The Other Lata

by Kirthana Ramisetti

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A compulsively readable romcom of mistaken identity set within high society New York and the sacrifices made to keep up appearances, in trade paperback.

Somewhere in New York City, Lata Murthy knows there is another person with her name living a much more interesting life. That's because Lata often receives the other Lata's emails: invites to Hampton soirees, fundraising appeals from the New York City Ballet and reminders about sample sales at Soho boutiques.. Lata's own life—working in digital content, watching Food Network marathons, spending recklessly on clothes she can't afford—feels pathetic in comparison. So, one day she decides to take on this other Lata's identity and jumps headfirst into the glamorous New York lifestyle ... but not without consequences. 
 
At first, it all feels like a fairy tale. Lata learns that the invites were meant for a Mumbai socialite who shares her name, and finds a way to step into the woman's shoes. In doing so, all of Lata's NYC dreams come true: she gets a higher-paying job, moves into a chic Chelsea apartment and is embraced by an elite friend group that includes Rajeev, an up-and-coming fashion designer intent on making a splash at New York Fashion Week.
 
But Lata doesn't just catch the attention of the handsome fashion designer—she also incurs the wrath of the mysterious woman she is impersonating. And this Other Lata wants Lata to pay...but in the oddest of ways. Other Lata's blackmail seems designed to humiliate Lata in front of her wealthy new circle, and Lata has no choice but to submit to her demands if she doesn't want to lose her new friends and lifestyle.
 
Despite Other Lata's machinations, Lata and Rajeev's romance finds ways to blossom. But when Other Lata's demands change from mischievous to illegal, Lata must find a way to extricate herself from Other Lata's control once and for all.  
 
 

Release date: April 1, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

I SHOULD HAVE NEVER OPENED the email. If I needed to pinpoint the exact moment my life went from forgettable to flaming disaster, it would be clicking “Invite! Elephantine Presents Galaxy Unknown,” even though it wasn’t intended for me. It was meant for her, of course. But the invitation had landed in my inbox—[e-mail]—and didn’t that make it officially my property?

Also, I was bored.

I blame August in New York. The dullest month of the year, and the hottest and most miserable. Anyone who could afford to flee the city’s swampiness had already done so, and the people who remained behind were too poor to do anything but await the arrival of that most blessed month of possibility and beautiful weather, September.

On the first Saturday night of August, I was in my fifth-floor walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen, sitting between two fans, wearing only a blue bralette and boxer shorts, and fanning myself with an IKEA catalog. With $630 in my checking account, I was playing shopping roulette on Zara.com. I would go click, click, click on everything I coveted, then close my eyes and unclick as many items in my basket as possible before moving my cursor to “Purchase.” (I had done this so many times that I had memorized exactly where I needed to position my mouse.) In this instance, all I ended up with was a gold-studded leather belt that cost $52. I hadn’t overspent, but I hadn’t bought anything exciting either.

When my email pinged to notify me of the purchase, I went to Gmail to move the Zara.com notification to my “Shopping Roulette” folder, which was my way of pretending I was in control of my impulse spending. The IKEA catalog slipped out of my hand when my phone rang.

“What are you up to?” said Mimi between slurps of what sounded like a Popsicle.

“Getting ready for my date with Leo—we’re taking his yacht to Saint-Tropez.” I leaned over the side of my bed to retrieve the catalog, but my hand only swept over dust balls and a sandal.

“And any second I’m going to walk down the aisle to marry Antonio Banderas. I told him he needs to wear the Zorro mask on our wedding night.” More noisy slurping and biting. “The Great Food Truck Race is on in a couple minutes. The third season, with the twin grannies. Wanna watch?”

“Okay.” Usually we’d be hanging out together on a Saturday night, with me making the trek to Mimi’s because she had a studio in Williamsburg and I had roommates. But neither of us were willing to take the subway to each other’s borough on sweltering nights like this one. So we made do by watching TV while gossiping on the phone.

During a commercial break three episodes later, Mimi was in the bathroom and I was trying to stay awake. Food Truck Race was Mimi’s show, while I preferred Chopped. I went back to my Gmail to take a look at the leather belt. I could see myself wearing it with my black J.Crew dress while getting drinks at Tao or the Electric Room. But fifty dollars could also go toward groceries or my portion of the cable bill. My practical side won out, and I clicked the link to cancel the order.

Food Truck Race had returned, but Mimi hadn’t resumed her running commentary. “Meems?” I called out. “Are you there?”

Disinterested in Food Truck Race without her, I scrolled through the various folders of my inbox: “Work (Ugh),” “Shopping Roulette,” “Bills Bills Bills,” “Writing Projects,” “Promotions,” “Spam.” And in that last category was where I saw the email for Lata Murthy.

I had no idea what an Elephantine was, let alone a Galaxy Unknown. But the invitation was so minimal—just a date (August 10, 2013), location (Iron23), and dress code (black or white attire only)—that I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Since moving to New York ten years ago, I had attended a lot of parties that were so tryhard that they made me feel pathetic to be there. Think cheap-ass wine in cracked plastic cups, DJ Stupidhead playing some blippy musical nonsense with the occasional Robyn track thrown in.

“Hey, what did I miss?” Mimi was in my ear, slightly breathless.

“Sorry, wasn’t paying attention. Actually, can I call you back in a few?” My fingers were already typing “Elephantine” into Google.

“Yeah, sure. But wait to call me during a commercial.” Mimi’s passion for Food Truck Race was inexplicable, but we were friends because we respected each other’s weird obsessions.

Elephantine was a jewelry line that specialized in what they called “conversation pieces,” which was just a fancy way to say “impractical and odd.” Silver necklaces that featured pendants that spelled out random words like “beeswax” and “golly,” neon-pink earrings in the shape of fishes and snails, arm bracelets fashioned out of twisted nails that seemed painful to wear. And rather than prices, each piece was given a colored dot. The five colors represented different price ranges, the cheapest at $300 and the most expensive at $12,000. I clicked through every single item, noting that all the jewelry was assigned to collections with inscrutable names like Manic Elixir and Serpentine Arise. Whatever Galaxy Unknown was, there was no trace of it on Elephantine’s website.

I was still clicking through the site when Mimi called me back.

“You’re missing the whole episode.”

“Oh, sorry! I was just looking at something online.” I set my laptop aside, as it was starting to overheat on my lap. “I might be done with TV for the night.”

“It’s only nine thirty.” A pause. “Lata, don’t invite Simon over. I don’t care if he lives across the street. You can’t treat dating like ordering takeout. It can’t just be about convenience.”

I hadn’t slept with Simon in two weeks. I’d like to ascribe it to my restraint, but he’d gone to hike a mountain in Chile or Peru, somewhere exotic and, more importantly, far away.

“Are you kidding me?” I got up and headed to the kitchen to grab a Vitaminwater. As I’d expected, the living room could double as a sauna. “This has nothing to do with him, or any guys. I was just doing… research.” I wasn’t normally so cagey with Mimi. But I hadn’t told anyone about the Lata Murthy emails yet, not even Mimi, who I’d known since our freshman year at Seton Hall.

“Well, just making sure. For your sanity as well as mine.” She yawned. “Good night, then, early bird. I’m waiting up for Evan, he should be home by two.”

Evan was Mimi’s occasional fling turned official boyfriend as of one week ago. She met him at Cake Shop when he was playing guitar with his band, Misfit Slime. Yes, that was the real name of his band. And no, they weren’t very good.

“Oh, wait, did I tell you he invited me to go when they play Craterfest?”

No, Mimi had not. “That’s great!” I said too brightly. “When is that?”

“They’re taking off Monday for Milwaukee to do some gigs in the area. I’m actually flying out Friday so I can see them at the festival. And then I’m using up the rest of my vacation days to join them on tour.” She said this with some caginess too, as if this trip had been planned for weeks, but she was only telling me now.

“Wow, Mimi, sounds like fun.” Had Mimi and Evan been serious for longer than she let on?

“I’m so excited. Sixteen days on the road, it won’t be glamorous,” she said with a nervous laugh. “But it’s going to be a blast, I know it.”

After hanging up with Mimi, I dug through the back of the refrigerator, where I hid my dragonfruit Vitaminwaters from Eleanor and Mallory, my two roommates, who were away that weekend. In fact, I really only hid my Vitaminwaters from Eleanor, even though she could afford a metric ton of Vitaminwaters if she wanted, yet always plucked away at my stash without a word. I kept wanting to tell Eleanor that none of our food and drink was communal, but then that would mean I couldn’t snack on the cheese plates she brought back from her event-planning job. But it wasn’t like she spent money on the cheese plates, whereas I allocated twenty dollars of my salary to buy one twelve-pack of Vitaminwaters per month.

Back in my bedroom, I sipped my drink, spent a little more time perusing the Elephantine website, and learned that the jewelry line had been started by Aqua (no last name), the only daughter of a former child star best known for the hit sitcom Blondes Just Want to Have Fun. Aqua had dropped everything that could make her immediately identifiable with her mother, from her name to her Farrah Fawcett–esque hair. She sported a shaved head, a septum piercing, and lavender-colored eyes, and the photo on her website showed her with a piece of masking tape over her mouth stamped with the word UGLY and crossed out with a red slash.

Everything about Aqua and her jewelry screamed “tryhard.” And yet I still wanted to go to her event.

My thoughts went back to Mimi. I liked to tease her about her taste in what I called grubbies: twenty-something men with ripped jeans and holey T-shirts, greasy hair, and dirt under their fingernails. Artist types who spent more time talking about art than they did creating anything. Maybe that was why she hadn’t shared a lot about Evan. Mimi would know I could never understand how she could be excited about the prospect of traveling to Milwaukee with a bunch of grubbies to a sweaty music festival. I hadn’t left the tristate area in over fifteen years, but I imagined that once I did, it would be to visit a place that was exclusively made up of white sands and palm trees. And even then, I’d still feel a bit wistful for the city.

As someone who was born and raised in Connecticut, attended college in New Jersey, and resided in New York, I defined myself by my tristateness. I even had the outlines of the three states as a tattoo, which I had gotten one month after moving to the city. It wasn’t that I adored my hometown, nor could I say that four years at Seton Hall had been an incredible experience. But they had made me into the person who wanted to make it—and stay, hopefully forever—in New York City. I couldn’t deny that the ambition that burned in me came from growing up in a suburb with my parents, who worked so hard that most of my childhood was marked by their absence. I couldn’t deny that this ambition only doubled during my time at Seton Hall. No matter how many wonderful friends or fun memories I’d made, my time there had an asterisk next to it because I’d really wanted to go to Columbia, but I’d never made it off the wait list. The tristate tattoo could have been a literal chip on my shoulder, except that I opted to have it hidden away just above my bikini line. My tristateness was my origin story, my simultaneous kryptonite and superpower, and too personal to share with anyone else.

At that very moment, though, my tristateness couldn’t abate my malaise. I thought of the next few weeks without Mimi, without Simon, weekends spent in my tiny bedroom with the noisy fans and cable television to keep me company, too broke to do anything fun or interesting. In that moment, I could envision myself running on this same tired treadmill of cheap Chinese takeout and Chopped reruns and shopping roulette with no end in sight.

“Argh,” I yelled toward the ceiling. And then of course that was when I received a text from my mother. Still coming tomorrow? A simple question that nevertheless stung like an accusation.

Yes, Mom. I’ll take the eleven a.m. train to New Canaan so I can sit on the sofa between you and Dad while you ask me “How are your friends?” (a.k.a. Have you met someone yet?) and “How is your website job?” (a.k.a. When will you find a better one?). It’s a biweekly ritual we feel that we must do, even though Dad just wants to watch his cricket game, you want to watch your Shah Rukh Khan movies, and I pretend not to notice that the two of you barely speak to each other. That I suspect Dad moved into my bedroom as soon as I left for college, and you are still together because divorce is simply not an option. We will gather around the dining table and eat rotis in silence, while I wonder whether there is anything I can say to break the pall that has settled over your worn face and Dad’s slumping shoulders. The word “family” barely applies to us, but we all cling to it out of habit and shared DNA, and I will take the train to see you two because it is the one thing I can do that will not fully disappoint you.

I texted back, Yep, see you then.

Outside, rowdy chatter from the Irish bar on my building’s first floor floated five stories up, loud enough to be heard over my still-whirring fans. Hell’s Kitchen was not an ideal neighborhood to live in on a Saturday night when everyone in the city was out and you could only afford to stay in. Even so, living in Manhattan was victory enough. At least, that was what I had always consoled myself with any time I felt pangs of distress over my paltry salary, or jealousy over college friends climbing the ladder from engagement and marriage to home ownership in Hoboken or Jersey City.

I picked up my laptop just as the screen saver went off, and the dark screen revealed my reflection. My untended eyebrows, my watery, downturned eyes, my thin lips pursed together. Even my high cheekbones, indisputably my best feature, were sprinkled with acne. With Simon out of the country, I guess I hadn’t been as strident with my beauty routine. But beyond my bedraggled state, what disturbed me the most was how much I looked like my mother. Her light had already gone out. But mine was fading, and fading fast.

A bleak reality crystallized for me. At age thirty-three, with one dead-end job, two roommates, three credit cards nearing their limits, and four years since my last relationship, it was hard to see how living here could still be seen as any kind of victory.

So I was indeed bored when I clicked “yes” on the other Lata’s invitation. But let me clarify that I was bored with myself. Bored with my mediocrity. Because somewhere in New York City, the place that was supposed to change my life, and instead had only put me in debt, there was another Lata Murthy having a more dazzling time than me. And just for one night, I would step into her glass slippers and turn myself into Cinderella and see what it was like to be her.

Who was this other Lata Murthy? At the time, I had no idea. The emails had begun in January, trickling in about once a month. At first I thought I got added to some high-end mailing list by mistake, but the fourth one I opened was addressed to the other Lata directly.

Darling Lata, you must come! said the personalized message sent from [e-mail], followed by an invitation to a silent auction held at an Upper East Side manor. Not only that, but it had been sent to two email addresses: mine and [e-mail]. I understood how it was easy to get us mixed up, but I also took umbrage at this Lata declaring herself “the” Lata, as if she had already determined she was superior to the rest of us. Even so, I sent the other Lata a quick message to let her know that I had received a few of her emails, and offered to forward them to her. But I received no reply.

Nevertheless, Darling Lata continued to be asked to attend art exhibits and cocktail parties and museum fundraisers, and starting in June, the invitations began arriving in my Gmail on a twice-weekly basis. By that point I greedily opened each one, curious to see where my glamorous name doppelgänger was being asked to next. When an email with the subject heading “Midsummer’s Night at Soho Grand” arrived in my inbox, sandwiched between my cable bill and a BuzzFeed job application rejection, my curiosity mutated into a jealous despair.

So on that first Saturday of August, I decided to reframe how to think of these emails: as a sign that whatever magic had once visited the other Lata had now been transferred to me.

ON THE SECOND SATURDAY OF August, I stood outside a nondescript building in the Flatiron District, wearing a white Alice + Olivia dress with puffy sleeves, purchased at 70 percent off from TJ Maxx. My full-price Amina Muaddi slingbacks pinched my big toes, which usually would irritate me, except I was too busy fanning myself with an amNewYork I had picked up in desperation to combat the sticky humidity of an eighty-one-degree evening. I had dedicated forty minutes to straightening my hair when I should have just thrown it into a ponytail, since a quick glance at my reflection in a window showed it frizzing at the ends, like a straight line abruptly bending into a comma. After a sluggish fifteen minutes, I was finally just steps away from entering the party. When the couple in front of me were allowed inside, I tossed the newspaper and stood tall while jutting out my chin, trying to evoke the insouciance I imagined the other Lata would feel attending this event. It would be just another night for her, after all.

“Name,” said the doorman, who had a large headset attached to his ear and the insouciance I was desperately trying to muster.

“Lata Murthy.” I looked him in the eye, as if to prove I wasn’t lying. And I wasn’t, not really. He checked his clipboard and looked me over from head to toe. Then he gave me a curt nod and stepped aside to let me in.

So simple! I gave him a curt nod in return, then shuffled past him in my four-inch heels before he could change his mind. I took an elevator along with two dudes in white suit jackets and one in a tuxedo shirt and shorts, and the collision of all their heavy aftershaves burned my olfactory senses. When the elevator doors opened, I burst out first, nearly running into an astronaut carrying a tray of champagne flutes.

“Excuse me,” I sputtered. The astronaut, who wore silver lipstick and a haughty expression, did not respond, except to thrust the tray closer to my face.

I plucked a glass from the tray and backed away, then took a moment to stand in the corner to get my bearings. The party space was an airy loft with tables set up in a giant X formation at the center, showcasing the jewelry. Images of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars were projected on the walls, the planets overlapping in a blurred fusion of orange, blues, greens, and golds. A dance remix of “Space Oddity” screamed from the overhead speakers, and several guests were inspecting the jewelry with their hands covering their ears.

Before arriving, I had decided to give myself one goal for the party. . .