Dimple didn’t want to admit how much what he was saying resonated with her. Loneliness. That’s what he was describing. And she’d felt it so much it had become like a constant presence in her life, curled up against her like a sleeping cat. “I know what you mean,” she said softly. “Unfortunately.”
“I don’t think it’s unfortunate. It’s probably why we get along so well. Even if you did viciously attack me when we first met.”
Dimple laughed, and Rishi beamed at her, the way he seemed to every time she laughed. It was like he was basking in her happiness. Instead of looking away like she usually did, she smiled back.
Something flickered in his eyes. She itched her elbow and dropped her gaze. “What?”
“Nothing.” He looked away, but a small, secretive smile played at his lips.
Dimple punched him lightly in the ribs. “What, Rishi?”
“Ah . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at her sidelong. “That’s just the first time you haven’t pretended to be oblivious to the fact that you have a certain . . . effect on me when you laugh.”
Dimple felt her cheeks burning, and she looked down at her boots. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Rishi chuckled quietly. “Yeah, I think you do, but I’ll let it go, since you clearly don’t want to talk about it.”
And Dimple found herself feeling just the slightest bit disappointed.
CHAPTER 22
Little Comic Con was going to be held in the lobby of the art department main building. As they passed another quad, Rishi saw it looming on the corner. It was a huge, modern structure, and the lower floor consisted of mostly windows. Inside, Rishi could see a bustle of colorful activity: squirming clots of costumed people and booths and banners and demonstrations. He felt a pinprick of nerves along his spine—he’d had no idea it was going to be so busy. There was a massive sculpture of a fortune cookie outside, made from what looked like old clothes. As streams of people walked past, they reached out and grabbed a “fortune” from the opening.
“What is that?” Dimple asked, and she picked up the pace.
“I don’t know,” Rishi mumbled, trailing a little bit behind, wishing he’d just said he wasn’t interested when he met Kevin Keo last week. Are you interested in a degree in art? No, thank you. How hard would that have been, Patel?
As they approached the sculpture, Rishi saw a sign in front of it that said SARTORIAL FORTUNE COOKIE BY YAEL BORGER, 2017. “The body of the cookie is constructed out of PVC pipe, over which padding is attached. Sanitized clothes from the landfill cover those. A strip of cloth, which has been printed with each viewer’s ‘fortune,’ can be pulled from the hollow center of the structure. Yael Borger is a senior in the SFSU fine arts program and hopes to raise awareness of clothing waste and its impact on the environment.”
“Cool.” Dimple whistled and reached over to pull a fortune out. She arched her eyebrow at Rishi when she saw he wasn’t. “Come on. You have to too.”
He sighed and reached into the large slit in the center of the cookie to pull out a strip of fabric. “This is just awkward.”
Dimple laughed. “Just read yours.” She unfolded her strip, a piece of sky blue denim with fraying edges, on which words had been printed in white. “Hmm. Extinction is near.” She looked up at him. “What’s yours say?”
He turned his black-and-yellow-polka-dotted strip of fabric around. In red, it said, This will not end well.
“Wow.” Dimple laughed. “Ominous.”
Rishi crumpled up his strip and stuck it into the recycling bucket provided. “Man, Yael Borger is probably a ton of laughs. Can you just see her at a dinner party?” Putting on a cheerful voice, he said, “Hi, Yael, how are you today?” And then, in a sepulchral intonation meant to be Yael, “You will die.”
Dimple snorted. “At least she’s getting people to think and talk about the issue she wants them to think and talk about. Mission accomplished, I’d say. Isn’t that the point of art?” They wound their way around a group of students chattering in the doorway. “I mean, why do you make your comics, for instance?”
“Release,” Rishi answered, before he could really consider censoring himself. To Pappa and Ma, he was careful to always say comics were just a fun hobby, inconsequential. They were more magnanimous about them that way. “It’s like taking a giant helium balloon full of your worries and just letting it go.”
The lobby was huge, marble floored, and echoing with excited chatter from all the students and exhibitors. A giant banner, similar to the one at the table Kevin Keo had been manning the other day, hung in the center of the space and said, WELCOME TO LITTLE COMIC CON! YOU CAN TURN YOUR ART INTO A CAREER. LET US HELP!
There was a gigantic poster of Naruto Uzumaki hanging from the stair banister. Someone in the department obviously loved anime. Booths with giant banners showcasing various other famous comic characters dotted the space—Rishi saw everything from Pokémon to Harley Quinn to the Hulk. Across the floor, Rishi spotted someone at a crowded booth. His breath caught in his throat. “Oh my gods.” Heart pounding, he grabbed Dimple’s hand without thinking and then immediately let go. “It’s Leo Tilden.”
“Who?” Dimple followed his gaze. “Who’s that?”
“He made this totally amazing character, Platinum Panic, for a series of graphic novels. I read them all when I was, like, ten. It’s sort of what got me started on comics. He has these amazing YouTube videos too.” He rubbed the back of his neck. It felt surreal, to see the man standing not ten yards away from him, after having hero-worshipped him from afar for nearly a decade, after having laughed at every YouTube joke. After having sent him embarrassing fan mail when he was eleven—not that he was about to divulge that piece of information to Dimple. Or the fact that he kept the postcard Leo had sent back, stapled to the last page of his sketch pad. It said, Semper pinge—Keep drawing always in Latin. Platinum Panic’s catchphrase was Semper sursum—Always upward.
“Well, come on, let’s go wait in line and meet the guy.” Dimple grabbed his hand again and started toward the line.
Rishi didn’t quite have time to process that (a) she’d grabbed his hand of her own accord and (b) how nice it felt, because he was beginning to freak out.
“Um, I don’t know,” Rishi said, pulling back.
All of this was happening too fast. It was too much. He’d said yes to Kevin Keo when he should’ve said no, now he was at this huge con, and his idol was right in front of him. He was slipping down some comic book rabbit hole. It was, he thought, like trying to stay away from the girl you desperately loved but who you knew was bad for you. You kept your distance, because that was the only way to save yourself. You kept your distance, because you knew if you didn’t, you’d be helplessly and hopelessly caught up in everything you loved about her. Distance was the promise of safety. Without distance, Rishi knew the inexorable love for his art, for creation, would suck him in and never let go.
Dimple turned to him, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You just said this guy’s your idol, right?” Something in his expression softened her. She put a hand on his arm. “What’s up?”
“I wasn’t expecting all this.” Rishi waved a hand in the general direction of Leo Tilden. “This was supposed to be small.” He pointed to the welcome banner that said LITTLE COMIC CON. “See? Little. It’s even in the name.” He smiled, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Dimple studied him for a second. “Are you afraid that you don’t belong here? Or that you do?”
He looked at her, startled. How had she so quickly, so succinctly, verbalized everything he was feeling? “What are you, some kind of mind reader?”
Dimple smiled. “Look, we’ll just go meet Leo Tilden, and then we can leave. You don’t even have to let on that you draw or anything. You can pretend your costume is from some Indian comic they haven’t heard of.” She shrugged. “What do you have to lose?”
She was right. When he looked back on this in
a year, when he was at MIT, he wouldn’t remember any of these feelings. He’d remember meeting Leo Tilden. He’d always have that.
He nodded. “All right, Daria. And maybe after that we can go get some gelato or something.”
Dimple grinned. “Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 23
“Hi.” Leo Tilden’s distinctive voice, in real life. Wow.
Rishi smiled, but he wasn’t fully sure he was smiling in a socially appropriate way. Meaning, he was baring his teeth. But the tall muscular man next to Leo Tilden—his assistant, Sven, probably—looked fairly perturbed. Dimple elbowed him in the side. “Um, h-hi. I’m, I’m a big Rishi.” He heard Dimple snort. Oh my gods. Had he just said, I’m a big Rishi? “Fan,” he corrected, feeling like his entire face was about to burst into flames. “I’m a big fan. My name is—”
“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.”
“Oh.” Kevin’s face fell. Then he frowned. “MIT? But I thought you were into comic art.”
“I am.” Rishi paused. “I was. It was more a passing hobby in middle school and high school. But I’m not going to have time for all that. I have a real career to focus on, you know?”
Something passed over Kevin’s face. More coolly, he said, “So what are you going to be studying at MIT
?” The way he said it, Dimple could tell he thought Rishi was a pretentious douche nozzle. But he’s not! She wanted to yell. I have no idea who this weird, serious zombie is!
“Computer science and engineering,” Rishi said.
Kevin nodded. His eyes flickered over Rishi’s kurta and gada. “So you didn’t go into details before, when I saw you. Who are you dressed as?”
Rishi looked down. For a moment, he seemed like he wanted to tell Kevin about Aditya. There was a look, almost like longing, that passed over his features like a soft cloud. Then his expression cleared. “No one. Just an obscure Indian comic from when I was a kid.”
CHAPTER 24
Kevin looked over at Dimple. Clearly, he’d dismissed Rishi. “So.” He smiled. “Are you into comics or any kind of art? I don’t recognize your costume.”
“This is Daria, the ’90s cartoon. You should check it out if you get a chance. But as far as creativity goes . . .” Dimple made a face. “I think I was out sick when the artsy genes were being doled out. The extent of my creativity is app development and some website design. Coding is sort of like telling a story, I guess, but nothing other than that. Seriously though, I think what you’ve got going on here is pretty sweet.” She gestured around at the building. “I love all the color! And everyone’s costumes are just amazing.” A girl in a gorgeous gold retro dress, blue braids, and makeup that looked airbrushed on walked by, proving her point.
Kevin beamed, clearly pleased that at least one of them was in their right mind. “Well, do you have any major plans tonight after this?”
Dimple shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“The art department students always put on an awesome after party. You should check it out. It usually gets started around nineish.” He scribbled an address on a paper in his sketch pad. Ripping it out, he handed it to Dimple. Reluctantly, he turned to Rishi, who was watching the whole exchange impassively. “You can come too.”
When Dimple Met Rishi Page 12