Page 102 of Wish You Were Her

They talked into the night. Allegra felt wobbly but content. She had just enough strength to occasionally push Jonah’s dark hair out of his eyes. When she said she wished she could get a manicure without someone trying to sneak a picture, he went to the drugstore on the corner and came back with an assortment of her favorite colors. He painted polish onto her toenails with sweet precision. He blew on them. They talked about books. She told him about scripts. He asked about her co-stars.

She didn’t remember falling asleep. But she slept through the whole night, without waking in pain.

Jonah woke the next morning, still fully dressed, to the sound of his phone vibrating. He quickly excused himself, though Allegra was dead asleep. He slipped into the kitchen and answered the call before noting that it was coming from an unknown number.

“This is Jonah.”

“Hey, man. Sorry to call early, it’s Charlie Matuschek, from Matuschek Press.”

“Oh, yes, hi,” Jonah said, fixing his bed hair even though the man on the other end of the line couldn’t see him. “Thank you for calling.”

“That’s okay.” Jonah could tell that the man was occupied with something else while on the phone, but not completelydistracted. “You wouldn’t happen to be free for an interview today? We can do online, if it’s too far from where—”

“That would be great. I’m in the city, so in person is fine.”

“Ah, excellent. Cool. Um, we’re on Upper Oak Street and—”

“I know where. By the movie house with the ancient coffee machine.”

“Noon too soon?”

“Not at all.”

“Great. Easy! See you there then, Jonah, thank you for being so flexible.”

Jonah had to smile. It was not a word often used about him. He slipped back into Allegra’s bedroom, ready to ask her what she wanted for breakfast. He found her getting dressed in her walk-in wardrobe. She was wearing pink satin trousers and a soft pink jumper and she looked marginally healthier than the day before.

“I can’t face a bra just yet,” she told him conspiratorially and he blushed.

“I’ve got a job interview. At noon.”

His whole body filled with heat as she stared up at him in complete delight. “Jonah, that’s fantastic! Where?”

“A small press downtown. They’re great.”

“What about Dad? What will he do without you?”

She said it teasingly and Jonah still did not have the heart to reveal what had happened.

“I want to bring you breakfast,” he said instead.

“I’m fine.”

“Properly fine or autistic-won’t-realize-she-needs-to-eat-until-much-later fine?”

She laughed heartily at that. “First one.”

“Okay.”

“It’s after ten, you should go. If it’s at noon.”

Yet neither of them moved. Jonah stared at this cosmic person who, as it turned out, was so much more like him than he could have known. Her mask had been so impenetrable, he had never suspected.

He could imagine the cost of it. The weight of it. Maybe they were both too afraid to say how they felt because they had been communicating with neurotypicals for too long, and become protective of their hearts in a way that only the outcasts do.

“Eighteen! You’re only eighteen! I thought by your cover letter you were an old man!”

Jonah sat across from Charlie Matuschek and tried to find the right response. “The resumé didn’t tip you off?”