Wish You Were Her(21)

A customer was examining a book over by Allegra’s new romance table when Jonah approached.

“I can find you a better edition of that novel,” he told the woman who was browsing. “You’ll have to forgive my colleague. She put out the copies with the film tie-in cover, not the classic jacket. Quite tacky. I’ll find you a better option.”

The customer looked up at him in surprise but Allegra had already flown across the room from the cash desk.

“And what of it?” she demanded of Jonah, as the would-be buyer stood in between the two glowering booksellers. “It’s the same story, the same text, under that cover, Jonah. So, what of it? Maybe she likes the movie.”

“I do like the film,” the customer said quietly. “It’s what made me want to read the book.”

Allegra gave her a warm, dazzling smile while Jonah made a noise of disgust. “And that’s exactly what’s wrong with consumerism right now. People only feel inclined to dip into the classics because they like some actor who was in the adaptation.”

“That’s not—” the woman tried to defend herself, but Allegra was already there.

“You are an outrageous snob, do you know that? Now, I never knew Jane Austen—”

“Obviously, Allegra.”

“—but I bet she would have loved for her novels to live on through moving pictures. The Bront?s, too. So, there’s no point getting all high and mighty about defending their art from wicked adaptations, because there’s nothing wrong with bringing great stories to wider audiences.”

“Austen, maybe,” snapped Jonah. “But not the Bront?s. Oh, no, they were radical to the bone; they would have hated movie tie-in covers.”

“Sentences I never thought I would have to listen to for one hundred—”

“I might just get it online,” the woman mumbled.

“No!” both Jonah and Allegra shouted at her, before turning back to each other.

“Reading is supposed to be an act of pleasure,” Allegra said silkily. She sidled up to Jonah until he was backed up against a bay of books. “Fun? Enjoyment? Pleasure! Do these words mean anything to you?”

She was already walking away before he could catch his breath and fire back an answer. Instead, he resorted to snatching a book from the fantasy table and held it up for the whole shop to see.

“What do you think of this tie-in cover?”

It was Court of Bystanders: Volume One by Pamela H. J. Wilcox. Allegra scowled at him. She was one of the actors on the jacket of the book.

“I think it looks like it was author approved,” she said sharply.

“As if,” Jonah replied. “Wilcox is a recluse, she hates the entire world. She’s been writing volume six for ten years. There is no way she endorsed this hideous cover.”

“She likes it, you jackass.”

“There is no way you’ve met Pamela H. J. Wilcox.”

“Met her? I’ve had dinner with her! Who do you think had the final say over whether I got to play Clera or not?”

The customer had scuttled out of the bookshop, her potential purchase now abandoned on the table. Jonah threw the book he had been brandishing onto its former spot and glared at Allegra.

“Leave the hand-selling to the booksellers,” he snarled. “You’ve scared away a sale.”

“Oh, I scared her away? You don’t think maybe it was you acting like a lunatic and shaming her for watching a decent adaptation of a book?”

“It’s not a decent adaptation. No one said the word ‘ex’ in a romantic context during the eighteenth century, that’s an unforgivable anachronism.”

“I am going to the computer,” Allegra said slowly, in a deeply threatening voice. “And if I find one single reference to the term ‘ex’ being used in the eighteenth century, you are done. You hand over all the best jobs with this festival to me.”

“I’ll take that wager, because you won’t find any evidence. Because that is a deranged use of language and the screenwriter should be arrested.”

Simon entered the shop with some lunch for everyone while Allegra was at the computer. Jonah watched him glance around, seeming to pick up on the frosty atmosphere despite the sweltering heat outside.

“Everything okay?”

Jonah and Allegra ignored him.

“Ha!” shouted the latter, from her place by the computer. “First documented use was 1827.”

Jonah stormed toward the cash desk and slammed his hands down on the counter. “That’s the nineteenth century!”

“Everyone knows language is used liberally and regularly among the masses before it’s documented.”

“Okay, so they start saying it in 1825 and someone writes it down in 1827. Ten years after Jane drops dead at the age of forty-one. Probably from total abject fear as she realizes that her work is going to be fundamentally misunderstood and appropriated for the next three hundred years!”

Allegra’s eyes narrowed. “Simon, where’s the stapler?”

“Okay, okay.” Simon stepped between his two colleagues and held his hands up. “Let’s cool off, it’s the heat that’s making the two of you fight, I’m guessing.”

“Sure, the humidity goes right to my lady brain,” Allegra said stiffly.