When Dimple Met Rishi

by Sandhya Menon

  Dimple scratched at the paint on the wood table with a fingernail, sending green flecks flying. “I sent your sketches to Leo Tilden.”

  Rishi stared at her, not fully able to grasp her meaning. “Sent him my sketches?” He shook his head, like that would make this congeal a bit more. “How? When?”

  “The day Ashish came. You stepped out of your room to talk to him, and I took pictures of your sketch pad. And then I e-mailed him.” She met his eye, looking equal parts defensive and nervous, disappointed and defiant. “He . . . he hasn’t e-mailed you yet, I’m guessing. But he will. I know he will.”

  Rishi shook his head, trying to dislodge his feelings. Anger at her. Disappointment at the silence from Leo Tilden. Embarrassment. Betrayal. He set his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. “Why . . . how could you do that?” he said softly, afraid that if he raised his voice, he’d never stop shouting. “After I told you. After I explained why I couldn’t do this.”

  “Because!” Dimple said, and her voice did echo around them before getting swallowed by the unforgiving fog. “Because you’re being . . .”

  Rishi looked up sharply. “Being what?”

  “Cowardly,” she finished, her chin thrust out. “You’re being cowardly. You have a real gift, Rishi. You can’t let your parents or anyone else dictate what you do with it.”

  Rishi swallowed, willing his heart to stop pounding, his blood to stop boiling. “Cowardly. Right.” He jumped up and began to pace, running a shaking hand through his hair. He didn’t know if he was more hurt or more angry. “And I guess talking to you about obligations and duties would do no good. Just as it did no good the first few times.” He stopped pacing and glared at her. “Speaking of cowardly . . . you sneaked into my bag and pulled out my sketch pad. You e-mailed Leo without my permission! How’s that for cowardly?”

  “I was doing you a favor!” she said, her hands forming fists on the table.

  “A favor!” he thundered, throwing his hands up. “Do you know how condescending you sound right now? So you were just doing the cowardly idiot who doesn’t know what’s good for him a favor, right?”

  “That’s not what I said!” Dimple glared at him, eyes sparking behind her glasses. “How is what you did for me with Jenny Lindt any different?”

  “Because you’ve been telling me for six weeks now how much she means to you and how much you want to meet her! Because you came out to Insomnia Con specifically to have her see your work! That’s the difference—you wanted this and I didn’t! I specifically told you I didn’t!”

  “And I specifically told you I didn’t want a relationship! I don’t want this!” Dimple yelled, her voice crashing into him, reaching into his chest, and pulverizing his heart.

  She sat there, panting, unable to believe she’d just yelled it out at him like that. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately, her voice shaking. “I’m sorry. But I . . . this isn’t working for me anymore.”

  Rishi stared at her like she’d just told him a giant meteor was headed for the Earth and there was nothing to be done about it. He walked forward on shaky legs and fell onto the bench. He stared down at his hands and then looked up at her. “How long have you known you wanted to break up?” The fog curled around his words.

  “I didn’t know,” Dimple said. “I mean, I was having all these doubts weeks ago . . . but . . .” She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t really sure till a couple of days ago. When they announced the winners.”

  Rishi was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Why?”

  She thought about telling him the truth for a split second: How he was too right for her, how she was afraid they’d just met too early, how she was terrified she was giving up an essential part of herself or forgetting the reasons she hadn’t wanted a relationship in the first place. But Dimple knew he’d talk her down, that he’d have a good counterargument for every one of hers. She’d end up wanting to be with Rishi again, and she didn’t want that. A clean break, that’s what she was after. “We’re too different,” she said finally, choosing a half-truth. “I can’t . . . I can’t be with someone who cares so much about what his parents want from him. You lack courage, Rishi. And I can’t be with someone like that.” She was being so cruel. But she couldn’t pull any punches. “I want so much more from my life than what you seem to want.”

  He looked at her, his eyes hollow, empty, like she’d never seen them before. Her heart hurt, physically, truly hurt, but she forced herself to keep her expression firm, unmoving, as he spoke. “I’ve changed so much for you. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I have. I just wanted to be with you, Dimple. I was even willing to put aside my parents’ wishes. I was willing to follow you around the world, wherever you wanted to go, wherever your career took you. But you’re right, I don’t have the courage you seem to have to buck every tradition and just do what I want. I actually care what my parents think of me, I care about what they want.”

  Anger began to simmer in Dimple’s veins, even though she knew she’d provoked him. “Are you calling me selfish?”

  Rishi stood, his fingertips pressed against the table. “I’m calling you unkind. You’re right; we are too different.” He turned and walked away, the fog swallowing him whole.

  CHAPTER 56

  “But can’t you wait till tomorrow morning?” Celia asked. She was sprawled on her bed, her legs in Ashish’s lap. They were both exchanging worried glances that Dimple pretended not to see.

  She threw her clothes in her suitcase without bothering to fold them. She’d spent the first hour after she and Rishi broke up crying alone on the bench, wrapped in the fog. But then she’d wiped her eyes, marched to her dorm room, and taken a long shower, scrubbing her hair until her scalp was raw. That’s when she’d decided she wasn’t going to wait till the next morning to leave. What would be the point?

  Celia and Ashish had just walked in ten minutes ago. Dimple got the feeling Rishi had told them what happened from the very obvious way they were not asking about him. “No. I need to get out of here now.”

  Ashish cleared his throat. “But what about Jenny Lindt? The meeting went well, right?”

  So they had talked to Rishi. Dimple paused for a moment as the pain washed over her, but then she continued as if nothing had happened. “Our work is mainly going to be over the computer. I’ll be at Stanford in a few weeks anyway, and it isn’t too far from here. I can always make the drive.” She snapped her suitcase shut and turned around.

  Celia hopped off the bed. “I’m going to miss you,” she said.

  “Me too.” Dimple stepped forward, and they hugged. “But we’ll keep texting. And we’ll be driving distance apart starting in the fall.”

  Celia nodded furiously, and when she stepped back, her eyes were all misty. “I feel like no matter what roommate I get now, I’m going to be disappointed,” she said. “Because it won’t be you.”

  Dimple swallowed the lump in her throat. “Ditto. You know, you could change your mind and decide to transfer to Stanford. . . .”

  Celia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Like they’ll ever let me in that place.”

  Dimple laughed and turned to Ashish, who was standing by Celia now. He smiled down at her, but it was coated in sadness and it made her chest tighten. His eyes reminded her so much of Rishi’s, she had to blink and look away. “It was nice to meet you, Ashish,” she said, rubbing at her nose. “Thank you for your help with the talent show.”

  She held out her hand, but Ashish ignored it and pulled her into a hug instead. “You would’ve made a great bhabhi someday,” he said, and that, more than anything, drove it all home with an ironclad finality. She and Rishi were over.

  Dimple swallowed and stepped back, smiling brightly. “Okay, I’m out. You guys are leaving tomorrow, right?”

  They nodded. “Want me to help you with your suitcase?” Ashish asked, but Dimple shook her head.

  Celia reached out and grabbed her in a hug again and then stepped back and put an arm ar
ound Ashish’s waist, swiping at her eyes with her free hand.

  Dimple took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, determined not to shed another tear on this campus.

  Rishi sat on the edge of his bed, his head bent as the phone at his parents’ house rang. It seemed a lonelier sound than usual, as if it were echoing around an empty home.

  He felt like he’d been struck by a freak flare of lightning on a sunny, blue-skied day. He had not seen that coming. He’d thought maybe she was unhappy, but that it had to do with losing, with not being able to see Jenny Lindt. Rishi had no idea she . . . that Dimple . . . that she didn’t love him anymore. Had likely never loved him.

  All those things she’d said—was that how she saw him? As some big coward, too afraid to stand up to his parents, too afraid to really live life? Someone who wanted to cower and be sheltered from every storm in life, someone who wanted an easy, placid, dull, nothing existence?

  Was she right?

  “Haan, bolo, Rishi beta!” Pappa’s happy greeting came down the line, startling him out of his cold, tumbling thoughts.

  “Pappa . . .” His voice came out husky, unpolished. He cleared his throat. The words were gone.

  “Rishi?” Pappa sounded a little concerned. “Kya baat hai, beta?”

  “Am I making a mistake, Pappa?” he said, his voice just barely above a whisper. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a sudden surge of frustration he couldn’t explain. Rishi hopped off his bed and began to pace. In a louder voice, he continued. “I mean, MIT? Engineering? You’re the one with a mathematical brain, not me. I couldn’t even fix the laptop when it broke last year, remember?”

  There was a moment of silence, and he knew Pappa was hurrying to catch up. “But, Rishi, there are many different types of engineering degrees,” he said finally, a little wondrously. “Tumhe patta hai, you don’t have to fix computers to be an engineer. You know this.”

  Rishi kicked at the foot of his desk, making the whole thing shudder. “But it’s not about fixing the laptop!” He threw his free hand up in the air. Why couldn’t his father see? “It’s . . . it’s everything. It’s my brain, Pappa. It doesn’t work like yours. I’m not interested in mathematics and business and, and everything else that you do. Do I want to spend fifty or sixty years of my life stuck at Global Comm, doing stuff that bores me now, at eighteen? I mean, what will my life look like at that point? Who will I even become if I do that?”

  “But there are many good companies besides Global Comm, Rishi,” Pappa said, still sounding bewildered. “You don’t have to work here. You can go to Google—they’re progressive, na? Many young people enjoy working—”

  Oh gods. He just wasn’t getting it. “No, Pappa,” Rishi cut in, standing still in the center of his room, looking at the bed where not too long ago he and Dimple took things to another level. Where he realized he couldn’t live without her, no matter what. The bitter burn of rejection flared in his chest. “What if I want to do my comics instead?”

  There was a long beat of silence. Rishi waited, his heart hammering. “C-comics?” He’d never heard Pappa stutter like that before. “Rishi, why are you saying all this, beta? Where did you get these ideas? Plan sub change kar rahe ho—you’re changing all your plans. For whom? Dimple ne kuch kahaa?”

  Did Dimple say something? Rishi wanted to laugh. Yeah, he thought. She said a lot of things. But instead of getting into that, he said, “Yes. She said something. But I was feeling it before that, Pappa. I was . . . engineering doesn’t feel right for me. It feels right for you. I’m an artist in my soul. Not an engineer. Not a corporate machine.”

  Pappa exhaled, the sound long and reaching for a patience it currently lacked. When he spoke, his voice was low and controlled. It was the voice Rishi had heard him use in phone meetings when he was trying not to lose his temper. “Ghar aao, Rishi. Then we’ll talk about it. Aur Dimple . . .”

  “There’s no Dimple,” Rishi said softly. Pappa and Ma didn’t know the extent to which they’d moved their friendship forward, and now Rishi was glad he hadn’t told them. “And yes, I’m coming home.”

  He hung up and stood in silence for a full minute. Then, grabbing his bag, he thought, Semper sursum. Always upward.

  ONE MONTH LATER

  Was it possible to expire of boredom? Dimple was pretty sure she was close. Her heart rate was way down, her body temperature had dropped. She was going into standby mode.

  For the past hour—sixty full minutes (she’d been keeping track)—Mamma, Ritu auntie, and, to a lesser extent, Seema didi, had been sitting in the living room talking about pregnancy.

  Yes, it was true. Silent Seema and Ritu auntie’s spawn, Vishal, were on their way to producing spawn of their own. Dimple shuddered to think what the creature might turn out to be. Would it come into the world gossiping and nattering on about inconsequential nothings? Or would it come out hidden behind a curtain of black hair, watching the doctors with its inscrutable dark eyes?

  To be fair, Seema didi did look fairly happy—happier than Dimple had ever seen her. There was a hint of a smile about her mouth as she looked down at her ultrasound picture at the grainy blob/glorified amoeba.

  “But jo bhi kaho, delivery is one of the most painful experiences of a woman’s life!” Ritu auntie proclaimed, jamming another Milano into her mouth. “I screamed so much when I was having Vishal ki I couldn’t talk for two days afterward!” She sprayed bits of cookie crumbs everywhere. Seema didi was cringing beside her, but Dimple couldn’t say if it was because of the projectile partially digested food or that encouraging wisdom about childbirth.

  “Haan, bilkul sahi,” Mamma said, nodding with a martyr-like look on her face. “They had to extract Dimple with the forceps, you know. Very painful. I couldn’t go to bathroom without screaming after that.” She sipped her chai and then sighed, looking at Dimple. “And they’re so ungrateful after they come out.”

  Dimple rolled her eyes to herself. “So sorry to disappoint,” she mumbled too softly for anyone to hear. She thought, anyway. But when she looked up, Seema didi was chewing on her cheek to keep from smiling.

  “But still, Ritu, you’re so lucky, you know,” Mamma said, smiling wistfully at the ultrasound picture, which was now in her hands. “In eight months you’re going to be a grandmother! Tum kitni khush kismet ho.”

  Khush kismet. Lucky. Which, of course, implied that Mamma was unlucky. She’d gotten a dud of a daughter who ripped her way out in the world and had done nothing but disappoint her ever since.

  Dimple and Mamma hadn’t had a real conversation about any of what had happened over the summer at SFSU with Rishi. Papa had reassured Dimple that he supported her decision to sever all ties with him, even if he didn’t know all the details. He’d just wanted to make sure that Rishi hadn’t hurt Dimple. Papa told her to focus on her app and her relationship with Jenny Lindt. He told her she’d make new friends and have new things to look forward to at Stanford, that all of this would be a distant memory soon. All the things that parents say to their kids when life deals them lemons.

  And then there was Mamma. She’d looked at Dimple with reproachful eyes ever since she came home from Insomnia Con. She hadn’t said anything outright, but she’d sighed so much, Dimple was afraid the house was on the verge of collapse. And she loved to talk about Seema didi’s new pregnancy. Incessantly. Mamma talked about domestic life, and how much it suited Seema, and how happy Ritu was. And in the empty spaces between her words, Dimple heard how disappointed Mamma was in her. How much she wished she and Ritu could swap lives.

  Dimple stood abruptly, tears threatening. That seemed to happen without warning now, like severing ties with Rishi had left her emotions raw and vulnerable to the elements. “Excuse me,” she said, aware that her voice was trembling. “I should finish packing.”

  Ritu auntie beamed up at her from her wheelchair, oblivious, though she saw Mamma in her peripheral vision, frowning. “Haan, you’re leaving tomorrow, na? Stanford!”

 
; Dimple tried to smile and failed, so she settled for a nod.

  Ritu auntie reached in her bag and handed a dollar bill to Dimple, a common practice for elders when younger people were entering a new stage of their life. “Oh, auntie, I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can, and you must,” Ritu auntie said, pressing it into her palm. “Khush raho, beti. And best of luck.”

  Dimple managed a half smile then, thinking, It’s a nice sentiment, but happiness is way too tall an order.

  • • •

  Dimple sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her suitcase and pillow and her lone box of books. She wasn’t taking much else with her on this trip. She’d managed to convince Papa and Mamma to let her drive up there alone, but they’d only agreed because she’d promised to come back down for the long Labor Day weekend. Dimple figured she’d get anything else she really needed on that second trip. There was no need to overdo it; all she really wanted were her laptop and books.

  She purposely didn’t glance over at the bookshelf where she’d left the graphic novels Rishi had given her in Two Sisters. She’d read one of them before she left Insomnia Con. It was full of love and magic and the promise of new things. Dimple couldn’t handle that right now. She’d wanted to donate them, but hadn’t found it in herself to do that yet. Maybe when she came back home.

  Dimple looked around at her room, wondering if Mamma would even notice she was gone. Maybe she’d be happier without having to think about Dimple every single second, without Dimple’s many disappointments in her face all day, every day.

  Mamma entered her room without knocking, just like usual, and set a glass of haldi doodh on the nightstand. Dimple looked away. She couldn’t bear to see more disappointment or reproach. She was so done. Things were hard enough—her own doubts were hard enough—without Mamma’s constant pressure.

  “You told me you finished packing,” Mamma said, sitting on a wicker chair Dimple had bought at a flea market years ago.