Chapter Eighteen
Two weeks after she had been discharged from the hospital, Dimple was torn between frustration at the limitations her injury had imposed upon her and a fear of what her thoughts would turn to if she was left alone.
“Priyal, this isn’t your job,” Dimple chided exasperatedly.
“I’m your assistant,” Priyal replied, continuing to fold Dimple’s laundry into a neat stack on the couch.
“That’s exactly my point. I don’t pay you to do household chores.”
“It’s not like you have much of a schedule for me to keep track of with your wrist like that! Either I can make myself useful or you can take me off your payroll.”
Dimple sighed, thoroughly scolded, and sank deeper into the couch cushion, velvet fabric scratching lightly against her cheek. Both feet were tucked under her legs, wrist cradled to her chest. No one had ever done chores for her. It was unnerving.
“By the way, I’m great at multitasking,” Priyal said, folding a yellow sundress into a neat square. “I’ve been keeping up with your social media.”
Dimple thought of a computer with several tabs open, of a keyboard clattering to the ground. “Have you?” She reached for her phone on the coffee table and powered it on.
“There’ve been a lot of rumors going around after it was leaked that you were taken to the hospital. For some reason, everyone thinks you’re in rehab. But Julie helped me draft a statement and I think it helped.”
Sure enough, pinned to Dimple’s profile was a long string of text.
It rather vaguely read that she’d been injured at a party and would be recovering for an unspecified amount of time.
She should’ve known better than to look, but the top comment, sitting at thousands of likes, said definitely rehab.
Which part of her was it that alluded to substance abuse?
Or was it the stain of her past that she could never seem to remove?
“It’s not completely terrible, I guess,” Priyal mused. “People are curious, so your follower count keeps growing.”
Dimple screened the rest of the comments, glad to see that they were mostly thoughtful well-wishes.
She tactfully ignored the ones praising her bravery for taking the steps she needed to get better.
Dimple set her phone to the side and took a sip of the now lukewarm hot chocolate Priyal had brought her.
“What do you want for lunch?” Priyal asked. “Should I order something for you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The pricing of most LA restaurants wasn’t worth it.
Thanks to her work on Insomnia, for the first time in her life, Dimple had money to squander—even if hospital bills had siphoned a sizable portion of it—but she couldn’t help thinking of years into the future.
If Insomnia flopped, there was a chance she would never see a paycheck like this ever again.
The last thing she wanted was to go back to the grueling minimum wage jobs between auditions.
Her broken wrist only made it more difficult for her to get work in the meantime.
It meant a month of near-total isolation—broken up only by Priyal’s occasional visits—with nothing for her mind to do but conjure up nightmares.
It was already spring and the two weeks that had gone by since she’d been discharged from the hospital had been hell.
With nothing else to occupy her mind, Dimple had fixated on the proverbial ax hanging above her head that was Saffi Mirai Iyer. She’d spent her free time attempting to conjure up ways to get closer to the investigation. It was the only way to shift this stalemate in her favor.
A knock sounded at the door, startling both Dimple and Priyal.
“Are you expecting someone?” Priyal asked.
Dimple shook her head, rising to join Priyal beside the door.
Paranoia anticipated the police had finally come to arrest her.
Delusion anticipated Irene or Isaac with a vengeance.
Whoever it was knocked again impatiently.
Dimple reached for the doorknob with her good hand, but Priyal beat her to it.
And there, at Dimple’s doorstep, was Saffi Mirai Iyer in her signature black suit, looking as unimpressed as ever, as though Dimple had cast her straight out of the movie in her mind.
This was much worse than the police.
“Oh. It’s you,” Priyal said, opening the door wider. She was still under the impression that Dimple and Saffi were old friends trying desperately to reconnect.
“Nice to see you again,” Saffi said, stepping inside at Dimple’s wary beckon.
Priyal wasn’t the kind to question things much.
She never asked why Dimple’s family hadn’t visited or even called after her accident.
Nor had she asked why Dimple didn’t seem to have any friends or where Saffi had come from all of a sudden.
She took things as they came, and it was something Dimple intensely admired.
To be fair, Dimple was similar. She didn’t know anything about Priyal’s private life, and so she extended the courtesy and didn’t ask either.
“You should be more careful,” Saffi said, glancing around Dimple’s apartment. “What if I was your attacker?”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Priyal said, completely missing the undertone of sarcasm.
“I am more than capable of taking care of myself,” Dimple said evenly.
An alarm sounded and Priyal pulled out her phone, turning it off with a sigh. “I have to go,” she said regretfully.
“She’s in good hands,” Saffi said mirthfully.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?” Priyal asked.
“You said you had plans.” Dimple had a feeling it was an audition, but she doubted Priyal would admit that to her current employer.
“I can cancel them!”
“I’ll be fine, Priyal.”
Only the police, the investigators, and Priyal were under the impression that Dimple had been attacked.
It wasn’t public knowledge yet that there was a killer going around.
According to law enforcement, it would cause too much widespread panic.
The secrecy helped in her case, though, so Dimple gladly went along with their wishes.
“Just promise me you’ll keep your phone on,” Priyal said, relenting. “If you don’t reply, I’ll get worried. I might kick your door down at three in the morning.”
“Now, that I’d like to see.”
Priyal swung her bag over her shoulder and, with one last glance at Dimple, left the same way Saffi had come. And then the two of them were alone. This was the first time they’d seen each other since the hospital, but if Saffi wouldn’t bother exchanging pleasantries, then neither would Dimple.
“Cute,” Saffi said. Her fingers brushed Dimple’s wrist brace. Not even hard enough to jostle, but Dimple felt the phantom touch in her bones. “You want me to sign it?”
The rough fabric wrapped tight across her wrist felt like a prison. Dimple forced politeness into her reply. “You’re a natural. We’ll make an actress out of you yet.”
And then the shape of Saffi was slipping past her farther into the apartment.
It was this kind of easy confidence that made her so enthralling.
Taking ownership of any space as though it were her own.
They plunged into a terse silence as Saffi took in Dimple’s mismatched interior design, the hum of kitchen appliances just loud enough to emphasize the tension in the air.
“Don’t feel the need to strangle me today?” Dimple couldn’t help asking, relishing in the way Saffi turned to her, brows furrowed, before understanding dawned.
“I didn’t strangle you,” Saffi said. “I was trying to regulate your breathing.”
“By strangling me.”
“You were having a panic attack.”
“It is a blessing you never pursued a career in psychiatry,” Dimple replied dryly.
“I’m not the one who lies for a living,” Saffi said. She ran a finger along the spines of Dimple’s VHS collection, pulling one free from the shelf. “You do realize that everything is online nowadays?”
But where was the appreciation in that? Dimple had been collecting old films since her college days. Her mother’s collection had been destroyed in the fire—the only thing she regretted about the incident—but she’d slowly been able to build up her catalog again.
It wasn’t just technology that was left behind in the past, but also the art displayed upon it.
How was it that so many people went to visit the Mona Lisa every day, but had completely forgotten so much of the dramatic arts?
Was there no one left to appreciate the masterpieces that had been forgotten simply because they were not available to stream online?
Dimple liked to imagine that she alone was keeping them alive, immortalized through time.
But she didn’t expect Saffi to understand that.
Dimple grasped the VHS, but Saffi held on, patiently awaiting an explanation. A childish performance of tug-of-war—it amused Dimple far more than it should have. Even more when she realized Saffi had chosen a horror film. One of her favorites.
“I like being able to hold them,” Dimple replied, which was also true. “Is that too cliché?”
Saffi took a moment to consider before letting go. “Kind of fitting, actually.”
That Saffi claimed to understand her to any degree almost made her laugh.
Dimple returned the movie to its rightful place and took the time to study her counterpart in her periphery.
Saffi dressed identical to Atlas and Eli—same expensive black suit, exuding formality.
At least until she opened her mouth. But they diverged in where Atlas and Eli were twin voids, Saffi had a certain vividness to her.
She seemed oddly at home amongst Dimple’s mismatch of shapes and colors in the same way a flower looked more beautiful in a bouquet.
“So, how can I help you?” Dimple tried for casual.
Saffi leaned against the bookshelf, studying her. “How would you feel about assisting with the investigation?”