The Wrong Name, The Wrong Love novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: One Middle Seat

She buys her own seat to Lisbon and finds her best friend is being announced as the singer's mystery fan.

I went to the ticket counter on the other side of the terminal and laid my passport down.

"Lisbon," I said. "Today, if there's a seat."

The agent typed with two fingers.

"There's one on the 6:05 through Newark. It's a middle seat. It's $1,486."

That was most of the savings I had been keeping for a new roof for Nan's porch.

I thought about the porch for about as long as it took to breathe in.

"Take the card," I said.

While the printer ran, I called Nan.

She picked up on the second ring, the way she always did.

"You're supposed to be in the air, Louisa."

"I'm still in Columbus. Brianna put Connor on my ticket again."

The line was quiet.

"Again," Nan said.

"I'm going anyway. I just bought my own seat."

"Good." I heard the kettle click off. "Don't call her. Don't call him. Send me a picture of the Atlantic."

"Nan, you can't see the Atlantic from a middle seat."

"Then send me a picture of the man who sold you the middle seat."

I laughed, and my throat hurt while I did it.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

It was Connor. *Come on, Lou. Don't do this on my first trip. Brianna is crying in the bathroom.*

Then Brianna. *You're making me look insane in front of everyone. I'll fix it from Lisbon, I swear.*

I texted our landlord instead.

*Connor Banning is not on my lease and will not be living in 4C after Sunday. Please change the lock Monday morning and I'll pay the fee.*

He sent back a thumbs-up.

It was the most useful thing anyone had said to me all day.

The 6:05 left forty minutes late.

My middle seat was between a man asleep on his own shoulder and a woman in her forties with a pen behind her ear and a faded tour shirt over her cardigan.

She was already deep into her phone when I sat down.

She had a printed lyric sheet on her tray table, too, marked up in three colors of ink.

Over Newark I stopped pretending not to see it.

"Are you going to the Lisbon show?" I asked.

She looked up at me, amazed.

"Both nights. Do you know his stuff?"

"A little."

"Then you know about T."

My stomach went small and hard.

"Who's T.?" I said.

She turned in her seat to face me, delighted.

"There's a whole thread about it. Eli's last album is built on letters from one fan. Four years of them. She signs every one with just a T., so nobody knows who she is."

She pushed her lyric sheet toward me and put her finger under a verse.

"Your grandmother's hands shook at the stove," she read. "And you wrote it down like it was nothing."

I did not say anything.

The next line was the one about the dog.

"And Biscuit sleeps on your feet in all your pictures," she said. "People think she's from Ohio, because of the postmarks."

My dog had been named Biscuit.

My dog had died last March.

Nobody has ever seen a picture of her but Nan, Connor and Brianna.

"There's a coffee ring on letter nine," the woman said. "He talks about it in every interview. Somebody set a mug on the page, and he wouldn't let anyone scan it clean."

I had set the mug there.

I had been crying into it, and I had mailed the letter anyway.

"Is that really a lyric?" I asked. My voice came out very ordinary. "The grandmother."

"It's the whole second verse." She smiled. "And the best part is, T. is finally coming out. The label held a contest in the fan club. The winner gets to meet him on stage in Lisbon."

She turned her phone around so I could see.

It was the tour's official page.

The post was brand new.

In the photo, a blonde woman in sunglasses stood in a bright arrivals hall, holding her phone against her chest.

Beside her, a man in a black jacket held up a laminated sign.

The sign said *T.*

The caption said, *She's here. Eli's T. has landed in Lisbon.*

Under the photo, a grinning man in a fresh black tour shirt had his arm around her shoulders.

The tag was still tucked in his collar.

I looked at the face under the sunglasses until my eyes stopped working.

Brianna had not borrowed my notebook for a playlist.

She had borrowed my words.

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