I’m rooting for Payal and her revenge plot. Preeti Chhibber (
Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot by Preeti Chhibber
Payal Mehta has had a crush on popular, athletic, all-around perfect Jonathan Slate ever since he smiled at her in freshman–year Spanish class. At a party during spring break of her junior year, Payal finally works up the courage to ask Jon to hang out. However, her romantic plans are derailed when he vomits on her Keds. Twice. But when Jon offers to take her out to lunch as an apology, Payal is convinced this is the start of their love story.
Over chalupas and burritos at Taco Bell, Payal’s best jokes are landing as planned. Jon is basically choking on his Coke—and then it happens. “Do you have a boyfriend?” Payal is (finally) about to get the guy. And then he tries to set her up with his Indian friend. Payal’s best friends, Neil Patel and Divya Bhatt, are just as mad about the microagression as Payal is, but they think she’s a little too hung up on him.
Determined to teach Jon a lesson by making him fall for her, Payal ropes in her archnemesis, Philip Kim, to help. It’s the perfect plan. Minus Philip’s snarky, annoying quips and lack of faith in its success. But as Payal lies to the people she loves, hides the too-Indian parts of herself in front of her crush, and learns that maybe Philip isn’t the worst, she starts to wonder if what she’s been looking for has been scowling at her all along…
Chapter Five
“Good luck!” Divya called out, immediately followed by Neil saying, “Even though you won’t need it!”
“The bell hasn’t rung yet,” I heard Finn say drily. “So we may want to keep it down or we’re going to get busted for skipping, and Payal won’t get to have lunch.” Neil and Divya started to protest.
Their voices got farther away from me, and a smile wide enough to split my cheeks stretched across my face as I walked purposefully through the hallways. This was going to be the best lunch of my life. I glanced at my watch—another minute and the bell would ring. I started walking a little faster, wanting to beat the crowds. Then out of nowhere, one of the classroom doors ahead of me swung open unexpectedly and I had to legitimately slide to a stop.
“Argh!!!” I couldn’t help it; the noise erupted out of me. But in my defense, I almost got face-slammed by a door.
“Mehta?”
A sour pit formed in my stomach. Of all the people to see before the best lunch of my life. Philip Kim poked his head around the open door. His eyes were narrowed at me like I was the one who was opening doors willy-nilly and almost killing girls on their way to their very first extremely hot dates. 21
“What are you doing?” he asked, staring at my face like a weirdo. “Did you cut bio or something?”
“I don’t have time for this, Philip!” I said instead of answering. “Stop trying to ruin my day!”
“Huh?” he said, sounding genuinely confused. But I wasn’t going to fall for it.
21 I am manifesting, okay?
I was already moving past him, leaving him and his annoying questions behind me. Then something occurred to me. How did he know what class I was cutting? Was he planning something?
Payal! Get to the parking lot!
Thoughts of Philip flew out of my head, and I speed-walked the rest of the way.
I made it to the lot with a few seconds to spare before the surge of kids heading to their cars to get off campus for lunch reached me, so I didn’t have to deal with anyone openly staring. Jon was already leaning against his car. The Florida sun had really come into its own in the last few hours, and it was significantly hotter than it’d been that morning. I tied my hoodie around my waist and hoped the humidity wouldn’t undo the work Divya had done on my hair in the short walk to his car.
“Pie! Over here!” Jon called. As if I hadn’t locked in on him the moment I’d stepped into the lot. Like I hadn’t learned where he parked his car the minute he’d gotten one for his birthday and started driving it to school. I raised a hand and waved and then immediately forgot what normal waving looked like. Oh god, what was I doing? Was my hand moving too fast? I brought my hand down and took a deep breath and forced myself to relax.
The concrete was rough and uneven under my sneakers. The pain in my knee had weakened to a slight ache, and thankful for that, I walked carefully, unwilling to repeat this morning’s performance.
“Hey, Jon.” I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I mean, he’d smiled at me and my heart managed to keep beating. I took that as a good sign. As soon as I was close enough, he opened the passenger door for me. It was chivalrous and charming, and my heart fluttered in my chest. Then he ran around the car and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Where are we going?” I asked. He turned and cocked a grin that lit up his whole face. My cheeks started to heat up, and I bit the fleshy part inside so I wouldn’t accidentally give him a terrifying clown smile.
“Oh, you’ll see,” he said.
Five minutes later, he pulled into the Taco Bell near school and I almost swooned.
“I hope this is cool.” And somehow that was all it took to put me in my comfort zone. The promise of a suburban Taco Bell that looked exactly like the hundreds of other Taco Bells I had been inside of. Stable. Reliable. I shot him my most dazzling smile and hoped it didn’t look creepy.
“This is perfect.”
He shrugged and grinned. “Awesome, let’s do this!” We got out of his car, and I half hoped he’d grab my hand on the walk to the building. I’m not sure how he could resist; I was exuding confidence. But he didn’t. I followed him up to the glass doors, and he graciously pulled the door open and gestured for me to go in ahead of him. And as an added bonus, there was no barf in sight. I bit my lip as I stepped onto the brown ceramic tile inside, holding in a squeal.
Thanks to Taco Bell being Taco Bell, within fifteen minutes we were already seated and eating and . . . laughing. We were laughing and talking! I’d told a few jokes and he’d laughed.
“Yo, Payal, you are hilarious. How have we not hung out before?” Jon almost snorted his Coke through his nose at the last story, the one about my dad accidentally taking me to see an R-rated movie when I was seven. I was feeling pretty good.
“I don’t know, Jon. It was so easy. All you had to do was throw up on me.” The corner of my mouth turned up, and he snorted again. I needed something to do with my hands, though. They were lying on the table like dead fish or something. I played with the edge of my chalupa wrapper.
“Careful, Pie. I did just eat three burritos.” I feigned shock, held a hand in front of my face, and scooted my chair back a few inches.
“You wouldn’t!”
Jon grinned at me and I smiled back, but my smile quickly turned into a gasp as my chair was pulled back toward the table. I looked down and found Jon’s ankle hooked around the leg as he worked to bring me close again. I swooned internally for the second time.
We were sitting in a table at the back. The conversation was easy. Our legs had sort of tangled under the table. I’m not sure we stopped laughing once. Is this what it felt like to get the guy? This was awesome. I could feel myself grinning like an idiot. But so what? I was sitting here with him, and it was perfect. Then I realized it’d probably been a minute since I’d said anything at all. I covered by taking a sip of my Coke. Smooth, Payal. I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but stalled at the sight of Jon’s expression.
He was looking at me with his head cocked like he’d never seen me before. I cut my eyes away and took another sip.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked, and I choked on my soda.
After a few minutes of coughing into my napkin and trying to apologize, I finally responded.
“What?”
Jon handed me another napkin so I could dab at my watering eyes. I hoped the liner Divya used was waterproof.
“I asked if you were dating anyone.”
IT.
WAS.
HAPPENING.
Keep it together, Payal. I dropped my hands to my lap and gripped my fingers together tightly, channeling my nerves into my clasped hands. “Uh, well, not really, no.” Did I imagine a breeze inside of the Taco Bell? I was 90 percent sure that Jon-fucking-Slate’s hair was actually ruffling in a breeze. It was actively tousling while I was looking at him.
“That’s awesome! You’re funny and cute and totally, like, normal. If I was Indian, I’d totally date you, but that’s not happening anytime soon with, you know . . .” He gestured between us with some kind of meaning I clearly wasn’t picking up. “Oh!” he continued. “You have to meet my friend Rohit.”
Wait, what?
“Wait, what?” I asked.
Now he was talking really fast and motioning with his hands, and I was starting to have trouble understanding the words coming out of his mouth. Something about “No, really, a great Indian guy my cousin introduced me to” and “It’s so great that I know two cool Indians who can get together. So awesome.”
“You guys will love each other,” he said. Oh. Now I understood the gesturing between us. Between my brown skin and his white skin. There was a buzzing sound coming from somewhere, right? Or was that static in my head trying to drown out what I was hearing?
“He’s super funny too!”
What the hell was going on?
“What?” Had I said that out loud? Jon was again looking at me like he had no idea who I was, only this time, he didn’t look quite so romantic. He looked more like an awful boy who didn’t know he was being awful. And I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say that he’d understand. Or that wouldn’t make me sound too sensitive. Ugh, my jeans felt too tight. Maybe I shouldn’t have had the extra Fire Sauce on my chalupa. I needed to get out of here.
“Jon, you need to take me back to school.”
“Uh, what’s wrong?” His eyes went wide with worry, and he started to reach for my hand, but I clasped my fingers together and dropped my hands to my lap.
“No, nothing, nothing. It hit me that, uh, I have a quiz in calc and I totally forgot to study.” Yeah, that sounds real convincing, Payal. Good job. I didn’t even have calc in the afternoons. Not that Jon knew my schedule.
“Um, okay.” A strange look settled on his features, and I knew I was weirding him out, but I didn’t care.
Really, you know an Indian guy who would be great for me? Cool. So glad I’d skipped bio to get ready for this. “If I was Indian . . .” Great.
I stood up from my seat and walked toward the door without waiting for him to follow. I threw a half-hearted “Thanks” over my shoulder.
We spent the ride back to school in a heavy silence, during which I was really, really trying not to cry. Thankfully, the school was a few quick turns away from the restaurant. I spent those minutes watching the palm trees and strip malls go by until we finally made it back to the parking lot. A lone tear escaped my eye and rolled down my cheek, but I wiped it away, hating that a boy was bringing me to tears over something I shouldn’t have to cry about. I don’t think he noticed. I dug my nails into my palm, trying to distract myself. This was my life. Sitting in Jon’s 2012 Kia, hoping that he couldn’t see my quivering chin. I couldn’t stop going over every minute of the lunch: When had he decided that I was good enough for his Indian friend but not good enough for him? Was it when he saw my brown face for the first time? Or was it when I got my food “minus meat”?
Oh my god, if he had ruined Taco Bell for me, I would kill him.
Printed with permission by Kokila. Payal Mehta’s Romance Revenge Plot. Kokila. An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Copyright © 2024 by Preeti Chhibber
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