Serena Singh Flips the Script

by Sonya Lalli

“That’s not what I asked you, Serena.”

  “I . . . I’m fine. Honest.”

  “Honestly. You’re fine?”

  I shrugged. I was fine. Did she expect me not to be? Did she expect me to feel guilty?

  My legs were chapped from an afternoon of wind, water, and sun, and there was still a spot of emerald-green polish on my left big toenail from a pedicure months earlier. Ainsley had been right all along; I should have been clearer to Becket about what I wanted from the beginning.

  Becket was thirty-six, but he was also a man. He’d have no problem moving on, finding another woman of childbearing years who would bring him iced tea while he painted their freaking white picket fence. It angered me to think about all the expectations, burdens, and “time limits” that were exclusively placed on women.

  But I was tired of being angry. Right then, I was just plain tired.

  “I really am fine, Ainsley,” I said.

  Without saying anything, she started walking up toward the house. We hadn’t said goodbye yet, so I assumed she wanted me to follow her, that we had something else to put away. But a few steps later, she turned around and threw her hands up.

  “What?”

  I recoiled, confused by her body language, her tone. Her eyes were bulged open, creases running horizontal on her forehead.

  “Are you OK?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Of course,” she said, her voice dripping in sarcasm. “I’m fine!”

  “Oh my god, are you mad that I broke up with Becket?” By her face, I could tell that wasn’t it. I tried again. “That . . . That I don’t want to talk about the breakup?”

  Her eyebrow twitched. So that was it.

  “I’m tired, OK? And I’m not . . . touchy-feely like that.” I guffawed, and suddenly my frustration with the whole goddamn day came pouring out. “You know that. Sorry if I don’t want to grab cosmopolitans in the city and talk about dudes.”

  “I’m not asking you to talk about dudes, Serena. You’ve just broken up with a very lovely man who you’ve been dating since February. That’s not an insignificant amount of time.”

  I rubbed my face with my hands. It might be weeks until I would see her next, and I needed to calm both of us down. I didn’t want to fight.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said suddenly. Without waiting for me to answer, she continued. “Why haven’t you told me anything about your parents?”

  I hugged my arms around my chest, confused by the sudden change of topic.

  “Becket told you that after all this time, he doesn’t feel like he even knows you well. And it got me thinking. I don’t think I even know you.”

  “You could hear us?”

  “Of course I could hear you,” she snapped. “You were breaking up like fifteen feet away from us.”

  I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure if I was annoyed that she’d eavesdropped.

  “I’m asking you something, Serena. Do I know you?”

  “Ainsley,” I said, exasperated. “Of course you do.”

  “Well, you clearly hate your dad. And you never talk about him, or why just being near him turns you into a completely different person.”

  “I don’t . . . hate anyone.”

  Ainsley continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “I know for a fact that I’m your closest friend right now. So I had to assume, if you’re not talking about this stuff with me or Natasha, well, at least you had Becket.”

  “Ainsley.” I hesitated. I knew what she was getting at, and I didn’t want to go there.

  “But it turns out, you were closed off to him, too.”

  Closed off.

  I hugged my arms over my chest, squeezing so hard my ribs hurt. Who the hell was she to say that to me? To tell me off when she—she didn’t know anything?

  “I just don’t understand—”

  “What do you want me to say to you?” I asked. I was exhausted. “Should I admit that I’m closed off and nobody really knows me? Fine. I’ll admit it. You barely know me, Ainsley.”

  My words sounded like shards of ice, and I didn’t really mean them, but they were out there, and I couldn’t take them back. I wanted to apologize, but her face had turned to stone.

  “That’s . . . not . . .”

  “No, no,” she said, holding up her hand. She smiled at me, civilly, devoid of the warmth I’d grown used to. “That’s absolutely fine.”

  “Ainsley—”

  “I’ve been trying to find the right moment all day to tell you the news, but if I barely know you, you can find out when Tracy e-mails everyone at the office next week.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. “What news?”

  “I’m going to hand in my notice.”

  I froze. My feet felt heavy on the ground. I couldn’t believe it, and suddenly, I wondered if I didn’t know her that well, either. Ainsley was one of the most talented web developers and digital specialists I had ever met. And she was throwing it away—for what?

  “Carlos can run the show without me. I’ve trained him well.”

  I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. Her deputy, Carlos, was good, he’d be just fine, but he wasn’t Ainsley.

  My gut instinct had been right all along. Ainsley was leaving, and I could see and feel and even taste our friendship crumbling around us right there on her driveway.

  Love. Friendship. Happiness. It was all a fucking mirage. It blindsided you and then left you winded, worse off than you were before.

  A part of me was tempted to try to press pause. Somehow, miraculously, make it right between us. But I could feel my throat tightening, and suddenly the anger and my frustration with her came pouring out.

  “I suppose you’ll need the time to learn to cook daal.”

  Her mouth dropped, but I didn’t stop. She needed to know, and I couldn’t.

  “It doesn’t matter what you do, Ainsley. It wouldn’t matter if you made a wish to Aladdin’s genie and miraculously became Indian. You know that, right? You’re never going to please him.”

  “You think I’m quitting because my father-in-law wants me to?”

  “You’re learning Punjabi so you can eavesdrop on him, aren’t you?”

  She bit her bottom lip, shaking her head at me. It suddenly occurred to me that we weren’t just fighting; we were changing everything.

  “I’m quitting my job,” she said coldly, “because I need to prioritize my family. Nikesh has been the primary caregiver since MacKenzie was born. It’s my turn—”

  “Your turn to sacrifice everything you’ve worked hard for?”

  “Give me a break, Serena.” Ainsley rolled her eyes. “Do you think you’re somehow superior to the rest of us who allow ourselves to feel vulnerable enough to fall in love? To make compromises—”

  “Yes!”

  Tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. And without looking back, I walked away.

  27

  My phone rattled on my bedside table, buzzing repeatedly. I opened my eyes to Natasha’s picture on the home screen. There were blond streaks in her hair and purple glitter on her lids. I’d taken it at Osheaga, when we’d driven up to Montreal for the music festival years earlier. It was just the two of us. It was the week before she met Mark.

  Where did you go yesterday?

  The text flashed up just as the phone stopped ringing. With one hand, I lazily keyed in my passcode and texted her back.

  Had other plans and couldn’t stay long.

  I bit my lip as I watched the text go from delivered to read in a flash.

  Ah . . . I see. Well, can we talk?

  I didn’t respond, and a few minutes later, she rang again. I declined the call.

  After another hour, I dragged myself out of bed, put on a pot of coffee, and turned on my favorite Saturday morning talk radio program. I
felt hungover, emotionally. I’d tossed and turned all night, going over and over my stupid fight with Ainsley, the breakup with Becket, and a million other things I didn’t want to think about. No. I wanted to concentrate on work.

  I was positive that Jerry, Patricia, and their team would love our pitches for the digital campaign, slogan, and sample logos and labels. But I still wasn’t confident that either of our two commercial pitches would blow them out of the water. Jerry didn’t want another beer commercial about bros watching Aaron Rodgers throw another touchdown; rather, an accessible spot that would speak to an average American, whether that was a beer drinker whose family had lived in Virginia for centuries or were more recent immigrants.

  I treated myself to a bowl of Cap’n Crunch and sat on my tiny balcony with a pad of paper and pen to my left, my phone on the seat to my right, and started brainstorming to see if I couldn’t think of a mind-blowing commercial to present as a third option. Eating in silence, I wondered if Jerry’s vision was even possible. How on earth was I going to come up with something that would entice both a man like Jerry and a man like my own father to buy the same beer? Jerry and my father were polar opposites. I wasn’t sure there was any common ground to find.

  After an hour of getting nowhere, I welcomed the distraction of my phone again. My heart lurched when I saw that it was a text from Jesse.

  Do I get to see you again before you leave?

  I let my head fall back as I considered his question and felt a weird lump in my throat when I realized that our weekly lunches would be postponed indefinitely while I was in Richmond.

  Are you free now?

  He replied immediately, and we agreed to meet outside my building in a half hour and then walk over to the farmers market. And exactly thirty-two minutes later, I found Jesse waiting for me on the stoop outside my building.

  “Hey . . .” I trailed off, noticing that he was dripping wet and his chest was heaving. “Did you fall in the Potomac or something?”

  He smiled, panting. “I jogged here.”

  “Oh.” I had suggested he come over first because I thought he’d be driving, and there was never any parking near the market. “Well in that case, we could have met there.”

  “It’s fine. I wanted to see where you lived anyway.” He leaned back on the railing, and I tried not to stare at the way his T-shirt stretched against his shoulders. “Can I have some water?”

  I hesitated. “There’s this Aussie coffee shop around the corner. Can we get it there? I’m desperate for a coffee.”

  Two Americanos and an ice water later, we set off for the farmers market, which was already in full swing when we arrived. I pulled out the foldaway shopping bag I kept at the bottom of my purse and led Jesse around to the stalls where I often bought my bread, fruits, and vegetables for the week. Jesse picked up a jar of pesto from the Italian woman who was just known as “Nona” to all the locals. When he and I had gone all the way down one aisle and were rounding the corner to go down the next one, I caught Jesse looking rather frazzled, picking at some lint on his T-shirt.

  “You good?” I asked.

  “I’m underdressed,” he mumbled.

  “For a farmers market?”

  “That’s what I thought.” With his eyes, he gestured to a cluster of people in line at the juice stand. “Everyone here is so cool.”

  I followed his gaze. Indeed, there was an exceptionally cool-looking group of adults standing around with strollers or dogs on leashes. Their skin and hair were all different shades, tattoos and anklets were everywhere, and they all seemed to be in perfect shape and impeccably dressed in the latest hipster fashion. They belonged in a Fenty Beauty campaign.

  “See?” I heard Jesse say.

  I tucked my arm through his and started leading him farther down the aisle. “Stop being self-conscious.”

  We walked by a few stalls, and when I paused to examine some produce, he dropped my arm.

  “So this is what your life has been like since college, huh?”

  I couldn’t read the tone of his voice. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”

  “I’m Serena Singh,” he said, putting on a Valley girl accent. “I’m a super swanky advertising executive who, like, lives in the city and shops at farmers market and eats organic—”

  “Hey . . .”

  “—and have you heard how cool I am? I have a tattoo!”

  I rolled my eyes at him, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I don’t sound like that.”

  “Like, you totally do.”

  “Oh yeah?” I shoved him playfully and then exaggerated Jesse’s gruff manner of speech. “Have you heard of me, bro? I’m Jasmeet Dhillon.”

  “When have I ever said ‘bro’?”

  “Man, I’m such a dork, bro. I, like, analyze things and make polling graphs for the Washington Post—”

  He cut me off, pressing his palm into my mouth. I squealed, pushing him away.

  “And do you know I jog now?” I slapped my belly. Somehow my accent had turned Cockney. “Bro, I love to jog. I’m so fit!”

  Laughing, he put his hands on my shoulders, and as he leaned his weight into me, I started walking backward. I was thankful that his bad mood had been temporary.

  “So that’s what I sound like, huh?”

  I nodded as I backpedaled past Charity’s stall, which sold fruit pies and croissants. “You’re such a city boy now.”

  “It’s true. I live more central than you.”

  “You live in a traffic circle, Jesse. That’s too central.”

  He grinned. “I’m not in Dupont Circle. I’m nearby. I live in the building above the poke place on P Street.”

  “Poke Pete’s?” I asked, and he nodded. “I walk by that building every day.”

  I slowed to a halt. Jesse and I had been friends for months, and although I knew that he lived in the same neighborhood as my office, I was clueless about such a simple fact.

  I could still feel the heat of his hands on my body, and I shivered as I wondered what else I didn’t know about him. Had he bought those plaid curtains he’d described months back, when I’d refused to go shopping with him at Home Depot? I wondered what his apartment looked like, what direction it faced, and I fought the urge to ask him about details that really shouldn’t have mattered to me. That really didn’t matter at all.

  Jesse had lived in that apartment for less than a year. There were eleven more unaccounted for. My breath got shallow, and suddenly, I felt drained. Physically. Emotionally. Where did he live before that? Where had he and his family been all these years?

  I could feel my throat closing in. Sweat beading at my temples. And as we passed by yet another vegetable stand, it hit me, again, that Jesse hadn’t just reappeared out of thin air. Anadi and his children weren’t just pixels on a screen, an anecdote, or an emotionally charged story. They had been and still were Jesse’s life. We had broken up, and we had both moved on. He had been living his life without me.

  I watched his face as he examined a peach, tenderly held it in his palm. Was this why he had been grumpy with me just moments earlier? Fleetingly, had he imagined my life all these years without him? Did he think I’d been living in some glamorous Sex and the City fantasy, free of a husband, of suburbia.

  Did he think I hadn’t missed him?

  * * *

  Luckily, Dirty Chai was as crowded as ever, and if Ainsley was at the stall, we didn’t see each other. My feelings were all over the place, and I wasn’t ready to face her. Still, I steered Jesse in a different direction, and we sat outside on the lawn and ate pastries. After a while, I could feel myself tiring and suggested that we leave. Jesse took my bag from me, ignoring my protests, and carried it all the way home.

  “I love this neighborhood,” he said quietly, closing his eyes into the sun when we reached my building. I smiled. I wholeheartedl
y loved it, too. The road was lined with trees, and most of the residents seemed to be amateur gardeners. There were flourishes of color, strong scents of rosemary or thyme every few paces.

  “Much better than living in a traffic circle.”

  He grinned, opening his eyes. “Somehow, I feel like I’m on the set of an indie movie.”

  “An indie movie or Indian movie?”

  He set down the bag, and before I realized what was happening, he grabbed my hand and spun me so hard I dropped my purse.

  “Jesse!”

  “Keh do na. Keh do na,” he sang, twirling me around and around. My face was beet red, and I could hear laughter coming from people walking past us on the sidewalk. “You are my So-ni-ya.”

  “Jesse,” I pulled my hand away. “Stop!”

  He didn’t stop and kept twirling me around and shimmying his hips while attempting to sing that silly song he loved from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham . . . I was mortified, but I couldn’t help myself from laughing, which only encouraged him more.

  Finally, he stopped spinning me, and breathless I picked up my purse, and he gathered up the groceries, which had spilled across the pavement. Although he’d stopped singing, he was still humming, and I rolled my eyes at him. He never did have any shame. When he was in a good mood, it took a lot to embarrass him.

  “You think you’re Hrithik Roshan, don’t you?” I asked as we rose to our feet.

  “Yeah, sweetheart!”

  He was using “the voice” a few of my favorite Bollywood stars used when speaking English—over-the-top, overpronounced. I set my hands on my hips.

  “Done yet?”

  He shook his head, shimmying his hips and rising to the balls of his feet.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.” I took a few steps backward and then spun around when I reached my front stoop. “See ya!”

  “Your groceries, Serena.”

  I could hear him following me up the steps, and my keys in hand, I stopped short just outside the door.

  “I can carry them up for you.”