When Dimple Met Rishi

by Sandhya Menon

  A girl in the corner with a trendy, caramel-colored, two-foot-tall mass of curls and huge hazel eyes grinned and stood, grabbing Dimple in a hug she clearly hadn’t been expecting. She wore giant heels that made her tower over Dimple, but without them, Rishi guessed they’d be about the same height. “Dimple! You made it!”

  Dimple pulled back and grinned. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Facebook, of course,” the girl said, laughing.

  Dimple tossed a triumphant look Rishi’s way. He sighed and made his way over.

  “Oh, hello.” The girl smiled a little suggestively. “Who’s this? You didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend.” Somehow, she made the word “friend” sound naughty.

  Dimple sat, and, after a moment, scooched over so Rishi could sit next to her in the booth. He tried to ignore the way his pulse stuttered a bit at that. “That’s because I didn’t know,” she said. “Celia Ramirez, this is Rishi Patel. Rishi, this is Celia.”

  “Enchanté,” Celia said, taking his hand. “I ordered a large pepperoni pizza; hope that’s okay with the two of you.”

  “Totally,” Dimple said, just as Rishi said, “I don’t eat meat.”

  They looked at each other. “I’ll go order a cheese,” he said after a beat, sliding back out of the booth. Add another item to the “1,001 ways we’re incompatible” list, Rishi thought. As he ordered at the counter, he watched Dimple, totally relaxed in a way she hadn’t been with him, talking to Celia. And not for the first time in the past hour, Rishi wondered how his parents could’ve made such a big mistake.

  “Seriously?” Celia said, ogling Rishi openmouthed.

  “Stop staring at him,” Dimple hissed. “And yes, seriously. My parents are so deranged it’s not even funny.”

  “And he brought his great-grandmother’s ring. To your first meeting.” Celia, clearly not well versed in the way of certain Indian families, could not seem to wrap her head around this fact.

  Dimple sighed. “I really just feel kind of bad for him. I mean, it’s got to be embarrassing. But he’s taking it like a champ. He’s a lot calmer than I am. I cannot wait to rip my parents a new one.” She shredded her straw wrapper with gusto. “They can’t hide from me forever.”

  “It’s sort of romantic,” Celia said, smiling a little, turning back to Dimple. “Don’t you think?”

  “Romantic!” Dimple sputtered on her sip of water. Setting her glass back down, she said, “Please. I’m freaking eighteen years old. Marriage is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Well, I’m seventeen, so right back at you,” Celia said. “But still. I mean, just the fact that, you know. He could potentially be the one. There’s a kind of magic in that.”

  Dimple tossed a glance over at Rishi. He was walking over to the soda fountain. Every movement of his was sure, calm, confident. “I don’t know,” she said, finally, just as the waiter brought their pizzas over. “I guess I just don’t see it.”

  When Rishi sat down, there was a weird sort of hesitant, crackling silence in the air. He sighed and looked at Celia. “She told you, didn’t she? About the arranged marriage thing?”

  Dimple stiffened beside him, and Celia nodded. “She did.”

  “And you think it’s crazy,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.” Celia chewed the giant piece of pizza she’d bitten off before speaking. “I also think it’s romantic.” She grinned. “A predestined romance.”

  Rishi smiled. Maybe this girl wasn’t a serial killer after all. “Sort of. But arranged marriages are more about practicalities than romance. Compatibility, a long-term partnership. That sort of thing.”

  Beside him Dimple snorted. He turned to her. “I’m guessing you don’t agree.”

  “Compatibility may be what it’s ostensibly about,” Dimple responded, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “But it’s really just a way for our parents to control us. I mean, that’s even how the institution of marriage was born. So fathers could form alliances and use their children—especially their daughters—as pawns in their battle for power.” She ripped off a piece of pizza and chewed angrily.

  Jeez, did she ever relax? “Well, since our parents aren’t rajas and ranis, I don’t think that’s what it’s about.”

  Celia laughed. “ ‘Raja’—that’s king, right?”

  “Right.” Rishi smiled. “And ‘rani’ is queen.”

  “So you’re bilingual?” Celia asked.

  Rishi nodded. “Yeah, I learned Hindi first, before English. My parents were really adamant about that. They’re technically from Gujarat, but they’re third generation Mumbaiites, so they speak Hindi. Mumbai is, like, this huge melting pot of people from other Indian states, so apparently everyone speaks this special version of what my parents call ‘Bombay Hindi.’ ” His eyes were far off and he had this small smile on his lips. It was obvious he loved talking about this stuff.

  “That’s so cool,” Celia said. “I wish I knew more than, like, five words of Spanish. Have you ever been to Mumbai?”

  “Are you really interested in web development, or are you just here for this?” Dimple interjected, gesturing between herself and him. If Rishi didn’t know better, he’d say she was irritated at how he and Celia were hitting it off. Jealousy? he wondered hopefully. But he had to be practical—she likely had just wanted to have an impassioned discussion about the evils of arranged marriages and controlling parents and was disappointed it wasn’t coming to fruition.

  Rishi shrugged and ate another bite of pizza. “Both. I mean, I’m starting at MIT in the fall for computer science and engineering, so this is a good thing to have on my CV.”

  “But web development isn’t your passion.” Dimple’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not your dream.”

  “No,” Rishi said slowly. “I guess not.”

  “You spent a thousand dollars on something that you’re not passionate about?” She stared at him, seemingly dumbfounded.

  “So he wants to expand his horizons; don’t be so judgy,” Celia said.

  “Whatever. You just better not be my partner,” Dimple muttered, turning back to her pizza.

  “Believe me, that sounds totally fine to me,” Rishi said. He felt the stirrings of irritation. Why did she have to be so . . . intense? What did it matter to her whether or not he wanted to marry web development and have its babies? “You know, I think I’m going to head back to my dorm,” he said, wiping his hands on his napkin. “I need to unpack and all that.”

  “Aw, are you sure?” Celia said, and he got the feeling she genuinely liked his company.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “But I’ll see you both tomorrow in class.”

  The silence was heavy while Rishi stood and left a hefty tip on the table so they wouldn’t have to. He knew they were just waiting for him to leave so they could talk about him. Sighing, he headed to the door and stepped out into the afternoon sunshine.

  CHAPTER 7

  The bell above the door clanged shut as Rishi disappeared onto the sidewalk. Dimple continued munching on her pizza, ignoring the tiny pit in her stomach, even though she could feel Celia’s gaze heavy on her face.

  “A-hem.”

  Dimpled rolled her eyes. “No one says ‘ahem.’ You’re supposed to just clear your throat.”

  Celia waved an insouciant hand. Her many wooden bangles clattered together. “So pretend I just cleared my throat. Did you have to be so mean to him?”

  “I wasn’t mean, just . . . honest. Wouldn’t it be crueler to make him think there was some hope that I’d come around and just embrace all of this?” She took a sip of water, feeling the pit in her stomach grow. Guilt, she thought. It was guilt. Celia had a point: Rishi was a perfectly nice guy, and Dimple had sentenced him to a thousand lashes of her sharp tongue. Speak first, think later, that was her default setting, no matter how she tried to control it. Dimple sat up straighter, quashing those thoughts. She’d sent Rishi Patel away—there was no reason to be all weak and second-guess her choices now.

  Celi
a wound one of her long curls around her finger. “I guess.” Dimple wondered how she could stand having hair that fell to her waist. She’d have to be careful not to mention this to Mamma, or she’d probably phone Celia for tips on how to convince Dimple to grow her hair out too. And it wouldn’t matter that they’d never spoken to each other before in their lives.

  “Okay, I’m done talking about boys.” Dimple leaned forward and smiled. “What do you think the prize is going to be for this year’s Insomnia Con?”

  “Ooh.” Celia rubbed her hands together, eyes shining. “I don’t know, but it’s definitely something epic. There were rumblings that they really went all out this year. Everyone thinks it’s going to be a personalized letter with feedback from Jenny Lindt, but I’m guessing a cash prize of, like, ten grand.”

  Dimple shook her head. “No, I bet it’s something way crazy cooler than that. They don’t generally do cash prizes with Insomnia Con; that’s usually what they do for the talent show about halfway in, remember? Maybe it’ll be, like, feedback and a signed copy of Jenny Lindt’s next memoir or something.”

  Celia laughed. “Your Jenny Lindt obsession knows no bounds. You know what your big project’s going to be yet?”

  “I have a pretty solid idea,” Dimple said, trying not to show how ridiculously excited she was about it. She’d thought of it last year. And honestly, she was going to code this app somehow whether or not she came to Insomnia Con, but the idea of doing it on such a large scale was even more thrilling. She’d checked—there was nothing on the market quite like it. She couldn’t share it with Celia; that was one of the rules of Insomnia Con. Only your partner could know what you were working on. “I haven’t fully fleshed it out, though. You?”

  “I’m still thinking about it; nothing’s really jumped out at me. I wouldn’t mind working with you on your idea.” Celia grinned. “Do you think they’ll make us partners?”

  “I’ve heard roommates don’t generally get made partners,” Dimple said, pushing her empty plate aside. “But fingers crossed.”

  • • •

  When her phone rang early the next morning, Dimple was dreaming that she was accepting an award onstage from Jenny Lindt. Jenny beamed at her as she said something that Dimple was sure were effervescent compliments, but every time Jenny opened her mouth, all Dimple could hear were beeps. “Sorry?” Dimple kept saying, in her dream. “Can you repeat that?”

  Finally, Celia called out from across the room, “Dimple, it’s your phone! For the love of God, answer it before I lose my mind!”

  “Sorry,” Dimple mumbled, reaching for her phone on her nightstand. She silenced it and looked at the screen. Anger shot through her, red-hot. Suddenly she was very much awake. Grabbing it, she strode out into the hallway, shutting the door quietly behind her. “Mamma.”

  “Dimple!” her mother said, sounding forcefully jolly. “Kaisi ho, beti? Did you unpack? How is the campus?”

  “Oh no, no. You don’t get to wake me up and ask me about the campus. Let’s talk about the real issue here, shall we?”

  “I woke you up? But why you’re not already awake? It’s the first day!”

  Dimple squeezed the phone tighter. “Because the seminar doesn’t start at the butt crack of dawn! Besides which, that is not even the point. Can you please focus, Mamma? What the heck is up with Rishi Patel?”

  “Up with him . . . ?” Mamma feigned ignorance to slang, which just infuriated Dimple more. Seriously, where did she get this stuff? “I don’t know what you mean, Dimple—”

  “Mamma, please! Why did you and Papa do this? Why are you trying to set me up with some dude I’ve never heard of before in my life? You know that’s not why I’m here! You know how important this is to me!” Dimple felt tears rising, pressing hot and furious against her eyelids. For once, why couldn’t her parents just be on the same page as her?

  “Dimple, beti, math ro.” Mamma sounded genuinely upset now. “Don’t cry. We just wanted you to meet him. He is a good boy, from a good family. You have a lot in common.”

  Dimple swiped at her eyes, ignoring the looks of a couple of early risers probably headed out to coffee. They were all blurry to her anyway, without her glasses on. “Don’t you see? I. Don’t. Care. He could be crafted from unicorn dust and jelly beans, and I still wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. I’m not interested in a marriage partner, Mamma, now or ten years from now!”

  There was a shuffling, like Mamma was holding the phone away from her. She heard her mumble in Hindi, “Vijay, you talk to her.” A pause, and then, “I don’t know. Something about unicorns. I don’t understand.”

  Dimple rolled her eyes and sighed, waiting for Papa to come on.

  “Dimple beti?”

  His voice, deep and soothing, comforting and familiar as a cotton T-shirt, made the lump rise in her throat again. How could two people who loved her so much simply not get her on such a basic, essential level? “Haan, Papa.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I don’t understand why you lied to me. Both of you. You pretended you were agreeing to Insomnia Con for me, but this is . . . it’s ridiculous, Papa. I’m not getting married.”

  “No one wants you to get married now, Dimple. We just wanted to know if you and the Patel boy would be compatible. Down the road, who knows what might happen? It’s not easy finding a good Indian family here in the States, na.” He paused, and a hard edge had crept into his voice when he spoke again. “Usne kuch kiya?”

  Dimple sank down against the wall, the fight going out of her. Papa’s voice, his gentle, calm, reasonable demeanor, often had that effect. “No, he didn’t do anything bad. He was perfectly fine, a gentleman.” The truth was, her parents had done a good job picking someone who wasn’t a total douche nozzle. “But, Papa, I’m just not in that place of thinking of him—or any boy—in that way. Can’t you understand that?”

  Papa’s breath crackled down the line. There was no judgment or anger in his voice when he said, finally, “I understand.”

  She blinked. Was it going to be that easy? “Really? What about Mamma?”

  She heard Papa’s footsteps as he walked somewhere, likely away from Mamma. “She will understand also. We just want your happiness, Dimple. That is the most important thing.”

  The lump was back. Dimple had to swallow a few times. “And what about Insomnia Con? Can I still stay even if there’s no chance of me and Rishi becoming a thing?”

  She heard the smile in Papa’s voice. “Of course. When I said I think it’s a good career decision, I meant it.”

  Dimple hung her head, relief and love and joy overpowering her. “Thank you, Papa.”

  “Mujhse bas ek vada karo, Dimple. Promise me just one thing.”

  Warily, Dimple said, “What’s that?”

  “Win the Insomnia Con.”

  She grinned. He must’ve really read the website she sent him. “Oh, I plan to,” she said. “Don’t you worry, Papa.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Dimple felt a weird energy pulsing through her as she and Celia walked to the Andrew G. Spurlock building, where Insomnia Con was hosted every year. In spite of the heavy fog rolling in, it was like some filmy gauze had been cleared from the atmosphere, or like a particularly nauseating stench had been done away with. Everything felt fresh and bright, swept clean. There were no expectations on her anymore except to conquer the heck out of Insomnia Con. And that was exactly how she liked it.

  So she hadn’t exactly spoken to Mamma again; she was sure that wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. And whenever she thought of Rishi—whom she hadn’t seen at all today, in spite of being hyperaware and spotting about a dozen different guys of his same build and height—she felt a twinge deep inside her. Because he wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, he seemed to be really nice. There was an easy flow to their conversations; a sort of instantaneous shorthand, maybe because they came from similar backgrounds. If they’d been introduced under any other circumstances, they might’ve been friends. Maybe. Even with their
similarities, they were just different enough that things could’ve been interesting. Or, you know, totally annoying. Whatever. Why was she even wasting brain space on this?

  “Look at them,” she whispered to Celia, refocusing her attention on the dozens of other Insomnia Con students milling in the same general direction as her and Celia, 98 percent of whom were male. “We can totally take them, right?”

  Celia made a sort of grunting noise from behind her Starbucks that sounded like “toma,” but Dimple was fairly certain was meant to be a “totally.” It was eleven o’clock in the morning, and the girl was barely awake. Dimple got the impression that Celia was even less of a morning person than she was. Celia blinked and looked around, a little bit more animatedly. “Hey, I don’t see your friend Rishi.”

  Dimple didn’t want to admit it, but she’d noticed that too. “Me either.”

  “Huh. Maybe he dropped out.”

  Dimple wondered why that thought sat like a ball of lead in her stomach.

  He’d watched her go out the front doors with Celia, waited five minutes, and then headed out after them. He didn’t want to be a pain in the ass; Rishi knew when he wasn’t wanted.

  Ma and Pappa had called for an update, and it had been so difficult to tell them the truth: that it probably wasn’t going to work out with him and Dimple. She just . . . wasn’t where he was. He could tell they were disappointed, but they’d tried to put on a brave front. And when they’d asked if he wanted to go back home, he’d seriously considered it. But then he’d decided to stay. It was too late to get a refund anyway, and besides, he didn’t want Dimple Shah to think he’d come all this way simply for her. Even if in a way he had. So his plan now was to go to Insomnia Con, learn a bit about web development, and then head off to MIT. He had nothing to lose.

  He walked in the weird misty fog listening to the students around him chatter like mockingbirds. He wondered how it could be that he just never fit in with his peers. It had always been that way; apart from a few friends in the comic book fan community, he’d never really been able to relate.