Page 82 of Quiet Beautiful Things

She shrugs, maybe liking this game a little too much.

The host is staring at me, waiting. Maybe he has a piece of paper. But I don’t want to reach over the podium and just grab something. That would be rude.

Some men standing next to us shake hands, and one of them hands a business card to the other, giving me my answer.

I get out my wallet, fish a business card from the inside pocket, and give it to the host. He eyes me strangely. When I point to my name and then to his iPad, he puts two and two together. “Right this way, Mr. Montana.”

“Than—” I stop talking before the word is out, leaving the host even more confused.

I simply nod and smile when he seats us and hands us the menus.

“Awkward,” I fingerspell.

She shows me the sign.

“Hello,” a woman says, coming to our table. “I’m Michelle, I’ll be your server tonight. May I start you out with any drinks?”

“Drink?” I sign to Ellie.

“You pick.”

“We’ll—” I stop, roll my eyes, and find my selection on the wine menu, pointing to it before holding up two fingers.

Yeah, not awkward at all. The waitress now knows I can talk.

She looks between Ellie and me, like she’s wondering if we’re pranking her. When she looks at me again, I sign, “Thank you.”

The waitress scurries off, not knowing what else to do.

Ordering drinks and dinner turns out to be the easy part. Sitting across from Ellie without being able to say everything on my mind is torture.

Ah, shit. Unexpectedly, I get a taste, however small it may be, of what Maisy must have felt like when she couldn’t communicate. How she still must feel only knowing how to ask for basic needs and use simple words.

Part of me wonders if this is an exercise, part of an education plan for me to learn how to sign better. Another part wonders if this is Ellie’s way of showing me just a little bit of her world. Probably a little of both.

It takes us ten minutes to have a simple conversation about the weather because I have to fingerspell a lot of it. And if there’s one thing I can’t do fast, it’s fingerspell. I feel like this date is going horribly. I can’t be my usual charming self if I can’t talk. Is she even going to want to go dancing after?

The sultry glances and subtle toe taps she gives me are reassuring, however, and now I can’t wait to have her in my arms. Plus, my hands are cramping. It’ll be nice to give them a rest.

By the end of dinner, I know that no matter what I do, I could never even begin to know her world. Because even though I didn’t speak, I could still hear everything going on around me. Gossip from the ladies at the next table. The platter of food that crashed loudly on the tile floor of the kitchen. The distant clap of thunder that warns of a brewing storm. But somehow, in all this silence, I feel closer to her than ever.

Chapter Thirty

Blake

Dancing with Ellie is surreal. The only thing that would make it better is if I could feel what she’s feeling. The vibrations of the music. The pounding of the baritone. But no matter how hard I try to feel the music instead of hear it, I fail.

I don’t want to be deaf. I just want to understand it better. And I fear I’ll never be able to. Not really. Even people who aren’t born deaf, but lose their hearing later, have some sense of sound. When they ‘feel’ the music, they can recall what it sounded like. When they see a bird, they know what sound it makes. When their lovers mouth the words ‘I love you,’ they can imagine what it sounds like.

To have been born deaf, however—profoundly deaf—with no exposure to sound whatsoever, there’s just no way for a hearing person to truly understand what it’s like.

I can’t say how often I’ve thought about the time Ellie asked how I would describe sound to someone who can’t hear. Obviously she’s well educated. She knows the concept of sound. But she’ll never know if what she thinks of as sound is actually sound at all.

One thing is true. Ellie is proving you don’t have to hear to dance. Because, holy shit, the way she presses against me during slow songs. Watching her sexy moves during fast ones. Letting her take the lead and following her sway. All in silence, while the music blares around me. And when we’re close—like we are right now—my arms around her, with no use of our hands for speaking, it’s like this entire last hour has been nothing but intense foreplay.

When I can’t take it any longer, and my entire being screams for the unspoken promises she’s all but guaranteed me with the movements of her body against mine, I lean back, reluctantly letting her go so I can use my hands to talk. I swipe a thumb down her jawline then sign, “Should we drive home?”

Her face cracks into a grin, then she covers her mouth and full-on laughs.

---