Madly Yours novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: On Speaker

Porter takes Allegra's call in front of his 'deaf' fiancée and admits he paid the driver's lawyer; Colette records it, leaves the ring on his pillow and flies home, where a man with a cane signs that he's the madman.

The ER doctor wrote on a whiteboard because my chart said deaf.

YOUR SHOULDER IS DISLOCATED. THIS WILL HURT.

I nodded.

He braced his knee on the bed and pulled.

The joint went back in with a wet clunk I felt in my teeth.

I didn't make a sound.

I couldn't have if I'd wanted to.

A nurse glued the cut at my hairline and cleaned the scratch on my cheek.

She talked to the other nurse the whole time, right over my head.

"Fiancé's not coming?"

"Somebody said he left with another girl."

"God. With her like this?"

I watched the ceiling tiles and pretended I hadn't heard a word.

It was the first time I'd done it on purpose.

People had been talking over me for thirteen months.

They put my arm in a sling at midnight and sent me home in a cab.

Porter's condo was dark.

I sat on the couch in my gin-soaked sweater and didn't turn on a light.

At ten to three, the lock turned.

He came in loosening his tie.

He saw me and jumped.

Then he smiled the smile he used on waiters.

"Jesus, babe. You scared me."

He crossed the room and kissed the top of my head.

He smelled like hotel soap.

"You can't hear a word I'm saying, can you?"

He said it slow and fond.

He'd never learned a single sign.

In thirteen months, not one.

He pulled something out of his jacket and tossed it on the coffee table.

My velvet box.

"One of the guys grabbed it off the bar," he said to the empty room.

He flipped it open and read the card.

"I can hear you." He snorted. "What does that even mean."

He snapped it shut and dropped it.

His phone buzzed.

He glanced at me, then at the screen, then put it on speaker and walked to the bar cart.

"Hey," he said softly. "How's the ankle?"

"It's fine." Allegra laughed. "It was always fine."

I slid my phone out from under my thigh.

I opened the voice memo app with my thumb and pressed the red button.

"Did she see?" Allegra asked. "In the garage? Does she know?"

"She can't hear a thing, Allegra. She's sitting right here."

"Right there? Oh my God. Say something mean about her."

"Don't."

"You kissed me back, you know. In the garage. Don't pretend you didn't."

Porter poured two fingers of scotch.

He looked at me over the glass.

"I kissed you back," he said. "Happy?"

My hand stayed perfectly still on the phone.

His own phone buzzed in his other hand, and then mine buzzed against my thigh.

He was texting me.

While she talked, he was texting me.

So sorry about tonight babe. Allegra's ankle is bad. You know how she is. Love you.

I read it with my face blank.

"What if the driver talks?" Allegra said. "He's getting out soon."

"He won't talk."

"How do you know?"

"Because I paid his lawyer," Porter said. "Your name never came up. It never will."

The ice cracked in his glass.

"You're the only one who knows that," he said. "Keep it that way."

"Come back to the hotel."

"Give me an hour. She'll be asleep."

He hung up.

He came over and put his hand on my good shoulder.

He mimed sleep, palms together under his cheek.

Then he pointed at the bedroom.

I nodded.

I went in and lay down in my sweater.

He changed his shirt in the dark.

He put on the cologne I bought him for his birthday.

The front door closed at 3:14.

I stopped the recording.

Nearly twelve minutes.

I played it back with the volume low, holding the phone against my ear.

His voice came out of it clear as a bell.

I kissed you back.

I paid his lawyer.

Then I got up and packed one bag with one hand.

Sweaters, jeans, my tuning kit, my passport.

I didn't take a single thing he'd bought me.

I took the velvet box off the coffee table.

I opened it on his pillow, with the ring inside and the card turned up.

I can hear you.

He'd read it once and laughed.

He could read it again.

At the airport I texted my mother.

First flight lands at 9:40. Don't tell anyone I can hear. Not even Lexi. Not the Halsteads.

Why, baby?

Promise me.

A long pause.

I promise.

I fell asleep against the window before the plane left the ground.

When I woke up we were coming down over the bay.

I'd forgotten how loud a landing was.

The wheels hit and the whole cabin shook and I almost laughed.

At arrivals the crowd was thick and noisy.

Somebody's toddler screamed for a dog.

A man argued with his phone about a parking ticket.

I heard all of it.

I didn't let my face show any of it.

Then the crowd thinned, and I saw him.

He stood a head taller than everyone around him.

Dark suit, no tie, dark stubble.

He leaned on a black walnut cane with both hands.

He was paler than the photos, and he coughed once into his fist.

People gave him a wide circle.

A woman pulled her little boy closer as she passed him.

He looked straight at me.

His eyes were very dark blue, and there was a thin scar through his left eyebrow.

He took one hand off the cane.

He signed, slow and clean.

I'm the madman.

Then, with a little crooked tilt of his head:

Welcome home.

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