Page 18 of Wish You Were Her

A quiet, unconfident question knocked on the door of his mind.

It was a question that examined Allegra’s pleasing nature.

The way she sometimes shook her hands in rapid motion when she thought no one could see.

The way she was so particular about the texture of her food, the way she would sometimes repeat other people’s words as she formulated a response, the way she seemed to glance away when she was speaking only to look intently into someone’s eyes when they were replying and she was the listener.

Jonah watched her beautiful smile, forced though it was, and wondered.

When Saffron finally returned to the salon, Jonah watched as all of her colleagues moved away from the window. Presumably they had taken surreptitious pictures of their own. It was horrid to Jonah, that creeping feeling of being perceived.

He was about to say as much to Allegra when her phone rang with imprudent urgency.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, as she checked the caller ID. “Publicist.”

It was such a funny word to Jonah, so out of his normal vocabulary. He watched her answer the call.

“Hey, Nat. Everything okay? I’m not on emails.”

Jonah could hear the other woman’s voice easily from the other end of the line. The publicist laughed as she spoke, but it was a hollow, stressed sound. “Yeah, I know. Been trying to reach you.”

“Sorry,” Allegra said instantaneously. “What’s up?”

“I’ve forwarded you a big, long email about the screening. I’ve put an updated itinerary in as well.”

“Yes, about that,” Allegra said. “I’ve invited a few Lake Pristine friends to come along. Can we add them to the guest list?”

There was a pause on the end of the call and while Jonah was not an expert at predicting human behavior, he could still feel the surprise through the phone. “How many people, lovely?”

“Lovely” was said with a sense of exhaustion.

“Um,” Allegra glanced at Jonah, clearly realizing in that moment that he could hear everything that was being said. “Five, including me?”

She said it as if she was asking a question. She even looked to Jonah for non-verbal confirmation. He waved one hand frantically, freeing her from any invitation issued out of obligation. Simon’s gloating and Grace’s gushing had alerted him that a trip to the big city was planned.

“Names?” the publicist asked, with a slightly put-on sigh.

“Grace Lancaster, Kerrie…”

She looked quickly to Jonah, silently begging for his schoolfriend’s surname.

“Rodriguez.”

“Kerrie Rodriguez. Simon Hannigan and Jonah Thorne.”

Jonah’s head shot up in astonishment and he stared at her. He mouthed words of discouragement at her, trying to wordlessly communicate his total acceptance of not being invited.

However, Allegra stared back adamantly. “Yeah, those four plus me.”

He could hear the publicist reciting back the names and then Allegra confirmed them. When the phone call was over, she set off walking once more, as though nothing had happened.

“You don’t have to invite me,” he finally managed to say. “I know we don’t exactly get on very well.”

“Five is a good number,” she said matter-of-factly. “And it’ll be nice to have an entourage at one of these things for once.”

When Jonah did not know how to respond, she turned to him and quietly added, “You genuinely don’t have to come if you don’t want to, though. Loads of people RSVP and then don’t show. It’s a screening, not a wedding. But if you want to tag along, your name’s on the list.”

The open invitation was an olive branch that made him bristle and feel ashamed. He had been a nightmare to her, which had provoked her into becoming one in return. They had locked horns ever since she’d arrived in Lake Pristine.

Jonah had just assumed that she hated him.

Now he wondered if Allegra was capable of hating anyone.

She was always making things easier for other people.

She handled social hiccups with a deftness he had never seen before.

She remembered everyone. Her patience for Simon and his overtly inappropriate overtures seemed to be a deep well of generosity.

She was not only defying his expectations.

She was starting to seriously unnerve him.

Later that day, Jonah distracted himself with tasks.

He had been charged with putting up some new shelves in the small travel section of Brooks Books.

It was a task he had been putting off for an age and now that Simon, Allegra and the rest of his old schoolmates in Lake Pristine were making merry together on the town bandstand, he felt like getting it done. In peace.

He assembled his screws, the shelves, the supports and the old toolbox that George kept in his messy office. The shop was closed and quiet, everyone in Lake Pristine enjoying the summer breeze and the evening lights that looked like pale blue fireflies.

He hummed along to his playlist as he worked.

“Great song! I love Tom Waits.”

He swore at the new arrival’s words and almost dropped his little pile of screws.

“Sorry,” Allegra said sheepishly. “World of your own.”

“Yes, well,” Jonah grunted, returning to his work. “Comes with the gig.”

He felt Allegra sit down next to him as he assembled the wood for the shelves. “Need any help?”

It had only been a few hours since her polite invitation to the film premiere.

Jonah had busied himself with stock and pre-orders and festival planning, while Allegra and Simon had laughed with one another.

He had tried to suppress the unnameable feelings brought up by their flirting.

It was like a terrible, emotional, jealous acid reflux.

He shook the word “jealousy” out of his mind, knowing he had no right to it.

Yet, “Why aren’t you with Simon?” he asked. He couldn’t help it.

“We’re all having a nice time out by the bandstand, but I noticed you weren’t with us,” she replied.

He scoffed. So, they had all been having a jolly time and, after one too many jokes, they had finally deigned to notice that he was still working. He hated how disposable he felt.

“Promised George I would do this months ago,” he said gruffly.

“Well, do you want me to bring you something to eat? We have burgers.”

“No,” he said, a little more sharply than he had intended.

He heard, and somehow felt, her sigh. “Jonah. I’m trying here. I’ve really been trying. I know we had a rough start, you shouldn’t have said what you said when we met, and I should have forgiven you for it. But can’t we be friends?”

No , thought Jonah sadly. They couldn’t be friends because he still thought about her fingertips on his face.

He questioned why it had been so easy to tell her about his neurodivergence.

He thought about her more than he thought about anyone.

He was petrified about falling into some strange kind of limerence, where he would never be free of her.

The only difference between such limerence and love was uncertainty. While true love was supposed to be mutual, a bridge between two people, limerence was standing on the bank of the river, wondering if you would survive the deep water and the strong currents.

Jonah didn’t know how the word “love” had crept into his tormented thoughts, just as “jealousy” had, but he shoved it away, too.

He thought about his email friend. The one who actually wanted to see him.

The one who didn’t make his blood roar in his ears or his heart rate accelerate.

The one who was just as smart as Allegra and just as interesting.

“Sure,” was all he said when he realized Allegra was still waiting for a response. “We can be friends.”

Even he could hear how icy he sounded, but it made Allegra laugh. A few minutes later, she was offering him a burger wrapped in tinfoil. He stared at it, her outstretched hand an offer of a truce.

He took the burger.

They sat in silence for a moment, while he worked on the shelves and took breaks to chew.

“Why did you think I was going to be stuck-up?”

She asked him the question without reproach but he felt shame at the memory of their first meeting. “I don’t know.”

He glanced at her and was surprised to see apprehension in her eyes.

“Did my dad say that I am?”

“God, no,” Jonah said, and he was so desperate to relieve her of her anxiety, he accidentally blurted out the truth. “I googled you and—you were so beautiful, I got flustered and had to tell myself you weren’t very nice to people in order to get control of myself again.”

She was clearly stunned at this revelation, as was Jonah.

He didn’t add that he had since learned how deep that beauty went.

He was amazed by her memory, her varied reading tastes and her quick wit.

He was astonished by her composure when confronted with boorish, bullish people with no understanding of boundaries.

“It wasn’t from George,” he added. “He was so thrilled you were coming.”

Allegra regarded her fellow bookseller as he worked away at his task.

She had noticed how handy he was around her father’s shop.

While he and Simon had worked there in chorus, their employment time almost identical, Jonah was the one who knew everything.

He fixed things. He found things. He knew every contact.

He called Mary and Nick, the part-time booksellers, when George forgot.

He took the deliveries. He checked the stock and the orders. He spoke to the wholesalers.

He was indispensable.

So she had often wondered about him. When the two of them fought, when it got messy, she wondered why no one defended him.

Perhaps it was because he almost always started it.

They would bicker and bite at each other and everyone watched as though they were hired entertainment.

It made her feel like she was playing a part in some film, only she couldn’t walk off set and leave it behind.

When Jonah would storm off, no one followed.

She wondered why a loyal employee, one who was integral to the business, was treated so coldly by her father.

Especially when Jonah showed the man such loyalty.

“Do you like living in such a small town?” she asked him.

She watched him visibly consider the question, while he worked.

He smelled incredible. He always did. Allegra was so used to adolescent men smelling of unwashed odor, it was something poor makeup artists often whispered to the third ADs about on set.

Wardrobe, too. They would quietly beg the thirds to have a word with the actor, perhaps suggesting that the scene would be more comfortable for everyone to shoot if he were showered.

Jonah always smelled of a delicious cologne with undertones of soap, applied generously all over.

His clothes were always fresh. She had seen him, during her second week in town, carrying large bags over to the launderette.

He was, according to Simon, fastidious about cleanliness.

He had criticized some of her dusting once.

That had turned into the argument of all arguments, partly because Allegra was embarrassed to have been found wanting.

Now, as he worked with a hammer and screws and wood, there was the slightest sheen on his face.

His shirt had ridden up slightly as he lay on the ground to fix the bottom shelf with supports.

They were very close and she couldn’t quite bring herself to examine what she was feeling.

She didn’t want to wonder why she was staying there, when she should be out having a perfectly nice time with Simon.

She shouldn’t be here with the sullen one.

“I like it fine,” he said, answering her question while oblivious to her thoughts. “It’s a bit much, at this time of year. Population triples and all that. And people always know your business. But it’s nice enough.”

“Don’t answer if it’s too personal,” she said quietly, “but isn’t it hard? Being autistic in a small town?”

His eyes lifted to hers for a moment while he pondered the question, and possibly her intentions. “Yeah. Can be. But I don’t know any different. I’ve always lived here.”

“Was school horrible?” It had been for her. In fact, it had been unbearable. Leaving for a film set, with homework in her trailer, had been so much better.

“Yes.”

There were a thousand stories in the one word he uttered. Allegra almost didn’t need to know more. She could imagine. Or rather, she could remember.

“You said autistic.”

She frowned at him. “Yes. Is that—”

“Most people say ‘with autism.’ I hate it. Makes it sound like I have a little hamster in my pocket called Autism.”

Allegra laughed at that. “Autistic is much better. Sounds more… whole.”

“Exactly.”

They smiled at each other for a moment before Allegra looked away.

“Don’t waste a nice summer evening in here with me,” Jonah said. “I’m doing the boring stuff. Too hot out there, anyhow. For me, that is. Don’t let the cold air out when you leave.”

Allegra wanted to say that it was too hot for her, too.

She wondered if he would believe her. She wanted to tell him her secret.

She flinched at the fluorescent lights, just as he did.

They both asked people to explain things when they were choosing vagueness and politeness over direct communication.

They both winced when the shrill landline rang.

They stimmed. They took their breaks in isolation, to decompress from the overstimulation and the masking.

Look at me , she wanted to say. We’re so similar. Maybe that’s why we have such friction. We’re two stones scraping together and the sparks come off because we’re just the same.

She said nothing, though. She was meeting Simon. Their email relationship was about to come off the page.