“Why didn’t you get my phone and text her?” Rishi opened the closet door for cover, let his towel slip, and climbed into his boxers and jeans.
“Oh yeah, because you’d be totally fine with me pawing through your phone.”
“I wouldn’t have cared this once. It’s a half hour past when we said we’d meet her, Ashish, come on.” Feeling that familiar pulsing annoyance behind his eyes, like an ever present headache when Ashish was around, Rishi pulled on a light sweater and stepped out from behind the closet door. “All right, let’s go.”
They walked downstairs, Ashish weirdly distracted. He kept looking at Rishi, but when Rishi looked at him, he’d look away quickly. “What?” Rishi asked finally, trying not to snap. “Why do you keep doing that?”
Ashish raised his eyebrows, that perpetual defensive set to his jaw slightly deepening. “Doing what? What am I doing wrong now? Breathing too slow? Blinking too fast?”
Rishi sighed. Sometimes it just wasn’t even worth it.
They walked out into the lobby, and Rishi’s gaze instantly landed on Dimple, like his body immediately sought out where she was. She had her phone in her hand and was turning it end on end, her expression halfway between dazed and happy. Her smile was adorable, just barely there, like she had a secret that was too good to keep to herself. She looked up then, saw him, and dropped her phone trying to stuff it in her bag. Rishi couldn’t help the smile that broke out on his face. He was so, so glad that he flustered her just like she flustered him.
He loped across the lobby, not waiting for Ashish anymore. “Hey,” he said when he was close enough, pulling her up gently by the arm. He kissed her nose. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“Oh, no problem.” Dimple smiled and pushed her glasses up on her nose, her eyes darting away like she was shy. Probably Ashish, making her uncomfortable about the PDA. “I got your text. And actually, Celia isn’t here either. I couldn’t find her. Did she come up to your room?” She looked from him to Ashish, who had finally caught up.
Rishi shook his head. “No, but I was gone so long. . . .” He turned to his brother, keeping one arm around Dimple. “She didn’t come by, did she?”
Ashish shrugged, like he couldn’t be bothered with such banalities as figuring out where Dimple’s roommate was. Rishi wondered if he practiced that maddening insouciance in the mirror or if it came naturally. None of the rest of them—Rishi or Pappa or Ma—could ever manage casual nonchalance bordering on arrogance. “Can we go? I’m starving.”
Dimple frowned down at her phone. “Yeah, I guess. I texted her, so hopefully she’ll text me later and let me know what’s up with her. Wonder if she got back with Evan.”
They walked out into the chill, Dimple pulling her hoodie on, and Ashish blowing out a breath. “Man, it’s foggy,” he said, looking around.
“That’s just Karl,” Dimple and Rishi said casually at the same time, like wizened San Franciscans. Rishi looked down at her as they burst out laughing. Her eyes shone like wet black jewels; the hoodie almost completely obscured her face. Gods, he wished he could keep her in his pocket.
“Oh . . . kay,” Ashish said, rolling his eyes. It was in his tone; Rishi didn’t have to look at him to know he was rolling them. “I don’t remember it being like this last year.” He said it all affronted, as if Rishi had purposely conjured up the fog to ruin his visit.
Funnily enough, Rishi didn’t care so much. Ashish’s attitude was as annoying as getting your sleeves wet when you washed your hands, but somehow with Dimple there, it didn’t really bother him. It didn’t feel as abrasive, as unforgivable.
The truth was . . . Dimple made everything seem softer. She was like a tortillon, a blending brush, melting harsh lines into gentler curves. Rishi put his hand around hers as Ashish trailed behind them, already back to texting and pretending they didn’t exist. “Your hands are cold. You nervous?” He grinned at her, arching an eyebrow villainously, expecting her to laugh and swat at him or punch him in the ribs.
Instead, she swallowed. Like, literally gulped. And smiled much, much too brightly. “No! What? Why would you say that? Nervous about what?”
CHAPTER 43
Rishi frowned. Was it just him or was everyone acting weird tonight? “I was just kidding.” He squeezed Dimple’s hand gently. “By the way, I know we were going to do the dining hall tonight, but what do you feel about Portuguese instead? I was thinking maybe Rios. It’s a bit of a walk, but Ashish is a total Caldo Verde fanatic, and they make it well, so . . .”
“That’s fine with me,” Dimple said. “Celia was supposed to tell me what she wanted, but I guess she’s just going to have to deal. If she ever shows up.” She sighed.
“She having problems with Aberzombie number two?” Rishi asked, trying to keep the distaste out of his voice.
“I think so,” Dimple said, another gusty sigh making her shoulders heave. “I feel so bad for her. They’re being totally awful about the talent show too, and she was all messed up about it. She doesn’t take crap, you know, but these people totally unnerve her, I can tell.” She glanced up at him, the edge of the hoodie in the way, so he could see only half her eye. “I’ll shut up; I know you despise them.”
“No, I wanted to know. I care about Celia. Maybe Maximo wouldn’t mind letting her be on our team.”
Dimple gave him a grateful smile. “I thought about that too, but she didn’t want me to ask. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll work out. Maybe she needed the night off to think or something.”
“Maybe,” Rishi said thoughtfully. “Hey . . .” He looked behind them to make sure Ashish wasn’t within hearing distance. He shouldn’t have bothered; the boy was absorbed in his phone again, thumbs and fingers doing a furious dance on the keyboard. It was possible that this wasn’t the best time to have this conversation. But the thought had built and built in Rishi’s mind until he couldn’t contain it anymore.
“Yeah?” Dimple looked up at him, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip. That lip. Rishi was fairly certain he could write an epic poem about it.
“We’re leaving in three weeks.” The fog sucked the tremor of inflection in his voice, and the sentence came out sounding flat, lifeless. Rishi tried again. “I mean . . . Insomnia Con’s going to be over then. It’ll be back to real life.”
Dimple’s voice was tiny when she spoke. She was pointed forward so Rishi couldn’t see her face at all. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that too.”
“You have?” He couldn’t figure out whether she was happy or sad or what. It felt like there was a rock in his stomach, slowly grinding away at his internal organs. “And what have you been thinking, exactly?”
She glanced at him then and quickly looked away. “I don’t know,” she said quietly.
“Right.” The rock was now on his chest. “You don’t know. . . .”
“You’re going to MIT. I’m going to Stanford. Those are on opposite coasts.” Each sentence she spoke was devoid of emotion. She sounded like she was reading an instruction manual. Karl the Fog burned Rishi’s nose, and he felt suddenly, irrationally angry at a weather pattern.
“Right.” He swallowed, his hand still loosely clasped around hers. He didn’t want to be the first to pull away, but was he making things weirder for her? “So you . . . you’re saying . . .”
“I’m saying they’re on opposite coasts.” Dimple looked at him full on, her eyes searching behind her glasses even as she kept walking. “So it’d be stupid, right? To attempt to continue this?” The way she said it, like she wanted him to argue, made his heart lift. The stomach/chest rock shrunk hopefully. She turned back toward the street. “I mean, everyone says long-distance relationships are the worst. Like, it’s just an idiotic way to go into your freshman year at college—attached to someone.”
“Right, right,” Rishi said, as if he were seriously considering her points. “But, I mean, people say all kinds of stupid crap about college. Like, you’ve heard about the Freshman 15, right?”
&nbs
p; She snorted. “Yeah. Dumb.”
“Exactly. Exactly.” Rishi grinned. “And what about the whole fraternity/sorority thing? People actually think joining one of those is the only way to go through college.”
“That’s true,” Dimple said thoughtfully. “Like paying to make friends really deepens the college experience.”
“Right!” Rishi laughed and looked at Dimple until she glanced at him, too. She was smiling. The rock turned into a blob of warm, gooey honey. He tugged gently on her hand. “So . . . ?”
She shrugged. “I guess, um . . . I guess we can try to make it work or something.” But she was smiling so big she couldn’t finish her sentence as nonchalantly as she’d started it.
Rishi grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him, lifting her up by the waist while she shrieked indignantly. He set her down again and cupped her cold face in his hands, aware that Ashish was now watching them, most likely with a judgy expression on his face. “So we’re doing it? We’re making a serious go of this thing?”
“As long as ‘this thing’ doesn’t involve shaadi for the next decade,” Dimple said, pushing a finger into his chest.
He laughed and kissed her softly, breathing in jasmine and coconut. “Dimple Shah,” he said, his mouth still against hers, “if I get to do this with any regularity, I’ll gladly put marriage on the back burner for the next century.”
Rios was a cozy restaurant with blue and white ceramic tiles lining the walls, cork floors, and windows that looked out over the city streets. Lamps were lit on all the wooden tables, and Dimple sighed happily in the warmth as she fluffed out her damp hair and sank into the velvet booth. Rishi sat beside her, and Ashish plonked into the seat opposite.
A small, almost hysterical thrill ran through Dimple as she looked at Rishi’s and her hands on the table, side by side. They’d agreed to date long-distance. Long-distance. She’d come to San Francisco so relieved to get away from it all—Mamma and Ritu auntie’s constant prattle about makeup and clothes and the I.I.H.—and now she was leaving with a serious boyfriend. One her parents had actually chosen for her. One whom she’d flung a cold beverage at the first time they’d met. It felt like forever ago, but really, it had been less than a month.
Are you sure about this? a tiny, annoying voice asked, slithering around in the back of her head.
Of course I am, she thought, smiling at Rishi in the flickering lamplight. This is good. This is perfect.
You just lied to him. That’s not what I’d call “perfect,” the voice said, with a definite passive-aggressive edge this time.
But she hadn’t really lied so much as withheld information. Sending those drawings to Leo Tilden was a good thing. Rishi would thank her later, when Leo wrote back to confirm what Dimple already knew—that Rishi was a genius.
Even if we put aside the lie—which I don’t think we should—there’s still the matter of this relationship, which you never wanted in the first place. Do you honestly think this is ever going to be a casual thing? For you or for Rishi? Are you ready for this? Really ready?
Dimple wished the voice would choke on its own spit and die.
“You okay?” Rishi asked, tucking a damp curl behind her ear.
“Yeah, sure,” she replied, sitting up straighter and forcing herself to smile. “Why?”
“You just seem a million miles away. You have, since we left the dorm.” He frowned, thick eyebrows knitting together, and turned to Ashish. “As have you. What—is it something in the water? Something I’m doing?”
Ashish glanced at his phone and then drummed his fingers on the table. “What?” he asked suddenly, snapping his head up to look at them. He obviously hadn’t heard a single word Rishi had said.
CHAPTER 44
Now that Rishi mentioned it, Ashish did seem weirdly out of sorts. Dimple might assume it had something to do with the fact that Rishi and he were fighting and he might have to go back home when he clearly didn’t want to, but he hadn’t really started with the weirdness till they were walking to Rios. She frowned and watched him check his phone again.
Dimple’s phone beeped.
Where are you?
“Celia, finally!” she said to Rishi as she typed back:
At Rios. Where have YOU been??
Her phone beeped again.
Long story.
Dimple waited, but there didn’t seem to be more forthcoming. Curiouser and curiouser.
Come join us, she typed. Rishi’s brother is here too. Warning: He’s very . . . teenagery.
Be there in 5.
Five minutes? Had Celia been walking around the neighborhood? Dimple set her phone facedown and turned to Rishi. “She’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
“Oh.” He took a sip of his water. “Was she already out with the Aberzombies? Everything okay?”
Dimple shrugged. A small part of her was glad to have this mystery to distract her from the tiny, annoying voice. “I have no idea, but I guess we’ll find out.”
Ashish was watching them intently from across the table, but when she met his eye, he looked away.
The door dinged and Celia walked in, looking harried. Her face was flushed from the damp cold, her hair unkempt. She still looked fabulous as ever, in a long fuchsia trench coat and wedge peep-toe booties. Huge beaded hoop earrings sparkled at her ears. She smiled when she saw Dimple and Rishi and made her way over, unbuttoning the trench coat. She looked so effortlessly “movie star,” Dimple wanted to hate her. But she looked so on edge—her eyes darting every which way, landing on Ashish for a brief second, and then on Rishi, and then lifting off—that Dimple couldn’t bring herself to. “Hey,” she said instead. “There you are!”
Celia hovered by the booth instead of sitting next to Ashish. She walked a step forward and then half turned back toward Dimple. “Um, can you—can you meet me in the bathroom?”
Dimple frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Just . . .” Celia pointed in the general direction of the bathrooms, a pained smile on her face. “Please?”
Dimple nodded and watched her scurry off.
“What the heck was all that about?” Rishi asked, staring after Celia.
“I have no idea. . . .” Dimple slid out of the booth after Rishi. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried to the right corner of the restaurant and walked into the tiny bathrooms.
Celia stood watching her in the mirror, her caramel-colored hair all shiny in the recessed lighting. Dark shadows pooled under her eyes. She turned around slowly, her hands in a nervous tangle before her.
“What’s going on?” Dimple asked, hurrying forward to put her hand on Celia’s arm. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did Evan do something?”
“AshishandIhookedupdon’thateme.” Celia looked at her, eyes huge, expression tense.
Dimple wondered if she was supposed to understand that. Was it French? And then Celia’s giant nonsense word began to break apart into smaller, more intelligible ones. Ashish and I hooked up. Don’t hate me. Dimple’s hand fell off Celia’s arm. She stared at her friend, who was easily five inches taller in those ridiculous heels. “What?”
“It’s true.” Celia paced the length of the bathroom like an upset hen, her open trench coat flapping behind her like a large wing. “I’m sorry. It just . . . happened.”
“But . . . you don’t even know him.” Already Dimple knew this wasn’t true. How did she know this? Because Celia, a non-Indian, had pronounced his name right. Not Ash-ish like it was written, but Ah-sheesh. Also, and a bigger point, Dimple was fairly sure she hadn’t even told Celia Ashish’s name.
Celia stopped her pacing and looked at Dimple. “Except I do. We’ve met before.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Rishi said, staring at his brother. His sixteen-year-old brother, who was apparently getting more action than him, with girls he barely knew. Who even was this kid?
Ashish pushed a hand through his floppy hair. When a curl fell into his eye, he didn’t push it away. Rishi want
ed to slap it off his head. “Dude, you know I’ve come to the city before for basketball camp. And that girl’s, like, a party animal. She was at every party I went to last summer.”
Rishi threw his hands up. “So, obviously, when you saw her again, the appropriate first response was to hook up with her. In the time it took me to take a shower.”
Ashish looked up at him defensively. “We didn’t actually do it. There wasn’t time for that. We just did other stuff. You were gone almost forty minutes!”
Rishi groaned and put his head in his hands.
“How fast did that have to happen?” Dimple asked. She was genuinely curious. How did that even work? “Did you just, like, say hi and then latch on to each other’s faces?”
Celia groaned and let her head fall back, curls brushing the back waistband of her skinny jeans. Her trench coat was lying discarded on the counter. “I guess! I mean, we’d had a spark last summer when we met at all those parties, talking and laughing and flirting and texting, but we hadn’t acted on it. I had a girlfriend at the time—not serious, but still. So it just felt like we were picking up where we left off. And we knew you guys were expecting us, so that just added, like, an extra thrill. . . .”
Dimple made a face. “Oh God. Really not interested.”
There was a silence, and Celia sighed. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not cool to hook up with people your friends are related to, even tangentially.”
Dimple shook her head. “I mean, I just feel sorry for you.” She laughed a little. “Ashish is a little . . . moody.”
Celia frowned a bit. “I hadn’t noticed that. Besides, don’t feel sorry for me. I mean, I’m not planning on doing it again or anything. It’s just so awkward. He kept texting me, because after we hooked up for a bit, I freaked and realized what was happening and ran away. I couldn’t respond except to tell him I was fine. I’ve just been walking around since, trying to clear my head. I feel so guilty.”
When Dimple Met Rishi Page 21
