Next Time Will Be Our Turn

Set in a near-future version of Jakarta's wealthy Chinese-Indonesian community, with key portions unfolding in Los Angeles, the novel spans decades and two generations as a grandmother shares the story of her hidden love to help her granddaughter accept her own identity.

Izzy Chen, a withdrawn sixteen-year-old, dreads her family's annual Chinese New Year celebration. The Chen clan owns Indonesia's premier mental health company, and every member competes to outshine the others. Izzy hides behind a book while her mother scolds her for being antisocial and compares her unfavorably to her charming brother, Troy. Izzy harbors a secret shame rooted in feelings she has carried since age ten, when she realized she wanted to kiss her best friend Natalie.

The evening takes a dramatic turn when Izzy's seventy-three-year-old grandmother, Magnolia Chen, the family matriarch known as Nainai, arrives at the dinner in a red qipao, a form-fitting traditional Chinese dress. She enters arm-in-arm with a Caucasian woman and kisses her on the lips before the entire gathering. The family reacts with horror; Izzy's father suggests calling a board meeting to discuss succession, implying Nainai's behavior is erratic. That night, unable to sleep, Izzy climbs out her window for a habitual nighttime walk. Nainai intercepts her and begins telling the story of her youth.

Magnolia grows up in Jakarta in the shadow of her older sister, Iris, who is confident, rebellious, and brilliant. Their parents, both obstetrician-gynecologists, insist that college exists for a woman only to find a wealthy husband. After Iris is caught in a compromising situation with a boyfriend at fifteen, she is sent to California to protect the family's reputation. Three years later, sixteen-year-old Magnolia joins her in a shared apartment in San Gabriel, near Los Angeles.

On her first day at Pasadena City College (PCC), Magnolia meets Ellery Paige O'Shea, a tall, blue-eyed nineteen-year-old who works at the campus bookstore. She is immediately captivated but attributes her feelings to a platonic "girl crush," having no framework for understanding same-sex attraction. The next day, she sees Ellery openly kiss her girlfriend, Trish, and convinces herself that her disappointment is merely loneliness.

Despite this, Magnolia and Ellery become inseparable. They discover they live in the same apartment complex and fall into a routine of evening walks, cooking together, and napping side by side in Ellery's plant-filled studio. Ellery nicknames Magnolia "Tulip" and teaches her to drive. Their intimacy deepens constantly, yet Magnolia remains unaware she is in love.

When college admissions arrive, Magnolia is accepted to the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). Ellery, however, reveals she has secretly accepted an offer from London Metropolitan University and that she and Trish broke up months earlier. Devastated by the double secrecy, Magnolia tells Ellery never to contact her again. They do not speak for over a decade.

At Berkeley, Magnolia briefly dates James, a friend from PCC, but breaks up with him over his patronizing behavior. She graduates with a psychology degree and returns to Jakarta, where her parents see no value in further education for a woman. She suggests adding counseling services to the family clinic but is dismissed by her father and the male doctors. Through orchestrated blind dates, a common Chinese-Indonesian matchmaking custom, she meets and falls in love with Parker, a young man who attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She accepts his proposal, though a hollow feeling nags at her. Over these years, she writes unsent letters to Ellery that become a private diary.

Iris returns to Jakarta, having eloped with a man named Erik. Months later, she arrives at Magnolia's door with her face badly beaten. When their father blames Iris for provoking the violence, Magnolia confronts him for the first time, accusing him of prioritizing reputation over his daughter's safety. This confrontation marks a permanent shift in Magnolia's character. Iris gives birth to a daughter Magnolia names Hazel, and Magnolia becomes the child's primary caregiver while encouraging Iris to pursue her tech career.

When Erik sabotages Iris's business prospects, Iris receives a job offer in Los Angeles. Magnolia resolves to follow, manipulating Parker into pursuing a business degree at UCLA by making him believe the idea is his own. In LA, Iris arranges a surprise reunion with Ellery, who has returned from London. The two women fall back into their old rhythms, and Magnolia enrolls in a master's program in social work, focusing on women's health. She acknowledges she is emotionally cheating on Parker but cannot stop.

On graduation day, Ellery asks Magnolia to stay in LA. When Magnolia accuses Ellery of never choosing her, Ellery reveals she broke up with Trish because she was in love with Magnolia and fled to London to escape the pain of loving someone she believed was straight. Ellery also reveals that Iris sent her photocopies of Magnolia's unsent letters, prompting her return to LA. Magnolia confesses she has always loved Ellery, and they make love for the first time. They plan to move in together and call Iris, who rushes home to celebrate.

While driving back with champagne, Iris's car hits an oil slick. She is critically injured and dies after making Magnolia promise to care for Hazel and never let Erik gain custody. Magnolia is consumed by grief. Then Erik's lawyer demands Hazel's return, threatening kidnapping charges. Lawyers tell Magnolia she cannot win custody as a single, unemployed woman without assets in Indonesia; she must remain married to Parker. To keep her promise to Iris, Magnolia sacrifices her relationship with Ellery, telling her to go and never contact her again. Ellery whispers she will wait for Magnolia always.

Back in Jakarta, Magnolia hires a lawyer who presents evidence of Erik's abuse, and she and Parker are granted guardianship of Hazel. Erik's visitation rights are struck down when he fails to appear. Magnolia then launches the counseling division at the clinic. Word of mouth drives explosive growth, and she becomes the brand's public face through magazine, radio, and TV interviews about mental health. The clinic expands from one branch to four, and she is featured in Forbes Asia. She has three children with Parker, raises Hazel alongside them, and develops a genuine if imperfect love for her husband.

In the story's final revelation, Izzy learns the woman at the dinner is not Ellery but Sawyer, someone Nainai met while traveling in Spain after Parker's death. Nainai searched for Ellery afterward and discovered she had died two years before Parker, apparently unmarried. Nainai tells Izzy she knows Izzy is queer and that she told her this story to show, by example, that living authentically is possible. She reveals she has set aside money for Izzy to attend college somewhere she can be herself.

In the epilogue, set four years later, Izzy is a student at UC Berkeley, Nainai's alma mater, in a relationship with Kate, a premed student. Nainai has died peacefully in Jakarta. Izzy scatters her grandmother's ashes into the ocean from a Northern California beach, recalling a vision of young Magnolia crossing a bridge of flowers to reunite with Ellery. As Izzy walks away with Kate, she glimpses two embracing figures in the water before the ocean swallows them from sight. She resolves to fight for the life she wants, honoring the sacrifices Nainai and Iris made.