Page 95 of Wish You Were Her
She had a few weeks left of her summer break, so to speak, before the premiere forMaybe in Waiting. Then, the publicity tour would need her for appearances. She hoped these pictures would be yesterday’s news by then. She had made a date with Jasper to come and see the apartment, as she urgently wanted to get started on the bedroom. She loved that Jasper had a different way of working as a designer, and that she was keen to be deeply collaborative with Allegra.
There was a queen-size bed in Allegra’s bedroom suite and nothing else. Her phone lay on the floorboards, charging, and it was the only light in the dark room. She lay back against the Egyptian cotton and closed her eyes. In the dark, she wished he was lying next to her.
Her phone flashed as a voice note arrived from Jasper.
When Allegra played it, the designer’s voice could be heard saying, “Hey, so, I have a slightly tipsy, lovesick man at my boyfriend’s cinema right now and he won’t stop talking about you. I was wondering if it would be okay (when he’s sober) for me to give him your personal number? Totally okay if not, he doesn’t even know I’m asking you so won’t know if you said no.”
Allegra hesitated. She liked Jonah, even more than she wantedto admit. But she didn’t want him to try and make up for what happened at the Lakehouse. She didn’t want him to reach out to her from a place of guilt.
Now that she was back in the barren, isolated apartment in the city—it was hard for her to trust.
But she gave Jasper the okay. The heart wanted things, things that the head had been told were not possible.
Miles away in Lake Pristine, Jonah tried to slip into his bedroom without crossing paths with his mother. He had just fired off a risky email to a tiny press he admired in the city. They would often bring the bookshop their latest releases by hand, they had no money, but he loved what they printed. He hoped that, when they read his email in the morning, they would overlook the late hour of its arrival.
He quietly washed his face, brushed his teeth and he was about to slide into his bedroom when all of the apartment was suddenly bathed in light.
His mother stood in her bathrobe by the living room door.
“Hey,” Jonah said, trying to sound as sober as possible. “Thought you were asleep.”
“Nope. Wide awake, worrying about you.”
“I’m fine, Ma.”
“No, you’re not fine. Those pictures are everywhere. I heard all about what happened between you and Simon. His father told me in the checkout line. Said he’s nursing a real shiner on his face.”
“Serves him right for what he did.”
“Jonah—”
“I applied for a job tonight,” he said, and at that, something changed between them, in their home, forever.
His mother stared at him. “You what?”
“Matuschek Press. In the city. One of their editors got stolen by a corporate publisher so there’s an opening for an assistant. I applied.”
“You’re eighteen! They’ll hire someone with a degree, Jonah. Someone with more experience.”
He knew it was her worry speaking.
“Maybe not. They don’t have a lot of money to play with.”
“Jonah,” she stepped toward him, looking afraid. “What’s happening? Everything suddenly has to change for you, it seems. These decisions seem to come out of nowhere, because you don’t talk me through your thinking.”
“I can’t talk through my thinking myself, Ma,” he said honestly. “I—you know I can’t. You know I don’t think like you do. Or like most people do.”
“I know,” she said despondently. “But this is all just…”
“It’s time, Ma,” he said gently. “I keep thinking about graduation. Sitting there, everyone heading off to bigger things. Teachers who told me I would never even pass finals asking where I’m going next. I’m staying at Brooks and working for George, I would say. And I believed it.”
“It’s a wonderful job and it suits you so well,” his mother said and Jonah could tell by her tone that the news of his firing had not reached her. “You love working there.”
“I do. Idid,” he acknowledged. “Itwasan amazing job. But I’m not supposed to be there anymore. George never let me buy in certain titles, exciting titles. He never will. He can’t stand books about relationships breaking down because his did. He’s snobbish about new authors. So, if I can’t fill the shop with the stories I want, I have to go out and write them myself.”
Vivienne Thorne exhaled and rubbed her temples. Shelooked around the small apartment they shared, the one they had lived in their whole lives.
“I thought you might want to take over the shop,” she said, her tone a little desperate. It wasn’t a conversation they had even danced around before.
