Page 10 of Wish You Were Her
Jonah watched Simon look displeased as Allegra and the other two girls left the arcade. While Simon was foolish around Allegra, he obviously had enough dignity to suppress the urge to chase her out of the building. Instead he sank back into their booth in a sulk.
“She’s harder work than I thought.”
Jonah was used to Simon chasing girls. He had chased a lot of the people Jonah had had crushes on during school. When they would start going out, Simon would profess complete horror at the thought of stealing anyone away from Jonah. And the latter would always forgive him.
Still. It was refreshing to watch Simon work hard for once. Clearly Allegra wasn’t quite as taken in by Simon’s charisma as others had been.
Jonah regarded his friend. “You thought a global superstar was going to be easy to win over?”
“I kinda did, yeah. I mean, there’s got to be a real reason she came to spend the summer in this small town. I reckon she’s on the rebound.”
“That checks out, actually,” Skye said. “Apparently she was going out with that musician from Paisley Shine.”
“Terrible band,” muttered Jonah.
“Where’d you hear that, Skye?” asked Simon.
“Online.”
“I have got to do more research if Skye is ahead of me.”
“That wasn’t very nice of you. Treating Grace like that,” Jonah found the courage to say to Skye, albeit quietly. “And being rude to Allegra, too.”
“You’re one to talk,” Skye said, her guard finally coming down a little, now that she was the only girl at the table. “You’re not very nice to her. What’s going on there?”
Jonah scowled. “Nothing.”
“This is too serious,” Simon said, laughing. “Right! Come on, Skye, I need your expertise. What else do you know about her?”
“She has four-and-a-half million Instagram followers, but she—”
Jonah spat out the water he had just sipped and started to gasp for air. When he regained his composure, he stared at the two of them in horror. “That’s, like, almost all of Scotland!”
“Can I finish?” snapped Skye. “God! Anyway, yes, four-and-a-half million, but she hardly posts and when she does it’s always weird, arty stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Lots of bookish content, to be honest.”
“Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing,” Simon said, affronted.
Jonah blinked. “Who does she read?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Skye said, fishing out her phone and opening the app in question. She didn’t need to type Allegra’s full username, as it came up as her most recent search. “Like… that.”
Jonah snatched the phone before Simon could.
It was a black and white picture of Allegra sitting on what looked like a hotel room bed in an oversized baseball shirt.
It had been posted over a month before, and she was sitting with a stack of books and a plate of fries.
The caption said, “Feminists and French fries.”
The pile contained Toni Morrison, Curtis Sittenfeld, Nora Ephron and Tamora Pierce.
Jonah’s gaze was locked onto the picture and his thumb gently brushed her face on the screen.
“Don’t like it!” shrieked Skye, snatching back her phone before Jonah could accidentally double-tap the photo. “God, Jonah, don’t you know how to lurk?”
“Jonah was never an Instagram guy, even when he was on social media,” Simon informed her. “And I doubt Allegra notices every account who likes her pictures, not with that many people watching her every move.”
While the two of them huddled together to cyberstalk Allegra, Jonah slipped away. He googled Paisley Shine as he left the arcade, scowling down at a picture of the pretentious-looking frontman.
“Dick,” he said gruffly, taking a sudden dislike to a man he didn’t know.
He went home. It had been a massive change in routine, watching Allegra glide into their festival meetings with her water and her smile and her almost ethereal aura.
He entered the stairwell that led up to his home. It was the flat above Vivi’s Cupcakes and his mother, the famous Vivi herself, usually left the front door unlocked.
“Home,” Jonah called to her as he entered. “Do you need me to grab you anything from town before I take my shoes off?”
“Nope,” his mother’s airy voice called from the living room. “Take them off and have a sit.”
He joined her on their large, squishy sofa. “What’re we watching?”
“A terrible reality dating show that makes any faith I had in the existence of true love shrivel up and die.”
“Well, that’s why I read novels.”
He could feel his mother watching him. “Jonah?”
“Yes?” he replied, his eyes fixed to the television screen but taking in none of the content. He knew what that anticipatory note in her voice meant.
“Did you meet her? What’s she like? Oh, God, I went on a YouTube binge and saw every interview she’s ever done. She’s gorgeous. So humble and sweet. But just so stunning, I can’t get over it.”
“Yeah, well.” Jonah felt exposed around his mother and less able to mask. “Hair and makeup, I guess.”
“Nope! I watched her do one of those ‘get ready with me’ videos for Vogue and she is beautiful without makeup. I’m so excited to meet her, I hope she comes into the shop. So, what was she like?”
“She was fine,” said Jonah. “She was… I don’t know.”
He wanted to tell his mother that she was normal. Just a girl from out of town who was enjoying Lake Pristine and the book festival for a summer. He wanted to tell her that she was dull or mousy or not even that pretty in person.
His ego wanted to say she was rude and unpleasant.
But he couldn’t say any of those things because they weren’t true.
“I didn’t see much of her,” was all he managed to get out.
His mother muted the television and patted the palm of his hand, as the two of them sat side by side. “Ah, Jonah. I hope you’re not letting her make you nervous. Because when you get nervous, you get mean.”
“I wasn’t mean,” Jonah said, feeling defensiveness rising up inside of him. “If anything, she was mean.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, delighted and intrigued.
“Well. No, she wasn’t. Skye was mean and Simon was stupid and Allegra walked out.”
“I like her already.”
“I’m just curious!”
“Trust me,” Allegra told Kerrie as she started making the three of them soda floats in her father’s tiny kitchen, “you don’t want to see them. It’s like staring into Pandora’s box.”
“I get, like, one direct message a day,” Kerrie insisted. “I have 427 followers. I want to see what it looks like if you have millions.”
Grace laughed a little hesitantly and Allegra forced herself to join in. “No, honestly, it’s a mess. I can’t go in there anymore.”
“Oh, please, Allegra,” Kerrie begged. “I know I’m massively overstepping here, but I’m so, so nosy!”
Allegra glanced at Grace, who was eating a spoonful of ice cream and said, “I’m also pretty curious, I’m afraid.”
Allegra was faced with a fork in the road—likeability or setting a boundary. It was easy to theorize about which route to take, but she was so desperate for a smooth ride over the summer. “Fine.”
She let Kerrie open up one of her message request inboxes. Both Grace and Allegra watched as Kerrie’s facial expressions moved from delightedly curious to surprised, to genuinely horrified.
“Yup,” Allegra said quietly.
“This is,” Kerrie continued to scroll, her face showing more and more disbelief as she did, “a lot.”
“Why, what are people saying?” asked Grace, glancing unsurely between Allegra and her phone. She moved over to stand next to Kerrie, reading over the other girl’s shoulder. Allegra found it almost comical to watch, as Grace’s face also morphed into one of bewilderment and revulsion.
“So, there are the super sexual ones,” Allegra said, holding up one finger. “Then the ones asking for money or favors, or just general acknowledgment.” Another finger. “Then the sweet ones, who just want to say kind things.” Third finger. “Then the really frightening ones.”
“Yeah, I’m reading one of those now,” Kerrie said. “This person says that because you wore a wig in Court of Bystanders instead of your natural hair, you should be violently—”
“Ah, yes, the wig menace,” Allegra said, almost fondly. “He’s gone after me a few times. My co-stars, too. Called our agents. He only targets young women, weirdly enough.”
“This is so scary.”
Allegra shrugged. “You get used to it.”
She remembered taking the first flurry of horrible messages to her team. They had told her it was part of the job, and that confronting the trolls or speaking publicly about the abuse would only encourage them to continue, and at a greater volume.
“I thought they’d be more fun,” Kerrie admitted, handing the phone back to Allegra. “But that was really grim.”
Allegra smiled wanly. “Admiration is calm and quiet, obsession is loud. Obsessed with love or hate, it doesn’t matter. It pushes to the front of the line, either way.”
The three girls stood in silence for a moment and Allegra wished the whole thing hadn’t happened. She poured the drinks and laid out the snacks, but she could tell Kerrie and Grace were shaken.
“So, what are the less awful parts of the job?” Grace finally asked, easing a little of the tension.
“A lot of it’s fun,” Allegra said, wondering why she felt the need to reassure them. “I have a premiere in a couple of months. I could invite you guys, if you want.”
“Would Jonah come, too?” Kerrie asked, without a moment’s hesitation.
Allegra grimaced, but forced her voice to sound encouraging. “Sure. We’ll have a whole entourage.”
Both girls shrieked in spontaneous elation and it made Allegra laugh.
They swept her up in a hug and the giggling became so loud that George poked his head out of his room.
His face creased in a smile as he watched Allegra dance around the kitchen with the other two girls and he quietly slipped away again.
@spicyn342
Hey, Allegra,
You haven’t responded to my last few stories so I guess you’re not who I thought you were.
@regretrien
Allegra, you look so ugly in this picture, ngl. love you, though.
@camelot55
are you neurodivergent, Allegra? I saw you stim in an interview and I thought maybe you might be. also, are you bi? I saw those pictures of you and Calista at the Met Gala. pls tell me, I need to know you’re not queerbaiting. ily.
@caseyvontrapp
I love you so much, you don’t understand, jfc, you are my life.
@johnbacon1
Hate you and your incessant need for attention. Die.
[email protected]
to: [email protected]
RE: Wish You Were Here!
Dear Friend!
Today’s book is Heartburn by Nora Ephron and I’ve left it in front of the pharmacy.
Why, you ask? Because they sell neck creams. If you’re a true connoisseur, you’ll get it, which I know you will be.
It’s still stunning weather. The water has never looked more beautiful and it’s still nice and quiet. Not too many out-of-towners.
Still. Wish you were here.
Yours,
Bookseller friend