Water on Stone

She had been telling me a story for most of our date, a story that seemed half-truth, half-lie. I wasn’t sure how we got on the topic, but I didn’t dislike listening to her speak. The woman was a lover, but she was not a friend. She existed in that hazy space between passion and convenience.

She twirled her little brown braid around her index finger — she had pianist hands — and looked at me with her wet, green eyes. Her eyes had a certain blank hopefulness that reminded me of cow eyes. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to Vietnam. Not that I was that interested in speaking the language. It’s very hard. But really the culture . . . I thought the culture was interesting since I took all those history classes on the Vietnam War.”

“And what did you not expect?” I asked. We had met two months ago through a mutual friend who knew she liked Asian men and had seen each other only a few times. I had never been with a white woman before her. She had asked if I was Vietnamese and I had shaken my head. I was not sure why I lied, because she probably knew that I was.

“Well, I’m getting there.” She took a sip of her coffee, filled to the brim with steamed milk and whipped cream and noted with a smirk, “This coffee is good, but it’s not as good as the coffee in Vietnam.”

An employee bussed her empty plate. I handed him mine. The coffee shop was small and only had enough seating for a few people. We sat at a table by the window.

“I wanted to take a vacation, because work generally is terrible. I’ve told you all about my awful manager. So I planned this whole trip with these friends so we could all catch up and take some time off.

We went to these caves in the middle of Vietnam. They have these limestone caves that are massive and you can hire a guide. We went to Hang Sơn Đoòng, the ten of us. We swam into the cave, which was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done, but hopefully won’t be the coolest thing I’ll ever do. It felt very spiritual.”

I smiled. I