There was a pause. “Look, I don’t get why you’re so annoyed at me. We already talked about this yesterday.” She could tell Rishi was trying to tamp down his own irritation. He got this little crease between his eyebrows when he was mad, Dimple noticed. And then tried to unnotice. “I didn’t know your parents were keeping you in the dark about all of this. Heck, I thought you’d be requesting me as your partner too. I thought you were totally on board. So your anger is a little misplaced, don’t you think?”
“Misplaced?” Dimple tried not to yell, though with the noise and activity level in the room, she doubted they could attract much attention even if they began flinging things at each other. Which definitely hadn’t crossed her mind. Definitely not. “Oh, I don’t think so. You have no idea, do you? You don’t know what this has been like. My mom and dad, they just don’t get me, okay? My mom doesn’t know why I want to do anything besides get married to the Ideal Indian Husband and settle down. She thinks college is basically just this big mating ritual. So for me to even be here is nothing short of a miracle. For me to even get this chance to follow in Jenny Lindt’s footsteps—to actually get a chance to talk to her about my idea? It’s the stuff of my wildest fantasies. But even here, where it should just be about me and my career and the things I want to do in this world, I have to contend with you. I have to remember, every single second that I have to look at you, that the only reason I’m here is because my parents expect me to finally fall in line. To become that dutiful Indian daughter they always wanted. I thought this was going to be my chance to just be me, for this whole six weeks to just be about my skills and my talent and my intellect. But it turns out the joke’s on me. And you know what? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of it and it sucks.” She stopped, out of breath, and pushed her glasses back higher onto the bridge of her nose. Her heart pounded; her throat was tight with anger and unshed tears, but she was determined not to let it show how close she was to crying.
Rishi looked . . . well, the scientific term might be “gobsmacked,” Dimple supposed. It almost made her want to snort with laughter. His eyes were wide, his face completely frozen in shock.
Yeah, she’d unleashed the fury. But she’d needed to. Problem was, with Rishi and his utter guilelessness, she felt guilty for her ferocity, for subjecting him to an entire lifetime of pent-up rage that had little to do with him. She would never admit that out loud though. Sighing, she sat back and crossed her arms. “Well, you asked,” she mumbled.
CHAPTER 10
Whooooa.
Obviously, she’d had a lot she needed to get off her chest. Rishi didn’t know quite what to say. This was all so much heavier for Dimple than it was for him. He was disappointed that she was so pointedly, decidedly, against this, yes. But mostly he felt bad for his family. All the effort and hopes they’d put into this had clearly been for nothing.
“Hey,” he said finally, cautiously. “I can see how that would suck. I had no idea. Look, I’ll leave. I’ll go back home, and he’ll have to reassign you. Maybe you can be in a group of three with someone.”
Dimple looked at him, slightly disbelievingly. “You’d do that. For me.”
“Sure.” Rishi shrugged. “It means way more to you than it ever did to me. And, you know, I get it. This is your passion.”
“You won’t get a refund,” she said sharply, and he tried not to laugh at the suspicion in her voice.
“It’s okay,” he said. “My parents are totally cool with me going home early. I’ll just finish out the day and tell Max I have a family emergency or something.”
Dimple opened her mouth to respond, but Max spoke from the front of the room, interrupting her. “I trust you are all getting to know your partners. But I want us to take this to the next level. This being our first day together, I thought we could all use a jump start on breaking the ice. I want you all to reach under your chairs.”
Abuzz with curiosity, they did. Rishi looked at the contraption in his hand for a few seconds before realizing what it was.
“A Polaroid camera,” Dimple said at the same time. “Wow. I think my parents have one of those in our attic.”
“What are we supposed to do with these?” Rishi asked, looking around the room. An obnoxious group of well-manicured people—a white girl and boy, and an Indian boy—were already trying to take pictures of one another. One of the boys, the white one, seemed to be paired with Celia, he saw.
“Okay, boys and girls,” Max said again from the front of the room. “For those of you who may not know, you hold in your hands a forgotten treasure. This is the Polaroid camera, and as an amateur photographer, I find it to be one of the most honest artistic mediums for the capture of everyday moments. I want you to go forth and capture a few such moments today. To that end, I’ve come up with a few items for your photo scavenger hunt.” He began to pass out sheets of paper with enumerated lists on them. “You’ll see I’ve given each team a sheet with five items on it. I want you to capture all five items and bring your photos back to class in two hours. It is my hope that you will all get to know your partners much better this way than if we were all just sitting in this horrendous recycled air, firing questions at each other. The only rule is: No collaboration with any other teams. The teams who successfully complete this exercise will be awarded ten extra points toward their final score in Insomnia Con.” A buzz went around the room. Max made a shooing motion with his hands and spoke louder. “Off you go. Good luck! I’ll be outside napping in my hammock. Just wake me when you’re back.”
Rishi looked at Dimple as they both got up. She looked about as pleased as he felt; her lips were pursed tight, her eyes fixed longingly on Celia’s retreating back. As he followed her out, he said, “If you want, I could bow out now.”
She slowed down so they could walk outside together, and nibbled on her bottom lip. “No,” she said finally, looking up at him. “Let’s do this thing together.”
Rishi frowned, not sure what was up with the total change of mood. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Dimple took a deep breath and looked at him. “It’s really cool of you to volunteer to bow out. Not a lot of people would do that.” And then she smiled a smile so dazzling, Rishi tripped over his own feet.
“Are you okay?” Dimple reached out to grab his arm, but Rishi steadied himself against the wall and blushed a bright and furious red.
“Yeah, fine,” he said, not meeting her eye. “Shoelaces,” he added vaguely, looping the Polaroid camera’s strap around his neck.