When Dimple Met Rishi
Page 30

There was a soft quietness in his head now, as if the world was at a remove. His voice sounded muffled in the fog. “Sure I did. That’s why I drew.” He sat on the cold stone bench, and put his messenger bag down by his feet. “I never felt the need for anything else.”
Dimple sat beside him, her arms and legs stiff, as if she were afraid of encroaching on his personal space, of touching him. He knew how she felt. Before, scraping elbows together or grabbing her hand had seemed benign, just exciting enough without being serious or scary. But here in this private little alcove in the dark, things felt more. Bigger. And Rishi wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to go down that path. Mainly because he wasn’t certain she did.
“Hmm.”
When Dimple didn’t say anything else, he tipped his head back, drank in the air. The fog coated the sky and filtered through the trees around them so it felt like they were encased in a tiny gray bubble. Just him and Dimple. His heart beat faster at the thought of that, but he felt fine about the unknown of it all. He felt fine about everything, he thought, with a small smile. She had that effect on him.
“Show me your sketch pad.”
The fine feeling disappeared. Rishi looked at her, big eyes shining in the dark behind those glasses. Some of her wild hair, curly again thanks to the humidity in the air, was brushing his shoulder in spite of her careful posture, as if it had a life of its own. “Huh?”
“You must have some sketches in there, right? You lied to Leo Tilden.”
Leo Tilden felt like forever ago. Thinking back to that moment made something unpleasant and bitter squirm in his stomach. “Yeah. But . . . I don’t know. It’s just, they’re not that great.”
“Don’t do that.” Dimple turned toward him completely, her face eager in the dim light. “Don’t downplay your talent. If you don’t want to show me, just say so. But I saw what you’re capable of in there”—she gestured toward the house—“and it was remarkable. Aditya, what I’ve seen of him, is amazing. So it’s clear you have talent; lots of it. I don’t know why you don’t want to show people, though. If it were me, I’d be diving into it whole hog.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
Dimple nodded, her face small and vulnerable. “Trying to. And it’s crazy scary, but you know, what’s the alternative? Just forget about it? I can’t.” She leaned forward. “You shouldn’t either, Rishi. Just because it’s scary—”
“It’s not because it’s scary.” He sat back, taking a deep breath. It still wasn’t easy to talk about this, even with Dimple’s presence turning everything pink and soft around the edges. But looking at Dimple’s open face, hearing her earnest questions, his usual inhibitions turned to puffs of cloud, insubstantial, floating away as he tried to grasp them. Rishi found himself being honest. “I would love to do what you’re doing. To immerse myself in the work, to think, breathe, eat, and sleep art. But that’s how it’d have to be. See? There’s no in between for me. I can’t be an engineer and a part-time comic book artist. It can’t be a hobby. I love it too much; it means too much to me. It’s like, like having a child, I guess. How I imagine that would be—all consuming.”
“Well, then, that’s easy, isn’t it?” Dimple sounded genuinely confused. “Do it. Do what you love, what you’re passionate about. So what if it’s not the most practical thing? You’re eighteen, you don’t have to be practical for a long, long time—maybe not ever, if you choose not to be. There are people who live very frugally, who just keep plugging away for years because they can’t think of doing it any other way.”
“That’s not going to be me.” Rishi shifted, uncomfortable, suddenly done talking about it.
“Why not?”
“I told you. My parents, I made them a promise. I’m their oldest son. It’s just not going to happen. I have duties, obligations.”
Dimple sighed, soft and slow.
Rishi looked at her for a second, touched at how much she seemed to care. Then, without giving himself too much time to think about it, he reached down and unsnapped his messenger bag top. Sliding his sketch pad out, Rishi held it out to her.
CHAPTER 27
Dimple smiled, a lantern in the night. “Really?”
Rishi nodded, and she took the sketch pad, setting it carefully on her lap. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, turned on a flashlight app, and set it on the bench between them. Then, almost reverentially, she began lifting the cover.
“Wait.” Rishi put a hand on hers. She looked at him quizzically, her face and glasses tinted a silver blue from the phone. “So, these aren’t finished sketches. Well, some of them are, but some aren’t. More just like . . . blocking. Like, ideas.”
“Okay.” Dimple nodded, and he let go of her hand. She began to flip the cover open again. He put a hand on hers. She looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
“One more thing. Don’t look just at what’s happening; look at the nuance. Like, notice the backgrounds in each panel. That’s important information; it’ll tell you more about what I had planned for the story. It’ll set the mood and everything.”
Dimple nodded again. “Okay.” Rishi let go of her hand, and she began to open the cover.
“Oh, and another th—”
“Rishi,” she said, turning so she could look him in the eye. “I have no expectations. Okay? None. Whatever’s in here, I’m not going to be judging. I just want to take it in.”
He studied her, the honesty in her eyes, the frank openness of her face, and his shoulders relaxed. “Okay.”
Dimple opened the sketch pad, and as she studied each panel, each sketch, each line he’d made, Rishi studied her. She smiled quietly at some sketches, others seemed to arrest her. Her gaze would travel over each line, over and over, and sometimes she’d pull the book closer. One she stopped and squinted at, the most curious mixture of disbelief, amusement, and wonder on her face. Rishi leaned in to see what she was looking at.
It was a panel he’d done around two years ago, of a boy of about ten or eleven making paper flowers out of a heap of crumpled pages while rain poured outside his window.
Rishi chuckled, the sound slow and deep in his head. “Paper flowers. I used to make those when I was that age. I don’t know why, but I was obsessed with them for a while. That panel was more like an exercise. I was feeling sluggish and empty that day.” It wasn’t nearly his best; he didn’t know why Dimple seemed so enthralled with it.
She turned to look at him, that same strange expression still on her face. Her entire body was frozen, still. “You made paper flowers. Out of magazines.”
He nodded, surprised. “How’d you know I did them out of magazine pages?”
“Don’t you remember?” Dimple shook her head, her eyes wide as she studied him. “Keep it. Remember me. And don’t tattle.”
And just like that, the memory slammed into him.
He’d been dragged along by Pappa and Ma to some Indian acquaintance’s wedding in San Diego. It was hot, and the wedding was outside. Ashish was being a baby, whining about being hungry, and his parents were bickering about something, and there were absolutely no activities for the kids to do, so Rishi told his parents he had to go to the bathroom and wandered off. His kurta had been a thick gold brocade, he remembered, and itchy as heck. His plan was to get inside the big hotel where it was cool and air-conditioned and find a T-shirt or something to wear. Maybe he’d steal it from an open room—that always seemed to work in the movies.
But when he got inside, Rishi saw the guests had commandeered the interior lobby too. There was no way to get past them and to the upstairs—there were caterers and waiters and nosy aunties and uncles everywhere. So he’d ducked into a room with a sign that said CONFERENCE ROOM A , whatever that was, and sat down on a chair in the semidark (just one lamp in the corner of the big room was on), grateful for the cool and quiet. There was a pile of magazines on the table in front of him, and Rishi began methodically ripping out pages as he sat, folding and turning them into flowers that he set in a line in front of him.