“Michelle!” Her mother was screaming from down the shoreline. Michelle wondered what she would think of her mother if she didn’t actually know her. Huong Le, the consummate beauty, the one-time refugee, the mother of two daughters, the recent divorcee. Her mother was dressed in white from head to toe. Her silk blouse and linen trousers flapped in the breeze. She came forward looking like a majestic sail boat parting through a sea of oiled limbs.

When she arrived she said, “Michelle, where’ve you been? I’ve been looking everywhere. Everyone’s waiting on you.” Her mother eyed him and asked, “Was he bothering you?”

Michelle said, “Nuh-uh,” as she watched him laying his towel down only a couple of feet away. It was embarrassing how her mother always spoke in loud Vietnamese.

“Well, you shouldn’t speak to strangers. And why didn’t you come when I called?” She looped her finger around the strap of Michelle’s bathing suit and moved it aside to inspect the tan line. “You’ve gotten awfully dark,” she said.

“I don’t mind,” said Michelle.

“It makes you look common. Like some sort of peasant or a field worker or something.”

Some boys ran up to him as if they knew him. He talked to them but Michelle saw that he was watching her above their heads. She said to her mother, “I’ve been told my tan looks nice.” His watching had pushed her to be brave.

Her mother said, “It’s fashionable to look poor only if you’re not.” Her mother stretched the strap even further, once peeking down Michelle’s chest, and then let it snap. “Come on,” she said, “let’s go.”

She wanted to tell her mother she was wrong. But she knew better. She knew her mother would slap her, say Children obey. She didn’t want to be humiliated in front of him.

While Michelle packed up her things he came and stood beside her. They didn’t say anything to each other. They watched her mother down at the water wiggling her toes in the sea foam. Her mother took off her white hat and fanned herself with it. She smoothed down her hair, tucking a shiny lock behind one ear. Her skin was so fair it was almost blue, opalescent. In Vietnam, this had meant something.

The strappy sandals dangling from her mother’s fingers shimmered like silver fish hanging on a line. The man pointed to Michelle, then at her mother and said, “¿Son hermanas?”

Michelle shook out her towel with such disgust she blasted sand in her own eyes.

Her mother screamed up, “Let’s go! Your aunt Kim’s waiting!”

On the way back to the pensión her mother said, “Your habitual lateness is ill-mannered. It’s disgraceful. No way for a lady to act.”

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t slave and save to spend my entire vacation always looking for you, always baby-sitting.”