Page 92 of Wish You Were Her
“And then they wheel you out every night at ten-thirty?”
“Wheel me out?! Wait, why are you clapping, don’t turn on me!”
The audience roared as Ellis cartoonishly chastised them and Allegra smiled in victory. It was extraordinary. She had quickly moved the conversation away from the elephant in the room. Her long legs, her sparkling Jimmy Choos and her knowing smile—it was still Allegra, but it was like Allegra with an extra gear. She was a supernova.
“She’s… so good at this,” Grace remarked, her voice almost inaudible. They both stared up at the screen in amazement.
“So, you’ve got a new movie coming out in a couple of weeks,” the late-night host said, continuing with the interview after the audience quietened. “It’s calledMaybe in Waitingand it’s—well, you tell them what it’s about.”
“Sure,” Allegra glowed as she crossed one leg over the other. “So, it’s directed by Diego Charlotte—”
“Who just won the Academy Award for Best Director.”
“Yes, sure did—”
“ForTime in Tinseltown—”
“—forTime in Tinseltown, yes. Anyway, so yeah, he’s directing and it’s about this cafe in Paris and like a lot of his work, his incredible work, it’s very old Hollywood. And it’s about this guy, played by the amazing—”
“Auden Bishop.”
“Yes, he’s unbelievable. He plays this guy stuck in this Parisian cafe while it’s raining and me, and the rest of the ensemble cast, are the, sort of, colorful characters he meets as they all wait for the downpour to stop.”
“Sounds great, here’s a clip!”
As the show started playing a scene fromMaybe in Waiting, Grace turned to Jonah. “This is the one she’s taking us to. The premiere.”
Jonah swallowed, as he watched this apparently amazing male actor and Allegra as they moved about the screen in the clip from their film. “If she still wants us to go.”
“She will, Jonah, she’s not mad at you. She just had to get out of this town.”
“I’m just,” Jonah stared up at her face, the face he had held in his hands, the face that had haunted him for weeks. “I’ve never been good at knowing what to do or say in social situations, let alone unusual situations…”
“Yeah?”
“But when I’m with Allegra, it feels so easy. I just want to love her and tell her she’s perfect. But that’s not socially acceptable. So, I panicked and made so many stupid mistakes.”
“But it wasn’t your fault that the two of you got photographed. And she knows that. She’s not stupid. Let her put out this fire. Then try again.”
As Jonah stared up at the screen, he knew he had to move. In the chess game of his life, he had to get to the other side of the board somehow. Lake Pristine stayed the same. It was a town in a beautiful painting or the inside of a snow globe. It was hard to change inside it. He needed to wake himself up from its comforting spell.
He didn’t want anyone else’s life. Not in Lake Pristine,anyway. He wanted a life that couldn’t be found in a small place, with comfortable people.
He was not going to leave his teenage years, grow old and be that guy getting drunk in the afternoons and talking about the time he had almost loved a movie star.
He had to be something else. Something better.
Allegra had learned to smile broadly every time Ellis interrupted her. While most late-night hosts were now young men who had been comedy writers or cast members onSaturday Night Live, Ellis was more old-school. He was usually more famous than his guests, and he knew it. Allegra’s fame was the kind he would find a little intimidating, so she anticipated some male foolery from him. His show was a small kingdom, where everyone fawned and bowed. Allegra had been reminded about how lucky she was to be squeezed in, lucky because they had bumped an up-and-coming comic until the following day so that she could have the slot.
Now, as Ellis smiled in a way that told Allegra he was about to turn, she braced herself. She was not afraid. She was playing a role. The mask had grown to cover her entire body. It was a terrible sort of armor, now necessary and employed like an octopus ready to ink.
Autistic girls were told they were their own worst enemies, but Allegra knew that was a neurotypical lie. She was her own ally. She was her own protector. She let her true self curl up into a ball inside a small room in her heart, a frightened eighteen-year-old in the fetal position, whileshetook over.
She. The person Allegra became when it was time to pretend. To seduce, to entertain, to convince. It was a choice so many actresses had been forced to make, autistic or not. ShouldI be her? she asked herself, whenever she stared at her own reflection in the dressing room mirror.
“Now, Allegra,” Ellis said, as the applause for the film clip died down, “let’s get serious for a moment.”
Allegra did not let her smile fade. “Sure, Ellis, let’s. That sounds fun.”
