aplomb. And now that Ruby hired a copywriter, he should have more time than
ever to devote to Love Yêu. But all he really wants to do is curl up in his bed and reread his copy of Auntie H?o’s Cabinet of Curiosities , as if Evie’s writing could bring her voice closer to him. He’s picked up the phone endless times, only to remember that
he blocked her. His email trash bin is full of dozens of drafts he never had the courage to send.
But truly, what is there to say? He’s worried anything that comes out would be angry. Because he is angry. And he misses her.
Minutes after the interview ends, there’s a knock on his door. Ruby enters, then studies his slumped form. The empty coffee
cups lining his desk. His beaten-up running shoes, tossed below the windowsill. The lack of personal decoration in the office.
There’s a long pause. He braces himself for the scolding, but then finds he doesn’t care one way or another.
At last, her face softens. “Come on, BB, let me take you out to lunch.”
“No, thanks. And stop calling me that.” The words come out before he can halt them. And then he wonders: Why haven’t I said it sooner? “I’m a grown man, Ruby, not your baby brother. It’s disrespectful. Especially when you do it in front of our employees.”
Ruby’s eyes widen. “Oh, my God. Really? I... Well, I thought it was just an affectionate nickname. I never realized you
felt that way.”
“You never asked.”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t know.”
This is a new one. Ruby never admits fault. Adam nods in acknowledgment, though he doesn’t fully allow his walls to come down.
She never has time for conversation unless she needs something from him.
“Truly, I’ll call you whatever you want. Come out with me, just for an hour or so. We never did anything for your birthday.”
It came and went a week ago without any fanfare from his family, which was just fine. His friends had thrown him a party on
a rooftop, and he drank himself silly but had gone home alone, despite the gorgeous women plying him with cocktails and compliments.
He’s honestly surprised that Ruby remembers his birthday, with everything going on.
In the months since the inaugural tour, she’s hired a full staff for the tours, as well as a separate staff for the app. Bà
N ? i came through with a staggering investment that funded these growth initiatives, even though Mr.Quy ? n, ever astute to a good financial decision, didn’t wind up pulling his. Adam suspects his grandmother likes lording her higher
shareholder status over her son.
Cherie opted not to come back as a guide, but now she assists Ruby with office maintenance. Adam has heard through the grapevine
that she’s dating another Love Yêu employee, a tall and serious man who runs their finance department. At one point, ?? c had stormed into the office to try to win her back, but Adam swiftly escorted him—and his fedora—out onto the pavement before
he could sputter more than a few words of entreaty.
Ruby tries again. “I’ll take you to Li Bai.”
She names one of the most expensive restaurants in the city, clueing Adam in to her desperation.
“I have a gift for you,” she says, a note of pleading creeping into her voice.
“I don’t need a bribe, Ruby.”
“Please, Adam.”
There’s something about the way she wrings her hands and stares into his eyes, as if willing him to agree, that makes him
thaw.
Grabbing his wallet, he says, “Let’s just go to the bún th ? t n ?? ng stand around the corner.”
She makes a face. “You mean with the grumpy auntie who thinks it’s her sacred duty to point out each new wrinkle that pops
up on my face?”
“She tells me I get shorter every time I walk past,” Adam admits. “It’s like—a person doesn’t get shorter . But tell that to Auntie. Who, by the way, hardly clears four feet herself.”
“And yet—”
They intone together in resignation, “Best bún th ? t n ?? ng in the city.”
Ten minutes later, they’re seated at a low plastic table by the stand, cupping warm bowls of vermicelli with savory scallion-scented
grilled pork that Grumpy Auntie prepared. She peppered her movements with scathing commentary about the Quy ? n siblings. Now they duck their heads, avoiding her scowls.
“That felt like going through a war,” Adam says.
“Our parents think they had it hard.”
The streets are muddy from the rain, but they tuck their legs away from the splash of motorcycles whizzing past. It’s a cloudy
day in Vi ? t Nam, with just a hint of dropping temperatures. Around them, the usual bustle. A city as resilient as a mountain. Even in
his moments of longing, Adam can appreciate the jumble of life and history in H ? Chí Minh City.
With her mouth full, Ruby says, “I think she puts crack in her n ?? c mam.”
Adam sets a cube of grilled pork on his tongue. As he often does, he wonders where Evie is now, mentally calculating her time zone. It’s midnight in the Midwest. Is she in bed with Atlas? Talking about her poetry while he brings her a cup of tea—the things Adam desperately wants to do? The thought gives him a sharp jolt of pain, but now that feeling is so common that he tosses it back with the other locked-up emotions.
Ruby sets down her chopsticks. “B ? o. Adam. I said I had a gift for you.”
“Okay?”
He’s not paying attention. There’s a little girl across the street throwing a pod of dried tamarind at her brother. The brother
runs under his parents’ legs, but he’s laughing. Vowing revenge.
“My gift is firing you from Love Yêu.”
His attention snaps back to her. “What the hell, Ruby? That’s an awful gift.”
“I’m not joking.” She puts a placating hand on his arm. “You are so good at what you do, but you aren’t really interested
in doing this . It was bad enough seeing you mope around H ? Long Bay. Your misery was heavy enough to sink our ship. You started nearly five different fights with Riley.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” he mutters.
“Hardly. Now you’re walking around in this state of permanent depression.”
“I am not,” he says indignantly, hearing how childish he sounds.
She continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “A year ago, I begged you to quit your job and help me. You have . I would not have been able to manage the tour without you. But now we’re fine. The company’s doing great, and with the sign-ups
predicted from the beta users of the app, we’ll be rolling in cash and even more opportunities. Because of you .”
“But—”
“You’ve done your job, and it’s time for you to go on to bigger and better, whatever that means. Of course, you will still
have shareholder status, and we’re able to give you severance until you figure out what you want to do next. But there’s no
rush, B ? o. You’ve been doing what we’ve wanted for so long. Me, our parents, our employees, and our investors. It’s time for you to find your own way. It’s not really a gift, but something I should have told you a long time ago, as your sister. As someone who is always impressed by you.”
Adam doesn’t know what to say. There’s a sheen of tears in his sister’s eyes. She squeezes his hand.
“Ruby, I don’t even know what I want to do next,” he tells her finally.
“That’s okay. You’ll figure it out. You can make your way in unfamiliar places. I never had that sense of adventure, that
ability to empathize with people. You forge real connections. Like the one you made with Evie.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but she speaks over him. “I know you loved her. Do you still?”
He sighs. “I don’t know that I’ll ever stop.”
Then Ruby’s tears really fall. Adam, concerned, reaches over with a papery tissue. She takes it and dabs, whispering, “I was
the reason she left.”
“No, you weren’t, Ruby. She did that all by herself.” He’ll never forget that feeling of looking for her, only to know she
disappeared without a trace.
She shakes her head. “I’m so ashamed, B ? o. I see you every day, with this morose expression, looking like you want to fly across the world. And you do. You want to
be with her.”
“It’s impossible.”
“The day before she left, I told her that Ba was going to withdraw his investment if you got together with her. I said, essentially,
that it would ruin your life if she stayed.”
Adam’s mind is racing. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see? She left for you . To make things easier for you. Because the thought of hurting you and your future was too much. She left because she loves
you too.”
Adam lets his hands fall heavily in his lap. A thousand thoughts are crowding his mind. First there’s the sting of Ruby’s
betrayal. Annoyance at her meddling. Then he’s flooded by sadness, a well of longing. Somewhere in there, the old anger finds
its way back to him.
“Even so, she should have said goodbye,” he says fiercely. “Instead of leaving like a thief in the night without a word. I deserved more.”
Ruby reaches into her purse with a small sniff and pulls out a sheet of paper folded into a tight square. She places it on
the table between them.
She says guiltily, “That’s not exactly how it happened. Evie asked me to give this to you before she left.”
He stares at the paper as if it’s drenched in poison. He sees his name in careful script. Evie’s handwriting, which he’s never
seen. How could he be so in love with a woman he only knew for a few weeks? How can just the sight of her handwriting make
his heart beat faster? Love is a cruel sorcerer.
Ruby brushes the remaining tears out of her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Adam. I never told you any of this because Love Yêu is all I have left. While I was on the tour, Th?ng asked for a separation. It looks like it’ll be permanent. A divorce. And I was
adrift. Then I went crazy when Ba threatened to shut down the company. Really, severely out of my mind. I didn’t know how
to tell Ba and M ? —or you—about Th?ng. I just wanted to pretend everything was okay. I needed you.”
Adam takes a beat to process this. Ruby and Th?ng have always seemed solid, despite the long-distance nature of their marriage.
They were aligned in goals, the way he and Lana had been. It was as if Th?ng was hand-selected by their parents. So what went
wrong?
“You should have told me. I’m your family.”
But even as he says it, he understands. Admitting weakness has never been part of the Quy ? n credo. Adam wouldn’t have confided in Ruby about such matters. Even now, he’s done exactly what was expected of him: he
buries the heartbreak and continues to work.
Ruby replies, “I’ve always been Ba’s dependable little soldier. I did everything without complaint. I guess I was just ashamed
and scared of what the divorce would mean for my future, especially with the company. I mean, who could possibly trust an
owner of a matchmaking service who couldn’t keep her own marriage together?”
Adam is silent for a moment. Then he shrugs. “I never liked Th?ng anyway. He always wanted to golf. What Vietnamese man golfs ?”
Ruby laughs shakily. “Truly the worst of his sins.”
“Are you all right, Ruby?”
“Surprisingly, not as bad as I thought I might be. I still haven’t told Ba and M ? . You’re the first person who knows. It’s been a lonely few months, but I’ll live.”
Adam is at first unnerved to see the vulnerability in her face. But then he reaches over to hug his sister, taking her into
his arms. He realizes that this is one of the only times in their adult lives that they’ve hugged. The Quy ? ns have never been known for being physically demonstrative. She holds him tightly in return.
“I’m here, Ruby,” he says softly. “I’m just your dumb little brother, but I’ve never left.”
“I know, B ? o,” she sniffs.
A moment later, she releases him and says out of the corner of her mouth, “Watch out; Grumpy Auntie is shooting daggers at
us. Thinks we’re making a scene.”
“Typical of you.”
She laughs, then stands, pushing the note closer to him. “Just read it, Adam. I don’t know what it says, but if I know anything
about Evie, I know she’s poured her heart into it. She’s nothing if not honest.”
A smile sketches across his face. “This is a fact.”
“Just so you know: I liked her fine. I even secretly cheered her on when she and Ba got into it. But I was resentful that
she got to be exactly who she wanted to be, without the constraints we had growing up. I was jealous . She’s special.”
“I know.”
“I hope you can forgive me someday.”
“We’ll see. You were kind of an asshole, and you kind of screwed up my life.”
Ruby hangs her head. “You’re right.”
Then he relents. “But I won’t stop loving you, Ruby. Even if you piss me off sometimes. Even if you just fired me.”
“It’s for your own good.” She gives him one last, sad smile. “Off to see my divorce lawyer now. Wish me luck.”
As he watches his sister trudging down the street by herself, Adam is forced to acknowledge that, no matter how subconsciously,
Ruby and Th?ng were the blueprint for his own relationship with Lana. They seemed to be living in untroubled, uncomplicated
harmony. And now the blueprint has been crumpled. Tossed aside.
Perhaps the measure of success in love is not through numbers or outward notions of compatibility—living in the same social
circles, going to the same elite schools—as he indicated to the interviewer. Maybe the whole point is that love isn’t logical. It is a night alone in a cave. It’s traveling through the winding roads of life together, without a plan, but with
the firm conviction that the journey is worth taking with the other person by your side.
Adam reaches for Evie’s note and opens it, holding his breath against what he might find.