“My parents?” Clearly confused at the question, he said, “My dad’s a corporate executive, and my mom’s a housewife. Why?”
Dimple wondered if the Patels’ wealth had been a reason her parents had chosen Rishi for her, and then was immediately ashamed. Mamma and Papa were many things, but they weren’t mercenary. “Just curious. Do you think our parents will remain friends, even after you leave tomorrow?” Dimple kept her tone light, but the question felt like jagged rock in her mouth. She tried to imagine goofing off with another partner like she had today with Rishi and supposed it was possible. She could possibly be matched up with someone whose sense of humor she’d also instantly get, whom she found just as easy to be around. It was definitely in the realm of possibility. And yet.
“Oh, I think so,” Rishi said. “I get the feeling that when you’re bound by decades, a couple of foolish kids aren’t enough to dissolve that.”
She heard the smile in what he was saying, but there was a hint of regret, too, tinting all his words blue. Was she being foolish? Rishi had already agreed that they weren’t going to be an item. Papa had already said he didn’t expect anything of her except that she win Insomnia Con. So why did she want Rishi to go away? What would that accomplish, really? Who said that if she got reassigned to a partner, they’d be anyone better or more invested in her idea than he was?
“So what are—”
“I think you should stay.”
They’d both spoken at once, and Dimple turned to face Rishi. He frowned a bit, a wary hope shining in his eyes. “What?”
“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.