The morning she spotted Rina for the third time, Layla knew for certain that it was her. Positioned behind a wooden post, Layla browsed through piles of avocadoes and ran a finger along a tray of shiny apples while, as discreetly as possible, she glanced at Rina. Her former friend’s eyelids were heavy, her shoulders slumped as she leaned a hip against the counter of a bakery stall. She had the same long, shiny hair, the same way of holding her head with her chin pointed upward, and yet she seemed reduced, diminished. Her body shifted toward a tall, middle-aged white man buying bread. Layla couldn’t tell if they were together or if Rina was just waiting for her turn at the counter.

Layla had no intention of sticking around to find out. Abandoning her latte—her Friday treat—Layla vacated her hiding spot and, accompanied by the ominous clacking of her boots, stepped out of the Central Markets and onto Gouger Street. The grey morning had turned to a drizzling rain, matching Layla’s mood: dark and cautious and frazzled. Rina hadn’t seen her, she was sure of it, and yet she walked more quickly than usual.

Last Tuesday, Layla had thought she spotted Rina sipping a bubble tea, waiting at a bus stop on Pulteney Street. The time before that, a few weeks ago, Layla could have sworn she saw Rina waiting to order sushi at the food court in Rundle Plaza. And then there was the email, moments ago, from Rina245@gmail.com. Layla had moved it into the Trash folder as efficiently as she wiped Ivy’s highchair after breakfast.

Before this morning, Layla had assured herself that these Rina sightings were just fragments of memory. Her mind often drifted to that summer in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, despite all her efforts to bury that exhilarating, awful time in her life. The sight of young Indonesian women on the University of Adelaide campus, sharp and bright-eyed like Rina, or the details of an intricate pattern that resembled batik, or the scent of wood burning, or even an early-morning mist or the way chili lingered on her tongue—all this would bring her back to those months in Yogya.

After each mistaken Rina spotting, Layla had asked herself: what would she do if Rina were really here? She had no answer. Rina coming to Adelaide was, if not impossible, at least not worth the spike in Layla’s blood pressure.

Now, in the Central Markets’ rabbit warren of produce stalls and cafés, she knew for certain that Rina was here. But Layla felt nowhere near prepared or willing to face her. That email—subject line: your old friend—had already vanished into the ether. If and when Rina decided to find Layla, she would know where to look. It wasn’t a secret that Layla was a Lecturer at the university in the centre of the city.

Layla followed her usual route, no jalan jalan, aimless walking, as she had made a daily habit of in Yogya. She strode down King William Street and navigated her way past the subdued multitude of office-attired, middle-aged workers ambling to their offices via Rundle Mall, then marched onto Pulteney Street. The University of Adelaide campus came into view. Glancing at those sandstone buildings, with her office in one of the towers, sent a gentle wave of pride through Layla’s chest.

When she had first moved in with Ben—before their marriage, before the babies—she used to wake to the dappled light streaming into the alleyway beside their bedroom window and say to herself, I’m here, in Australia of all places. Her mind would flick through the faces of all those high-school classmates back in New Jersey and decide that none of them could have made a life in Australia the way she had. It was a senseless point of pride. None of them would have chosen a life here anyway.

But today wasn’t the time to ruminate on the twisting road of her life. Today she needed to be vigilant. Rina was in her city.

Layla’s phone buzzed, and she suppressed a gasp. A text from Ben: NEED TO TALK. His phone must have been stolen—Ben would never text in all capitals. He must have seen Rina too.

Outside her building, Layla called Ben twice, with no answer. Her heart slowed its thumping. Wasn’t this just like Ben? Needing to speak with her urgently and then absorbing himself in another task: building a pillow fort for Violet, or preparing mushy bananas for Ivy, or choosing a book to act out while the babies drank milk. He must have called with some mundane question about whether or not she’d paid the car registration or what spices she had said they needed from the shops. Something gloriously dull.

She took the lift to the fifth floor, resolving to stick to her schedule and not let Rina’s presence alter her productivity . She would prepare her afternoon lecture. Afterward, she would take a walk and snag a new Friday latte somewhere on campus. She would work on her keynote.

Layla stopped short in the middle of her corridor. Was that why Rina was here—for the conference?

At her office door stood one of her students, Kat, her presence as predictable as it was unpleasant.

Kat looked up, face blank. “Oh, you’re here now.” As ever, a master of the obvious.

“My office hours start at nine, and it’s nine right now.”

Kat’s expression didn’t change as Layla reached for her key and unlocked the door. She heard Kat’s footsteps shuffling behind her, followed by the whoosh of air draining from a seat cushion as Kat gracelessly sat down.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m organising a protest on the weekend?” Kat began. “It’s in Melbourne, for refugee rights. So I need an extension? On the paper?”

Layla sighed, praying that her own daughters wouldn’t adopt this Australian upspeak. “You know the extension policy. It’s in the course guide.” She was missing her caffeine hit.

“But this isn’t just any excuse. I’m doing something important, like you talk about in lecture.”

Layla smirked. “So far, I’ve talked about the history of development policies and practices, the variety of multilateral, bilateral, and non-governmental organizations that are practicing in the field of development, and the most recent international development framework, the Sustainable Development Goals. I haven’t mentioned anything about protests, or their link to any kind of meaningful change.”

“You know what I mean. Isn’t this what your course—what you should be all about? Helping others, ensuring human rights?”

Layla turned on her computer, signalling the many other things she needed to do with her morning. “What I’m about is ensuring a fair education. You’ve missed the deadline to apply for an extension on this assignment. Unless you become ill and can provide a medical certificate, you’ll be penalised for a late submission.”

“I read an article about you from way back.” Kat twirled a lock of hair. “You once cared a whole lot.”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Layla lied. The article, “Do-Gooder Makes Good at University,” was from another summer that Layla chose not to dwell on. Unless Kat was particularly adept at search terms, she would have needed to trawl through dozens of Google result pages to get to that article.

“You know,” Kat continued, “when you raised all that money. When you were young and idealistic and believed you could change the world?”

And you think you can? Layla drummed her fingers on the desk. “Unless you have a question about completing the assignment, I think we’re done here.”

“I don’t have enough time. I’ll be in Melbourne all weekend.” Kat crossed her arms. “I’m going to speak to the Head of School.”

“Please do.” Layla could picture Dominique delivering a time-worn speech on personal accountability and then shooing Kat out the door. Dominique and Layla might have their differences, but at least Layla could count on her boss to ensure equity. “I think you’ll find that she feels the same way I do.”

Kat shook her head. “Dominique’s been in the field. She knows what students like me want to achieve.”

What did being “in the field” have to do with organising a protest in Melbourne? Layla didn’t bother to point out this illogic. To Kat, she knew, it was all the same—all practical applications, whether a rally on St. Kilda Road or a three-year contract to oversee a microfinance project in Uganda, were lumped together, and opposed to anything that had to do with development theory or critique. What Kat didn’t realize was that, in this divide between the practical and the theoretical, theory always won. In the precious “field,” the realities of human nature—our selfishness and egotism, our penchant for manipulation, harm, and chaos, our colonial legacies and entitlement—were no more suppressed than at a mall during a Boxing Day sale. At least, with theoretical critique, we could step back and assess the damage, clean up the mess that do-gooders and idealists like Kat and Dominique ultimately caused.

“I have no doubt you’ll achieve a great deal, Kat. Like submitting your paper on time.”

As Kat rose she tightened her lips, as if preparing to issue another threat, but she turned to leave instead.

After two beats, Layla pulled out her phone to dial Ben. Still no answer.

She tapped her monitor to life and searched the Global and Intercultural conference website for any sign of Rina’s attendance. It had never occurred to Layla before, not in all the conferences she’d attended in the past five years, that Rina might be there. So why now, at this international conference that, through sheer luck, had landed on Layla’s doorstep?

Scanning the full schedule of presenters revealed no mention of Rina Surpiyanto. A general Google search uncovered images of Asian men and women named Rina, but not the one Layla knew. She added “Majapahit University” to her search, and there was her Rina, listed as a graduate of the Master of Social Science program in 2010. Rina seemed to have disappeared after that.

Layla peered through the small crack between her office door and the jamb, preparing for a sight of those bright moccasins, that peasant blouse, those frayed jeans. But she had to get a handle on herself. Postponing her lecture prep, Layla opened her keynote speech and cracked her knuckles, about to spar with something formidable.

Her specialisation within International Development wasn’t the most appealing of sub-disciplines. She wasn’t an expert on a hot topic like gender and conflict, or crisis management, or sustainable tourism. Instead, she focused on aid workers themselves. For her latest project, she’d interviewed aid workers about their motivation for doing this work. She’d stayed up until the early hours to contact informants in Europe and North America. Again and again, they stressed how the experience of living abroad and responding to the needs of another community had changed their own lives, made them feel grateful and useful in ways they’d never known before.

As Layla transcribed all forty participants’ responses, she felt a tingling in her chest, a humming through her brain: This is really something. Their collective narratives amounted to a blissful disinterest in the colonialist legacy from which they spoke. The aid workers’ responses revealed their implicit belief that the Western values they imparted during their postings abroad represented a universal moral standing. Layla was eager to disclose all of this, ultimately arguing that, in the wake of others’ hardship, aid workers concentrated on improvements to their own self-worth.

While her keynote was relatively minor—the Global and Intercultural Conference was liberal with the label “keynote,” and her talk was competing against three other keynotes on different themes—the invitation was a big deal. She was entering a different realm, no longer relegated to a short talk on a fringe panel. This speech was a validation of her broader contribution to the anthropology of development. Her findings were being recognized, and that should be enough to ensure her promotion to Senior Lecturer.

Staring at her speech, Layla’s eyes lost focus until the words became fuzzy— pointless gibberish. She blinked, refocused, took out the word “colonial” in her introduction, and put it back. The primary question racing through her head was: What would Rina think?

Her phone rang. Ben.

“I’ve got big news,” he shout-whispered over Violet, who was chanting in the background, “Fair-y dance! Fair-y dance!” Then came the slam of their screen door. Ben continued in an actual whisper, “I can’t let Violet hear. We can tell her together, tomorrow maybe.” Layla could hear him grinning. “I leave next week.”

“Tell her what? Where are you going?”

“Sorry.” It sounded like he was cupping his hand over the phone. “Dave can’t do the Arctic trip anymore, so he recommended me. I’m going to help save the birds: the snowy owl, the plover, the loon, the puffin!” His whisper rose to a mild shout.

What field trip? Who’s Dave? The Arctic? Ben hadn’t worked or gone on any field trips since Violet was born, three and a half years ago. “The Arctic, like the frozen ocean?”

“Ha ha. I’ll only be gone for three months.”

In the next three months Layla had to apply for her promotion, propose a new course, and write two journal articles, all while wrapping up her current course with one hundred and fifty students. Never mind her keynote next week. This must be a joke.

“I’ve found the perfect person to take care of the girls,” Ben continued. Girls. He’d just started calling them that instead of babies. Ivy had turned one a few weeks ago.

“Ben, you can’t leave.” This was ridiculous. “You are not replaceable by some stranger. You haven’t consulted me at all! You know all the deadlines I have, and how much the children need you.”

Violet was saying, “Dada, I have to wee.”

“Just a minute, darling.” Ben took a deep breath and resumed his whispering. “I’ve taken care of everything. The girls will be well looked after—not by a stranger, by someone you and I know well. She’s perfect.”

Violet’s voice chimed in again. “Dada! There’s a lady.”

“Okay, I gotta go. She’s here. I have a surprise for you when you get home.”

But Layla knew what it was already. It was Rina.

After a lacklustre lecture critiquing the gender-and-development approach, Layla felt as uninspired as her students. Once again she stared, eyes glazed, at her keynote. Was this speech going to be received with as little enthusiasm as her lecture? Her heart thumped. She imagined an audience of faraway faces, Rina seated in the front row, her dark eyes searing.

This was all Ben’s fault. Layla pushed her chair away from the desk, slung her bag onto her shoulder, and marched out of her office. It was one thing to know that Rina was in her city, quite another to invite her into Layla’s house. Ben had always been too trusting. That was one of the things that had first drawn them together: the yin and yang of Ben and Layla. Lying in her bed in the American House in Yogya, they had half-joked and half-marvelled at their perfect balance of trust and suspicion, each holding on firmly—in Ben’s case, too firmly—to their own defining quality.

Stepping onto North Terrace, Layla spotted one of her students. She was bent in laughter, leaning on a young man’s shoulder. Like the others who’d been sitting in that lecture theatre, this student had no idea of the importance of what Layla had just imparted, no clue that she was trying to give them the tools to make solid career choices by converting them into critics. Rina would have understood this ultimate aim for each and every lecture. But even so, she’d never cared. All those compliments and favourable comparisons, all those late-night discussions about their futures in academia—those moments had been part of her manipulation from the start.

But even after everything that had happened that summer, Layla still had to acknowledge this: without Rina, nothing about Layla’s current life—her work at the university, her morning runs through Botanic Park, her Friday lattes at the Central Markets, her rented house near the city centre, her two demanding, achingly beautiful daughters—would have been possible. Because without Rina, Layla would never have met Ben.

“Let’s go to a nightclub,” Rina had said one evening, sitting on Layla’s bed in the American House.

Layla raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever been to a nightclub?”

“Plenty of times.” Rina batted her eyelashes. “You’re not the first American I’ve showed around Yogya, you know.”

“All right, then, which one should we go to?”

“Hugo’s!” Rina pulled out her phone. “I’ll ask Ben to join us.”

Layla cocked her head. “And who’s this?”

“Off limits. He has a girlfriend. Plus, you wouldn’t like him. He’s too tall and muscular. And he has a beard.” Rina made a disgusted face.

Layla laughed. All of those things sounded good to her.

Rina got a ping on her phone. “Okay, he’ll be over in ten minutes.”

“With his girlfriend?”

Rina shook her head. “She’s back home, in Australia.”

Layla was tired of Australians. She had seen too many leaning against the bar in pubs on Malioboro Street or eating mediocre western food in Pasan Kembang—red-faced, self-important, and aggressive. She’d watched them shouting at the players on TV screens or at their mates or at the bartender, and shuddered at their lack of regard for this reserved culture.

Rina changed into tighter jeans, while Layla mentally scanned the modest clothes hanging in her room’s wardrobe. Nothing was any more appropriate than what she was already wearing: a tee shirt and a wrinkled linen skirt pulled from a Salvation Army bin back in Richmond, Virginia.

They sat on the wobbly porch swing under a cloudy night sky and listened to the distant, warbled voice of the muezzin. The air smelled of coconut and fried banana.

“I’ll miss this,” said Layla.

Rina pffed. “You just got here.”

“I didn’t think I’d like it this much.” In Yogya, each day collided with the next. Hours in this precious city slipped by faster than they ever had in Richmond or the small island of Terafi where she’d done her research. “So how do you know this Australian?”

“Through Suhadi. His dad works for the…” Rina paused to think. “The Australian Forestry Alliance. Ben works there too.”

“So he’s, like, a forester?”

Rina shrugged.

When the taxi pulled up and Ben unfolded himself from the seat, Layla understood what Rina had meant when she said he was too tall. Well over six feet, thin and muscular, Ben wore a cotton button-down shirt and jean shorts, showing off his tan arms and long legs. His grin at Rina lifted the contours around his eyes, which were small and piercingly blue.

When Rina introduced Layla, Ben rubbed the back of his neck and squinted, as if in appraisal, and Layla wished she’d worn anything but this stupid skirt and crumpled tee shirt.

“G’day there,” Ben said.

Layla was enveloped in his shadow from the lights of the American House; although she wasn’t in need of protection, she felt shielded, secure. “G’day,” she repeated, but the phrase sounded clumsy in her mouth.

Rina and Layla scooted into the back seat of the taxi, and Ben returned to the front. He told the driver to take them to Hugo’s.

“You Westerners, all the same.” The driver hit the steering wheel as he chortled. When he turned to the back seat to snicker at them, Layla saw that he was young and handsome, unlike the other drivers she’d encountered. “That club is shit. I charge double to take you there! I have somewhere better in my mind, a bit further than Hugo’s.”

“Sure, sounds great,” said Ben. “You’re in charge, mate.”

Layla seethed. “We don’t know this driver or how much farther he wants to take us.” She’d read about scams where drivers took their fares to the middle of nowhere and then sped off, so that five minutes later an accomplice could whiz in and charge them an exorbitant rate to get back home. And that was the mildest outcome Layla could think of. “We shouldn’t go.”

“It’ll be fine.” Ben placed his hand on the driver’s shoulder. “Trust us.”

This Australian wasn’t only crass but reckless. Layla opened the car door. “C’mon, Rina.”

Rina hesitated, uncrossed her arms, then crossed them again. “I’m going with them. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Layla imagined herself back in the American House. The others would ask where Rina was and laugh at her inadequate explanation. She would flop on her bed, her stomach twisting all night. She imagined her phone ringing at four a.m.—Rina calling from the side of the road. Either she’d be sleepless and dishevelled, abandoned by the driver, or she’d be sleepless and dishevelled but delirious from having the time of her life.

Layla shut the door again. “Fine, let’s go.”

They rode in silence, travelling through and beyond the centre of town. They passed warungs where men sat at tables under canvas awnings held up by bamboo frames, shovelling rice and satay into their mouths. They passed students lounging on woven mats laid out on the sidewalk, next to hawkers selling tempeh and tahu. They passed malls and collections of rundown houses. The taxi carried on over darkened roads, only a few motorbikes passing them. Layla didn’t say a word, but her heart quickened its rapid pace.

Finally the driver slowed and pulled up on the side of a deserted road, where nothing resembled a public place, let alone a nightclub. As he rolled down the window, Layla expected the warbles of birds or a whistle to attackers waiting in the bushes. What she heard, however, was strange but familiar. It took her a moment to understand that the sound oozing from the darkness was a slow, steady bass.

“In there.” The driver pointed to a concrete warehouse yards away. Layla could dimly see a few people standing outside, and the glint from a sequined top.

Ben shot a raised eyebrow at Layla and paid the driver. “Thanks, mate,” he said. Then he unfolded himself from the taxi and breathed in the smoky night air. “Looks like we’re safe,” he remarked, without a hint of sarcasm.

They crossed the empty road together, a neat line of three under a swollen, golden moon. In front of the warehouse, the bouncer motioned for them to come in ahead of the two young women in shimmering silver.

Ben shook his head. “We don’t want any special treatment.”

“Four hundred thousand rupiah,” the doorman said, clicking his tongue. It wasn’t special treatment but extortion—thirty US dollars.

Ben paid, and they entered.

Surrounded by exposed brick walls, swaying amid steel pillars and under strobe lights, were dozens of young, slender, stylish Indonesians, with the smoothest, most luminous skin Layla had ever seen. She stood to the side while Ben twirled Rina, and watched as Rina spun with her head tossed back. Layla had never seen her quite so unguarded.

Ben caught Layla’s eye and extended his hand to her. She took it and moved into the crowd, feeling the heat of his body. In that instant she banished any disquiet over a disaster averted, any anxiety about how they would find another taxi home, any promise to herself to be on her own this summer, any guilt about this Australian’s girlfriend thousands of miles away. What remained was just the moment itself: the pink strobe lights, the deep blue of Ben’s eyes, and Rina dancing a few feet away, grinning madly.

Told from alternating perspectives, LAYLA AND RINA is a story about the bond between two women, one American-Australian and one Indonesian, whose friendship is forever altered by betrayal. It explores cultural privilege and its devastating impact on life-long dreams.

Layla is on a cushy academic fellowship in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and Rina is the local tour guide. The two discover an overlap in their ambitions: Layla aims to prove the damage that international aid has caused, while Rina is intent on revealing the harms of white privilege. They become fast friends, until Layla falls for one of Rina’s scams and retaliates.

Five years later, Layla has found academic success in Adelaide, Australia. She tried to keep that summer out of her mind, but then one morning she spots Rina and her life is thrown into turmoil. Before she can contemplate why Rina is in Adelaide, Layla learns that her husband has agreed to an overseas research trip. Suddenly a single parent to their two young daughters, Layla worries about her ability to maintain her job, let alone deliver an important keynote. Meanwhile, Rina discovers that the Australian man she met online, who funded her flight to Adelaide, is not what he seems. Soon desperate emails start appearing in Layla’s inbox.

When the two finally meet, they grudgingly agree to help each other, but first they must first reckon with the awful end of that Yogyakarta summer and untangle their long-held beliefs about privilege, aid, and how our choices impact those we care about most.

This novel was inspired by two events in my life. First, like Layla, I won an academic fellowship to spend a summer in Yogyakarta and met many Indonesian students who were admirably passionate about their studies and dreamed of studying in the US, England, or Britain—opportunities that Americans often take for granted. Second, I’ve spent many years teaching and preparing international students for enrollment in Australian universities, witnessing not the dream of Western scholarship but the reality. These experiences have made me consider the sacrifices it takes both to win and to fulfill these scholarships. I wrote LAYLA AND RINA to interrogate the uneven privileges inherent in the Western academic system through the story of my two flawed characters.