Wish You Were Her(94)
“Don’t mention it.”
“I have to go and tell everyone. I don’t even know how to choose!”
Allegra laughed and watched the other girl scamper over to what looked like her wider family, all of whom were sitting at the far side of the beach. As she approached, they cheered uproariously and her father raised a bottle of champagne into the air with a triumphant cry.
Allegra smiled and turned away. Her phone chirped. It was one of those notifications that she knew would be important, though how she knew that she couldn’t say. She checked it. Her agent.
Hey, kiddo. The spin-off we were hoping to see greenlit has been canceled. I’m sorry, bub. I know we were hopeful about this. More soon, lots of other irons in the fire. Call me.
A year ago, it would have levelled Allegra. She had buried herself in ambition in the hope that someone would finally anoint her and tell her that she was enough. Little autistic girl, you finally proved to the world you were useful. You finally got them to look at you like a person and not some strange alien who crash-landed all over their well-made plans. She would have pulled her hair out and bartered with the universe and searched the lines in her palm and other people’s emails for an answer as to why she was never enough for anyone.
Now, things were different. And as she saw a once sullen bookseller making his way toward her from the distance, she knew with complete certainty that the girl from before, the one who worried about approval and popularity, was gone.
She reached her arm back and hurled the phone. She watched it soar through the air and hit the lake like a star falling from the sky. She imagined it sinking, with all the opinions and unsolicited feedback drowning with it. They could sit on the bottom of Lake Pristine for evermore.
She would have her career. She would prosper and flourish. But not for the price of sacrificing love. Or sacrificing home.
Maybe all of the validation she had needed from those faceless people was the ghost she could finally give up. Perhaps she could forge something real from the people who looked at the true Allegra and loved her completely.
Jonah reached her spot by the edge of the water and sat next to her, pulling her into his lap. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.”
“Did I just see you throw your phone into the lake?”
She grinned and pulled his mouth to hers. “Maybe.”
He kissed her and then said, “They say there’s a mermaid in there.”
“Well then, she can deal with all the barracudas for me.”
“Speaking of barracudas, I spoke to Simon.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“He apologized. I said he has to order every single book Matuschek Press publishes and put each one in the window.”
“Seems fair.”
When the fireworks began, Allegra and Jonah were more interested in each other, the fireworks between the two of them finally directed in the right path. As Jonah kissed her, he caught sight of a pair of girls filming on their smartphones. He drew back and cleared his throat.
“Don’t want you getting on anymore morning shows,” he said quietly. “That Julie woman might explode.”
Allegra rolled her eyes and then smiled at him. She pressed her lips to his once more and spoke softly against his mouth.
“Let them look, I don’t care.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Eight months later
The reporter from Architectural Digest walked around Allegra Brooks’s apartment with the photographer and openly marveled at the decor.
“This is not the apartment of a regular nineteen-year-old,” Madison Swayne told Allegra Brooks, who was dressed in loose Levi jeans and a vintage crop top. Her boyfriend had his arm around her waist and wore a discerning expression. His protectiveness radiating from him like a warning to strangers.
Any disrespect would earn them a sharp word and an order to leave.
“All thanks to Jasper Montgomery,” Allegra said, handing the designer’s business card over. “She’s available to answer any questions, probably with better detail than me.”
Madison took in the reception room of the classic apartment. The wallpaper was a fine teal with flecks of foiled gold. The chandelier was vintage and not too grand. The room was not designed around a television, as though it were a nucleus dictating the rest of the furnishings. There were shelves of books everywhere and the sofas and chairs were all turned to face the coffee table in the middle of the room
“And you met your designer on holiday last summer?”
“Sort of. She’s a good friend now.”
Madison cast another quick glance at the boyfriend. “And you’re an editor, yes?”
“A junior one. I’m still learning.”
Madison knew a lot about him from her own internet sleuthing. He was young but his first poetry anthology had been reprinted multiple times, helped along by Allegra posting a picture of it to her millions of followers on publication day. A small subsection of her fans were dedicated to learning more about him. Madison had looked over their messages on a forum. They liked how publicly grumpy he seemed, only ever smiling if Allegra was speaking to him. He avoided the limelight and it only made him more enticing to his new online fans.
“What’s it like going out with one of the most in-demand actresses of our time?”
Ever since Allegra’s speech at the Made in Waiting premiere had gone viral, she had been in extreme demand. Her schedule was full for the next few years and she had written some essays on neurodivergence in film that had started numerous industry conversations. A hashtag about disability representation in media had caught fire as a result, and she was now in a position to be very picky about her projects.