Page 36 of Wish You Were Her

By lunchtime, Jonah had had enough.

He was able to dodge the last of the remaining reporters, but he was sick of cars slowing down so Old Man Mason or his schoolfriends’ fathers could lean out of the window to congratulate him, or try to shake his hand.

He hated how Mrs. Heywood quietly asked him if he was going to make an honest woman out of “the actress.” He despised the looks, the stares and the whispers.

He was used to the small-town experience of Lake Pristine.

But this was something else entirely.

He pushed through festival-goers and burst into the small tent reserved on site for festival employees and volunteers.

Simon was standing up against the far wall with a bottle of water, talking with Kerrie and Skye.

Jonah stalked toward his ex-friend without a second care and grabbed him by the neck.

“The hell?!” squawked Simon, spluttering and spraying water everywhere as Jonah shoved him against the flimsy tent wall.

“Give me a good reason not to maim you right now,” Jonah said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Because I’m struggling, Si.”

“Let go, you lunatic.”

“No. You fucked up. What were you thinking?”

He could vaguely hear Kerrie and Skye demanding that he let Simon go, but he was too far gone.

He stared at his old friend, a friend he had always made allowances for.

Jonah had been forced to fight his way out of special needs classes, where his disability had been foolishly considered synonymous with unintelligence.

Simon, who had struggled with reading, had been his lighthouse in the storm.

They had made mischief together. Jonah had overlooked the exceedingly rare occasions where Simon had lashed out at him, and only him, attributing it to the idea he was a lot to deal with as a friend.

After all, that was all he had ever heard as a kid.

From teachers to absent fathers, he had been told he was “a lot.” So he took Simon’s sporadic flashes of meanness as the tollbooth fee on the road to having a friend.

But this latest act was too much for Jonah to unimagine. It was unforgivable. And Jonah was starting to realize that he had been the only one accepting Simon’s weaknesses while everyone else got the sunshine. And then he had made a huge mistake with Allegra.

“You’ve fucked everything, Simon,” he snarled, and he couldn’t quite manage to keep the hurt from bubbling up as he spoke. “You’ve brought a shitty tornado down on her.”

The smallest flickering of shame passed through Simon’s gray eyes before outrage took its place. “Of course this is about her!”

“She’s the one having her name and pictures splashed all over the world,” Jonah hissed. “What did you think would happen? Do you have any idea what these people are going to do to her? What they’ll print about her?”

“I wasn’t thinking, Jonah,” snapped Simon, bitterly. “Clearly! Clearly, I was not thinking. Some editor calls me in the middle of the night. Said there are pictures of me, someone put them on the internet and identified me. Asked for some confirmation. I didn’t know what to do!”

“Say ‘no comment.’ Hang up! God, Simon, you’ve never had a scam or cold call before? Just hang up the damn phone!”

“Why are you even mad?” Simon shoved Jonah, hard enough to dislodge his grip but not enough to unbalance him. “You get to look like a hero and I look like a creep!”

“You are a creep, Simon. You paraded her around like an ornament and then backed her into a corner.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Simon said, staring into Jonah’s face as though he were seeing his friend for the very first time. “I’ve always had to make excuses for you. I’ve always had to teach you shit! And she picks you? It makes no sense.”

Jonah could tell that the confusion was real. While Simon wore sunny, affable masks for most of the town, he had always been honest with Jonah. He could tell that his old schoolfriend couldn’t understand the supposed injustice of it all.

“You stole a kiss and then got pissed o—”

“Stole a kiss?” Simon laughed, a hollow sound with no humor. He threw a look to Kerrie and Skye. “Listen to him. Loves to use his big words and stupidly formal phrases. To lord it over us that he’s read everything in that shop. Fucking Cyrano right here.”

“Well, what can I say, Simon. Some of us actually read the books, we don’t just use them to flirt with customers.”

“Do you even know what flirting is, you sad freak? Because let me assure you, that’s not what Allegra was ever doing with you. And it seems like she’s fled this place as fast as possible. Think she wants to get away from you. You and your weird little fucked-up brain—”

Jonah punched him right on the jaw and he went down like a house of cards in the breeze.

Simon was momentarily disorientated, then rage and adrenaline took over his body.

He tackled Jonah to the ground and they began to scrap, landing blows and cursing between hits.

Jonah was doing more damage. He could hear Skye laughing and Kerrie shouting for help, but he had no intention of stopping. Neither, it seemed, did Simon.

They rolled on the ground and Simon even grabbed a fistful of Jonah’s dark curls before the latter was suddenly and sharply hauled away from Jonah.

The look of surprise on Simon’s face was almost comical, but when both of them realized who had broken up the fight, they grew demonstrably more serious.

George Brooks stood over both of them with enough rage and disappointment to fill the entire festival site.

“Jonah,” he finally said. “Come with me, please.”

“Shit,” whispered Skye.

“Damn,” another volunteer added, as Jonah got to his feet, a little uneasily. He followed his employer from the tent, only because he had a few things of his own to say. He threw a dark look back to Simon, who appeared to be dazed.

“Jonah! Jonah, I—”

Whatever Simon wanted to say, it was cut off as Jonah left the room. Jonah had a thumping headache and a few scratches, but Simon would have the majority of the bruises.

The festival site was made up of five tents: the main theater, the smaller venue, the green room, the staff tent and the pop-up bookshop.

The box office was a converted food truck.

There were picnic tables and bunting. It was always thus, the whole town came together to make a good showing, even if they resented their population tripling for a month.

George was leading Jonah to Brooks Books. There were customers milling about, as Mary manned the register. She bestowed both George and Jonah with a look of bemusement as they went into the back office.

The room was disorganized and cluttered, always had been, so when George told Jonah to sit, he wasn’t exactly sure where or how to do so. When he removed a delivery box of books that Simon had promised to return to the wholesaler, he discovered a spare office seat.

They faced each other in tense silence for a few moments, letting the sound of a busy, bustling town fill the small room.

“Once the festival is over, I think we should call it a day.”

Jonah blinked, stupefied. “Sorry?”

He studied his mentor’s face. Eyes that had once danced with kindness were now tired and testy. His once jovial tone was now waspish and short.

“I think it’s time you moved on from Brooks Books, Jonah.”

“Let’s just be clear,” Jonah said, adopting a cantankerous tone of his own. “You’re firing me? Don’t use euphemisms, just say it.”

“Fine. I’m letting you go.”

“Firing me, George. You’re firing me.”

“Yes.”

“But you want me to see out the rest of the festival.”

“I would appreciate it. Allegra is already a big loss to the team.”

There was real heaviness and regret in George’s words, enough for Jonah to question him. “That’s what this is actually about, right?”

George cleared his throat. “No. This is a necessary career decision, for both our sakes. And you were physically fighting in the staff tent. That will be the official reason, as it’s completely unacceptable.”

“So, Simon’s going, too?”

“No, Simon will remain.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“I won’t be spoken to like that, Jonah. I really will not be.”

“George, I’m sorry Allegra and I got seen like that. No one regrets it more than me. The photographer, that is, not… not what he was photographing—I don’t regret that part at all. I’m sorry. I know it’s the reason she’s gone back to the city. But you can’t punish me because I l—”

“It’s not about Allegra. I can’t have you starting fights.”

“How do you know I started it?”

George fixed him with a stern look. “Jonah.”

“I’d say Simon started it by handing the press all of our names! Didn’t you specifically order us not to do that, when Roxanne and Allegra first came here?”

He knew that he had spoiled his shot by saying Roxanne’s name. There was always an unspoken understanding about that, she was not to be mentioned to George. Jonah’s mother had warned him about it, before his first shift at the shop.

“ She left him long ago ,” she had told him, whispering as if the age-old gossip was dangerous. “ He’s never got over her. ”

“Don’t act like this is a decision you’ve been forced into,” Jonah added, deciding to go down in an inferno rather than a blown-out candle. You’ve been weird and cold with me all summer. Before you even knew Allegra was coming here.”

“Correct,” George acknowledged. “This has been ongoing. And today I made up my mind.”

“Why has it been ongoing? You’ve been treating me like a bad draft for months! What’s the reason?”

He thought, for a moment, George might tell him. Then his now ex-employer merely shook his head and said, “I’ve told you the reason for your termination. Will you serve your notice?”

Jonah stared at the older man, desperately trying to see a little of Allegra in him. If they had shared the same eyes or smile, he might have felt comforted for the briefest moment, as if he had her back.

But there was nothing of Allegra in her father.