When Dimple Met Rishi

by Sandhya Menon

  “Well, I hope it sucks,” Dimple said, more loudly than she’d intended. A few people around the small store looked up at her.

  Celia smiled gratefully at her. “Me too.”

  Rishi sat up suddenly. He looked pale and sweaty. “Um . . .”

  “Are you okay?” Dimple asked, frowning, reaching over to put a hand on his arm. He pushed the chair back and ran to the bathroom.

  Dimple jumped up and followed him. When he came out, he looked like he’d been run over by a trolley. “Are you okay?” she asked, rushing up to him.

  He clutched his stomach and groaned. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “Oh no. I wonder if the gelato was bad.”

  Celia raced up to them. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  “Might be food poisoning,” Dimple said, her arm around Rishi’s waist. “I’m going to take him back to the dorm.”

  “Okay. I’m going to tell the fourteen-year-old behind the counter she might want to throw out her banana chocolate swirl,” Celia said, gesturing at the kid in glitter lip gloss texting behind the counter. “I’ll come up and check on you guys later. Just text me if you need anything in the meantime.”

  Rishi was pretty sure he was going to die. His skin was cold and clammy, his stomach kept heaving even though there was nothing left in there to come up, and he was pretty sure he could see the veil of the afterlife lifting. “I’m . . . so . . . sick . . . ,” he whispered.

  Dimple rolled her eyes. Actually rolled her eyes. The girl had no sympathy. “You ate too much,” she said, mopping his forehead with a wet paper towel she’d gotten from the dorm bathroom. “Should’ve stopped at one bowl, like normal people.”

  “Food . . . poisoning . . . ,” Rishi managed, though just saying the words made him feel like he was going to throw up again.

  “I’m not convinced.” Dimple straightened his pillow. “I mean, all I know is you ate like six servings of the stuff. And Celia and I didn’t feel sick.”

  “You guys barely ate anything,” Rishi countered. “It wasn’t enough to get sick on.”

  “Exactly.” Dimple grinned, victorious. “It’s your own fault.”

  Rishi groaned. “Meanie,” he whimpered.

  “You’re such a baby.” But Dimple caressed his cheek with a fingertip, smiling. “What can I do for you, oh ye of voracious appetites?”

  Rishi looked at her, an eyebrow raised, smiling in what he hoped was a dashingly lascivious manner.

  She swatted his chest lightly. “Not that.”

  “You said I have a voracious appetite,” he said, laughing, and then groaned again when his stomach spasmed.

  “Okay, no more laughing,” Dimple said. “I mean, I love you and all, but if you barf in here, I am not cleaning it up.”

  She was smiling, but Rishi could tell by the way her hands were fidgeting with the wet paper towel that she was worked up. “How’re you doing?” he asked, lying on his side to see her face more easily.

  Dimple sighed and hung her head. “Ugh, not well. I’m so not good at waiting for things.”

  Rishi wheezed a laugh, careful not to upset his sore stomach. “No way. You strike me as such an easygoing person.”

  Dimple glared at him. “I am easygoing,” she snapped in the least easygoing way possible, and then they both laughed. “Okay, so I guess you’re right. But this time things feel even more . . . fraught than usual. It’s just so important to me, you know? Jenny Lindt. Changing people’s lives. All of it.”

  Rishi sat up, ignoring the lurching of stomach acid and the slow roll of the wave of nausea washing over him, and grabbed her wrists. “You are going to do it. Change lives. Jenny Lindt would be lucky to meet you, Dimple. You’re amazing.”

  She laughed and rolled her eyes, and he wished he could make her see it—the way he saw her, the dazzling beauty that was her glittering soul.

  Dimple stood. “Okay. I’m going to get some more paper towels and another bottle of water from the good vending machine at the end of the hall.” She pointed at him mock sternly. “No throwing up while I’m gone.”

  Rishi lay back, groaning. “Scout’s honor.”

  CHAPTER 52

  Dimple was attempting to balance two water bottles and a pile of dripping paper towels when Celia ran up to her and took a few things. “Thanks! I really should’ve planned that better.”

  “Ah well,” Celia said. “How is he?” They began to walk back down the hallway toward Rishi’s room.

  “Better, I think. These paper towels seem to help with his nausea.”

  “Ministering to his fevered brow, how romantic,” Celia said, laughing.

  “Shut up,” Dimple replied. “It’s just so he wouldn’t puke on me.”

  “Yeah, right. I expect you to be making soup from scratch next, with organic vegetables you grew in your garden out in the country.” Celia flashed a mischievous grin at Dimple. “If you don’t watch out, he’s going to turn you totally domestic.”

  Domestic.

  The word echoed in Dimple’s head. Was Celia right? She was turning domestic, wasn’t she? She was becoming everything she’d said she didn’t want to be. She had a boyfriend—a pretty serious one—going into freshman year. Everything the voice had said that night in Rios? It was all true, wasn’t it?

  And gods, he was so traditional. So trustworthy and practical and stable. He was a savings account. Dimple was eighteen. She didn’t need a savings account. She needed adventure and spontaneity and travel. She needed to make a few bad decisions and have a few boys break her heart. Wasn’t that what she was after? Living life on her terms? So how had she gotten mired in the same pit of domesticity as her parents?

  Dimple pushed open Rishi’s door feeling hot and cold, the paper towels like wet lead in her hands. When she looked at Rishi, her heart didn’t bloom like it usually did. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure what she felt, what she was supposed to feel. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  But Rishi didn’t seem to notice her inner war. He was sitting up in bed, his phone in his hands. “Just got a text,” he said, looking up at her. “The judges are done. They’ve picked the winner of Insomnia Con.”

  Celia gasped as Dimple rushed to her phone; she’d left it on Rishi’s nightstand. Max’s text simply said Announcement time.

  • • •

  Everyone sat in their usual places, even though there really wasn’t any reason to anymore. (Except for Celia. She was waiting in their room with Ashish, who was finally finished with the campus tour some guy on the basketball team had given him.)

  Dimple found a comfort in her old seat, her arm pressed up against Rishi’s, everything like it had been for the last six weeks. For the moment she forgot all the thoughts that had been tumbling through her head back in the dorm. The judges had come to a decision early. What did that mean? Something good? Something terrible? She’d never heard of this happening before.

  There was a preternatural hush all around the room. Even the Aberzombies in the back were uncharacteristically quiet. It felt like the walls were holding their breath, like they’d inhaled but hadn’t exhaled yet. Dimple felt the pressure on the top of her head and along her spine. Rishi squeezed her hand, his own cool and dry. He looked like he was feeling better, though he still clutched his water bottle in his other hand.

  “Where is Max? And the judges?” she mumbled, more to herself than anything, her leg jittering up and down. “Shouldn’t they be here by now?”

  As if he’d just been waiting for her to ask, Max walked onstage. He’d dressed in a sports jacket for the occasion, his hair somewhat neatly combed. He was followed by a man and a woman who looked to be in their midsixties, fragile and birdlike in their movements. The woman wore huge diamonds at her neck and ears—they blinked and flashed even from this distance—and the man wore boat shoes and cuff links that winked under the recessed lighting. Dimple wondered if they were related or just came from the same factory that manufactured indecently rich people.

  Max
stepped behind the podium. “Thank you all for coming so quickly. I know this is earlier than we’d said, but the judges both agreed on the winners so quickly. Before we go into it, I’d like to take the time to both introduce and thank them.” He half turned and smiled at the couple. The woman was Anita Perkins and the man was Leonard Williams, and they both had fancy pedigrees and degrees and obviously tons of connections everywhere. That was about the gist that Dimple got. She felt her fingers squeezing Rishi’s tighter and tighter as Max kept talking, until finally he leaned toward her and whispered, “That’s my drawing hand, you know,” so she let go and forced herself to take a few deep breaths.

  “And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. . . .” Max paused dramatically. “I’m going to let Leonard and Anita do the honors.”

  There was groaning from around the lecture hall, and Max laughed as he stepped back and Anita took his spot.

  “This was a very hard decision to make,” she said in a slightly quavering voice. Dimple wondered if she was nervous, and why. It was the students who had the most to lose. Or gain. “As you all know, this year’s prize includes a chance to work with Jenny Lindt, one of our talented past winners, which makes it even more exciting.” It sounded like she was reading from a prefabricated script. A bad one. “This year’s prototypes were all top-notch. However, only one winner can emerge, and this year, Leonard and I have had the great honor of bestowing that title upon Hari Mehta, Evan Grant, and Isabelle Ryland for their prototype, Drunk Zombies!”

  There was thunderous applause—or Dimple’s ears were roaring. Rishi was saying something to her, but she didn’t hear. She saw the male Aberzombies lurching down the aisles, ironically zombielike, to collect their trophy. Isabelle glanced at Dimple and Rishi as she walked silently by. Her eyes were dark and hooded, her mouth unsmiling. She shook her head slightly—to apologize? To say she thought this was total BS? Dimple didn’t know. She found herself standing, and on legs that felt weirdly like rubber mallets, transporting herself up the other aisle and out the doors.

  It was quieter in the hallway. Dimple sank onto a bench a dozen feet away, by the water fountain. “It’s over,” she made herself say. She forced herself to really hear the words. “You tried, but you didn’t win. It’s over.” But some small part of her insisted on asking why she hadn’t won. Why did she find herself here now, after all the passion, all the hard work, she’d put in? Was it Rishi? Had he somehow diffused her energy, the energy that was meant to go into this project? Had she had so much passion, so much energy, for him that she’d sidelined the main thing in her life, the one thing she wanted more than anything else? Had she done exactly what she’d been afraid she was going to do and let herself get distracted by a boy? Her chest was tight with remorse; her mouth was full of a chalky, bitter regret. Domestic, she heard Celia say. Domestic.

  Dimple heard the lecture hall doors open and footsteps come toward her. She felt Rishi before she saw him. He sat next to her. “That’s total crap,” he said, his voice low but furious. “They only won because of who Hari’s parents are.”

  “You don’t know that,” Dimple said, staring straight ahead. She would not cry. She would not cry. She tried to put a lid on her simmering resentment. Sure, it was easy for Rishi to blame Hari. But what about him? What about the fact that, right at the beginning, she’d told him that she didn’t want him there? Why didn’t he even question what part he might’ve played in it, what part their relationship might’ve played?

  “Drunk Zombies? I mean, come on.” He pushed an agitated hand through his hair.

  Dimple bit her lip and forced herself to say the next part. “Their app’s going in front of Jenny Lindt. Maybe she’ll love it.”

  “Unless Jenny Lindt is secretly a frat boy, I seriously doubt it. They’re going to flop. This thing isn’t going to go any further.” Rishi turned to look at Dimple, his hand at her elbow. “Hey, look at me.”

  She did.

  “This doesn’t take away from how amazing your idea is. We have to continue to try to get it out there. Okay? We aren’t going to stop here.”

  Dimple wanted to believe him. She wanted to accept what he was offering her—hope. But she knew she couldn’t. She blinked and looked away. “Yeah, maybe. I think . . .” Dimple stood. “I’m going back to my room.”

  “Okay.” Rishi stood and began to walk to the exit. “Let’s binge-watch something on Netflix. And we’re totally skipping that stupid Last Hoorah party tomorrow too, by the way.” He stopped and looked back at her when he realized she wasn’t walking with him.

  “I just . . . I want to be by myself,” Dimple said, not quite able to look him in the eye. “Please.”

  “Oh.” The hurt flashed just for the briefest moment across his face but was replaced by understanding and concern. “Sure. Text me later?”

  She nodded and walked quickly to the door, her eyes filling fast.

  Nothing was going right. The world was falling to pieces.

  CHAPTER 53

  Dimple sat in her room, staring at the wall. It was too much effort to even look outside. Twenty-four hours after she’d heard the news—she’d lost to the Aberzombies—everything was still a mess.

  What the heck had she been thinking, wasting Mamma and Papa’s money, coming out here on basically a whim and a wish to meet Jenny Lindt? She felt utterly stupid, like a dumb kid who thinks she actually has a chance at turning her home into a gingerbread house (something Dimple actually used to aspire to do when she was little; she’d thought it was simply a matter of growing up and gaining the skills).

  She gripped her cell phone in her hand; Mamma and Papa had already called three times just today to find out the results. In the third voice mail, Papa had simply said, “It’s okay, beti. Just phone us.” So obviously they’d guessed. The understanding and kindness in Papa’s voice was too much. Dimple didn’t know if she could talk to him stoically, without bursting into tears. The worst part was that she was letting Papa down. He would’ve really benefited from this.

  Her phone rang again. Home, the display said, which meant it was Papa and Mamma’s landline.

  Dimple took a hitching breath and answered. “Hello?” Ugh. Her voice sounded all watery even to her own ears.

  “Dimple?” It was Papa, sounding concerned and fatherly and soft and all the things that made her want to cry even more. Her throat hurt with the effort of holding it in. “Kaisi ho, beti?”

  “My idea didn’t win,” she sort of whispered, just wanting to get it out of the way. A tear dribbled down her cheek and she brushed it away with a fist.

  “Oh, beta . . . these things happen, hmm?”

  She shook her head, more tears falling, her face screwed up with the effort of trying not to cry. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she said finally, her voice breaking.

  “Sorry? Kis liye? For what?”

  “I let you down. I asked Mamma and you for the money, and then I totally just blew it. I don’t even know what I did wrong, so I can’t fix it. They didn’t give us any feedback, and this was all such a bad idea, all of it. . . .” Dimple dissolved into sobs, her glasses fogging over, snot leaking from her nose.

  “Dimple,” Papa said, his voice quiet and firm. “This was not a bad idea. It was a great idea. You went there and you did what you are passionate about. Don’t be sorry. Be proud, like I am.”

  Dimple sniffled. “You’re . . . proud? You don’t think this was all a colossal failure?”

  “No, no, no. Absolutely not.” She heard the smile in Papa’s voice, and it made her smile too. “Ab tum ghar kab aa rahi ho?”

  “I’ll drive home tomorrow morning. I told Mamma.” She frowned. “Where is she, by the way?” She would’ve expected Mamma to wrench the phone from Papa and deliver unneeded advice. She’d probably have told Dimple to pack it in and get married, to take this as a sign from the gods. The gods. She was starting to sound like Rishi. Dimple closed her eyes at the thought of him, at the thought of the decision she had to make that she di
dn’t want to.

  “Oh, she went to Seema and Ritu’s house to watch Mahabharata. But actually I think she wanted to see Ritu’s new curtains. She was telling me Seema hates them, but Ritu forced her to buy them anyway.”

  Dimple rolled her eyes and tried not to laugh. “Great. Well, I guess I’ll be hearing about all that soon enough.”

  She hung up and sat in the silence again, the temporary lightness she’d felt from the conversation already receding. Papa could say he wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t matter. Dimple was disappointed with herself. And she was mad.

  She set her phone down so she wouldn’t be tempted to fling it across the room. The shock of losing to those idiots had tempered her rage yesterday, but it was back now, full force. It was so unfair. Hari, Evan, and Isabelle had not deserved to win. Yesterday, Celia had told Dimple her theory: that the founders of Insomnia Con had been in Hari’s dad’s pocket from the beginning. Apparently Hari knew them all by their first names; they’d all been to his house for dinner just a few months before the contest began.

  It made sense. Dimple remembered hearing Evan say at the talent show that Hari’s parents had donated the new computer science wing. They hadn’t gotten kicked out for fighting. And the most telling of all—they’d won Insomnia Con with their stupid frat boy drinking game idea. Dimple’s app would’ve changed lives. Well, their app might too, she thought wryly. Getting rushed to the hospital in the back of an ambulance for alcohol poisoning was life changing, right?

  Her phone beeped with a text, and she peeked at the screen.

  Pick you up for brunch in thirty minutes?

  Rishi. Dimple hung her head, guilt and resentment jostling for space in her chest.

  Something had changed. Ever since Celia had made that comment yesterday . . . but no, it had started before that. Things were fine when she and Rishi were just dating, when there were no boxes around their relationship. But the moment he’d asked for a commitment to try and make this work long-distance . . . something had shifted.