All This Could Be Different

Sneha, a twenty-two-year-old Indian immigrant, graduates from college during the Great Recession and takes a job as a change management consultant in Milwaukee. Her parents returned to India after her father's deportation; his business partners committed visa fraud, and he pleaded guilty and served a year and a half in prison. Sneha was seventeen when they left. Her boss, Peter, pays her twenty-three dollars an hour as a contractor with no benefits and covers her apartment rent in exchange for fifty-hour weeks. Amy, the hostile property manager in the unit below, harasses Sneha with threatening texts.

Sneha forwards a job posting to Thomas Zwick, her college friend, who is still unemployed in Madison, Wisconsin. She joins an online dating site and spots Marina, a twenty-seven-year-old dance teacher whom she first noticed at a hardware store. Sneha messages her, but Marina never replies. When Sneha's uncle dies in India, she reacts coldly. In fragmented memories, she reveals he sexually abused her as a child. She refuses to mourn him.

Sneha explores Milwaukee's gay bar scene. At a martini lunch, she discovers Marina has paid for her drink from across the room, but Sneha is too flustered to approach. Through the dating app, she meets Antigone Clay, who goes by Tig, a twenty-seven-year-old Black woman studying philosophy at Alverno, a women's college. Tig grew up in Milwaukee's North Division, previously worked at Disney World, and is warm and confident. Tig tells Sneha that friendship is "work, and a commitment, and a practice" (32).

One night, Tig kisses Sneha in the car. Sneha stiffens, recognizing with discomfort that she desires someone thin and white. Tig begins seeing Diana, a phlebotomist with a young son. At dinner with Thom and his girlfriend Isabel, Thom declares that all landlords are the ruling class. Sneha bristles; her parents rent out a modest flat in India as their primary income. Thom, pressed, admits his parents are both doctors. Sneha leaves in fury. That night, Tig picks her up. In the dark, Sneha shares her family's story: her father's visa, the fraud, the deportation. Tig reveals she found her father, Rion, after he killed himself when Tig was eleven, and discloses a learning disability that makes reading difficult.

At a holiday party, Sneha's college friend and former boyfriend Amit introduces her to Marina. Sneha asks Marina on a date. Amit also mentions Emily, a nonbinary person he is interested in; Sneha reacts dismissively to the concept. Meanwhile, Thom reveals that Peter pays him only fifteen dollars an hour compared to Sneha's twenty-three. He accuses Sneha of lacking solidarity when she begs him to keep quiet, since she needs Peter to sponsor her green card.

On their first date, Marina shares her history: Her mother was a stripper who secured a client's patronage for Marina's ballet classes. When someone outed Marina at her mother's bridal shower, her mother shouted that her daughter is gay and she loves her. When Marina asks about Sneha's parents, Sneha says they are "no longer with me" (96), a devastating lie. They kiss passionately.

Their relationship deepens over ten consecutive days until Marina asks if they are girlfriends. Sneha deflects. Marina is furious, pointing out that Sneha has essentially moved in. Sneha flees in tears. They reconcile. Peter tells Sneha her paychecks are delayed. She watches Thom carry a box down the hallway; he has been fired. Before leaving for India, Sneha reconciles with Thom and tells him everything about Peter's arrangement.

In India, Sneha helps her father fell teak trees and discovers a grove she planted as a child but cannot remember planting. When her mother suggests visiting the family cemetery, Sneha refuses to go to her uncle's grave, revealing that he "troubled" her for years. Her mother is shocked. Later, alone at the cemetery, Sneha feels not hatred but a surge of confused pity. She spits on his grave and walks away.

Back in Milwaukee, Tig tells Sneha they now identify as genderfluid and will use they/them pronouns. Despite her earlier dismissiveness, Sneha responds with love. She confesses she has not been paid since December. Marina departs for a six-week dance tour. Alone, Sneha's bank account drops to $600, then $300. Peter assigns her to ghostwrite his book; she realizes he has also been fired. She visits a food pantry and goes days without leaving bed.

In a notebook Tig has left, Sneha finds a manifesto: a plan to pool resources with chosen family and buy a house free from landlords, with space for community members. In the blueprints, a wing bears Sneha's initials. A cottage is labeled "Sneha's Parents?" Sneha clutches the notebook and cries. She also learns that Tig is the half-sister of KJ, Amit's childhood friend.

Amy photographs Sneha's apartment at its dirtiest and sends the images to the landlord, Stacy, who issues a thirty-day eviction notice. Peter fires Sneha. At Marina's birthday party, Sneha overhears Marina's friend Alice warning Marina not to throw her life away for "some twenty-three-year-old" (226). That night, after calling her mother to confess everything, Sneha comes inside. Marina asks who she was speaking to. Sneha gives up the lie: her mother.

The revelation devastates Marina. Sneha secures a project associate position at the National Archives Foundation in Washington, D.C., through Amit's connections. Thom helps her draft an email to Peter demanding back pay. Sneha attends Marina's dance show, Refrain, and tells Marina backstage that Marina is the person she wants. Marina reveals she has accepted a position running the Brookfield dance studio. They agree to see what happens.

On moving day, Sneha's mother flies in. She, Tig, Thom, Diana, and Marina load the U-Haul. Amy's fiancé, Tim, lectures them about noise; Sneha's mother calmly dismisses him. In the emptying apartment, Sneha tells Marina she loves her for the first time. They kiss. Sneha's mother walks in. "Ma," Sneha begins, "I want you to know who I am" (265).

Five years later, Sneha is twenty-eight, working at an immigration nonprofit in D.C. during the Trump administration. She and Marina had two often-happy years before fights escalated, fueled by Marina's drinking and Sneha's emotional withdrawal. Marina ended the relationship and eventually entered alcohol treatment. Sneha returns to Milwaukee for Amit and Emily's wedding. Tig and Thom drive her to Rion, named after Tig's father: the realized version of Tig's communal housing dream. It is a six-bedroom house in the Harambee neighborhood purchased for $174,000. Residents include Tig; Diana and her son; Thom; Jervai, Tig's former coworker; Kenny, a software engineer; and KJ.

On the way to the wedding, police pull Tig over for driving too slowly. Officers confiscate fireworks and refuse to let Tig use a bathroom. After many minutes, Tig urinates in their pants. Consumed by rage, Tig tries to get out at Amy's house with remaining fireworks. Sneha stops them, then tells Thom to loop back. She opens the moonroof and hurls a Waterford crystal clock through Amy's window.

At the reception, Marina calls: She has been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, and her girlfriend Joanna has proposed. Sneha sinks to the bathroom floor. Thom finds her, holds her, and tells her she will always have them. Sneha thinks of the empty, light-filled room on Rion's third floor, waiting to be claimed.