Wish You Were Her(43)

The question came from Nick, one of their part-time booksellers. He was with his partner at the table by the window and they were looking at Jonah with concern.

“Nothing,” Jonah said, sounding less broken than he felt. “Professional disagreement.”

“About the festival?”

“Sure.” He despised the Lake Pristine Tax. “Something like that.”

“Don’t let anything spoil your last year with the festival.”

“I won’t—what?”

Jonah turned in his chair to look properly at Nick. The man looked surprised by the follow-up question, or perhaps by Jonah’s slightly indignant tone.

“I just meant,” Nick scrambled for words, “you’ll be going to uni or to the city after the summer, won’t you? Like Simon? Getting out of here.”

Jonah felt like someone had tied a piece of wire around his neck. People kept making comments like this to him. To his mother in the bakery as she worked. To him at the market. George, a few months after Christmas, had also mentioned it a lot. Jonah had finally grown tired of it and told the older man that he had no plans to leave town.

“I…” Jonah spoke around the invisible wire. “I don’t know what I would do. Or where I would go.”

“That’s the fun of it, isn’t it?” Nick said gently. “Finding out?”

“Maybe,” Jonah said, staggering to his feet. “Sorry, Nick, I have to go.”

He fled, leaving Middlemarch and the rose in his wake.





Chapter Sixteen


Allegra stood among a crowd of volunteers, authors, book lovers and curious townspeople while her father made a welcome speech and she tried to smile through it. She had endeavored to shed the shock of finding Jonah instead of Simon, hoping to leave it lying on the steps of the cafe like an old newspaper.

But it was all still with her.

She was soaked in feelings. So she did what her job had taught her: she beamed and clapped during all of the correct pauses and focused on other people.

All great actors made everything about their scene partners. They did not indicate or become consumed with their own performance. They fixed all of their attention on other people and reacted accordingly.

Strangely, she felt his arrival. She didn’t look behind her, or even away from her father onstage, but she knew from the little fish swimming up and down her spine that he was in the tent. She was insanely aware of him.

“This year, we have a very special festival program for you. But before we start celebrating the incredible authors we have visiting Lake Pristine this year—” George spoke warmly to the crowd, a warmth he seemed to reserve for strangers; for eccentric older gentlemen who wanted to buy travel books for cities they had no intention of visiting; for opinionated women who wanted to debate political non-fiction with him; for children picking out their first independent read; for young men browsing memoirs and hiding from novels written by women.

He had all the time in the world for books and the people who made or loved them.

“This summer is extremely special because my daughter, Allegra, is taking a break from being the biggest superstar on the planet to get some work experience with us.”

The room laughed and applauded and Allegra turned a little pink at the praise. She winced internally at the kind, if not hyperbolic, description. She was intensely aware of how many people were bigger stars than she. It was impossible to avoid such knowledge in her industry. The pecking order was not written down anywhere, but it was understood.

Nevertheless, she smiled at all of the faces that were staring at her. She tried to ignore the anxious clawing of common sense. Her father shouldn’t be drawing attention to her presence in town, but it would break both of their hearts if she made him stop.

“Ally’s mother and I are so proud of her and it means a lot to have her here, working with her old man, this summer.”

When some patrons of the festival began to make speeches, Allegra moved toward the other side of the tent. She could see Simon and Kerrie with some of the festival volunteers.

“Hey,” Simon greeted her with such open cheeriness, it made her all the more deflated over her pen-pal’s unmasking. “I haven’t seen you all night.”

“Had to deliver a message to Jonah,” she said, seeing no reason to be dishonest. “And it ended in our usual.”

“A massive argument?” Simon surmised.

“Yes.”

“Poor Jonah,” Kerrie said. Allegra sensed something mournful in the other girl’s tone. “He gets so muddled up. He means well.”

“Nah, Kerrie,” Simon said, picking up a paper plate from the catering table. He loaded it with meat cuts, grapes and cheese without asking if anyone else would like any. “He’s weird with Allegra. Different.”

“Well, she is a beautiful movie star,” Kerrie said, turning to beam at Allegra.

“Well, Beautiful Movie Star. There’s an after-party to this rather dull launch party at my house in a bit, if you want to spend time with the rest of the under-fifties.”

Allegra smiled at Simon, in spite of herself. She found herself suddenly at ease with him, now that he was just the nice guy she worked with and not the architect behind the emails she would reread over and over again. “Sounds good.”