When Dimple Met Rishi
Page 39

Rishi smiled, looking up at her quickly before looking back down again. “Want to know what I thought?”
Dimple leaned forward. “Yes.”
“I thought you were the loveliest bookworm I’d ever seen in my life.”
She laughed and threw a blade of grass at him. “Oh please. You thought nothing of the kind.”
“I did too!” he said, indignant. “Why else do you think I gave you my best flower?”
Dimple didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but she flushed with pleasure anyway. “So, now tell me what you thought of me at the Starbucks. You know, right before I flung my coffee at you.”
CHAPTER 36
Rishi smiled wryly at her before looking back down at his drawing. “I thought you looked peaceful. You were sitting on the edge of that fountain, your face turned up to the sun. You looked like a flower, with that angelic halo of curls around you. Of course, I quickly realized how mistaken I was.”
Dimple reached over and slapped his knee, but she was laughing too. “Shut up. You totally creeped me out with that whole future wife line! You should be glad I didn’t have pepper spray or throwing stars on me.” It was incredible, she thought, that they were laughing about this now. When it first happened, she’d been so sure that Rishi and she would have absolutely nothing to do with each other. But that was Rishi . . . he was like a pop song you thought you couldn’t stand, but found yourself humming in the shower anyway.
“Noted,” he said, sketching away. “In my defense, I thought you were here because you knew about our parents’ nefarious plan too.”
Dimple sighed. “Yeah. My parents are a whole other matter. You’re lucky you get along with yours so well.” But maybe it wasn’t lucky at all, she thought. Rishi agreed with everything his parents said or planned. Dimple didn’t. There was a fundamental difference in how they related to their parents.
“Your mom sounds like she really cares for you.” When Dimple snorted, Rishi hurried to continue. “I mean, she’s calling you. She’s talking to you. She’s trying to be a part of your life.”
Dimple laughed. “Trying to be a part of my life? You know, the same could be said about head lice. Or termites. Or botulism. Those bacteria are just trying to be a part of our lives!”
Rishi smiled and set his pencil down. “Okay. Are you ready to see?”
Dimple sat up in a hurry. “You’re done?”
“Yep.” He handed her the notebook, his finger holding a spot between the pages. “Start there, and move forward. I sort of modeled these sketches after a creative exercise comic artists like to do. It’s called ‘twenty-five expressions.’ Basically, you sketch the same character with twenty-five different expressions, to sort of get to know your character better. That’s one of the first things I noticed about you. You wear your expressions on your face so plainly.”
Dimple took the book, putting her finger in place of his so she didn’t lose the page either. “Really?”
Rishi raised one eyebrow, as if to say, Are you kidding?
Dimple opened the book. The first image was of her looking . . . nervous. Anticipatory. This was right when Rishi had begun to draw her. He’d captured the tentativeness she’d felt, the anxiety of how she might be perceived. She looked . . . beautiful, she realized.
He’d drawn the entire thing sort of smudgy, to reflect how he saw her through the curtain of fog around them. Still, the details were arresting. There was a glow about her cheeks, a soft sparkle in her eyes. Her glasses made her look intelligent and artsy-nerdy, not geeky like she usually thought she looked. Her bun was a mass of wild curls, but not in the unkempt way she usually saw it in the mirror. She looked like she could be the model for some hair product. Was this how he saw her? She turned the page.
In the second sketch, Dimple was laughing, her eyes squeezed shut at something Rishi must’ve said. She looked happy, carefree, like she’d forgotten herself. She liked that, to him, she was smart and pretty and funny all rolled into one. She turned the page.
Each sketch showed her with a different expression, and in each one she found the basic essence of herself. He’d captured her in so much vibrant detail, even sitting here in the near-dark with just a flashlight app, that she knew: He’d been watching her even when she hadn’t noticed. He’d committed every detail of her face, her hair, her body, to memory. Even before this had turned into a real date for Dimple, this had been a real date for Rishi. He’d just been waiting for her to catch up to him.
And, she realized with a thud, she’d been watching him, too. When she hadn’t been thinking of him, all she’d really been thinking about was him. That first day, after she got over the shock of him popping up out of nowhere, he’d caught her eye. Dimple hadn’t been looking for this . . . whatever it was between them at all. But somehow she had a feeling that love had found her. It was circling them, waiting for the perfect spot to land.
Dimple didn’t know if she wanted it to. She didn’t know much beyond the fact that right now, she wanted to kiss Rishi. So she did.
She set the book down, crawled over to him, and climbed in his lap. Dimple didn’t know where the courage came from, but she wrapped her legs around his waist, held his face in her hands, and kissed him until her lips were swollen and she couldn’t breathe anymore. When they pulled apart, he was looking at her, with his hands wrapped tightly around her, like he couldn’t believe his luck. Like she was a gilded winged apsara he’d just come upon in the woods.
“Wow,” he finally managed to say, his voice breathless. “I should draw you more often.”
Dimple laughed, wanting to tell him she’d kiss him even without him doing that, but then their lips met again, and she lost her train of thought.
Hours or weeks or milliseconds later (time sort of did its own thing when Rishi was with Dimple, he’d noticed), they were in the convertible, driving back to campus. They’d talked for hours, until Rishi’s stomach had growled its impatience, and Dimple had insisted they go get some froyo at one of their favorite places near their dorms.
He looked at her, sitting next to him, the city lights playing across her face and hair. She’d catch his eye and they’d laugh, surprised, disbelieving, that this was happening. That they were here, that this magic was for them, that it was real. At least, that’s what Rishi was thinking. Dimple may just have been laughing at the goofy expression on his face.
“Don’t forget this,” Dimple said, patting A Wrinkle in Time in the center console. “Your assignment is to read it so we can discuss it later.”
“Right. I’ll get right on it. My money is still on Charles Wallace being a terminator, though. Kid’s creepy.”
Dimple laughed, and he had to stop himself from closing his eyes so he could just let the sound wash over him. Speaking of creepy, Patel. Jeez.
CHAPTER 37
A couple of days later Dimple and Rishi were sitting in the lecture hall, having a heated discussion (or as Rishi would say, arguing) about their app’s data diagram when Celia sank into the empty seat next to them with a sigh and a cloud of citrus perfume.
Dimple looked at her. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just taking a breather. You guys carry on; just ignore me.” She rummaged in her bag, purposely not meeting Dimple’s eye.
Dimple resisted looking over her shoulder at the Aberzombies. Things between Evan and Celia must not be going well. She had walked over with him today after spending the night with him in his dorm.
“Okay, everybody! I know you’re all busy cranking out your projects, but listen up for a second. I have something important to say.” Max stood at the front of the lecture hall, stroking his beard and smiling benevolently at them all.
When everyone had quieted down, he continued. “All right. So we’re just about at the halfway mark of your six weeks here. I trust we’re all making good progress with our programs and apps. As you know, right around now is when we announce the fun part of Insomnia Con . . . the talent show. This year’s talent show will be held next weekend, on Saturday, at the Little Theater at seven p.m.”