This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Copyright © 2021 by Nandini Bajpai Cover art copyright © 2021 by Sanno Singh. Cover design by Jenny Kimura. Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. Poppy Little, Brown and Company Hachette Book Group 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104 Visit us at LBYR.com Originally published in 2013 by Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. in India First U.S. Edition: May 2021 Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Poppy is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The Poppy name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bajpai, Nandini, author. Title: Sister of the Bollywood bride / by Nandini Bajpai. Description: First U.S. edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2021. | “Originally published in 2013 by Scholastic India Pvt. Ltd. in India.” | Audience: Ages 12 & up. | Summary: Seventeen-year-old Mini plans a magnificent Indian wedding—from their deceased mother’s jewelry to a white wedding horse—for her older sister Vinnie, a medical resident, but a hurricane threatens to destroy it all. Identifiers: LCCN 2020043604 | ISBN 9780316705424 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780316705431 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316705400 (ebook other) Subjects: CYAC: Weddings—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | East Indian Americans—Fiction. Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B335 Sis 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043604 ISBNs: 978-0-316-70542-4 (pbk.), 978-0-316-70543-1 (ebook) E3-20210415-JV-NF-ORI Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Acknowledgments Discover More About the Author For Mum and Kiki. I’m lucky to be the link between you two. Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more. Tap here to learn more. Chapter One The silver key resting on my palm looked pretty ordinary, but what it unlocked was not. I dropped it back into a tiny envelope that read CUSTOMER KEY, BOX NUMBER: 311 and handed it to the teller. “You’d like to open your safe-deposit box?” The bank teller’s eyebrows shot up at my request—it clearly wasn’t every day a teenager asked for access to the bank vault. “Yes, thanks.” I tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, acting casual, though my heart was pounding like a Punjabi dhol. “Follow me, please.” The teller came around the counter and led the way to the other end of the small lobby. Who knew our little Bank of America branch in Westbury, Massachusetts, even had a proper bank vault like in a heist movie or something? She unlocked two massive doors—one with steel bars, the other studded with gears and bolts—and let me into the strong room. It was insanely solid. “Three-one-one,” she said under her breath, looking for the matching key in a metallic drawer, then read the numbers off the deposit boxes until she found mine. Both keys had to be inserted and turned simultaneously for the box to open. She pulled the box—long, metallic, coffinlike—out of the locker and handed it to me. “You can open it in there.” The door she pointed to led into a private closet-sized room. I shut the narrow door, deposit box clutched tight—and took a deep, deep breath in the tiny space. Probably exhausting its entire oxygen supply, for I was suddenly breathless. I lifted the lid. Oh. My. Three hundred and thirty million gods. Jewelry boxes with clear lids stared back at me, the brilliant yellow of Indian gold gleaming richly through them. Vinnie was never going to believe this! Vinnie, my older sister, was the reason I was standing in that bank vault. Always the steady, serious type, Vinnie had recently lost her head, had fallen in love, and was getting married this summer. Also, she had just graduated from medical school and was starting a three-year emergency medicine residency at a hospital in Chicago—which meant she had no time to plan her wedding here in Boston. Add to this the fact that our dad, still in shock over the whole thing, said he was not paying for a big fat wedding. His five-year fiscal plan involved frugal living and aggressive saving in the year between Vinnie’s graduation and me going off to college—spending lavishly on a wedding did not enter into it in any way, shape, or form. But getting married she was, and whatever the budget, I was going to make sure that my sister looked fabulous—Indian style. The only problem? There’s one thing an Indian bride can’t do without—gold. Twenty-two-karat gold. And a couple of ounces of that stuff probably cost more than my secondhand car. Not to worry, Dad said—evidently Mom left us some jewelry, information no one bothered to share with me before—just take the safe-deposit box key and check it out. I untied the strings of a deep blue velvet pouch and emptied its glittering contents into my cupped hand. More jewelry. I knew this stuff. Some of it was heirloom old—passed down from my nani. Some of it was new. Kind of. Mom had had it made for Vinnie and me. I opened a box. A note with my name and a date in Mom’s neat handwriting—strange how I recognized it instantly—was tucked under the necklace. I touched the dainty peacock with turquoise feathers and
