Wish You Were Her(6)

Which resulted in pneumonia. Her agent, Maria, had screamed at the producer for over an hour as Allegra was wheeled off to get an X-ray.

Now, almost a year later, she was weaker in the lungs and desperate for sunshine. She had never been to Lake Pristine but her mother had assured her that it was at its most beautiful in the summer. As the car sped closer and closer, the pale gray clouds turned to iridescent blue skies.

“If it weren’t for the nosy busybodies, I’d consider moving back,” Roxanne said. “Or at least staying with you this summer.”

Allegra wondered how true that was. Her mother was very happy in the city, far from the small town she had grown up in. But Allegra still believed that old ghosts were the reason Roxanne stayed away.

“I’m going to be normal for four whole months,” she said softly.

Roxanne kept her eyes on the long stretch of road ahead, which was baking in the sun and casting illusions of water. She reached over to squeeze her daughter’s arm.

“Don’t you worry about ‘normal,’” she said, just as softly. “Not a good enough word for you.”

Allegra tried to smile. “Ma? Did you read the Eyewitness piece on me?”

Her mother scoffed derisively. “I did. Then I looked up the journalist’s background. Her parents are both giants in the newspaper world and she was fired from a previous job for plagiarism. I don’t know where she found the audacity—”

“Should I tell people I’m autistic?”

Roxanne pulled her car over to the side of the road. She turned off the engine and shifted her body to face Allegra.

“Ally, where has this come from?”

Allegra stared at the long road ahead of them and all of the cruel comments people had been making about her heaved into her mouth. “I’m not like other people. And they’re starting to work it out, Ma.”

“Tough. It’s not their business.”

“I keep thinking, maybe it should be. Maybe I should, I don’t know, come out of the library, so to speak.”

“Do you want to?”

Allegra thought about what her publicist would say. Natalie firmly believed that telling the world would only narrow her opportunities and force her into the unwanted role of a spokesperson. “I don’t know. I want people … I want them to know there is a reason why I do things the way I do. That journalist called me cold. I’m not cold.”

At the end of the article, Julie M. Atkins had quipped that a summer of rest was probably “too much warmth for the frosty, unapproachable, impenetrable Miss Brooks.”

That closing line lingered in Allegra’s memory. It had burned into her sense of self with a sticking quality that kind compliments never seemed to achieve.

“If you’re going to be public about it I want you to be completely ready and happy,” Roxanne said carefully, and Allegra could tell by her mother’s expression that there was no fear over her daughter’s reputation or public image, just her mental health. It felt like a balm. “Once you give private parts of your life to the press, it’s out of the box forever.”

Allegra had learned that fans could get obsessed by the smallest details. She had been in the industry for years but landing the role of Clera had changed everything—the public attention on her had tripled. Her horoscope had been hotly debated by early fans, until her birth chart was made public by a stranger. Her fashion was discussed and dissected on daytime talk shows. If she was dating somebody, their whole identity would be put on trial to decide which one of the pair was unworthy. The slow burn had become a wildfire because of one little golden idol.

Allegra sat back. “Well. It’s something I’m considering.”

“Okay,” Roxanne said, gently starting the car again. “Are you sure you don’t want to pal around with me in the city all summer? We can do pedicures every day!”

Allegra was rarely ever at home with her mother. Her jobs were filmed all over the world, and although she had a flat in the city she was never there. She felt piercing guilt at her mother’s hopeful tone. But she was craving the anonymity of a small town, where people were too busy worrying about a festival with lots of famous authors to care about one little actor. She would be George’s out-of-town daughter, not a cover girl.

Her father would always tell her stories about the eccentric townspeople of Lake Pristine. Maybe it was one too many luncheons or benefits or after-parties, but something in Allegra needed to experience the eccentricity for herself. She wanted the mundane. The habitual. The antithesis of la-la land.

“I want to be as far away from multiple smartphones and large crowds as possible. I’m going to give Lake Pristine a shot.”

“Well, I’m always on the other end of the phone.”

“Yup. As is Maria. And Natalie. And the studio. And—”

“And me, more than anyone. I mean it. Do they want you doing anything or are you allowed the whole summer off?”

“I have a premiere in August. Other than that, it’s mostly Zooms.”

“All right. You need a proper break, Ally. I’ve told your father that. I know you want to help him with the festival, but if you need a day by the lake with a glass of something sparkly, that’s just what the doctor ordered and he has to allow it. And! If you’re able to snap a picture of one of my authors’ books while lounging by the lake, that would be great, too.”