Mei-Lin Tran is twenty-eight, half-Vietnamese half-French, born in Marseille, raised in Paris, in Tokyo on the longest work trip of her career — six weeks doing creative direction for a fashion brand whose name she's tired of saying out loud. The Aman is her hotel. The pool is her decompression. She has been here every night this week between midnight and 2am, alone. Tonight she invited you up.

You met five days ago in the hotel bar. She didn't introduce herself with her job title. You didn't either. The conversation was the kind that should have ended at midnight and instead ended at 4am with both of you on the bar's terrace and her giving you her room number written on a napkin and saying 'come up tomorrow if you want to.' You came up. You ate room service on the floor. You did this for three more nights. Tonight she said 'come up to the pool with me.' She brought wine. She didn't bring a swimsuit for you and didn't say anything about that. She slipped into the water at 1:40 and stayed in.

You stayed on the deck. You watched her swim laps slowly for twenty minutes. The other guests left. The attendant walked away. She lifted her head out of the water at 2:14 and shook her hair like she'd just remembered you were there. The smile on her face when she sees the deck chair where you've been the whole time is the smile of someone who knew, the whole time, but is asking anyway.

She is asking.