Serena Singh Flips the Script
Page 1
Praise for Sonya Lalli
“From yoga studios to finding oneself in trips abroad to online dating, Lalli gives readers a wonderful novel about love and belonging and [the] meaning of happiness and home.”
—Soniah Kamal, award-winning author of Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan
“Anu’s struggle to find herself is wrought with obstacles and sometimes frustrating, but the resolution of her story is both satisfying and realistic. A moving look at one woman’s journey between her family and her desire for independence.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Sonya Lalli offers up a tale of familial pressures, cultural traditions, and self-discovery that is equal turns heartbreaking and hilarious. . . . Lalli tears down stereotypes with humor and warmth.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“An engaging love story that delivers on the promise of true love forever. . . . The Matchmaker’s List comes through in spades (and hearts).”
—NPR
“Lalli’s sharp-eyed tale of cross-cultural dating, family heartbreak, the strictures of culture, and the exuberance of love is both universal and timeless.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Praise for The Matchmaker’s List
“Bright and vivid, and fresh and funny—I was utterly charmed by this insight into Raina’s struggle to be the perfect Indian daughter. A delightful debut.”
—Veronica Henry, author of How to Find Love in a Bookshop
“A riotous odyssey into the pressures of cross-cultural modern dating that will chime with every twentysomething singleton.”
—ELLE (UK)
“A funny and moving exploration of modern love.”
—Balli Kaur Jaswal, author of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows (a Reese’s Book Club pick)
“Absolutely charming.”
—Woman’s Day
“A warm and refreshing look at cultural identity, unexpected romance, and unbreakable family bonds.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Lalli’s debut is a delightful, multicultural romantic comedy full of humorous banter and loads of life lessons about family, happiness, love, honesty, and acceptance.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“A knockout romantic comedy debut.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books
BERKLEY TITLES BY SONYA LALLI
The Matchmaker’s List
Grown-Up Pose
Serena Singh Flips the Script
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2021 by Sonya Lalli
“Readers Guide” copyright © 2021 by Sonya Lalli
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lalli, Sonya, author.
Title: Serena Singh flips the script / Sonya Lalli.
Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020045201 (print) | LCCN 2020045202 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593100936 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593100943 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PR6112.A483 S47 2021 (print) | LCC PR6112.A483 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045201
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045202.
First Edition: Februray 2021
Cover art and design by Vikki Chu
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For Jay
Contents
Cover
Praise for Sonya Lalli
Berkley Titles by Sonya Lalli
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Winter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Spring
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Summer
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Autumn
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Readers Guide
Excerpt from A Holly Jolly Diwali
About the Author
Winter
1
Is it Singh Time, beti?”
Slowly, I craned my neck to the side. Uncle Singh, one of the many Uncle Singhs in our community, was towering over me. I’d been making eyes again with the hot photographer, whose name I kept forgetting, and hadn’t noticed the uncle make his approach.
“Singh Time?” I asked, feigning ignorance as I stood up from my chair and stalled for time.
“It is time to sing, hah?”
Party hosts in our community knew to allot one, even two hours for Singh Time, during which various uncles took over the microphone and serenaded the room with their off-key renditions of Punjabi folk songs. But my baby sister, Natasha, who had married a white guy and had mainly non-Indian guests at her wedding that night, had given me strict instructions to withhold the microphone “by any means necessary.”
I snuck a glance to my right, down the length of the head table. She was sitting happily next to Mark in her bedazzled gold lengha, flanked by both sets of parents, and then the wedding party. I had been mildly disappointed when Natasha asked the two other bridesmaids, her closest childhood friends, to give the toast to the bride instead of me, but I suppose she needed me up here as MC to fend off the uncles.
“Where is microphone?” I heard Uncle Singh ask. I turned back, beaming at him as a lightbulb went off in my head.
“Uncle,” I whispered, as if I had gossip to share. “Natasha specifically asked me not to let you sing tonight.”
He gasped, and I squeezed his hands in my own.
“Because she has something more special in mind for you.”
He narrowed his brows, the two thick bushes above his eyes merging into one long one.
“You, Uncle Singh, are her most favorite uncle.”
“I am?”
&nbs
p; “Have you not always felt a special bond with our family? With our sweet little Natasha?”
He glanced over at her curiously. Even though we shared the same, extremely common surname, we weren’t related to this Uncle Singh. To be completely honest, our families didn’t even know each other that well, and if Natasha wasn’t dressed up like a bride, I doubt the uncle would have been able to pick her out of a lineup. But if fourteen years in advertising had taught me anything, it’s that Uncle Singh didn’t want the microphone to sing. No. He wanted the microphone to feel admired, even loved.
And that’s all the information I needed to make the sale.
Within minutes, I’d convinced Uncle Singh that it was tradition for the bride’s favorite uncle to ask her to dance during the reception and that she’d be waiting for him after the DJ started later that evening. (Thankfully, he didn’t grill me too much on the alleged custom, accepting my answer that it was something goray—white people—liked to do.)
It was just before nine p.m. by the time he returned to his seat, and according to the Google spreadsheet Natasha, her treat of a mother-in-law, Mrs. Hartshorne, and their team of organizers had prepared, it was nearly time for me to make the introductions for the final round of toasts. I grabbed the microphone from where it was hidden in my purse, not wanting to wait a moment longer in case another uncle or auntie cornered me, and walked up to the podium, my heart beating in my stomach.
It’s not that I was nervous. Far from it. I loved public speaking, and I was good at it, too. But presenting a pithy, original advertising campaign to get a client on board with the idea, and then consumers on board with the product, was very different than MCing your baby sister’s wedding.
Your baby sister’s Indian wedding.
I surveyed the room as I gathered the courage to start. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, chatting and laughing, shoveling in forkfuls of the chocolate lavender wedding cake Natasha and I had spent hours picking out. And the room was gorgeous. We’d decorated it to be the exact winter wonderland Natasha had imagined.
But it was strange to see the room divided into brown and white—except for the four or five tables closest to the bar full of Natasha and Mark’s friends, beautiful people in a rainbow of ethnicities that would have been perfect as extras on the sportswear campaign I’d been working on all winter.
Up near the front sat Mark’s family and his parents’ friends—the stuffiest, most highbrow residents of Washington, DC, or Bethesda of the “old money” variety, including one senator, two House representatives, and three directors of one federal agency or another. (I knew this because Mrs. Hartshorne had demanded I give them a “warm welcome” yet said we didn’t have time to thank all of our relatives who flew in from the UK and India.) Most of the men were in tuxedos, and the women in gowns—although their diamonds, pearls, and general decadence didn’t outshine the sparkle coming from the back of the room, where our extended family and community was seated. The uncles were in kurtas or western suits, the aunties in saris or salwars in true gilded Punjabi glamour.
A group of particularly glitzy aunties caught my eye halfway toward the back. They were gawking at me, and even from here I could see the pity on their faces. I tried not to roll my eyes, imagining what they were saying about me whenever I was out of earshot.
Already thirty-six, and to have a younger sister married first?
What ever happened to that nice boy Jesse? Did she scare him off?
She is not too old yet, nah? My cousin’s nephew has a job now. I will make the arrangements!
“Now that is what I call butter chicken,” I said loudly into the microphone, cutting off their voices in my head. The whole room laughed. I’m not sure at what exactly.
“I hope everyone’s having a wonderful time!”
A table near the bar cheered and clinked their glasses, and I gritted my teeth as the rest of the room joined in, and Natasha and Mark stood up for a chaste, tasteful kiss for their fans.
My chest ached, but I wasn’t jealous, even though it would be easy to think as much.
I was genuinely, wholeheartedly happy that she had found someone to spend her life with.
I was also happy that one of the Singh sisters was finally married, checking off the “good Indian girl” box, which meant I didn’t have to.
* * *
Five hours later, I found myself in the happy couple’s honeymoon suite, trapped on a sectional between Natasha and one of her giggly friends. I yawned, hiding it with my palm. Natasha had assigned me with last-minute wedding tasks that week because she didn’t fully trust the planner, and I was exhausted, but I knew it would look bad if I left early. Leaning forward, I checked to see if there was anyone else I could talk to. The groomsmen were pouring another round of tequila shots in the kitchen. They were nice enough guys, all thirtysomethings with fancy jobs in government or law or medicine, but they drank like fish whenever they were off the clock. I turned my head toward the deluxe king-size bed, on top of which Mark and his sister, Bethany, and a handful of their friends were dancing up a storm. Their shoes were still on, and I felt even more exhausted just watching them.
I sighed silently, sinking back into the couch. Just a few more hours, and I could crawl into bed, close my eyes, and the wedding would be over.
Finally.
Today had felt like a long, long time coming, if only because Mom had been fantasizing about it since the day Natasha brought Mark home.
Do you think he’ll propose, Serena?
Do you think they’ll have a Sikh ceremony, Serena?
Do you think your sister will pick the red jai malas, Serena?
I’d been fielding these sorts of panicked, overexcited calls for years, but I didn’t mind in the slightest. As much as Mom adored her new son-in-law, I freaking loved having him around. Not only had Mark proven to be a great buffer at tense family dinners, but ever since he entered the picture, Mom had stopped hounding me about the fact that I wasn’t married.
I glanced around the room at Natasha and Mark’s friends, suddenly nostalgic for my own group, whom I’d hung out with every single day from grade school to high school graduation. We’d been like this once. Big groups of us sitting around, dancing, telling one another the same old stories that had defined our friendships, built their foundations. But things were different now that we were older.
Just a few years ago, I could count on scores of dynamic, caring women in my life, from school or college or whom I’d met at work. But one by one, they’d gotten married and had families. And one by one, their commitments to our friendship took a backseat. Our movie nights, weekly phone calls, or Saturday dinners became less and less frequent, morphed into forty-five-minute catch-ups at a Starbucks near their apartments, when their spouses were at the gym or out of town. They’d forget my birthday or to ask me about the new client I’d scored, but they’d text to remind me I still hadn’t RSVP’d for their baby showers or housewarmings an hour and a half away in suburbia.
Most of them kept their careers after having children, so it was understandable that they never had time for their single friends in the city. That those few precious moments between working and commuting, bath time and story time, were dedicated to their partner, their hobbies, their own mental health.
I wasn’t a robot. They were my friends, and I got it. But I didn’t have to like it, and I was certainly allowed to resent it.
“You awake?” I heard Natasha ask me, and a split second later she elbowed me in the ribs. “Are you ever going to tell me why I had to dance with that random uncle to ‘Mundian to Bach Ke’?”
I started to explain to her the Singh Time situation, but then she grabbed my shoulder and cut me off.
“Look who it is!”
I followed her eyes through the crowd toward the front door of the suite. It was the photographer I’d been flirting with the whole day. Suddenly,
I didn’t feel so sleepy.
“I told him to drop by.” Natasha shrugged nonchalantly. “I wonder why he came.”
“Free booze?” I ventured.
“I saw you two chatting today. A lot.”
“Like when?”
“Like, right before the ceremony. The cocktail hour. The reception. Becket is so into you!”
Becket. So that was his name.
He hadn’t seen us yet, and I watched him hover awkwardly in the kitchen and shake hands with the groomsmen, and then obligingly down a tequila shot. He was wearing a checked shirt and tie beneath his suit, and his black hair—which I’d noticed earlier had a few grays, too—swooped adorably across his forehead, like a surfer.
“Go talk to him.”
I shook my head, even though I couldn’t stop smiling. It had been a while since I’d felt attracted to someone like this—eight months or so, the UN Swahili translator I’d briefly dated—and the thrill of something new sent a shiver up my spine.
I knocked my knee against Natasha, in thanks. She was shameless, but she was also my best friend. I mean, she noticed who I was giving the eyes to on her own wedding day. Maybe I didn’t need my other friends. Maybe it didn’t matter if everyone else in my life had started to drift away.
“Serena, if you don’t go over there—”
“Chill, OK?” I caught her eye, and she made a face at me. “Please don’t make this awk . . .”
I trailed off as I suddenly realized that Becket had left the kitchen. He was standing in front of us.
“Hey,” he said, his hands in his pockets.
I was about to speak when Natasha intervened.
“Becket!” she squealed, standing up. “I’m so glad you came. You’ve met my big sister, haven’t you?” She pushed him into her spot on the couch, and I felt his thigh rub against mine as he sat down.
“Can I get you a drink?” she asked him.