“Don’t go. Tomorrow. I think you and I should be on this team together.” Dimple realized she was twisting the envelope as she spoke and forced herself to hold still.
“Really?” A smile began to edge around his lips.
“Well, I mean, as friends.” Dimple looked down at her feet and then up at his open face. Crap. She hadn’t meant to give him the wrong impression.
His face crumpled. “But . . . but I thought you meant you wanted to get married!”
She stared at him, her heart sinking. And then Rishi burst out laughing, apothecary bottle–colored eyes crinkling up at the corners. Her hands itched for the camera, but she swatted him with the envelope instead. “You’re not funny, Rishi Patel.”
Rishi laughed again, running an easy hand through his hair as they resumed walking side by side, sleeves brushing lightly. “Be that as it may, I would love to be your Insomnia Con partner, Dimple Shah.”
CHAPTER 12
When Dimple and Rishi walked back into the lecture hall, they first noticed the throng of people milling around on the east side of the cavernous room. Someone had hung up long, thin steel cables, on which were mounted clothespins. Poster boards hung at equal intervals with signs that read, GROUP 1, GROUP 2, and so on all the way to GROUP 25 with the partners’ names listed right below. A few groups had already hung up their five pictures.
Rishi returned the Polaroid camera to Max’s desk at the front of the room and then jogged back up to where Dimple stood, studying group 8’s (Tim and José’s) pictures. “These are really good,” she said, pointing to a close-up of a banana. The pits and bruises looked like craters on a large yellow planet.
“Pah. Photographing a banana for the prompt yellow? That’s so cliché.”
Dimple turned to him and raised an eyebrow. He was beginning to see it was one of her talents, the imperious eyebrow. “We combined two pictures. What if they think we’re lazy?”
He shrugged and led them over to the sign that said GROUP 12: DIMPLE AND RISHI. “So what if they do? I think Max will see our artistic genius.”
She pulled their Polaroids out of the envelope and began fastening them to the clothespins. He saw her lips twitch at the picture of the funny face she’d been making in the antiques store—glasses askew, mouth contorted into a grimace, nostrils flaring. Pointing to it she said, “Oh yeah, totally. That’s sheer artistic genius right there.”
“Jesus Christ, put a bag over it.” Braying laughter punctuated the comment as the hipster Indian guy went walking by, joined by the goateed white guy Celia was paired with, who was high-fiving him. Their eyes alighted on the picture, then Dimple’s face in real life, then over Rishi as they passed.
Rishi turned toward them as they brushed past, surprise slowly burning away into anger. “What did you say?”
Dimple put a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But they—”
“Don’t.” Her eyes flashed, and he saw she was serious. “It just makes it worse. Let them be. They’re just big jerks with micro penises anyway.”
He frowned. The practiced way she said it, the rehearsed-sounding lines . . . “What do you mean, ‘It just makes it worse’? Have they bothered you before?” The thought sent molten geysers of fury pulsing through his veins.
Dimple sighed and leaned against the wall next to the pictures, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not them, specifically. Just guys like them. I’m not conventionally pretty. I like techie things.” She shrugged easily. “I guess that makes them think it’s open season or something.” She took a breath. “Like I said, micro penises.”
Rishi felt his frown deepen. “Who says you’re not conventionally pretty?”
Dimple rolled her eyes. “So not the point.”
Rishi opened his mouth to respond, but Max was standing next to them then, stroking his beard. It glistened under the lights and smelled like oranges, as if he’d just smoothed it out with oil. “These are excellent.” He leaned in to study the picture that Dimple had taken of Rishi flicking water at her. Then he moved over to look at the one with the both of them standing next to the Buddha. Wanda had snapped it right when they’d been looking at each other—Rishi had kept making bunny ears behind Dimple, and she’d been giving him a warning glare. “What I notice in a majority of these is a sense of easy camaraderie. As if your spirits are already friends.” He smiled at them. “Did you know each other from outside of this class?”
Rishi felt something hot pressing its weight against his diaphragm. Your spirits are already friends. That was it, he thought. Even though this was the first day he’d spent any kind of extended time with Dimple, he felt like he already knew her. Like they were continuing a conversation they’d left off.
Rishi found he couldn’t bring himself to look at her when he said to Max, “No.” He cleared his throat. “We just met yesterday.”
“Well, then, I think you will work fabulously together. But you probably already know that. Good work.” Max smiled kindly at the two of them and then moved on to the next group.
• • •
Dimple glanced sideways at Rishi, but he was gazing at the picture of the yellow cable car like Max was going to give them a pop quiz later.
Your spirits are already friends. What a load of hippie BS.
Except . . . maybe Max had a point. It wasn’t often that Dimple found people she could relate to easily. Her guard was always up, like Mamma was fond of telling her when she sat alone at a table during the garbha dance while the other Indian boys and girls danced together: If you always look like you’re going to bite them, beti, no boys are ever going to want to talk to you. That was kind of the point, though, which is what Mamma didn’t get.
Dimple wasn’t fishing for compliments when she told Rishi that she’d been bullied by guys like those two jerks who’d walked by earlier. She was flat chested, insisted on wearing glasses and no makeup, refused to grow out her hair, and commonly occupied spaces—like Insomnia Con—that seemed to be implicitly reserved for men. Even when she was in elementary and middle school, she always chose computers as her choice of centers while all the other more popular girls seemed to cluster together in art or reading. All of that seemed to make the boys think there was something wrong with her. For a time people had assumed she was gay. Because, you know, maybe that made it, and her, safer.
But it wasn’t like that with Rishi. It was like he’d found a chink in her armor and had squeezed through, insisting with his easy laughter and his goofy jokes that she like him. That they become friends.
And were they? Dimple wondered, darting a quick glance at him. Were they really becoming friends?
“So you want to meet up later, talk about where you want to begin with the app concept?” Rishi asked, pulling her out of her internal cogitations.
“Um, yeah, sure.” Dimple scratched the back of her neck, feeling suddenly out of sorts. If Rishi wasn’t the enemy, did that mean she had to forgive Mamma? “Let’s meet at the pizza place again, and we can outline our plan of attack.”
Rishi smiled at her, excited, his eyes shining. And Dimple was put out to realize she didn’t exactly hate the thought of spending more time with him.
CHAPTER 13
Celia was sprawled diagonally across her bed in their dorm room, texting someone on her phone. She glanced up when Dimple walked in. “Heeey. There you are. Feel like I haven’t seen you all day.”
Dimple felt her guard go up, that unbreachable wall laid with bricks of cynicism and aloofness that kept people at bay. Celia hadn’t exactly done anything. She was just becoming friends with people Dimple had spent her entire life alternately avoiding and being made fun of by.
But Celia wasn’t culpable, she reminded herself. So far, she had been nothing but unfailingly nice. She couldn’t help it if she’d been assigned to the goateed boy any more than Dimple could help being assigned to Rishi. “Hey.” She set her bag down and flopped down on her bed, sighing in contentment at just being there.
Celia set her phone facedown on the bed and sat up, crossing her legs. “Soooo,” she said, and Dimple heard the eyebrow waggle in her voice, “I saw you got paired up with Rishi.”
Dimple picked up the pillow and dropped it on her face. “Yeah,” she said in a muffled voice. “He requested me when he applied.”
Celia laughed merrily. “That’s so cute! So, how is that going? Did he ask you to marry him again? Give you any other family heirlooms?”
Dimple groaned and pulled the pillow off her face. Rolling to her side, she propped her head up with a hand. “No, thank God. We had a chat, and I think he gets that I’m just not interested. He was actually kind of cool about it. We ended up having fun on our scavenger hunt.” She held up a hand at Celia’s gleaming eyes. “As friends. We had fun as friends. So I think we’ll be okay working together.”
Celia waved a hand. “Eh, work today, bone tomorrow.”
“Gross!” Dimple threw her pillow at her, and, laughing, Celia tossed it back. “So . . . how is your partner? I saw you got paired with one of the grotties.”
Celia raised an eyebrow. “You mean ‘hotties’?”
“What did I say?” Dimple asked, feigning confusion.
Celia shook her head. “Anyway, yeah, I did. His name’s Evan. The other hottie is his friend Hari, and the girl is, like, a friend of theirs from high school who also happens to be Evan’s third cousin or something. Her name’s Isabelle. She and Hari are partners. They’ve all known each other since kindergarten.” She smiled and leaned forward, playing with the edge of her bell-sleeved peasant top. “They’re so cool. I knew people like them in high school, but it was different then, you know? I never really . . .” She made a gesture with her hands like she was putting two blocks together. “Fit in. But I feel like it’ll be different with these guys. They seem to get a lot of things about private school and growing up in Nob Hill with insane parents. And apparently Isabelle is, like, one-sixteenth Dominican or something. Which is cool, because I think I told you, right, my dad’s Dominican?”
“Yeah . . . cool,” Dimple said faintly, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say.
Celia cocked her head, buoyant curls scraping her bedspread. “That sounded less than enthusiastic.”
Dimple pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “No, they just seemed sort of . . . superficial.” She couldn’t, wouldn’t, tell Celia about the comments the boys—she supposed Evan and Hari—had made. She didn’t know her that well, and she didn’t want any pity. It was bad enough that Rishi had heard.
“Oh, they’re not.” Celia said it quickly, in a rush, before Dimple had even finished her sentence. Her phone rang, interrupting their conversation, and she picked it up. “Hey, Isabelle!” she said cheerily. Dimple heard a high-pitched squawk and imagined Isabelle speed talking.
“Dinner sounds great!” Celia said. “What about Italian?” She listened for a minute. “No, that’s fine, we don’t have to do Italian. . . . What were you guys thinking?” Celia made a face at Isabelle’s response. “Elm? No, I’m just not crazy about their food. . . .” After a pause, she said in a hurry, “No, no, that’s totally fine! I think I was just having an off day when I went there last time. I’m sure I’ll find something good tonight.” Celia listened some more and then laughed, the sound pressured and fake. “Okay, see you then. Bye!” She hung up and looked at Dimple, forcing a smile. “Look, I’m having dinner with them. Why don’t you come? Get to know them.” Seeing Dimple’s expression, she added, “Bring Rishi, too. Then at least there’ll be two people you know there.”
Dimple sighed. On one hand she had no desire to see those people again outside of class. On the other hand Celia would be there, and Rishi, if he wanted to come. Maybe she could put this whole thing to bed and Evan and Hari wouldn’t bother her again if they knew she was with Celia. They could all just forget about the stupid comment they’d made and move on, no awkwardness necessary. Plus, she didn’t want Celia to think she was judging her new friends without even giving them a chance. That’d make for an awkward six weeks living together.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Where are we going?”
“This place called Elm on Piazza Ave, about a ten-minute walk from here.” She itched her ear, and in a not completely believable way, added, “Their mac and cheese is supposed to be killer?”
“All right, I’ll be there. Do you want to walk together?”
Celia pulled a face and held up her phone. “Wish I could, babe. I have to run home really quick though. Apparently my grandma decided on a three-day surprise visit, and she flips if she doesn’t get to see me.” Celia stood and slung her bag onto her shoulder. She’d switched out her multicolored, patchwork-adorned backpack for a more demure taupe leather handbag. The interlocking Cs glinted in the overhead lights. “But I’ll see you there at seven, okay?”
“Sounds good.” As the door thundered shut behind Celia, Dimple sat back and looked up at the ceiling. It was one stupid dinner, and then she’d be home free. No big deal. She reached over and grabbed her phone out of her bag. Max had made all the partners exchange phone numbers, so she had Rishi’s in her contacts already. For some reason, her palms were slightly sweaty as she texted.
Hey, it’s Dimple. Want to come to dinner with Celia’s new friends tonight instead of doing the pizza place? 7 pm.
Wait, the Aberzombies?
Dimple snorted, only slightly surprised that Rishi’s nickname nailed exactly what she felt about that group. Yeah, unfortunately. I promised to give them a chance, though. It’s at Elm, on Piazza.
Sure, I’ll be there. Pick you up or meet there?
Dimple paused, heart stuttering a bit. Was this a weighted question? If she said he should pick her up, would that give him the wrong idea? But if she didn’t, would that sound like she didn’t want to spend any more time with him than absolutely necessary? Dimple quietly thunked her forehead on the screen a few times and then typed, Pick me up at 6:50.
Rishi’s response was immediate. See ya then.
• • •
Promptly at 6:49, there was a knock on Dimple’s dorm room door. She opened it to find Rishi on the other side, dressed in a neatly pressed burgundy button-down (the color actually looked really good on him—brought out the red in his lips, not that she was looking looking) and khakis. He looked very much like Boy on a First Date. At least he hadn’t brought a flower.
Rishi had considered bringing a long-stemmed flower—he knew this wasn’t a date, so maybe a carnation rather than a rose?—but had nixed it at the last moment. Seeing Dimple’s face now, taking in his business casual attire, he was kind of glad.
• • •
She’d say this for him: He had no guile. There were no mind games, no trying to be cool or appearing to be something else. Rishi was unabashedly himself. She felt a tug of endearment and coughed to cover it up. “Oh, er, hi. I feel underdressed.”
“You look fantastic.” He smiled, and she could tell he really meant it. “Ready?”
• • •
Outside, the sun had streaked the fog a molten pink and gold. Karl wafted lazily, toying with their hair and whispering wetly in their ears. Dusk pulled their shadows long, and a slight breeze ruffled the leaves on the eucalyptus trees they passed. Dimple pulled an errant, damp curl off her face. “So do you want to talk really quickly about the idea I had for Insomnia Con? Since we’re not going to hash it out over pizza?”
Rishi tucked his hands into his pockets. “Sure.”
Dimple’s pulse quickened. She’d been thinking about this for so long, and now it was finally here. The chance to make this into a reality. “So the first thing to understand is that Papa’s a diabetic. He really struggles to take his medication and stay on the straight and narrow with his diet. He’s always saying how much of a pain in the butt it is to remember each little thing that comes with being a diabetic. There’s the shot, the medication, the special diet, the exercise. . . . That got me thinking, what if
there was a way to make it easier and more fun for sick people to stick to their routines? What if there was an app that turned it into a sort of game with a reward system?”
“Interesting. I just recently read an article about the psychology of gaming. How even the simplest or most repetitive of games can be made addictive if the person is rewarded enough or something?”
Dimple nodded, excited that he’d heard of it. “Yeah, it’s called a compulsion loop. When we repeat a certain behavior and get rewarded for it, we want to keep repeating that behavior. So if that behavior is inputting that they took their medication or stuck to their diet—something that’ll be visually represented and give them a reward—they’ll want to keep repeating it. But it has to be simple enough that even older people like Papa can do it easily from their phones.”
Rishi looked at her, impressed. “That is really cool. I love this idea already.”
Dimple flushed and ducked her head. “Thanks. I hope the judges do too.”
“We’ll just have to work extra hard so they do.”
Dimple smiled at Rishi, at his open enthusiasm. Softly, she said, “By the way, thanks for coming to this thing.”
“No problem.” A pause. “So . . . why are we going, again?”
She noticed the “we” in place of the “you,” and felt a warmth in her belly. Rishi was a naturally good friend, she could tell, the kind of guy who thought your every fight was his as well. “Mainly because it’s important to Celia, and I think this month and a half will be a whole lot less awkward if I make an effort to like her friends. I’m sure they’ll be coming over to our dorm room and stuff.” Dimple thought of the way Celia turned pink when she talked of Evan. “Besides, if I can just spend some time with them, maybe—” She broke off, not able to believe she’d actually been about to tell Rishi her thought process.
When Dimple Met Rishi Page 7
