Wish You Were Her(95)

Jonah Thorne merely smiled at the question, before nodding to the coffee table. “We got that for five pounds at a flea market.”

Both the subtext and the remonstration were clear. She was not in their home to hear about their private life.

“Do you,” Madison had no idea of how to phrase her question so it fell out rather bluntly, “want to talk at all about being autistic?”

Something unnameable passed through Allegra’s eyes and then she smiled and gave a small hiccup of a laugh. “No, not really.”

Madison was both taken aback and a little embarrassed. She had hoped that maybe Allegra would share some secret about interior design and autism. Not that Madison knew anything about the latter, hence why she had asked.

A boundary made clear.

Allegra showed them the kitchen and a few of the smaller rooms but the bedroom remained unseen, another boundary the young actress was very clear about. Madison couldn’t help but notice the pair as the photographer took shots of the apartment. They were always touching, in small almost unnoticeable ways. He was always checking on her and she was always throwing him reassuring smiles. It was as if they were communicating telepathically.

Madison took notes with only the slightest feeling of envy and bitterness.

“Do you two have any plans for this evening?” she asked, as they were packing up their equipment to leave. When the pair looked reticent to answer, she added, “Off the record.”

“Nothing’s ever off the record,” Allegra said, but she was smiling. “Our friend Grace has a dance showcase with her conservatory peers tonight. We’re going to see that.”



* * *



When Madison was gone, the pair breathed a sigh of relief and started to laugh.

“Why do neurotypicals stare so much?” Jonah asked gruffly, as they kicked off their shoes and collapsed onto their sofa.

“Because we’re weird aliens to them, even if they don’t exactly know it,” Allegra told him, putting her feet in his lap. He immediately began to stroke them soothingly.

“Hey, that Zoom I had booked in for tomorrow got moved to next week,” Allegra told her boyfriend. “Want to do something normal tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.”

“Book shopping then the park?”

“Plus vanilla ice cream.”

“Perfect.”

And so they sat, just the two of them, in a private slice of the universe that no one else was allowed to access.

For autism means, in one’s own world.

And that’s what they were: each other’s whole world.

The End.





Acknowledgments


This book is for the real ones who yes, love You’ve Got Mail but also know all about Shop Around the Corner with Jimmy Stewart. You are my people. See also, She Loves Me.

Thank you to the entire First Ink team at Pan Macmillan, from editorial to sales to marketing and to the social media crew.

Thank you to Emma for letting me pitch you this story after a presentation at the Barbican where I had to talk about making out with people in front of a Booker winner and the founder of the Women’s Prize. And thank you for lots of other reasons that are less funny.

Thank you to Eileen and the entire US team at Wednesday Books.

Thank you to Beth who did so much brilliant work on Some Like it Cold before escaping to Oz.

Thank you to Louisa for being an absolute rock. We have an inside joke about crowd sizes that must, sadly, go to the grave but I appreciate you so much.

Thank you to every single person who read, reviewed and wrote about Some Like it Cold.

Thank you to everyone who has ever given me a gig.

Thank you to Peters and Books Are My Bag for making me an award-nominated Young Adult Author. It was very validating. I’m not embarrassed to admit it.

Thank you to all of the assistants, from the agency to the publishers, who work so hard to keep things running.

Thank you to Lauren, Paul and Callen.

Thank you to the booksellers. I remember how hard your job is and I’ll never forget what you do.

Thank you to author friends, who are kind and don’t scan the party for more advantageous connections.

Thank you to Josh and my family.

To all of my colleagues at A Kind of Spark (TV). You are the best. I’m so glad we have fun together. From many award show wins to tortoise wrangling or changing the world one frame at a time. Before Brooks Books, there was Do Good Books. Love you all.

And to Lola. Congrats on being (I think) the first openly autistic actor to receive an EMMY NOMINATION for playing an openly autistic character (Addie in A Kind of Spark, season two). You are extraordinary and you have given a voice and strength to thousands.

Thank you to [redacted] for teaching me all about being a celebrity’s plus one.

And maybe a bit of an acknowledgment to me, five years ago. I was so scared. I wrote a little book about being autistic and then everything became a roller coaster. I did my best. I always try to.

And thank you to you. If you’ve come to an event and been kind. Said something nice on social media. Or just understood and empathized with the fact that being a young autistic woman in the public eye, especially after starting out when there were basically none of us, has been a learning experience and sometimes very overwhelming. All of the tweets/DMs in this story have been said to me. If you’ve been kind, you’re one of the reasons I’m still here.