“You never said your dad was the CEO of Global Comm. My dad, like, totally wants to invite your parents over for dinner. He says Kartik Patel’s a total legend.” Isabelle said this last part wonderingly.
Dimple could see her trying to fit the two pieces together: The respect that Rishi’s dad obviously garnered combined with the fact that Rishi was absolutely the dorkiest guy she’d ever known. There were cracks in her perceptions, and she was trying to make sense of them. It was almost fascinating, like watching the part of a wildlife documentary when the gazelle realizes it’s being stalked by a lion. How will it respond? What will it do next? Dimple thought, in a documentary narrator’s deep, polished voice.
And then what Isabelle had said sank in. Dimple glanced at Rishi sharply. CEO of Global Comm? They, like, provided Internet services to basically the entire nation. And his dad was the freaking CEO? When she’d asked before, he’d only said his dad was “a corporate executive.” But the CEO was the big boss, basically. Of a multibillion-dollar company.
Dimple studied him closer while he talked to Isabelle, but couldn’t see it. She’d always assumed the ultrarich kids were like Evan or Hari, but Rishi was so . . . Rishi. Goofy and funny and talented and sweet and so serious about his culture. Rishi seemed so much more like Dimple than like Isabelle and the rest of them.
Immediately, before she could stop it, that famous Emily Bront? quote popped into her head: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Dimple blushed and coughed to hide her embarrassment at having had such a gooey, stupid thought.
“I’ll pass on the message,” Rishi said nonchalantly, and then turned to Dimple, effectively dismissing Isabelle. “So, I heard about this movie playing at the IMAX theatre . . .”
Isabelle hesitated, looking from Rishi to Dimple and then back again in a slightly frustrated way. As if there was more she wanted to say. But, like before, she decided against it. Dimple watched her walk away before turning to Rishi.
“What movie?” she asked, since Rishi had never completed his sentence.
“Nothing. I was just done with that conversation.”
Dimple laughed. Really, it was sort of refreshing to have a boy prefer her company to a girl like Isabelle’s. That literally had never happened before.
Rishi smiled and shrugged. “So, about tonight. Pick you up at seven?”
“Sure.” Dimple reeeally hoped he didn’t notice how weirdly high-pitched her voice sounded.
CHAPTER 30
Dimple pulled at the hem of the kurta she’d bought with Mamma. The thing had frayed in the wash, so the silvery gray now just looked gray, a total noncolor, like something she’d washed and worn for a decade. She almost wished she’d taken Mamma’s advice and bought something a little more colorful.
Almost. Times weren’t that desperate yet.
And anyway, Dimple thought, straightening her shoulders and adjusting her glasses, she didn’t need to look pretty for this . . . non-date. It was irrelevant what she looked like, really.
When Dimple turned around, Celia was sprawled on her bed watching, chin propped up on one hand. “You need something sexier.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be sexting Evan?” Dimple grumbled.
It was Celia’s new thing, sexting Evan at all hours of the day and night. When Dimple asked why she didn’t just go to his dorm room, she always said, with a sparkle in her eye, Pour cultiver le mystère. Whatever that meant. From what Dimple had heard in the bathroom and elevators from other girls, Evan was developing a reputation as a player. She’d tried to broach the subject with Celia, but Celia just changed the subject, as if she willfully didn’t want to know. Was she so desperate to fit in with the Aberzombies that she was ignoring the fact that Evan was playing her? Or was she really cool about Evan seeing other girls in a way Dimple could never imagine being?
Mainly Dimple tried not to be jealous that not only was Celia smart and glamorous and rich and beautiful, but she also spoke passable Spanish, excellent French, and fluent English. While Dimple struggled with both her Hindi and her Serengeti-wild hair.
Celia sighed dramatically and dropped her head to the mattress, pressing her cheek against the sheet as her curls cascaded adorably all around. She could be the main character in a children’s book series, Dimple thought. “That’s a little complicated right now,” Celia mumbled, her words muffled by her hair. “He’s being . . . difficult to read. And I’m not sure I want to read him.”
“Oh.” Dimple picked awkwardly at a loose thread on her sleeve. She was awful at dispensing romantic advice, being so inexperienced in the field herself. “Sorry.”
“Ah, whatever. I’ll figure it out.” Apparently filled with a sudden surge of energy, Celia hopped off the bed and pranced over to her closet. After a minute she pulled out a sheer . . . something and held it out to Dimple, triumphant. “Wear this.”
Dimple took an automatic step back. “Um, what is it?”
Celia looked wounded and outraged at the same time, her mouth hanging open. “It’s a dress! It’s this season’s Elie Tahari!”
Dimple wondered if she looked as blank as she felt. “Is that . . . a brand?”
“Is that a—” Celia clutched the floaty dress/shirt contraption to her chest and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, in a remarkably on-point imitation of Mamma. Finally, looking at Dimple again, she sighed. “Trust me. You need this in your life and on your body.”
Dimple picked up a billowy something that was probably a sleeve. “I don’t even know how to get this on.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Um, no. I’m not undressing in front of you.”
“Oh, for God’s—” Celia turned abruptly to her dresser, rummaged in a drawer, and thrust a silky slip at Dimple. “Here. Put this on and you can wear the dress on top of that. Okay? Can I see you in a slip or does that go against your virgin sensibilities too?”
Dimple snatched the slip and gestured for Celia to turn around. When she’d slipped off her kurta and jeans and put the wayyyy too short slip on, she said, “Okay.”
Celia helped her, pushing her arms into certain holes and her head into another one. Then she smoothed the fabric over Dimple’s hips and stood back, smiling. “There. Look in the mirror.”
Dimple felt a flurry of nerves as she spun around. And whoa. She didn’t even look like herself. The dress was snug across her waist and chest, but the slip kept anything too revealing from . . . being revealed. The bell-shaped sleeves hung loose around her arms, and the floaty hem stopped a few inches above her knees.
“Here.” Celia came up behind her, and using the hair tie she always wore around her wrist, twisted Dimple’s hair into a messy-sophisticated bun, leaving some of her curls cascading down.