“Let me guess,” Leo said, grinning. “Rishi.” He held out his hand. Beside him, burly Sven relaxed. “Nice to meet you, my man.”
“You too,” Rishi said, feeling like he was in some sort of bizarre dream. He made sure to enunciate and face Leo the entire time. He knew from Leo’s YouTube videos that the artist was fitted with a cochlear implant, which allowed him to hear, but not quite at the level of a hearing person. “I read Platinum Panic when I was ten. It’s what got me into comics. I still remember finding out that you were the only deaf comic book artist to have ever made it so big. It felt . . .” He shook his head. “Momentous. Like it was okay to break the mold.”
Leo nodded. “Totally. It’s even necessary to break the mold. We need more people shaking things up. This is where I got my start, at SFSU. They’re pretty great about letting diverse voices be heard.” He pointed to Rishi’s outfit. “Who’re you dressed as?”
Rishi looked down. He’d honestly forgotten he was wearing the costume. His mouth felt like the Rajasthan desert. “Um, n-no one.”
Leo raised a bushy eyebrow. “No one?” He pointed to Rishi’s gada. “Do you regularly just carry that around with you?”
Dimple elbowed him again. He ignored her. “It’s just . . . it’s not . . .”
“It’s Aditya the Sun God/superhero. He created the character himself, a couple years ago.” Dimple darted Rishi a spiteful, triumphant look. He was going to have a Very Serious talk with her later. He tried to convey this through his gaze, but she didn’t seem to get it. Or if she did, it didn’t seem to make her very nervous.
“Really?” Leo leaned forward. “You have any panels on you?”
The messenger bag weighed heavy on Rishi’s shoulder. His sketch pad was in there. Years of work. He even had a few recent panels he’d done, all inked in and everything. They were good enough to show Leo Tilden. It wouldn’t be embarrassing or anything.
But . . . it felt weird. Like a betrayal of Ma and Pappa. They thought he was out here for Dimple, for experience before he went off to MIT. This was exactly the kind of thing they wouldn’t want him doing. Showing his sketches to a major graphic novelist felt like a step. A step he wasn’t sure he wanted to take. “Not on me, no,” he said, finally, the words like jagged pieces of glass in his mouth. It hurt. It really hurt.
Leo looked genuinely disappointed. “Oh, that’s too bad. Maybe next time.”
There will never be a next time, Rishi thought. He knew this with complete certainty. Somewhere inside him, something soft and creative and vulnerable hardened, a mockingbird turning to stone.
“Yeah, sure.” Rishi forced a smile and held out his hand again. “It was nice to meet you. I’d love to buy a signed copy of your latest.”
Sven had one at the ready.
Dimple darted glances at Rishi as they made their way to the various booths. He smiled, placid, as he observed some art student doing a live demonstration of pottery. Something had shifted in him from thirty minutes ago. Something vital. But Dimple didn’t know what.
“Are you . . . okay?” she asked as he took a proffered flyer and then put it down at the next table without looking at it.
“Yeah.” He looked down at her and smiled. It was the fire in his eyes, she realized. It had blazed when he’d first seen Leo Tilden, but it was gone now. “Why?”
Dimple shook her head. “I don’t know. You seem different. Subdued. Was it because you didn’t have your sketches to show Leo Tilden? Because I bet you can ask him if you can e-mail them to him later—”
“Nah, it wasn’t that.” They walked up to an exhibitor booth where a pretty dark-haired woman in bright fuchsia lipstick was demonstrating some new range of markers to a group of guys who were watching her more than her product. Rishi picked up a pack of markers and then set them down again. “I think I’m ready to get out of here, though. What about you?”
Ugh. It was so frustrating how he was doing that. Dimple didn’t know what, exactly, he was doing, but it was definitely frustrating. “Um, yeah. I guess.”
They began to loop around a group of people lining up for free popcorn when someone shouted out, “Hey! Yo! Rishi, right?”
They turned to see a wiry guy at a booth a few yards away. He was about Rishi’s height, with spiked black hair and red wire-rimmed glasses, and was grinning, waving effusively. He was very obviously dressed as the manga character on the banner right behind him.
“Who is that Energizer Bunny?” Dimple asked as they began to make their way over.
“That’s Kevin Keo, the guy who invited me,” Rishi said. “He’s pretty cool. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just say hi really quick, and then we can go.”
“Yeah, sure.” As they got closer, Dimple saw that Kevin’s booth was dedicated to comics and manga. There was even a sketchbook open in front of him, and he looked like he was drawing a cross between a space alien and a girl in yoga pants. It was actually really cool; the whole thing looked 3-D, like it was climbing out of the page. Dimple glanced at Rishi, but he was looking at everything in that weird, impassive way again, as if none of this had anything to do with him. What was his deal?
Even Dimple thought the sketch was extremely cool, and she wasn’t really into artsy stuff. “That’s amazing,” she said, leaning over to study the detail. From up close, she saw that the alien creature’s tentacles were actually made of words, tightly packed together, looping lazily over each other.
“Thanks!” Kevin said. “It’s dialogue from One Piece.” He gestured to the banner behind him and then his own costume. “I’m dressed as Monkey D. Luffy, the main character. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time. Do you watch it?”
Dimple shrugged. “Sorry. I know absolutely nothing about manga.” She glanced at Rishi. “Have you heard of One Piece?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, but it was halfhearted, like he was already itching to go. “I watched a few episodes one summer.”
Kevin, oblivious to Rishi’s lukewarm mood, rubbed his hands together. “I like how your gada turned out, man. Really sweet.” He paused, and when Rishi muttered a faint “thanks,” he powered forward. “So? What do you think of LCC so far? Meet any cool people?”
Rishi smiled, a closemouthed thing. “Yeah, Leo Tilden. That was neat.” He held up the graphic novel he’d bought. “Got a signed copy.”
“Dude is sick!” Kevin said, his entire face lit up with passion and excitement and fire. “Are you subscribed to his YouTube channel?” When Rishi nodded, he went on, “I tune in every week. I heard he might start taking user subs, and if you go here in the fall—”
“Listen, man, this has been cool, but I gotta say, I don’t think I’m gonna be going here. I’m already in at MIT.” Rishi shrugged. “Just don’t want to lead you on.”