Wish You Were Her(35)

She gently massaged the small dollops of white cream into his face and jawline. He felt every molecule react to the touch. He noticed that she smelled of lemons.

His family and teachers had always lovingly teased him about his more emotional side. While he was prone to stoicism and terse responses, his demeanor had been occasionally shattered by the odd pretty face and the adults around him had always found it extremely amusing.

“Thanks,” was all he managed to say to Allegra. He avoided eye contact and held his breath, turning himself to hardened stone in the hope that it would conceal all of his blatant awareness of her.

“ALLEGRA BROOKS!”

A voice shattered the moment, and Jonah watched Allegra’s face as she looked toward the intrusive sound.

Saffron, who worked in the newly opened Lake Pristine salon, was sprinting toward them with her phone already primed for taking a picture.

“You’re the talk of the whole town,” she gushed, on reaching them. “I didn’t believe my sister when she said you were here for the summer.”

“Hello,” Allegra said, in a serene and unflustered tone that did not for a moment convey the strangeness of this stranger’s presumed intimacy and familiarity. “Nice to meet you.”

It was a jarring scene for Jonah to watch. Saffron had greeted Allegra like they were old friends, or at least acquaintances. Allegra was warm and polite, but Jonah was waiting for her to address the truth of the situation.

Saffron did not know Allegra.

Social rules mattered to Jonah, as an autistic. Not because they made sense or felt natural to him, but because he had been punished so severely for breaking them, as a younger neurodivergent person.

He watched Allegra hold herself like a canvas, awaiting the colorful paint of another person’s expectations and wants.

He hated it.

Saffron was taking pictures with Allegra without asking. Allegra smiled into the young woman’s lens, but Jonah knew her well enough now to see that it was forced.

It was the kind of expression he had forced out of himself when the school picture photographer yelled, “Smile.” It was a plea as much as it was a surrender.

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.”