Landline

CHAPTER 13

Georgie stretched and rolled into someone.

Neal?

Maybe this was it. Maybe she was waking up from whatever this was, and Neal would be here . . . and Uncle Henry and Auntie Em.

She was scared to open her eyes.

A phone rang next to her head. Some Beyoncé ringtone.

Georgie rolled over and looked at Heather, who was sitting on top of the comforter, answering her phone.

“Mom,” Heather said, “I’m in the same house—this is lazy, even for you. . . . Fine. Be patient, I said I’d ask her.” She looked at Georgie. “Do you want waffles?”

Georgie shook her head.

“No,” Heather said. “She says no. . . . I don’t know, she just woke up. Do you have to work today?” She poked Georgie. “Hey. Do you have to work today?”

Georgie nodded and looked at the clock. Not quite nine. Seth wouldn’t be calling the police yet.

“Okay,” Heather said into the phone, then sighed. “I love you, too. . . . No, Mom, it’s not that I mind saying it, but you’re right down the hall. . . . Fine. I love you. Good-bye.”

She ended the call and flopped down next to Georgie. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“Good morning.”

“How are you?”

Delusional. Possibly certifiable. Weirdly happy. “Fine,” Georgie said.

“Really?”

“What do you mean, ‘really’?”

“I mean,” Heather said, “I know you have to tell Mom that you’re fine, no matter what, but if you were really fine, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m fine, I just don’t feel like going home to an empty house.”

“Did Neal actually leave you?”

“No,” Georgie said, then groaned. “I mean, I don’t think so.” She reached for her glasses. They were balanced on the headboard. “He was mad when he left, but—I think he’d tell me if he was leaving me. Don’t you think he’d tell me?” She was asking it seriously.

Heather made a face. “God, Georgie, I don’t know. Neal’s not much of a talker. I didn’t even know you guys were having problems.”

Georgie rubbed her eyes. “We’re always having problems.”

“Well, it doesn’t ever look like it. Every time I talk to you, Neal is bringing you breakfast in bed, or making you a pop-up birthday card.”

“Yeah.” Georgie didn’t want to tell Heather that it wasn’t that simple. That Neal made her breakfast even when he was pissed; sometimes he did it because he was pissed. As a way to act like he was present in their relationship, even when he was chilled through and barely talking to her.

“When I was a kid,” Heather said, “I always thought Neal was your Prince Charming.”

Georgie’s weirdly happy feelings were rapidly fading. “Why?”

“Because I could remember your wedding. . . . That big white dress you wore and all the flowers, and Neal was so handsome—he totally had Prince Charming hair, he still does, like Snow White’s Prince Charming—and he called you ‘sunshine.’ Does he still call you ‘sunshine’?”

“Sometimes,” Georgie said, glancing over at the phone.

“I thought he was so romantic. . . .”

“Do me a favor.”

Heather looked suspicious. “What?”

“Call the house phone.”

“What?”

“The landline,” Georgie said. “Call the landline.”

Heather frowned, but picked up her cell phone and dialed.

Georgie held her breath and watched the yellow rotary phone. It rang. She exhaled and reached for it. “Hello?” Georgie said, looking at Heather, knowing she must look disturbed.

“Hi,” Heather said, “do you feel like waffles?”

“No,” Georgie said. “Love you, bye.”

Heather smiled. “Love you, bye.”

Georgie took a shower in her mom’s bathroom. Her mom’s shampoo smelled even worse than Heather’s. Like marzipan.

She put her jeans back on, and Neal’s black T-shirt. Her bra had seen better days, but it was still wearable. She decided her underwear had gone too many days to be mentionable; she shoved them to the bottom of the trash and went without.

Maybe you should get a change of underwear when you go home to get your wall charger, her brain said.

Maybe you should shut up, Georgie thought back at it.

After she was dressed, she sat on her bed and looked at the rotary phone.

Time to deal with this.

She picked up the receiver and steadily dialed Neal’s parents’ house.

His mom picked up after the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi . . . Mrs. Grafton,” Georgie said.

“Yes?”

“It’s Georgie.”

“Oh, hi, Georgie. Neal’s still asleep. He must have been up pretty late. Do you want him to call you back?”

“No. I mean, just tell him I’ll call later. Actually, I already told him I’d call later. But—I was going to ask him something.” She couldn’t ask about the president; that would seem mental. . . . “Do you happen to know who the Speaker of the House is?”

Neal’s mom hummed. “It’s Newt Gingrich, isn’t it? Did it change?”

“No,” Georgie said. “I think that’s right. His name was at the tip of my tongue.” She leaned closer to the base of the phone. “Thanks. Um, bye. Thanks.” She dropped the receiver onto the hook and stood up suddenly, taking a few steps away.

Then she dropped to her knees and crawled under the bed, reaching for the telephone outlet and unclicking the plug. She pulled the cord away, then backed out from the bed and crawled to the opposite wall, staring at the nightstand.

She had to deal with this.

It was still happening.

She had to deal with it.

Possibilities:

1. Persistent hallucination.

2. Really long dream. (Or maybe normal-length dream, perceived as really long from the inside?)

3. Schizophrenic episode.

4. Unprovoked Somewhere in Time scenario.

5. Am already dead? Like on Lost?

6. Drug use. Unrecalled.

7. Miracle.

8. Interdimensional portal.

9. It’s a Wonderful Life? (Minus angel. Minus suicide. Minus quasirational explanation.)

10. Magic fucking phone.

She had to deal with this.

She sat in the car and plugged in her iPhone. No missed calls from Neal. From thirty-seven-year-old, real Neal. (Why wasn’t he calling her? Was he really this pissed? Neal, Neal, Neal!)

She dialed his cell phone and didn’t even flinch when his mom answered.

“Georgie?”

“Margaret.”

“I knew it was you this time,” his mom said, “because I saw your photo on the phone. Who are you supposed to be? A robot?”

“The Tin Man. Hey, Margaret, who’s the Speaker of the House?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t it that Republican with the piercing eyes?”

“I don’t know,” Georgie said, realizing that she really didn’t. Who came after Nancy Pelosi? “It’s not Newt Gingrich, though, right?”

“Oh, no,” Margaret said. “Didn’t he just run for president? Are you doing a crossword?”

That would have been an excellent cover; she should have told the other Margaret she was doing a crossword. “Yes,” Georgie said, “hey, can I talk to Neal?”

“He just stepped out.”

Of course he did.

“Didn’t he call you yesterday?” Margaret asked. “I told him you called.”

“I must have missed him,” Georgie said.

“Here’s Alice, do you want to talk to Alice? Alice, come say hi to your mom. . . .”

“Hello?” Alice sounded far away.

“Alice?”

“Talk louder, Mommy, I can’t hear you.” She sounded like she was sitting across the room from the phone.

“Alice!” Georgie tipped her own phone away from her ear and shouted. “Pick up the phone!”

“I am!” Alice shouted. “But Dawn says you shouldn’t put cell phones on your head, or you’ll get cancer!”

“That’s not true.”

“What?”

“That’s not true!” Georgie yelled.

“Dawn said! Dawn’s a nurse!”

“Meow!”

“Is that Noomi? Let me talk to Noomi!”

“I don’t want Noomi to get cancer.”

“Put me on speaker phone, Alice.”

“I don’t know how.”

“It’s the button that says ‘speaker’!”

“Oh . . . like this?”

Georgie put the phone back to her ear. “Can you hear me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Alice, you’re not going to get cancer from the cell phone. Especially not from a few minutes on the cell phone.”

“Meow.”

Alice sighed. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Mommy, but you’re not a nurse. Or a doctor. Or a scientist.”

“A scientist!” Noomi said, giggling. “Scientists make potions.”

“How are you guys?” Georgie asked.

“Fine,” they both said. Why did Georgie even ask that question? It always made them clam right up. She’d be better off arguing with them about brain cancer.

“Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s at the grocery store,” Alice said. “We’re gonna make all Grandma’s famous Christmas cookies. Even the ones with Hershey’s Kisses that look like mice.”

“They have cherries for bottoms,” Noomi said.

Alice was still talking: “And we’re gonna make peanut butter balls and green Christmas trees, and Grandma already said I could use the mixer. Noomi’s gonna help, but she has to stand on the chair, and Dawn says that sounds dangerous, but it won’t be, because Daddy will hold her.”

Nurse Dawn. “That sounds wonderful,” Georgie said. “Will you save me some cookies?”

“Meow!”

“Sure,” Alice said. “I’ll have to get a box.”

“Meow, Mommy!”

“Meow, Noomi.”

“We have to go now because we’re getting the kitchen ready.”

“Alice, wait—will you give Daddy a message?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Will you tell him that I called to say I love you?”

“I love you, too,” Alice said.

“I love you, honey. But tell Daddy that I love him. Tell him that’s why I called.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Alice. I love you, Noomi.”

“Noomi’s in the kitchen with Grandma now.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Mommy.”

Georgie started to say good-bye, but Alice had already hung up.

Someone was knocking on her windshield.

Georgie lifted her head off the steering wheel. It was Kendrick. She couldn’t really hear what he was saying. She rolled down the window.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Kendrick nodded. “’Cause, the thing is, you look kind of like you’re sitting in your car crying.”

“I’m done crying,” she said. “Now I’m just sitting in the car.”

“Oh, well. Okay.”

Georgie rolled the window back up and hid her face in the steering wheel.

There was more knocking. She looked up.

“You’re blocking me!” Kendrick shouted—so that she could hear him, not because he was angry—and motioned at the open garage where his truck was already running.

“Sorry,” Georgie said. “I’ll just . . .”

She put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

She’d just go to work.

Options:

1. Call doctor. (End up on drugs? Possibly institutionalized . . . Would at least earn Neal’s pity.)

2. Consult psychic. (Pros: Very romantic-comedy. Cons: Sounds time intensive; have always disliked strangers’ living rooms.)

3. Pretend this never happened. Just have to avoid yellow phone, apparently . . .

4. Destroy yellow phone? (Conduit to the past too dangerous to allow. Nightmare scenarios possible, i.e., what if Marty McFly’s dad doesn’t take his mom to the prom?)

5. CHRIST ALMIGHTY. I DO NOT HAVE A CONDUIT TO THE PAST.

6. Call doctor?

7.

7.

7. Keep playing along?

“Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry, yes?”

“That was a Venti vanilla latte, right?”

“Right,” Georgie said.

“You can go ahead and drive through.”

Someone honked, and Georgie checked the rearview mirror. There were at least five cars behind her.

“Right,” she said. “Sorry.”

If this were a movie . . .

If there were an angel . . .

Or a machine that told fortunes . . .

Or a magic fountain . . .

If this were a movie, it wouldn’t be random. A random call to a random point in the past. It would mean something. So what did this mean?

Christmas 1998:

Georgie and Neal went to a party. They fought. Neal dumped her—at least, she thought he was dumping her. And then, a week later, he proposed.

And now she was talking to him during that week, that lost week. . . . Why?

Was she supposed to change something? If this were Quantum Leap, there’d be something specific she was supposed to change. (This is not Quantum Leap, Georgie—this is your life. You are not Scott Bakula.)

But what if . . .

Christmas 1998. They fought. Neal went home. He came back. He proposed. They lived not-exactly-happily ever after. Wait, was that what she was supposed to fix? The not-exactly-happy part?

How was she supposed to fix something like that, over the phone, when she wasn’t even sure it was fixable?

Christmas 1998. A week without Neal. The worst week of her life. The week he decided to marry her . . .

Was Georgie supposed to make sure that he didn’t?

CHAPTER 14

“I don’t know what to say,” Seth said. He was leaning on the white-board, frowning at her Metallica T-shirt. “On the one hand, your hair is wet, so you’ve obviously showered and changed. I applaud that. On the other, I miss the velvet jogging pants. . . . Georgie? Hello? Hey.”

Georgie stopped trying to plug her phone into her computer and looked up at him. He’d kicked away from the wall and set his hand on her shoulder.

“I know I’ve been asking you this all week,” he said, “but I’ll try one more time—are you okay?”

She wound the USB cord around her fingers. “If you could travel into the past and fix a mistake, would you?”

“Yes,” he said, without even thinking about it. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, you would? You’d mess with the past?”

“Absolutely. You said there was a mistake—I’d fix it.”

“But what if you messed everything up?” Georgie asked. “Like, what if that one action changed everything?”

“Like in Back to the Future?”

“Yes.”

Seth shrugged. “Meh. I don’t believe it. I’d go back and fix my mistake—everything else would work itself out. World War Three isn’t going to happen just because I got a higher SAT score.”

“But if you’d gotten a higher SAT score, you might not have gone to ULA, and then you’d never have met me, and we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

“Pfft,” he said, lowering an eyebrow. “Do you really think that’s all that brought us together? Circumstance? Location?” He shook his head. “I find your perspective on space and time to be very limiting.”

Georgie went back to fumbling with her laptop. Seth took the cord out of her hand and plugged it in. “I printed out what we worked on yesterday,” he said. “Why don’t you take a look?”

Neal had noticed Georgie was different—on the phone last night. He’d mentioned it. Maybe he’d figure out what was happening. . . .

There was no way he’d figure out what was happening.

Why would Neal ever jump to the completely implausible and correct conclusion that he was talking to her in the future?

Georgie hadn’t said anything to date herself. She hadn’t mentioned the Internet. Or the war. Or their kids. She hadn’t tried to warn him about the stock market or 9/11.

“You don’t sound like yourself tonight,” he’d said. It was after they’d been on the phone about half an hour.

“Why not?” Georgie’d asked. God, it was like talking to a ghost. Something weirder than a ghost—a sending.

“I don’t know what it is.”

“Is my voice lower?” That would make sense. She was fifteen years closer to menopause. “Maybe it’s the crying.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so. You seem . . . like you’re being really careful.”

“I am being really careful.”

“You seem like you’re not sure of anything.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“Yeah, but Georgie, ‘sure of everything’ is kind of your signature color.”

She laughed. “Was that a Steel Magnolias reference?”

“You know all about my Sally Field crush,” he said. “I’m not apologizing for it now.”

She’d forgotten about Neal’s Sally Field crush. “I know all your dirty Gidget secrets,” she said.

“It was the Flying Nun who really did it for me.”

Had Georgie been sure of everything at twenty-two?

She’d had a plan.

She’d always had a plan. It seemed like the smart thing to do—have a plan and follow it, until you have solid reasons to change course.

Neal had the opposite approach. His one big plan, oceanography, had gone sour on him; and then his plan turned into keeping his eyes open until something better came along.

Georgie used to think she could fix that for him. She was really good at making plans, and Neal was really good at everything else; this seemed like a no-brainer.

“You could just do this for a living,” Georgie said one night at The Spoon, before they even started dating.

“Entertain you?” Neal said. “Sounds good. How are the benefits?”

She was sitting across from him (always sitting across from him) leaning on his drafting table. “No. This. Stop the Sun. You’re good enough—I thought you were already syndicated.”

“You are very kind,” he said. “Very wrong, but very kind.”

“I’m serious.”

“I couldn’t do this for a living.” He gave the woodchuck he was drawing a cigar. “It’s just messing around—it’s just doodling.”

“So you wouldn’t want to be Matt Groening?”

“With all due respect, no.”

“Why not?”

Neal shrugged. “I want to do something real. I want to make a difference.”

“Making people laugh is real.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll let you take up that mantle.”

“Do you think that comedy is just messing around, too?”

“Honestly?” he asked.

“Of course, honestly.”

“Then yes.”

Georgie sat up straighter and folded her arms on the table. “You think my dreams are a waste of time?”

“I think your dreams would be a waste of my time,” he said. “I wouldn’t be happy.”

“So what would make you happy?”

“Well, if I knew that, I’d do it.” He’d looked up at her then, his eyes pained and almost too sincere for the circumstances, for the bright lights and the basement of the student union. He held his dip pen over the margin of his comic and let it drip. “I mean it. If I figure out what makes me happy, I’m not going to waste any more time. I’m just going to grab it. I’m just going to do it.”

Georgie nodded. “I believe you.”

Neal smiled and looked down, sheepish now, shaking his head a bit. “Sorry. I’ve had too much time in my own head lately.”

She waited for him to start inking again. “You could be a doctor . . . ,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“You have doctorly hands. I can imagine you performing very neat stitches.”

“Weird,” he said. “But thank you.”

“Lawyer?”

Neal shook his head.

“Indian chief?”

“Don’t have the connections.”

“Well,” Georgie said, “that’s all I’ve got—wait. Butcher? Baker? Candlestick maker?”

“None of those sound bad, honestly. The world needs bakers.”

“And candlestick makers,” she added.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about—” Neal glanced up at her, then looked down, licking his lips. “—I’ve been thinking about the Peace Corps.”

“The Peace Corps? Really?”

“Yeah. It’d give me something worthwhile to do while I figure the rest out.”

“I didn’t know there was still a Peace Corps.”

“That or the Air Force,” Neal said.

“Aren’t those two radically different directions?”

“Not at all.” He glanced up over her shoulder, then lowered his eyebrows and looked down.

Georgie knew that expression. She sat up and turned around to see what Seth wanted.

Seth had stepped all the way into the production room—usually he didn’t come past the door. But tonight he sat down on a stool near Georgie and leaned onto a desk. “Hey, Neal, what’s going on?”

“Not much,” Neal muttered without looking up.

Seth nodded and turned to Georgie. “So we’re just waiting on that cover story. Mike and Brian are still hammering it out.”

Georgie looked down at her watch. The Spoon went to press tonight. She and Seth were the managing editors, so they’d have to wait for the story, set it, then send the files to the printer. It’d be a late night.

“There’s no reason for both of us to stay,” Seth told her. “You should just take off.”

“That’s okay,” Georgie said. “I’ll stay. You go home.”

Seth wrinkled his nose. She was pretty sure he did it because it was adorable. She was pretty sure Seth had practiced all his facial expressions and gestures in front of a mirror, and worked out which ones made him look like a cross between an Abercrombie model and a kitten. “I don’t want to dump it on you,” he said. “You might be here all night.”

“I really don’t mind,” she said. “Don’t you have a date?”

He nodded slowly. “I do have a date.”

“With the lovely Breanna, I’ve heard.”

“With the lovely Breanna,” Seth said, still nodding; he pursed his lips and twisted them to the side.

“Go on,” she said. “You can owe me.”

Seth narrowed his eyes at Georgie, then at Neal, then seemed to make up his mind. “Okay.” He stood up. “I owe you.”

“Have fun on your date,” she said.

He got as far as the door, then spun around. “You know what? I’ll call Breanna. I can’t just abandon you like this. It’s going to be late, you’ll have to walk to your car by yourself—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Neal said. Georgie looked back at him, surprised to hear his voice. “I’ll be here,” he said. “I’ll make sure she gets to her car.”

Seth stared at Neal. Georgie was pretty sure they’d never made eye contact before; she waited for one or both of them to start on fire.

“What a gentleman,” Seth said.

“It’s nothing,” Neal parried.

“Great,” Georgie said, trying to signal Seth with her eyes—wishing they had a nonverbal sign for Leave me alone with this cute guy, you idiot. “Problem solved. Go ahead, Seth. Go on your date. Get down with your bad self.”

“I guess that’s settled then. . . .” Seth nodded again. “All right. Well. See you tomorrow, Georgie. You still coming over? To my room?”

“Yep. Give me a call when you sweep out the lovely Breanna and all of her underthings.”

“Right,” he said, and finally walked away.

Georgie turned back to Neal, feeling fluttery.

“You have terrible taste in sidekicks,” he said after a moment.

“Writing partner,” she corrected.

“Hmm.”

Neal did walk her to her car that night. And he was a perfect gentleman.

Much to Georgie’s disappointment.

Neal had sounded different, too, last night on the phone.

His voice was a little higher, his thoughts came out looser. Neal with less clench, less control.

He’d sounded like the boy on the other side of the drafting table.

CHAPTER 15

Seth and Scotty both liked to be laughed at.

As long as Georgie laughed at their jokes, they usually wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t contributing to the brainstorming, that she was just writing things they said on the whiteboard and underlining them.

But today wasn’t usually. Seth was still watching Georgie like he was trying to figure out was going on. . . .

Well, he could keep on trying—he was never going to come up with, Magic fucking phone! (Though Georgie was a little worried he’d figure out she wasn’t wearing underwear.)

Seth and Scotty brainstormed.

Georgie brain-hurricaned.

What if it was happening for a reason? What if she was supposed to fix what was wrong between her and Neal? “What’s wrong?” wasn’t such an easy question to answer.

Oh, she could answer it broadly:

A lot.

A lot was wrong between them, even on good days. . . .

(The breakfast-in-bed and coming-home-early days. Days when Neal’s eyes were bright. When the girls made him smile, and he made them laugh. Easy days. Christmas mornings. Coming-home-late days when Neal would catch Georgie at the door and crowd her against the wall.)

Even on good days, Georgie knew that Neal was unhappy.

And that it was her fault.

It wasn’t just that she let him down, and put him off, and continually left him waiting—

It was that she’d tied him to her so tight. Because she wanted him. Because he was perfect for Georgie, even if she wasn’t perfect for him. Because she wanted him more than she wanted him to be happy.

If she loved Neal, if she really loved him . . .

Shouldn’t she want more for him than with me, always with me?

What if Georgie could give Neal the chance to start over? What would he do?

Would he join the Peace Corps? Would he go back to Omaha? Marry Dawn? Marry somebody even better than Dawn?

Would he be happy?

Would he come home from work every night, smiling? Would Dawn or Better-Than-Dawn already have dinner on the table?

Would Neal crawl into bed and pull her close to him, fall asleep with his nose in the hollow of her neck. . . .

Georgie had gotten that far in her imagining—to Neal spooning with his more-suitable-than-Georgie wife—when she imagined Neal’s second-chance kids in this second-chance world. Then she slammed the door shut on all his hypothetical happiness.

If the universe thought Georgie was going to erase her kids from the timeline, it had another fucking thing coming.

She went to the bathroom and cried for a few minutes. (That was one good thing about being the only woman on the writing staff—Georgie almost always had the bathroom to herself.)

Then she spent the next hour mentally throwing the yellow rotary phone down a deep well and filling it in with concrete.

She wasn’t going to touch that thing again.

It wasn’t really a conduit to the past. It wasn’t magic. There was no such thing as magic. (I don’t believe in fairies. Sorry, Peter Pan.) But Georgie still wasn’t going to risk it. She wasn’t a Time Lord, she didn’t want a Time-Turner. She felt weird even praying for things—because it didn’t seem like she should ask God for something that wasn’t already part of the plan.

What if Georgie accidentally erased her marriage with these phone calls? What if she erased her kids? What if she’d already screwed something up—would she even know?

She tried to remind herself that this was all an illusion. That she didn’t have to worry about the dangerous implications, because illusions don’t have implications.

That’s what she tried to remind herself, but she wasn’t sure she believed it.

Illusion.

Delusion. Mirage.

Magic fucking phone.

“Korean tacos again?” Seth asked.

Georgie nodded.

After two months of hanging out in The Spoon’s production room, Georgie was 53 percent sure that Neal liked her.

He put up with her; that seemed to mean something. He never asked her to go away. (Was she really going to put that in the plus column? Not asking her to go away?)

He talked to her. . . .

But only if Georgie talked to him first. If she sat across from him long enough.

Sometimes it seemed like Neal might be flirting with her. Other times, she couldn’t even tell whether he was listening.

She decided to test him.

The next time Neal came down to The Spoon, Georgie said hi, but she stayed at her desk, hoping that he might come to her for once.

He didn’t.

She tried it again a few days later. Neal nodded when Georgie said hello, but he didn’t stop or walk over.

She told herself to take the hint.

“I notice you seem to be avoiding the hobbit hole,” Seth observed.

“I’m not avoiding,” Georgie said. “I’m working.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “You’re working. I’ve noticed your uncrackable work ethic all those nights you barricaded yourself back in the hobbit hole just as soon as Bilbo showed his face.”

“Are you complaining about my work ethic now?”

“I’m not complaining, Georgie. I’m noticing.”

“Well, stop,” she said.

“Did he break it off? Were you too tall for him?”

“We’re the same height. Actually.”

“Really. That’s adorable. Like salt and pepper shakers.”

Georgie must have looked 53 percent wrecked because Seth let it drop. Later, when they were working on their column, both of them huddled in front of Georgie’s computer, Seth gave her ponytail a solid pull. “You’re too good for him.”

He said it quietly.

Georgie didn’t turn from her screen. “Probably not.”

He pulled her hair again. “Too tall. And too pretty. And too good.”

Georgie swallowed.

“I’m not worried about you,” Seth said. “Someday your prince will come.”

“And you’ll do your best to scare him off.”

“I’m glad that we both understand the terms.” He pulled her hair.

“That hurts, you know.”

“I’m trying to get your mind off the emotional pain.”

“If you do it again, I’m going to slap you.”

He immediately tugged on her ponytail. Gently this time. Georgie let it slide.

Seth always had to force Georgie to go to parties. Once she was there, she was fine. Once she was there, she was usually great—if not the life of the party, certainly one of its most valuable players. People (new people, strangers) made Georgie nervous. And nervous Georgie was much more extroverted than regular Georgie. Nervous Georgie was practically manic.

“It’s like you turn into Robin Williams in nineteen-eighty-two,” Seth told her.

“Oh God, don’t say that, that’s mortifying.”

“What? Nineteen eighty-two Robin Williams was hilarious. Everybody loved nineteen-eighty-two Robin Williams.”

“I don’t want to be Mork at parties.”

“I do,” Seth said. “Mork kills.”

“Cute guys don’t want to go home with Mork,” Georgie groaned.

“I think you’re wrong,” he said, “but I take your point.”

(It hadn’t gotten better over the years; Georgie still got nervous at parties and pitches and big meetings. Seth said their careers would be over if Georgie ever realized she was awesome and stopped freaking out about it.)

Not long after Georgie gave up on Neal, Seth talked her into going to the Spoon Halloween party. Seth was dressed like Steve Martin. He had a white suit, and he’d spray-painted his hair gray, and there was a gag arrow on his head.

Georgie was going as Hot Lips Houlihan from M*A*S*H. Which just meant fatigues, an olive green T-shirt, and dog tags. Plus, she’d blown out her hair. She figured she must look okay because Seth seemed distracted by her breasts.

As soon as they were inside the party, he was distracted by somebody else’s breasts. There were a lot of girls here for a Spoon party; there must be some cross-pollination—maybe somebody’s roommate was a business major.

Georgie grabbed a Zima, then poured it into a cup so she wouldn’t look like she was drinking Zima.

She’d already started nervously chattering at some guy dressed like Maggie Simpson when she saw Neal on the other side of the room. He was leaning against a wall between two clusters of people—watching her.

When Georgie didn’t look away, he raised his bottle of beer not quite to his chest and nodded his head. She squeezed her cup until it dented, then tried to nod back. It was more of a spasm.

Georgie returned her attention to the guy dressed as Maggie Simpson. (Why would a guy dress like Maggie Simpson?) He was trying to guess who she was. “That chick from Tomb Raider?” Georgie looked back at Neal. His head was tilted to the side. Still watching her.

She felt herself blushing and peered down at her drink.

Maybe he’d come over. Maybe Neal would finally walk fifteen steps out of his way to say hello to her. Georgie glanced back at him, just as he was glancing up again from his beer—he wouldn’t even lift his entire head to look at her.

Fuck it.

“Sorry, would you . . . excuse me? I just saw my, um, I’m just—my friend’s over there. Excuse me.” Georgie backed away from Maggie Simpson and squeezed through an extremely pathetic dance circle to get to Neal’s wall. There wasn’t much room between him and the people next to him; he slid over to make room for her.

“Hey,” she said, leaning in sideways.

Neal had his back to the wall, and he was holding his beer with both hands. He didn’t look up. “Hey, Hot Lips.”

Georgie grinned and rolled her eyes. “How’d you know who I was?”

His lips twitched just enough to give him dimples. “I know about your weird preoccupation with ’70s sitcoms.” He took a drink of beer. “I’m surprised you didn’t come as Detective Wojciehowicz.”

“Couldn’t find the right tie,” Georgie said.

Neal nearly smiled.

She glanced down at his clothes. He was dressed like normal—jeans, a black T-shirt—but there was a silvery white pattern creeping up from his sleeves and down from his collar. He must have painted it himself. It looked almost crystalline.

“Give up?” he asked.

She nodded.

“The first frost.” He took another drink.

“It’s lovely,” Georgie said. Someone had just cranked up the music, so she said it again, louder. “It’s lovely.”

Neal shrugged his eyebrows.

“I have to admit I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be.”

“You don’t seem like Party Guy.”

“I hate parties,” Neal said.

“Me, too,” she agreed.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Really.”

“Really.”

“I could tell by the way you walked in, and everybody shouted, ‘Georgie!’ and you blew a thousand air kisses, and the stereo started playing ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It’ . . .”

“A, you’re exaggerating, and B, just because I’m good at parties doesn’t mean I like them.”

“You prefer things you’re not good at?”

Georgie took a frustrated gulp of Zima and thought about walking away. “Obviously.”

Then there was a whoop of laughter behind her, and somebody fell against Georgie’s back, pushing her into Neal’s shoulder. She held her cup against her chest, so it wouldn’t spill on him. Neal quickly turned toward her, making more room on the wall and steadying her for a second, his hand on her arm.

“Sorry,” the guy behind her said.

“No worries,” Georgie told him. She and Neal were standing closer now, their shoulders almost touching on the wall.

They really were almost the same height. Georgie was five-five; Neal might be five-six. Maybe. It was nice—having a guy’s eyes right there where she could reach them. If he’d just look at her . . .

“So,” Neal said, “you came with your not-boyfriend, right?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Right. I think I saw him come in. He’s dressed like The Jerk.”

Georgie closed her eyes for a second. When she started talking, her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t sure Neal would even be able to hear her: “Sometimes I think the only reason you ever talked to me at all was because you knew it pissed off Seth.”

His reply came cold and quick: “Sometimes I think that’s the only reason you ever talked to me.”

She opened her eyes. “What?”

“Everybody knows.” Neal’s chin was practically touching his chest—that’s how not he was looking at her. “Everybody at The Spoon says you’re crazy about him.”

“Not everybody,” Georgie said. “I’ve never said that.”

Neal shrugged harshly and went to take a drink of his beer, but the bottle was empty.

Georgie pushed away from the wall and took a step backwards. She needed to get out of here before she started crying, but first—“You know what? This is why you’re standing alone at a party. Because you’re a jerk. You’re a jerk to people who actually, inexplicably like you.” She took another step backwards. Into some other guy.

“Hey, Georgie!” the guy shouted. “Are you Private Benjamin?”

“Hey,” she said, trying to get past him.

“Georgie, wait,” she heard Neal say. She felt a hand on her wrist. Firm, but not tight—she could still pull away. Neal kept talking, but the music buried it. (God, she hated parties.) He stepped in closer. Close. They were standing in a crowd of people who were all trying to decide whether they wanted to dance. Neal’s head dipped toward hers. “I’m sorry!” he shouted in her ear. And then something else.

“What?” Georgie yelled.

He seemed frustrated. They looked in each other’s eyes for a few seconds—a few overwhelming (to Georgie) seconds—then he started pulling her back toward the wall.

Georgie followed. Neal tightened his grip on her wrist.

He cut through the crowd and led her down a short hallway, stopping in front of the only closed door. There was a piece of caution tape stretched over it and a sign that said:

STAY OUT!!

IF ANYONE GOES IN HERE,

MY ROOMMATE WILL END ME.

HAVE MERCY.

—Whit

Whit worked at The Spoon.

“We can’t go in there,” Georgie said.

“It’s fine.” Neal opened the door and ducked under the tape.

Georgie followed.

He leaned over and turned on a floor lamp without letting go of her wrist. The door swung mostly closed behind them, and the roar of the music receded.

Neal turned back to her and set his jaw. “You’re right,” he said in his normal voice. His hand dropped, and he rubbed his palm on his jeans. “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk.”

“Seth would agree with you there.”

“I don’t want to talk about Seth anymore.”

“You’re the one who brought him up.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Neal had a way of holding his chin down and looking out the top of his eyes, even when he wasn’t sitting at the drafting table. “Can we go back and start over?”

“How far back?” Georgie tried to fold her arms, but she was still holding that stupid Zima.

“Back to the wall,” he said. “Back to you walking across the living room toward me. To you saying, ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’”

“Are you saying you want to go back to the living room?”

“No. Just go ahead, say it again now.”

Georgie rolled her eyes, but she said it: “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Neal said. He lifted his chin and looked directly in her eyes. For the second time in five minutes. For the second time ever. “I’m here because I knew you’d be here. Because I hoped you would be.”

Georgie felt like a snake was unwinding itself in the back of her neck and along her shoulders. She swayed a little, and her mouth clicked open. “Oh.”

Neal looked away, and Georgie took in three gallons of air.

He was shaking his head. “I’m . . . sorry,” he said. “I wanted to see you. But then I got angry. I didn’t know what to—you’ve been ignoring me.”

“I haven’t been ignoring you,” she said.

“You stopped coming back to talk to me.”

“I thought I was bothering you.”

“You weren’t bothering me,” he said, facing her again. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you never come talk to me.”

“I never had to come talk to you.” Neal looked bewildered. “You always came to me.”

“I . . .” Georgie finished her drink so she could put down the cup.

Neal took it from her. He set the cup and his bottle on a desk behind him.

“I thought I was bothering you,” she said. “I thought you were just humoring me.”

“I thought you got tired of me,” he said.

She brought her hands up to her forehead. “Maybe we should stop thinking.”

Neal huffed and nodded, smoothing down the hair at the back of his head. They were both quiet for a dozen awkward heartbeats; then Neal motioned toward the bed. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Oh,” Georgie said, looking at the bed. There was another sign there:

NO, SERIOUSLY. HE WILL END ME.

Get out of here, okay?

—Whit

“I don’t think we should,” she said.

“It’s fine.”

They should leave. They were violating someone’s privacy. But . . . Georgie looked up at Neal, with his black T-shirt and his pale skin. He was smoothing down his hair again—ridiculously, it couldn’t be even a quarter-inch long in back. His elbow was in the air, his triceps flexed.

Georgie slid against the bed, sitting on the floor.

Neal looked down at her and nodded. “Okay . . . ,” he murmured, sitting next to her.

After a few seconds, she nudged her shoulder against his. “So. What have I missed?”

“When?”

“Since I’ve been sitting at my own desk,” she said, “playing hard to get.”

Neal smiled a little and looked down; his eyelashes brushed the top of his cheeks. “Oh, you know. Ink. Talking rabbits. Singing turtles. A chipmunk who wishes he was a squirrel.”

“Your comic last week was one of my favorites.”

“Thanks.”

“I put it in my Save Box,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s actually just a box. I, uh . . . I hate that feeling, you know, when you’re thinking about something you’ve read or heard, and you thought it was so smart at the time, but now you can’t remember it. I save things I don’t want to lose track of.”

“Must be a big box.”

“Not as big as you’d think,” she said. “I started putting your comic strips in there before I knew you were you.”

“Before you knew I was me?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Thanks.” Neal’s legs were bent in front of him, and he was picking at loose threads on his thighs.

He seemed uncomfortable. Georgie had that feeling again, that she was the only one keeping the conversation alive. Maybe she should shut up and see if Neal would say anything. No. No more games. “Would it be easier to talk to me if you were holding a pen?”

Neal lowered his eyebrows, and his head bounced. “Huh. I guess so. Too bad I don’t smoke.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know—something to do with my hands.”

“Oh,” Georgie said. And then, because she wanted to, she reached out and took his hand. Laid her palm on the back of his hand. Curled her fingers behind his thumb. Neal looked down at their hands, then slowly turned his palm up, bending his fingers around hers. Georgie squeezed.

Neal’s magic hand. (This was the left one, so maybe it was slightly less magic.)

Neal’s wide, square palm. Neal’s short, straight fingers—softer than Georgie expected, smoother than her own.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

“Before I knew you were you . . .” He shook his head. “There is no ‘before I knew you were you.’”

Georgie pushed her shoulder into his, and Neal pushed back, still looking at their hands.

“I saw you the first time I came down to The Spoon,” he said. “You were sitting on the couch. And Seth was there, and you kept shoving him away. You were wearing that skirt you have, the blue and green plaid one, you know? And your hair was a mess.”

She jabbed him with her shoulder, and he smiled a one-sided, one-dimpled smile for a second before he shook it away.

“It looked like spun gold—that’s what I remember thinking. That your hair wasn’t a real-person color. You’re not blond, you know? Your hair isn’t yellow. It isn’t yellow mixed with white or brown or orange or gray. It defies four-color CMYK processing. It’s metallic.”

Neal kept shaking his head. “Whit told me your name, and I didn’t believe him—Georgie McCool—but I started reading everything you wrote in The Spoon, and every time I came downstairs, there you were, on the couch or at your desk, always surrounded by half a dozen guys or just . . . him. I thought . . .” He shook his head some more. “When you came back to introduce yourself—Georgie, you didn’t have to introduce yourself. I always knew you were you.”

She pulled Neal’s hand into her lap and turned to face him. And then, because never in her life had Georgie been able to wait for someone to kiss her first, she pressed her mouth into his cheek. Neal clenched his teeth, and she felt the pressure on her lips.

“Georgie,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward her.

She kissed his cheekbone from nose to temple, then rubbed her lips in his cheek again, wishing he’d smile.

He was holding her hand tight. “Georgie . . . ,” he whispered again.

“Neal . . .” She kissed his jaw from ear to chin.

He started to turn his body toward her, slightly, and she reached for his shoulder to make it happen faster, to make him come closer. He caught her hand by the wrist, but still let her pull him in.

Georgie thought they’d kiss then. She tried to find his mouth.

But Neal kept rubbing his cheek into hers, and it felt so nice—all the soft and hard parts of their faces catching on each other. Cheekbone on brow. Jawbone on chin. Neal’s skin was flushed and warm. His hands were holding firm. He smelled like bar soap and beer and fabric paint. God . . .

This was better than kissing.

This was . . .

Georgie arched her neck and felt Neal’s chin, then nose, then forehead push down to her collarbone. She dropped her face into his short hair—and closed her eyes.

When Georgie was a kid, this was what she’d pictured whenever she’d heard the word “necking”—two people rubbing their faces and necks together, kissing like giraffes. She’d had a crush on her babysitter’s son, and this was what she’d fantasized about doing with him, rubbing her neck into his, burying her face into his Simon Le Bon hair. (She was nine, and he was fifteen, and this fortunately never happened.)

She lifted her chin again, and Neal dragged his face back up to hers, humming almost helplessly in her ear.

Whatever this was—non-kissing, hard-core nuzzling—it felt so good that the next time Neal’s lips were over hers, Georgie ghosted right past them, pulling his mouth open with her cheek instead.

Neal hummed again.

Georgie smiled.

The bedroom door opened.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” somebody said. “Can’t you people read?”

The music from the living room banged back into the bedroom. “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette. Georgie looked up at the doorway—it was Whit from The Spoon. Whit who lived here and wrote beseeching notes. Neal let go of Georgie’s arm, but she caught his hand. She held both his hands now. Fast.

“Oh,” Whit said, looking a little dumbfounded. “Neal . . . and Georgie. Sorry, I thought some asshole was using your room. Uh, carry on, I guess.”

Whit closed the door—and Georgie started giggling.

“This is your room?”

Neal’s head dropped. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. ‘Why don’t you come back to my room?’—it sounds sleazy.”

“It sounds better than ‘Let’s go make out in this stranger’s room.’” She spread her fingers and pushed them through his, squeezing his hands tight again. Then she leaned toward him, mouth-first. Yes, the non-kissing was good. But there were Neal’s perfectly formed lips right there—a testament to symmetry and cell division—and surely kissing would be even better.

“Georgie,” he said, turning his head away.

She kissed his cheek again. His ear. Neal’s ears were perfect, too, even if they did stick out at the top like pot handles. She opened her mouth over his ear, and Neal gripped her hands, using them to push her away.

“Georgie,” he said. “I can’t.”

“You can,” she said. “You are.”

“No.” He let go of her hands and took hold of her shoulders, holding her back. “I want to, but I can’t.”

“You want to?”

Neal locked his jaw and closed his eyes, then growled. “I can’t. Georgie, I . . . I have a girlfriend.”

Georgie jerked away from him. Like he was on fire. (Like he was on fire, and it wasn’t her job to put him out.) His hands fell from her shoulders.

“Oh,” she said.

“It’s not—” He seemed so angry. Probably angry with himself. He licked his lips. “I mean . . .”

“It’s okay,” she said, putting her hands on the floor and pushing herself to her feet. Of course it wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. “I’ll just . . .”

Neal was scrambling up, too. “Georgie, let me explain.”

“No.” It was her turn to shake her head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll just . . .” She reached for the doorknob.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

Georgie laughed. “No. No, it’s not.” She stumbled through the door and closed it behind her. God, it was loud out here. It was . . .

God.

Neal.

Of course he had a girlfriend. Because he liked her and wanted to kiss her, and every time they talked, it felt like her brain was fizzing out her ears, so it only stood to reason that he had a girlfriend.

How could Neal have a girlfriend? Where was he keeping her?

Somewhere other than The Spoon offices, clearly. God, God, God—it’s not like he’d led Georgie on. He’d never sought her out. It was always Georgie hanging off his drafting table, making eighth-grade eyes at him. Neal hardly even looked at her. (Spun gold. CMYK. A half a dozen guys.)

Seth was going to love this.

Georgie wasn’t going to tell Seth.

She wasn’t going to tell anybody.

God, she’d thought that Neal liked her. Better than he liked anyone else, anyway. (He even said that he liked her. He said he wanted to kiss her. . . . ) (Though apparently not enough to actually do it.)

She should never have tried to kiss him first.

She should never kiss anyone first. . . .

Georgie always kissed first.

She always fell for the guy in the room who seemed the least interested in her. The guy who was toxically arrogant or cripplingly shy. Or both. The guy at the party who looked like he’d rather be any where else.

“You should try dating nice guys,” her friend Ludy used to say in high school. “They’re nice. I think you’d like them.”

“Boring,” Georgie’d said. “Pointless.”

“Not pointless—nice.”

They’d had this conversation in the cafeteria. They were waiting by the door so that Georgie could casually get in line behind Jay Anselmo, who was two years older than they were, really into No Doubt and competitive car stereos, and who would undoubtedly ignore her. “What’s the point of making a nice guy like me?” Georgie said. “Nice guys like everybody.”

“You shouldn’t have to make anybody like you, Georgie. You should want to be with somebody who can’t help but like you.”

“Nothing good is easy.”

“Not true,” Ludy said. “Sleep. TV. Jell-O Instant Pudding.” (Ludy was a riot. Georgie missed her.)

“I don’t want to go out with Jell-O Instant Pudding,” Georgie said.

“I would marry Jell-O Instant Pudding.”

Georgie rolled her eyes. “I want to go out with Mikey.”

“I thought you wanted to go out with Jay Anselmo.”

“Jay Anselmo is Mikey,” Georgie explained. “He’s the guy in the Life cereal commercial who hates everything. If Mikey likes you, you know you’re good. If Mikey likes you, it means something.”

Georgie’d ended up kissing Jay Anselmo one night after a football game, at a party in Ludy’s backyard. He’d let her kiss him all through her sophomore year. And then he’d gone off to college, and Georgie’d found a few other guys to kiss.

She’d never really thought of kissing-first as a problem; Georgie tended to hook up with guys who appreciated the clarity.

But tonight, in Neal’s room, it was a problem.

She’d read Neal all wrong: She’d thought he was a Mikey. She’d thought he was the grumpiest hobbit in the Shire. But really, he just had a girlfriend.

Georgie was done kissing first. The next person she kissed was going to have to do all the work. Assuming she ever found anybody who thought she was worth it.

Georgie wanted to go home.

She wanted to cry all the way there, thinking about Neal’s sideways symmetrical mouth and the way he could freehand a perfectly straight line.

She wanted to find Seth.

CHAPTER 16

Georgie’s cell phone chimed. She picked it up.

“Earth to Georgie.”

She looked up from the text message to Seth, who was sitting across from her at the writers’ table.

He met her eyes, then looked down at his phone and typed something.

Chime. She looked at her phone.

“We’re running out of time.”

Georgie thought for a second, then thumbed in a reply—

“I know, I’m sorry.”

When Seth looked back up at her, his eyebrows were crowded together over his brown eyes.

She felt herself tearing up.

He tilted his head, then scrunched his nose unhappily. Seth hated it when Georgie cried. He went back to the phone again, typing rapidly.

“Talk to me.”

“I can’t. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“I don’t care where you start.”

She wiped her eyes on her shoulder.

Seth sighed.

“Georgie, whatever it is—we’ll get through it.”

She stared down at her phone. After a few seconds, AN EMERGENCY CONTACT popped up on the screen, and it started to ring. It was just the standard ring—Marimba—Georgie never had time to figure out special ringtones.

She grabbed her laptop and stood up, answering the call and walking toward the door, careful not to close the computer or unplug the phone. “Hello?”

“Meow!”

Georgie felt a cold surge of disappointment. Then felt guilty about it. You’re not supposed to feel a cold surge of disappointment at the sound of your four-year-old daughter’s voice.

“Meow,” Georgie said, leaning against the wall outside the writers’ room.

“Grandma said I could call you,” Noomi said.

“You can always call me. How are you, sweetie? Did you make me some cookies?”

“No.”

“Oh. That’s okay.”

“Maybe Grandma did. I made some for Santa and some for me.”

“That was smart. I’ll bet they’re delicious.”

“Meow,” Noomi said. “I’m a green kitty.”

“I know.” Georgie tried to focus. “You’re the best green kitty in the world. I love you so much, Noomi.”

“You’re the best mommy in the world, and I love you more than milk and fishbones and . . . what else do kitties like?”

“Yarn,” Georgie said.

“Yarn,” Noomi giggled. “That’s crazy.”

Georgie took a calming breath. “Noomi, is Daddy there?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“No.”

Georgie knocked her head back against the wall. “Why not?”

“He’s sleeping. He said we can’t even go upstairs to pee.”

Georgie should tell Noomi to do it anyway. Neal was her husband. And she hadn’t talked to him for three days. (Or thirteen hours.) (Or fifteen years.)

Georgie sighed. “Okay. Can I talk to Alice?”

“Alice is playing Monopoly with Grandma.”

“Right.”

“I have to go. My hot chocolate is cold now.”

“Meow,” Georgie said. “Meow-meow, love you, green kitty.”

“Meow-meow, Mommy, I love you even more than yarn.”

Noomi hung up.

There’s a magic phone in my childhood bedroom. I can use it to call my husband in the past. (My husband who isn’t my husband yet. My husband who maybe shouldn’t be my husband at all.)

There’s a magic phone in my childhood bedroom. I unplugged it this morning and hid it in the closet.

Maybe all the phones in the house are magic.

Or maybe I’m magic. Temporarily magic. (Ha! Time travel pun!)

Does it count as time travel? If it’s just my voice traveling?

There’s a magic phone hidden in my closet. And I think it’s connected to the past. And I think I’m supposed to fix something. I think I’m supposed to make something right.

When Georgie got back to the writers’ room, Seth looked like he was at the end of his rope. He’d unbuttoned his shirt an extra button, and his hair was sticking up around his ears and at the back of his neck.

She stood at the whiteboard and took charge of the outline.

It wasn’t that hard—they’d been talking about these characters for years. They just needed to get their ideas into writing. Wrestle them into a few workable scripts. Georgie could do this in her sleep. Sometimes she did do it in her sleep. She’d wake up in the middle of the night and hang off the side of her bed, scrounging around for a piece of paper. (She never remembered to put a notebook by the bed when she was lucid.)

Neal would stir in his sleep and reach for her hips, pulling her back onto the bed. “What’re you looking for?”

“Paper,” she’d say, leaning off the bed again. “I have an idea I don’t want to forget.”

She’d feel his mouth at the base of her spine. “Tell me. I’ll remember.”

“You’re asleep, too.”

He’d bite her. “Tell me.”

“It’s a dance,” she’d say. “There’s a dance. And Chloe, the main character, will end up with one of her mom’s old prom dresses. And she’ll try to fix it to make it cool, like in Pretty in Pink, but it won’t be cool; it’ll be awful. And something embarrassing will happen at the dance to ‘Try a Little Tenderness.’”

“Got it.” Then Neal would pull her back into bed, into him, holding her in place. “Dance. Dress. ‘Try a Little Tenderness.’ Now go back to sleep.”

And then he’d push up Georgie’s pajama shirt, biting her back until neither of them could go back to sleep.

And then, eventually, she’d drift off with his hand on her hip and his forehead pressed into her shoulder.

She’d get out of the shower the next morning, and it would be written in the steam on the mirror:

Dance. Dress. Try a little tenderness.

Georgie shook her head and looked up at the whiteboard and tried to remember where she’d left off.

The night that Neal told her about his girlfriend (fucking of course he had a girlfriend), Seth took Georgie home, then went back to the Halloween party. Georgie stayed up listening to her mom’s Carole King albums and wrote a really angsty monologue for one of her theater classes.

That was back when she still thought about performing someday. Before she’d decided that she had a better face and brain for the writers’ room. “Why would you want to act, anyway?” was Seth’s take on the subject. “Stand there and say other people’s words, let everybody else tell you what to do . . . Actors are just beautiful puppets.”

“If that’s true,” Georgie’d said, “you sure date a lot of puppets.”

Georgie didn’t really want to act—she wanted to do stand-up. But she hated bars, that was a problem. Also, she wanted to get married and have a family.

Seth said nothing beat writing for TV. “It’s comedy with health insurance,” he said. And big houses and cars. And sunshine.

The morning after the Halloween party, Georgie picked up bagels on the way to Seth’s frat house. She passed last night’s girl—the lovely Breanna again—in the hallway. Breanna looked surprised to see Georgie; Georgie just nodded, as if they were coworkers.

When she got to Seth’s room, his hair was wet, and he was changing his sheets.

“Gross,” she said.

“What’s gross?”

“This.”

“You’d rather I didn’t change my sheets?”

“I’d rather you got all this—girl, sheets, shower—taken care of before I showed up, so that I don’t have to think about you having sex.”

Seth paused, holding the sheet in the air with both hands, and grinned. “Is that what you’re thinking about?”

Georgie sat down at his desk, ignoring him. He was a senior, so he didn’t have a roommate. She turned on his computer and watched him make his bed.

He really was gorgeous. Intentionally so.

Most guys just walked around with nothing but raw material. Pretty eyes, bad hair, ill-fitting clothes. Most guys didn’t even know what they had to offer. But Seth was like a girl—he was a better girl than Georgie—he knew what his strengths were. He let his coppery brown hair grow long enough to shine and curl. He wore pale colors that made his skin look tan. He presented himself to you. To everyone. Here I am. Look at me.

Georgie looked. She watched. And nothing stirred in her stomach. She didn’t take any special thrill in being here, being the one Seth wanted to see when he was done with the lovely whomever.

Neal had cured her of Seth.

Now what would cure her of Neal?

And why was she only attracted to guys who were sleeping with somebody else? If Georgie were a wild animal, she’d be a genetic dead end.

Seth fell onto the bed and turned on the TV. Animaniacs. Georgie threw him his bagel.

“So,” he said, unwrapping it, “feeling any better this morning?”

She put her feet up on his desk and watched the show. “I’m fine.”

When the episode was over, Georgie turned to the computer and opened a file. Aside from their column, and Georgie’s horoscopes, and their duties as managing editors—they also wrote a regular movie-review parody for The Spoon, “Your Mom Reviews . . .” It ran with a photo of Seth’s mom. This week, they were doing Trainspotting.

Seth was still watching cartoons.

“He has a girlfriend,” Georgie said.

Seth’s face jerked toward her; his eyebrows lowered. “This whole time?”

“Apparently.”

He turned off the TV and was up off the bed, pulling another chair next to Georgie and sitting on it backwards. “Fuck him,” he said, elbowing her. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Since when do you believe in ‘meant to be’?”

“Since fucking ever, Georgie, pay attention. I’m a romantic.”

“Just ask the parade of Saturday-morning girls.”

“Parades are romantic. Who doesn’t love a parade?”

They worked on the movie review until it was time for Seth to go to work (to his other job, at the J.Crew factory store). He tried extra hard to make Georgie laugh; and when he leaned on her shoulder while she typed, she mostly let him.

By the time she walked out of the frat house, she felt better about Neal and his inevitable girlfriend. . . .

No, that wasn’t true.

She still felt terrible about that—but she felt better about life. At least Georgie was probably going to be one of those cool single women, one with an interesting job and a dashing best friend and good hair. She could probably have halfway decent one-night stands if she loosened up her standards.

She felt utterly terrible again as soon as she saw Neal sitting at the bus stop across the street. A bus pulled up. When it drove away, Neal was still sitting there, staring right at her.

He held up his hand and motioned for her to come over.

Georgie folded her arms and frowned.

Neal stood up.

She should just ignore him. Walk straight to her car. Leave him hanging. What was he doing here, anyway?

Neal beckoned her again.

Georgie frowned, looked both ways, then half ran across the street.

She slowed down when she got close to him. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said stupidly.

“Not really,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You have?”

“Yeah.”

Georgie narrowed her eyes. Neal looked tired. And intent. And surprisingly pink in the daylight.

“I’m trying to figure out if that’s weird,” she said.

“I don’t really care if it is.” He took a step toward her. “I knew you’d be here, and I needed to tell you something.”

“You could have called,” she said.

“Right.” Neal tore off the first page of his notebook and handed it to her. There was a sketch of the cypress tree in front of Seth’s frat house. Also a skunk driving an AMC Gremlin. And then, Neal’s name—Neal G.—and a phone number.

Georgie took the piece of paper with both hands.

“I just needed to tell you—” He swallowed and pushed his bangs out of his face, even though they were too short to be in the way. “—I don’t have a girlfriend anymore.”

Georgie swallowed, too. “You don’t?”

He shook his head.

“That was fast,” she said.

Neal huffed out half a breath and just barely shook his head again. “It really, really wasn’t.”

“Okay . . . ,” Georgie said.

“So.” Neal looked determined. “I wanted you to know. That. And, also, I thought maybe . . . we could try again. Or just try. You know, go out or something. Someday. Now that I . . . don’t have a girlfriend.”

A smile snuck out of Georgie’s mouth. She tried to catch it.

Neal didn’t have a girlfriend.

This may even be a direct result of Georgie herself. And even though she didn’t consider herself a homewrecker—even though she didn’t particularly want to date a guy who kissed other girls, then ran home to break up with his girlfriend—Georgie did want to date Neal. Or maybe she just wanted to rub faces again.

“I’d like that,” she said.

Neal’s head tipped forward—in relief, she thought. He bit his bottom lip and exhaled. “Good.”

“Good,” Georgie repeated.

She took a step away. Past him, actually. Her car was just there, not even half a block up. “Okay,” she said, waving his number awkwardly at him.

He waved back, then pushed his hands into his jeans pockets.

Georgie took a few more steps, then turned around. “Yeah, okay—how about now?”

“What?”

“How about we try again now?”

“Now.”

She started walking back to him. “Yeah, I mean . . . I could pretend that I need to think about this and that I don’t want to rush in to anything. But I’m really not good at all that—I’m much better at rushing in. And it’s not like you just left your wife.”

“We were engaged,” Neal said. Like he was duty-bound to say it.

Georgie stopped. “Oh God, you were?”

“Not recently,” he said, pained. “We were engaged. Then we were just dating. Then we were spending some time apart.”

“What were you last night?”

“Spending some time apart.”

“So, last night, you actually didn’t have a girlfriend.”

Neal winced. “That seemed like a technicality at the time.”

“When did you break up?”

“This morning.”

“You woke up this morning and immediately went to break up with your girlfriend?”

“I called her.”

“No.” Georgie covered one eye. “Don’t tell me you did it over the phone.” She really didn’t want to go out with a guy who might break up with her someday over the phone.

Neal pushed his hair out of his face. “I had to. She’s in Nebraska.”

“Nebraska?”

He nodded, biting his lip again.

“How long have you been together?”

“Had been together,” Neal said. “Since high school.”

“Jesus,” Georgie said. “You broke up with your high-school-sweetheart-slash-fiancée for me?”

“Not my fiancée,” he said. “Anymore. And not just for you.”

Georgie frowned. Now that she wasn’t the reason, she kinda wanted to be.

“We were going to break up anyway,” he said.

She frowned some more.

“I mean,” Neal said, “we’d been talking about trying again. But then I met you. And I figured that if I felt the way I feel about you, maybe that was pretty solid evidence that she and I should break up.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so many words in row,” Georgie said.

“I’m a bit off my game.”

She smiled. A bit. “I throw you off your game?”

“Christ,” he muttered, “yes. Welcome to me staying up all night, then breaking up with my high school girlfriend for you.”

She stepped closer to him. “Not just for me.” Georgie really was terrible at playing hard to get. Or even playing reasonable to get. She had zero game.

“You’re one hundred percent of the reason I did it this morning,” Neal said.

That shouldn’t make Georgie happy. How terrible would it be to be that poor girl in Nebraska—to know that your boyfriend broke up with you first thing in the morning, so he could rush off to be with somebody else? Georgie pictured a blond girl with tearstained cheeks, standing in the middle of a lonely prairie.

“Are you sad?” she asked him. Sincerely. “Do you need to go home and listen to all your mixed tapes and think about this chapter of your life closing?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I think I just need some sleep.”

“Okay. Just . . .” How was she supposed to avoid kissing Neal when his mouth was right there at mouth-level all the time? She didn’t even have to stand on tiptoe. Georgie took hold of the front of his sweatshirt and leaned in.

She kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said before she pulled back again. “For telling me.”

“Call me,” Neal whispered.

“I will.”

“Call me before you think you should.”

“I’ll call you tonight.”

Georgie grinned all the way to her car.

Neal didn’t have a girlfriend.

For, like, the next three hours, at least.

She called him that night. Then she took him to Versailles down on Venice Boulevard for garlic chicken and fried plantains. Neal didn’t know about anything cool in Los Angeles—he spent all his time at his apartment or on campus, or on the water, which he hated.

Which he hated, in practice.

Neal loved the concept of the ocean. He was practically animated once you got him talking about sea life and coral.

Nobody would ever describe Neal as fully animated. Or expressive. His thoughts didn’t play across his face like light on water. Which meant Georgie cataloged every flinch, every flick of his eyes, and tried to figure out what they meant. This seemed like a great way to spend the rest of her life.

Neal wasn’t sure how to spend the rest of his life.

He joked about being tragically bad with big decisions. He’d decided to study oceanography because nothing else appealed to him, and then he’d ended up stuck in California for four years. When he and his high school girlfriend—her name was Dawn (Prairie Dawn!)—drifted apart freshman year, Neal’s solution was to propose to her.

“I’m not good at knowing what I want,” he said at the end of the night, at the beginning of the morning. They were sitting on the beach, and Neal was holding Georgie’s hand. “I’m not usually good at wanting things.”

The sand was damp, and there was a cool breeze. Georgie was using it as an excuse to sit too close to him. She was wearing her blue and green plaid skirt and her red Doc Martens boots, and she was pushing her knee into his thigh because the reality of Neal—Neal without a girlfriend, Neal who said he liked her—was too much to leave be.

“Then we’ll get along fine,” she said, “because I’m extra good at wanting things. I want things until I feel sort of sick about them. I want enough for two normal people, at least.”

“Really,” Neal said. That’s what he always said when he didn’t have anything to say and he just wanted her to keep talking. There was a smile that went with it, sort of a mocking smile that would have seemed mean if his eyes weren’t shining.

“Really,” she said.

“What do you want?” he asked.

It would’ve been too easy—and too cheesy—to say “you,” even if it was top-of-mind right at the moment.

“I want to write,” Georgie said. “I want to make people laugh. I want to create a show. And then another show. And then another show. I want to be James L. Brooks.”

“I have no idea who that is.”

“Philistine.”

“He’s a philistine?”

“And I want to write a book of essays. And I want to join The Kids in the Hall.”

“You’ll have to pretend you’re a man,” Neal said.

“And a Canadian,” she agreed.

“And you’ll have to do lots of sketches where you’re in drag as a man, in drag as a woman—it’ll be very confusing.”

“I’m up for it.”

Neal laughed. (Almost. He smiled, and his shoulders and chest twitched.)

“And I want a Crayola Caddy,” Georgie said.

“What’s a Crayola Caddy?”

“It’s this thing they made when we were kids, kind of a lazy Susan with crayons and markers and paints.”

“I think I had one of those.”

Georgie yanked on his hand. “You had a Crayola Caddy?”

“I think so. It was yellow, right? And it came with poster paints? I think it’s still in our basement.”

“I’ve wanted a Crayola Caddy since 1981,” Georgie said. “It’s all I asked Santa Claus for, three years in a row.”

“Why didn’t your parents just buy it for you?”

She rolled her eyes. “My mom thought it was stupid. She bought me crayons and paint instead.”

“Well”—he lowered his eyebrows thoughtfully—“you could probably have mine.”

Georgie punched his chest with their clasped hands. “Shut. Up.” She knew it was stupid, but she was genuinely thrilled about this. “Neal Grafton, you have just made my oldest dream come true.”

Neal held her hand to his heart. His face was neutral, but his eyes were dancing. He whispered: “What else do you want, Georgie?”

“Two kids,” she said. “A boy and a girl. But not until my TV empire is under way.”

His eyes got big. “Christ.”

“Also a house with a big front porch. And a husband who likes to take driving vacations. And a car, obviously, with a roomy backseat.”

“You really are spectacular at this.”

“And I want a Disneyland annual pass. And a chance to work with Bernadette Peters. And I want to be happy. Like, seventy to eighty percent of the time. I want to be actively, thoughtfully happy.”

Neal was rubbing their hands into his blue sweatshirt. It said NORTH HIGH WRESTLING. TAKE ’EM DOWN, VIKES! His jaw was tight, and his blue eyes were almost black.

“And I want to fly over the ocean,” she said.

He swallowed and reached out to touch her face with his free hand. It was cold, and sand fell from it onto Georgie’s neck. “I think I want you,” he said.

Georgie squeezed the hand he was holding to his chest, and used it as an anchor to pull herself closer. “You think . . .”

Neal licked his bottom lip and nodded. “I think . . .” The closer she was, the more he looked away. “I think I just want you,” he said.

“Okay,” Georgie agreed.

Neal looked surprised—he almost laughed. “Okay?”

She nodded, close enough to bump her nose up against his. “Okay. You can have me.”

He pushed his forehead into hers, pulling his chin and mouth back. “Just like that.”

“Yeah.”

“Really,” he said.

“Really,” she promised.

She reached her mouth toward his, and he twisted his head up and away, looking at her. He was breathing hard through his nose. He was still holding her cheek.

Georgie tried to make her face as plain as possible:

Really. You can have me. Because I’m good at wanting things and good at getting what I want, and I can’t think of anything I want more than you. Really, really, really.

Neal nodded. Like he’d just been given an order. Then he let go of Georgie’s hand and pushed her (pinned her) gently (firmly) back into the sand.

He leaned over her, his hands on either side of her shoulders, and shook his head. “Georgie,” he said. Then he kissed her.

That was it, really.

That was when she added Neal to the list of things she wanted and needed and was bound to have someday. That’s when she decided that Neal was the person who was going to drive on those overnight road trips. And Neal was the one who was going to sit next to her at the Emmys.

He kissed her like he was drawing a perfectly straight line.

He kissed her in India ink.

That’s when Georgie decided, during that cocksure kiss, that Neal was what she needed to be happy.

They were all tired.

Seth had finger-combed all the curl out his hair. It was looking less JFK Jr., more Joe Piscopo. “We’re not adding a gay Indian character,” he said. That’s final.”

Scotty leaned over the table. “But Georgie said she wanted to add some diversity.”

“She didn’t say she wanted to add you.”

“Rahul isn’t me. He’s tall, and he doesn’t wear glasses.”

“He’s worse than you,” Seth said. “He’s fantasy-you.”

“Well, all these white guys are just fantasy-yous.”

Seth abused his hair some more. “Fantasy-me would never show up on this show. Fantasy-me was already on Gossip Girl.”

“Georgie,” they both said at once.

“Rahul can stay,” Georgie said. “But this is a misfit comedy; he has to be short and wear glasses.”

“Why would you do that to Rahul?” Scotty folded his arms. “Now he’ll never find love.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Scotty, you’ll find love.”

“One, I’m talking about Rahul. And two, I don’t think you mean that.”

Georgie put her hand on Scotty’s shoulder. “He’ll find love, Scotty. I’ll write him a dreamy boyfriend.”

“You’d do that for me, Georgie?”

“I’ll do it for Rahul.”

“That episode better be fucking hilarious,” Seth said.

Scotty stood up and shoved his laptop in his backpack. “Rahul stays,” he told Seth. “I just made some Indian kid a star.”

Scotty walked out, head high.

Seth was still frowning. “Does this mean we have to go back and write Rahul into the pilot?”

“He can start in the third episode,” Georgie said. “You were just saying we needed a couple gay characters. You said our 1995 was showing.”

“I know.”

Georgie closed her laptop. “I know we said we’d take home scripts, but I don’t know how much I’m going to get done tonight. . . .”

“Stay,” Seth said. “We’ll get dinner and work on it together.”

“I can’t. I have to call Neal.” It was already eight o’clock in Omaha. Georgie wanted to call him by ten.

Seth studied her for a minute. Like the one thing she wasn’t telling him was the only thing he didn’t know about her.

What would happen if she called Seth tonight from the yellow phone? Would she get the Sig Ep house in 1998? Would one of his Saturday-morning girls answer?

Seth never talked about the Saturday-morning girls now, but Georgie assumed the parade marched on.

“Thanks,” he said. “For pushing through today. I know that something is seriously fucked up with you.”

Georgie unplugged her phone.

“And it’s killing me that you won’t talk about it,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry, Georgie—I want you to be funny.”

CHAPTER 17

By the time Georgie pulled into her mom’s driveway, she was 100 percent sure that if she called Neal tonight from the yellow rotary phone, he’d pick it up in the past.

Or that it would seem that way—that the grand illusion was going to hold.

And she was 1,000 percent sure she was going to call him. Even though that might be dangerous. (If it were real.) (Georgie needed to pick a side—real or not real—and stick with it.)

She had to call. You can’t just ignore a phone that calls into the past. You can’t know it’s there and not call.

Georgie couldn’t, anyway.

Whatever was happening, this was the role she’d been given. Neal wasn’t the one with a magic phone that could call into the future.

(God, maybe she should test that theory, she could ask him to call her back . . . No. No way. What if her mom answered and started talking about Alice and Noomi and divorce? What if Georgie herself answered the phone back in 1998 and said something horrible and immature, and ruined everything? Nineteen-ninety-eight Georgie clearly couldn’t be trusted.)

Heather opened the door to the house before Georgie could knock.

“Is there a pizza coming?” Georgie asked.

“No.”

Georgie stayed out on the stoop.

“Baked ziti,” Heather said, rolling her eyes. “Just come in.”

Georgie did. Her mom and Kendrick were eating dinner in the kitchen.

“You’re home early,” her mom said. “I made a Caesar salad, if you’re hungry, and there’s puppy chow for dessert.”

The pugs started barking under the table.

“Not for you, little mama,” Georgie’s mom said, leaning over to make eye contact with the pregnant one. “This puppy chow is for big mamas and daddies. Little mamas can’t have chocolate—I swear, Kenny, they understand everything we say.”

Heather was standing to the side of the front door, pulling out the curtain, so she could peek out at an angle.

They were all completely over the fact that Georgie was here. Even the dogs had stopped tracking her every movement with their little whiteless eyes.

Georgie could probably move back home without ever having to talk to her mom about it. Her mom would just start thawing out one more pork chop for dinner and complaining when Georgie left her bag on the table—maybe her mom thought she’d already moved back home.

“Thanks,” Georgie said, heading for her room. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Are you coming out later?” her mom called after her.

“No,” Georgie shouted back, “I’m calling Neal!”

“Tell him we said hello! And that we all still love him! Tell him he’ll always be part of this family!”

“I’m not telling him any of that.”

“Why not?”

Georgie was halfway down the hall. “Because he’ll think I’m crazy!”

She opened her bedroom door, then quickly closed it behind her—then thought about pushing a dresser against it. Instead she rushed over to the closet and started emptying things out into her room. She’d buried the phone at the very bottom, under an old sleeping bag, a few rolls of gift wrap, her Rollerblades from grade school . . .

There it was. There.

Georgie fell back on her heels and stared at the phone, not sure if she should touch it, not sure if she should rub it three times and make a wish.

She picked up the receiver and held it to her head. No dial tone.

Well, of course, no dial tone—it’s not plugged in. It’s not plugged in to the space/time portal in the wall behind my bed. (Cue maniacal laughter.)

She crawled over to her bed and shimmied underneath to plug the phone in, half expecting the outlet to zap and spark. Then she pushed out again, untangled her hair from the bedsprings, and leaned against the bed with the phone in her lap.

Right. Here we are. Time to call Neal.

Neal . . .

Georgie held her breath while she dialed his number, then choked when he picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Neal?”

“Hey,” he said. She could hear the quarter-smile in his voice. The one that just barely dented his cheek. “I thought it might be you.”

“It is,” she said. “It’s me.”

“How are you?”

“I’m . . .” Georgie closed her eyes and realized she still hadn’t properly exhaled. She did it now, bringing up her knees and setting the phone on the floor beside her. This was Neal, he was still there. He was still taking her calls. “Better now,” she said, rubbing her eyes into the back of her wrist.

“Me, too,” he said, and God, that was good to hear. God, he was good to hear.

Georgie and Neal had never spent this much time apart, not since they got married. She was going crazy not talking to him every day, not checking in with him. In the present. In real life.

Was that what was going on here? Was Georgie hallucinating these phone calls because she missed Neal? Because she needed him?

She needed him.

Neal was home. He was base.

Neal was where Georgie plugged in, and synced up, and started fresh every day. He was the only one who knew her exactly as she was. She should tell him about this magic phone insanity. Right now.

She could tell him, she could always tell Neal anything. Georgie and Neal were bad at a lot of things, but they were good at being on each other’s side. Neal was especially good at being on Georgie’s side, at being there when she needed him.

She thought of all the times he’d stayed up late to help her with a script. The way he’d lived at her right hand after Alice was born (when Georgie was depressed and in pain and terrible at breastfeeding). The way he never made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing.

If there was anyone she could tell about this, it was Neal.

“Georgie? Did I lose you?”

“No,” she said. Jesus. She could not tell Neal. “I’m here.”

“Tell me about your day.”

Well, first I unplugged my magic phone, then I got into my electric car. . . .

“I worked with Seth on Passing Time,” Georgie said—because it was the only true thing that seemed safe to say.

She immediately wished she could take it back. Mentioning Seth was like flipping Neal’s off switch; that was as true back then as it was now. (All right, so maybe she couldn’t talk to Neal about everything.)

“Ah,” he said, his voice noticeably cooler.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I . . .” He cleared his throat. She could hear him consciously letting the annoyance go. Neal still did that, too. The irritation would freeze on his face, he’d gather it up, then shake it off. “I helped my mom bake more cookies,” he said. “She set some aside for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Then I ate them.”

“Bastard.”

He laughed a breath. “And then . . . I met that guy my dad wanted me to meet, the guy with the railroad police.”

It took a second for that to click. Neal’s dad’s friend, railroad police. Right. There was a job Neal had thought about—never seriously—back in Omaha. “I still think you’re making that up,” she said.

“I’m not making it up.”

“Railroad detectives. It sounds like an hour-long drama on CBS.”

“It sounds really interesting,” Neal said. “Like all the best parts of police work, the thinking and the problem-solving, but not having to walk a beat or answer 9-1-1 calls.”

“This week on Railroad Detectives,” Georgie teased, “the team discovers a cache of sleepy hoboes. . . .”

“Something like that.”

“Is the railroad looking for oceanographers?”

“No. Thank God. Mike—my dad’s friend—said it didn’t matter what my degree was in, that any background in the sciences would help.”

“Oh,” Georgie said. “That’s great.” She tried really hard to mean it.

“It was good,” he said. “Then I came home, ran into Dawn, and ended up getting ice cream with her.”

Jesus, Neal’s whole day had been a life-without-Georgie dress rehearsal. “Dawn,” she said. “That’s . . . great. I bet Dawn thinks you should become a railroad detective.”

“And you don’t?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying?” He sounded cool again.

“Nothing. I’m sorry. Just . . . Dawn.”

“Are you jealous of Dawn?”

“We’ve talked about this,” Georgie said.

“No, we haven’t,” Neal disagreed.

He was right; in 1998, they hadn’t.

“You’re not actually jealous of Dawn,” he said.

“Of course I am. She was your fiancée.”

“Only sort of. And I broke up with her for you.”

“You can’t have a sort-of fiancée, Neal.”

“You know I never even meant to propose to her. . . .”

“That makes it worse.”

“Georgie. You cannot be jealous of Dawn—that’s like the sun being jealous of a lightbulb.”

She smiled. But kept arguing. “I can be jealous of anyone who got to you first. If I went down to the malt shop and shared a milk shake with my ex-boyfriend-slash-sort-of fiancé, you’d be jealous.”

“Right,” Neal snorted. “But I’m not supposed to be jealous when you spend every day with Seth.”

“Seth isn’t my ex-boyfriend.”

“God, no, he’s worse.”

Rules, Georgie wanted to shout. Rules, rules, rules! Weren’t all their rules already unspoken by 1998? “You can’t compare Seth to Dawn,” she said. “I was never sleeping with Seth.”

There was a loud click, someone picking up another phone. Georgie filled with panic, like she was in junior high and on the phone past curfew—she almost hung up.

“Georgie?” Her mom sounded tentative. Who knows when she’d last picked up the landline.

“Yes, Mom? Did you need to use the phone?”

“No . . . I was just wondering if you wanted some puppy chow.”

“Thanks. Still no.”

“Is that Neal?”

“It is,” Neal said. “Hi, Liz.”

Georgie winced. Her mom used to insist that Neal call her “Liz.” And then, after he and Georgie got engaged, she’d insisted on “Mom”—which initially made him really uncomfortable.

“I feel like I’m cheating on my own mom,” he’d said.

“Just try not calling her anything at all,” Georgie advised him. “I got mad at her once, when I was fourteen, and I didn’t call her ‘Mom’ for a year.”

“Oh, honey,” Georgie’s mom cooed into the phone. “It’s still ‘Mom.’ We’re still family. Georgie was supposed to tell you that. None of this affects our feelings for you.”

Georgie could tell that Neal was speechless.

“Okay, Mom,” Georgie said, “thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Thanks, Liz,” Neal said.

Her mom sighed. “Now, Neal, you tell your mother I said hello—”

Oh God, oh God, oh God. In 1998, Georgie’s mom and Margaret hadn’t even met yet.

“Mom,” Georgie cut her off. “Neal and I were talking about something really important, and I just really need you to hang up now.”

“Oh, of course. Neal, honey—”

“Now, Mom. I’m begging you.” If this went on much longer, Georgie would regress all the way back to toddlerhood.

Her mom sighed. “All right, I can take a hint. Good-bye, Neal. It was so good to hear your voice.”

If she even mentioned the girls, Georgie would start screaming. She would. She’d figure out how to explain it later. “Good-bye, Mom.”

Her mom sighed into the receiver right until the second she hung it up.

Georgie wasn’t sure how to recover.

“So,” Neal said, “I guess your mom thinks we broke up.”

She took a second to feel utterly relieved by his train of thought, then said, “I thought we did, too, up until a few days ago.”

“But not now?”

“No,” Georgie said, “not now.”

“No matter what happens,” he said, “I’m never calling your mom ‘Mom.’ It’s too weird.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ll cover for you.”

Neal started a sentence, then stopped. Then started again. “Georgie, I—well, I wasn’t ever sleeping with Dawn.”

“But—” Georgie stopped. “Yes, you were. You were engaged.”

“I never slept with her.” Neal’s voice dropped. “She wanted to wait until marriage. Her first boyfriend was a monster, so she reclaimed her virginity.”

“She reclaimed her virginity?”

“Leave it, Georgie. She can do whatever she wants with her virginity.”

“Right,” Georgie said, nodding her head. “Right . . . It doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, actually. Maybe I’ll reclaim mine before you come back. In the name of Queen Elizabeth.”

Neal sounded like he might have laughed.

“Because she was the virgin queen,” Georgie said.

“I got it.”

Georgie was quiet. Neal had never slept with Dawn. She’d always assumed he’d had lots of fabulous young sex with Dawn. Freshly scrubbed Heartland-teenager sex. “Suckin’ on a chili dog outside the Tastee Freeze,” et cetera.

Did that mean he’d never had sex with anyone but Georgie?

She thought of their first time. At Neal’s apartment, in the middle of the night. Laughing and fumbling with the condom—and Georgie wanting to get past this first time together, so they could get to just being together, whatever that might mean.

Was that Neal’s first time ever?

That’s exactly the sort of thing he wouldn’t tell her. Neal didn’t like to talk about sex. And he didn’t like to talk about before. Before they were together, before Georgie. (He didn’t like to talk about yesterday.)

She thought of Neal. Practically a teenager, pale as paper. All concentration and broken concentration, laughing through clenched teeth and touching her like she was made of glass.

Neal.

“You can’t be jealous of Seth,” Georgie offered quietly.

“Really,” he huffed.

“Really. That’s like the sun being jealous of . . .”

“A comparably sized sun?”

“I was going to say the moon.”

“The sun probably is jealous of the moon,” Neal said. “It’s a hell of a lot closer.”

“Seth and I are just friends,” she said. It was true, it had always been true. Best friends—but just friends.

“You and Seth aren’t just anything.”

“Neal . . .”

“He’s your soul mate,” Neal said. And the way he said it, it was like he’d already thought it through—like he’d thought it through and through, like he’d chosen that word intentionally.

Georgie’s jaw dropped against the receiver. “Seth. Is not. My soul mate.”

“Isn’t he? Aren’t you planning your life around him?”

“No.” Georgie leaned forward. Even in 1998, that hadn’t been true. “No. God. I was planning my life around me.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Neal . . .”

“No, Georgie, let’s just get it out there. I’m optional for you—I know that. I know that you love me, I know you want to be with me. But you can imagine your life without me. If I walk away from you now—if I don’t come back—you won’t have to adjust your grand plan. But Seth is your grand plan. It’s obvious. I don’t think you could imagine going twenty-four hours without him.”

“Are you asking me to?”

“No.” Neal sounded dejected. “No. I know . . . what you guys have together. I’d never ask you to choose between us.”

He never had.

Neal had never liked Seth—that hadn’t changed over the years. But he never complained about him. He never complained about all the time Seth and Georgie spent together. About the long hours or the middle-of-the-night texts—or the days when Neal and Georgie took the girls to Disneyland, and Georgie ended up sitting on the curb in Critter Country, talking Seth through some script emergency over the phone.

And Georgie was so grateful for that. For Neal’s acceptance. (Even if it was just resignation.)

Sometimes she felt like she was walking a fine, precarious line between the two of them. Like there wasn’t enough of her to be who she needed to be for them both.

If Neal pushed her, or pulled her—if either one of them did—it would all come crashing down.

Georgie would come crashing down.

But Neal never did. He never seemed jealous. Pissed, resentful, tired, bitter, lost—yeah. But not jealous. He’d always trusted her with Seth.

What would Georgie do if Neal did ask her to choose between them?

What would she have done if he’d asked her back in 1998?

She would have been angry. She might have chosen Seth just because Seth wasn’t the one asking her to make the choice. And because Seth came first—chronologically. Seth was grandfathered in.

Georgie hadn’t known back then how much she was going to come to need Neal, how he was going to become like air to her.

Was that codependence? Or was it just marriage?

“You could,” she said.

“What?”

“You could ask me to choose.”

“What?” He sounded surprised. “I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want you to either,” she said. “But you could.”

“Georgie, I’ve seen you two together. You can’t even finish a joke without him.”

“Those are just jokes.”

“Really throwing around the word ‘just’ tonight, aren’t you?”

“You could ask me to choose,” she insisted.

“I don’t want to,” he said, practically growling.

“I wouldn’t even have to think about it, Neal. I’d choose you. I’d choose you again and again and again. Seth is my best friend—I think he’ll always be my best friend—but you’re my future.” Never mind that this wasn’t true yet in 1998. It was going to be true. It was inevitably true. “You’re my whole life.”

Neal exhaled. She could imagine him shaking out his head, blinking. Resetting his jaw.

“Please don’t be jealous of Seth,” she whispered.

He was quiet.

Georgie waited.

“If you promise me that I don’t have to be jealous,” Neal said finally, “that I never have to be jealous, then I won’t be.”

“You never have to be, I promise.”

“Okay,” he said. Then more firmly, “Okay. I’m taking you at your word.”

“Thank you.”

“Now take me at my mine, Georgie, for Christ’s sake—I’m not in love with Dawn. I never really was. Even if you break up with me and crush my heart, I’m never getting back together with Dawn. I know that the world isn’t flat now, I’m not going back.”

“So you’re saying that, if we break up, you’ll definitely hold out for somebody better than Dawn. That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“You’ve ruined me for Dawn. That’s supposed to make you feel better.”

“Neal, I want to ruin you for everyone.”

“Christ.” His voice got closer, like he was pushing the receiver against his chin. “You have. You don’t have to be jealous of anyone. But especially not of Dawn, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

He sighed. “Let’s never do this again.”

“Do what?”

“Be jealous and crappy to each other.”

“It’s easier for me than for you,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because you’re right. Seth is worse than an ex-boyfriend. Seth isn’t going anywhere.”

“Do I have any reason to be jealous of Seth?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not. End of story.”

Georgie asked Neal more questions about the railroad detectives. She could tell he wanted to talk about it.

Apparently he’d been considering the job more seriously than she’d ever realized.

She tried not to draw attention to the obvious problem with this career plan—that it would mean moving to Omaha. And Georgie was never going to move to Omaha.

She was going to work in TV, Neal knew that. And TV meant Los Angeles.

Part of her just wanted to tell him:

This isn’t going to happen. We stay in California. You hate it. But you grow your own avocados. So that’s something.

You like our house. You picked it out. You said it reminded you of home—something about hills and high ceilings and only one bathroom.

And we’re close to the ocean—close enough—and you don’t hate it, not like you used to. Sometimes I think you like it. You love me by the ocean. And the girls. You say it sweetens us. Pinks our cheeks and curls our hair.

And Neal, if you don’t come back to me, you’ll never see what a good dad you are.

And it won’t be the same if you have kids with some other, better girl, because they won’t be Alice and Noomi, and even if I’m not your perfect match, they are.

God, the three of you. The three of you.

When I wake up on Sunday mornings—late, you always let me sleep in—I come looking for you, and you’re in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails, and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree, and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they’re round and golden, but they glow for you.

And you built us a picnic table.

And you learned to bake bread.

And you’ve painted a mural on every west-facing wall.

And it isn’t all bad, I promise. I swear to you.

You might not be actively, thoughtfully happy 70 to 80 percent of the time, but maybe you wouldn’t be anyway. And even when you’re sad, Neal—even when you’re falling asleep at the other side of the bed—I think you’re happy, too. About some things. About a few things.

I promise it’s not all bad.

“Georgie? Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you fell asleep.”

“I’m awake. It’s only ten here.”

“I was saying that I’d have to wear a gun—would that bother you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never thought about it. It’s hard to imagine you with a gun.” Neal didn’t even kill spiders. He teased them onto a piece of paper, then set them down gently on the porch. “Would it bother you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. I’ve always hated guns.”

“I love you,” she said.

“Because I hate guns?”

“Because everything.”

“Because everything.” She could hear Neal almost smiling. She could almost see him, too.

No . . .

Georgie was picturing her Neal. Her almost-forty Neal. Leaner. Sharper. With longer hair and crow’s-feet and a bit of gray in the beard he grew every winter. “What passes for winter,” he’d say. “My children are never going to know what it’s like to come in from the cold and feel the warmth work its way back into their fingers.”

“It sounds like you’re saying they’re never going to get frostbite.”

“I can’t have this conversation with someone who’s never built a snowman.”

“Our kids have seen snow.”

“At Disneyland, Georgie. That’s just soap bubbles.”

“They don’t know the difference.”

“What if it was Persephone who kidnapped Hades . . .”

“You’re talking fancy again.”

Her Neal had lost his baby fat, his soft belly and hobbity hint of a double chin.

Once Alice was born, Neal took up cycling. He went everywhere by bicycle now, hauling a bright yellow trailer. Hauling two little girls, bags of groceries, stuffed animals, stacks of library books . . .

Working motherhood had made Georgie shapeless and limp, and perpetually tired-looking. She never got enough sleep anymore. And she’d never gotten her waist back—or gotten around to buying new clothes for this new (not so new anymore, really) reality. Georgie hadn’t even resized her wedding ring after it got too tight to wear during her last pregnancy. It sat in a china saucer on their dresser.

While Neal had come into focus over the years—clean-jawed, clear-eyed—Georgie had lost her own reflection in the mirror.

Sometimes, when she had a day off, they’d walk to the park, the four of them, and Georgie would see how the nannies and stay-at-home moms looked at Neal. That handsome dad with the blue eyes and stubbly dimples and the two laughing, doll-faced satellites.

“Georgie? Am I losing you?”

“No.” She pressed the phone to her ear. “I’m here.”

“Do we have a bad connection?”

This person on the other end of the line was Neal as he was. Before he was quite hers. When he was still circling the possibility of Georgie. This Neal was harsher. Paler. Had a shorter temper. But this Neal hadn’t given up on her yet. This Neal still looked at Georgie like she was something brand-new and supernatural. He was still surprised by her, delighted with her.

Even now, as frustrated as he was.

Even now, ten states away and half done with her, this Neal still thought she was better than he deserved. More than he’d ever expected life would give him.

“I love you,” she said.

“Georgie, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Her voice broke. “I love you.”

“Sunshine.” Neal sounded soft, concerned. “I love you, too.”

“But not enough,” she said, “is that what you’re thinking?”

“What? No. That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“It’s what you’ve been thinking,” she said. “It’s what you thought from California to Colorado.”

“That’s not fair. . . .”

“What if you were right, Neal?”

“Georgie, please don’t cry.”

“It’s what you said, and you said that you meant it. And nothing’s changed, has it? Why aren’t we talking about this? Why are we pretending that everything’s fine? It’s not fine. You’re in Nebraska, and I’m here, and it’s Christmas, and we’re supposed to be together. You love me. But maybe it isn’t enough. That’s what you’re thinking.”

“No.” Neal cleared his throat and said it again: “No. Maybe I was thinking that. From California to Colorado. But then . . . I got tired. Literally tired—dangerously tired, and there was the thing with the aliens. And then sunrise. And the rainbows. I told you about the rainbows, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But I don’t understand the significance.”

“There is no significance. I just got tired. Tired of being angry. Tired of thinking about dead ends, and everything that isn’t or might not be enough.”

“So not breaking up with me seemed like a better idea after you’d been awake for twenty-four hours?”

“Don’t.”

“What if you were right? What if it isn’t enough?”

He sighed. “Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s impossible to know.”

“To know what?” she pushed.

“Whether it’s enough. How does anyone ever know whether love is enough? It’s an idiotic question. Like, if you fall in love, if you’re that lucky, who are you to even ask whether it’s enough to make you happy?”

“But it happens all the time,” she said. “Love isn’t always enough.”

“When?” Neal demanded. “When is that true?”

All Georgie could think of was the end of Casablanca, and Madonna and Sean Penn. “Just because you love someone,” she said, “that doesn’t mean your lives will fit together.”

“Nobody’s lives just fit together,” Neal said. “Fitting together is something you work at. It’s something you make happen—because you love each other.”

“But . . .” Georgie stopped herself. She didn’t want to talk Neal out of this, even if he was wrong. Even if she was the only one who knew how wrong he was.

He sounded exasperated. “I’m not saying that everything will magically work out if people love each other enough. . . .”

If we love each other enough, Georgie heard.

“I’m just saying,” he went on, “maybe there’s no such thing as enough.”

Georgie was quiet. She wiped her eyes with Neal’s T-shirt.

“Georgie? Do you think I’m wrong?”

“No,” she said. “I think—oh God, I know—that I love you. I love you so much. Too much. I feel like it’s going to spin me off my axis.”

Neal was quiet for a second. “That’s good,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“God. Yeah.”

“Do you want to get off the phone now?”

He huffed a laugh into the receiver. “No.”

But maybe he did. Neal was always good about talking to her on the phone, but he wasn’t a fifteen-year-old girl.

“Not even a little bit,” he said. “Do you?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting ready for bed. Can I call you back?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. Then lied, “I don’t want to wake up my mom.”

“Okay. Then you call me. Give me twenty minutes. I want to take a quick shower.”

“Okay,” she said.

“I’ll try to pick up on the first ring.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” He blew a quick kiss into the phone, and Georgie laughed, because Neal seemed like the last guy on earth who would kiss into a phone. But he wasn’t.

“Bye,” she said, waiting for the click.

CHAPTER 18

Georgie decided to take a shower, too. Her mom said she could borrow some pajamas. All her mom’s pajamas came in sets—matching tops and bottoms, or peignoirs with flirty, useless robes.

“Just give me a T-shirt!” Georgie was standing in her mom’s bathroom in a towel, shouting through the door.

“I don’t have any sleeping T-shirts. Do you want one of Kendrick’s?”

“Gross. No.”

“Then you’ll just have to deal.” Her mom opened the door and threw something in. Georgie unfolded a pair of aqua-colored pajama shorts—polyester satin, with cream-colored bows and a matching, low-cut lace-trimmed top. She groaned.

“Have you been talking to Neal all this time?” her mom asked.

“Yeah,” Georgie said, wishing she had clean underwear. Not willing to borrow any.

“How is he?”

“Good.” She realized she was smiling. “Really good.”

“How’re the girls?”

“Fine.”

“Are you working things through?”

“There’s nothing to work through,” Georgie said. Yes, she thought. I think so. She peeked out of the bathroom. “Where’s Kendrick?”

“In the living room, watching TV.”

Georgie walked out.

“Look at you,” her mom said. “You look so nice. You should let me go shopping with you sometime.”

“I have to call Neal back,” Georgie said. “Thanks, um, for the pajamas. And everything.” She stooped to kiss her mom on the cheek. Georgie tried to do stuff like that more now that she had kids of her own. Alice and Noomi couldn’t get enough of Georgie; they practically crawled on her when she was home. It made Georgie feel physically ill to think of them shying away from her—or bristling when she tried to kiss them. What if they went a whole year without calling her “Mom”?

So Georgie tried to be more affectionate with her own mother. When she could.

As soon as she kissed her mom on the cheek, her mom turned her face to catch Georgie on the lips. Georgie frowned and pulled away. “Why do you always do that?”

“Because I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’m going to call Neal.” Georgie tugged at the satin shorts; there was no tugging them to a reasonable length. “Thank you.”

She looked both ways before walking out into the hall. She stopped at Heather’s room—Heather was lying on her bed. She had her laptop out and was wearing headphones.

She took them off when she saw Georgie. “Hello, Victoria, did you come to tell me a secret?”

“Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“I’m starving, but I don’t want to walk through the living room like this.”

“I think if Dad sees you in Mom’s lingerie, it might scar him for life.”

Heather called Kendrick “Dad.” Which made sense because he’d raised her. And because he wasn’t three years older than Heather. “It might scar me for life,” Georgie said. “Why are all her pajamas lingerie?”

“She’s a very sensual woman. I know this because she likes to tell me.” Heather got off the bed. “What do you want to eat? I ate all the ziti. And the puppy chow—there wasn’t that much left. Hey, do you want me to order you a pizza?”

“No,” Georgie said. “I’ll take whatever’s in the kitchen.”

“You could have borrowed some of my pajamas, you know.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Georgie said. “Why don’t you give me as many as you can spare, and I’ll fashion something comfy and tentlike out of them.”

“I’m sure I have something that would fit you.”

“Oh my God, stop. Just get me some food. I’m gonna go hide in my room.”

“Have you been talking to Neal?”

Georgie grinned. “Yeah.”

“That’s good, right?”

Georgie nodded. “Go. I’m hungry.”

Heather brought back an apple, three prewrapped slices of cheese, and a giant bottle of Mexican Coke. Georgie would have been better off sending Alice.

“Call Neal,” Heather said. “I want to say hi to the girls.”

“It’s after one in the morning there,” Georgie said. “They’re asleep.”

“Oh, right. Time zones.”

Georgie unwrapped a slice of cheese and started eating it. “Thank you. Now go.”

“You’re supposed to wrap the cheese around the apple; it’s like a caramel apple.”

“That doesn’t sound anything like a caramel apple.”

“Call him now,” Heather said. “I want to say hi.”

“No.”

Georgie’s mom, miraculously, hadn’t spoiled anything with Neal, but there was no way Georgie was letting Heather near the phone.

“Why not?” Heather asked.

“You know why not,” Georgie said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Because. We have private . . . stuff to talk about.”

“Like divorce stuff?”

“No.”

“Like phone sex?”

Georgie grimaced. “No.”

“Because you can’t have phone sex wearing Mom’s lingerie.”

“I just want to talk to my husband, okay? Privately?”

“Sure. Right after I say hi.”

Georgie tried to open the Coke bottle. “Do you have a bottle opener?”

“Yeah, Georgie, I carry one in my jammies. Here.” Heather took the bottle and started to twist the cap in the side of her mouth.

“Stop,” Georgie said, reaching for the bottle. “You’ll ruin your teeth.”

Heather sighed dramatically, and handed Georgie the bottle. Georgie set it delicately in her own mouth and bit down as gingerly as possible.

The phone rang.

Before Georgie could even think about getting to it, Heather grabbed the receiver and shouted, “Hi, Neal!”

Georgie dropped the bottle and launched herself on her sister, digging under Heather’s head for the phone.

“It’s Heather. . . . Yes, Heather.”

“Heather,” Georgie whispered. “I’m going to kill you. Let go.”

Heather was curled into a defensive ball on the bed, still pushing Georgie (in the face) with one hand, and holding the phone to her head with the other. Her expression went from bratty and victorious to confused. She let go of the phone, abruptly, and Georgie pushed her off the bed.

Georgie grabbed the phone. “Neal?”

“Yeah?” He sounded confused.

“Just a minute.”

Heather was standing in the middle of the room, bug-eyed, arms folded. “That’s not Neal,” she whispered. At least she was whispering.

“It is,” Georgie argued.

“Then why didn’t he know who I was?”

“He was probably wondering why you were yelling at him.”

“That didn’t sound like Neal.”

“Heather, I swear . . .”

“You’re having an affair. Oh my God, you’re having an affair. Is that why Neal left you?”

Georgie rushed forward and covered Heather’s mouth with her hand. Heather’s eyes were huge. And tearful. Oh God.

“Heather, I swear that I am not having an affair. I promise you.”

Heather pulled her head away. “On your life.”

“On my life.”

“On Alice and Noomi’s lives,” Heather said.

“Don’t say that, that’s terrible.”

“It’s only terrible if you’re lying.”

“Fine. Yes. I swear.”

Heather pursed her lips. “I know that’s not Neal, Georgie. I know something’s wrong here. It’s women’s intuition.”

“You’re not a woman yet.”

“That’s bullshit, I’m old enough to get drafted.”

“Please, please, go away,” Georgie begged. “I have to talk to Neal. We can talk about this tomorrow morning.”

“Fine . . .”

Georgie pushed Heather out the door and closed it. Her heart was thudding. (She really needed to get back to yoga. Or whatever it was people did now. Spin. Georgie hadn’t been to the gym since Alice was born.) She wished her bedroom door had a lock. It didn’t even latch—her mom said the dogs liked to come in here and sleep on the bed.

Georgie walked back to the phone and picked up the receiver. She held it up to her ear, cautiously. “Neal?”

“Georgie?”

“Yeah.”

“Who was that?”

“That was . . . Heather. My cousin Heather.”

“Your mom named Heather ‘Heather’ even though you have a cousin named Heather?”

“Yeah. Sort of. After Heather, my cousin.”

“Is she staying with you for Christmas?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have other family there?”

“No. Just Heather.”

“I didn’t know you had cousins,” he said.

“Everybody has cousins.”

“But you don’t have aunts and uncles.”

Georgie sat back down on the floor. “Are you practicing for Railroad Detectives?”

“It doesn’t seem like you like your cousin.”

“I just don’t want to waste precious you time, talking about Heather.”

“Precious me time,” Neal said softly.

“Yeah.”

“I miss you, Georgie.”

“I miss you, too.”

“Sorry. I got tired of waiting for you to call.”

“It’s okay,” she said.

“Are you in bed?”

“No, I’m sitting on the floor, eating prewrapped cheese.”

“Really,” he said. It came out a laugh. “What are you wearing?”

Georgie took a bite of cheese. This was ridiculous. This was all ridiculous. “You don’t want to know.”

“It’s snowing here.”

Georgie felt a pull in her stomach. She’d still never seen snow.

It never snowed when she was in Omaha, even in December—Margaret said Georgie brought the sun with her.

But it was snowing now for Alice and Noomi.

And it was snowing in 1998 for Neal.

“Really?” she said.

“Yeah.” Neal sounded soft and warm. He sounded tucked in. “Just started.”

Georgie climbed up into her bed and clapped softly to turn off the light. “Tell me about it.”

“I can’t,” he said. “You don’t have any frame of reference.”

“I’ve seen snow on TV.”

“That’s usually fake.”

“How is real snow different?”

“It’s less like powder. It’s sticky. It doesn’t scatter when you walk through it, not usually. What’s it like in your head?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. It’s like snow.”

“Think about it.”

“Well . . . it looks like crystal—snowflakes do—but I know it’s soft. I guess I imagined that it would feel almost ceramic? But instead of shattering, it would crumble in your hands.”

“Hmmm . . .”

“Is that right?” she asked.

“Almost not at all.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, it’s ice,” he said.

“I know it’s ice.”

“You’re partly right—it’s soft. Have you ever had shaved ice? Did you have one of those Snoopy Sno-Cone Machines?”

“Of course not, my mom never bought me anything good.”

“But you’ve had shaved ice.”

“Yeah.”

“So you know how that’s soft. How it’s solid, but soft. How it compresses when you push your tongue into the roof of your mouth.”

“Yeah . . . ,” she said.

“Well, it’s like that. Like ice. But soft. And light. And almost whipped with air. And sometimes, like tonight, it’s thick—and it sticks together in clumps, like cotton candy and wet feathers.”

Georgie laughed.

“I wish you were here,” he said. “To see it. If you were here, you’d be sleeping in the basement—there’s a foldout couch.”

She knew about the couch. “I don’t like basements.”

“You’d like this one. It’s got lots of windows. And a foosball table.”

Georgie climbed under the covers. “Oh, well, foosball.”

“And a whole wall of board games.”

“I like board games.”

“I know. . . . You’re in bed now, aren’t you?”

“Hmm-mmm.”

“I can tell. Your voice has given up.”

“Given up what?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Being upright. And on-the-ball. Clever. All the things you have to be all day long.”

“Are you saying I’m done being clever?”

“I’m saying,” he said, “I like you when you’ve given everything up for the day.”

“I like you on the phone,” Georgie said. “I’ve always liked you on the phone.”

“Always?”

“Mmm.”

“If you were here,” Neal said, “you’d be sleeping in the basement. And I’d notice it was snowing, and I wouldn’t want you to miss it. I’d come downstairs. . . .”

“Don’t, you’ll traumatize Margaret if you get caught sneaking into my room.”

“Pfft. I’m stealthy. I’d come down and wake you up. And I’d let you borrow a pair of my boots and an old coat.”

“Make it your letterman’s jacket.”

“It’s not warm enough,” he argued.

“This is hypothetical snow, Neal. Make it your letterman’s jacket.”

“I don’t get it—you think wrestling is gross, but you like my letterman’s jacket.”

“You didn’t wrestle in the jacket,” she said.

“It could be real, you know. This scenario. Next Christmas.”

“Mmm.”

“So I’d take you outside in borrowed boots and my letterman’s jacket, out to the backyard—I’ve told you how there are no streetlights, right? You can see the stars. . . .”

Georgie had stood in that backyard with Neal, his backyard that felt like the edge of a forest, a dozen times over the years. There hadn’t ever been snow, but there were stars.

“And I’d watch you meet the snow,” he said.

“Meet it?”

“Feel it. Taste it. I’d watch it catch in your hair and eyelashes.”

She rubbed her cheek into her pillow. “Like in The Sound of Music.”

“And when you got too cold, I’d hold you close. And everywhere I touched you, the snow would melt between us.”

“We should talk on the phone more at home.”

He laughed. “Really.”

“Yeah. Just call each other from the next room.”

“We could get cell phones,” he said.

“Brilliant idea,” she agreed. “But you have to promise to answer yours.”

“Why wouldn’t I answer?”

“I don’t know.”

“And then,” he said, “when you got too cold for me to keep you warm—which would be too soon, because you’re spoiled by the sun—I’d take you back inside. And we’d shake off the snow and leave our wet boots in the mudroom.”

“Why’s it called a mudroom?”

“Because it’s the room where you take off your muddy things.”

“I love that your house plans for you to get muddy. Like it’s in the architecture.”

“And then I’d follow you back downstairs. . . . And you’d still be so cold. And your pajama pants would be wet. Your face would be flushed, your cheeks would be numb.”

“That sounds dangerous,” she said.

“It’s not dangerous. It’s normal. It’s nice.”

“Hmm.”

“And I wouldn’t be able to stop touching you,” Neal said, “because I’ve never touched you cold.”

“You’re hung up on the cold.”

His voice dipped into a rumble. “I’m hung up on you.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Georgie whispered.

“Like what?”

“That voice.”

“What voice?” he rumbled.

“You know what voice. Your Would you like me to seduce you? voice.”

“I have a Mrs. Robinson voice?”

“Yes,” she said. “You’re a minx.”

“Why can’t I seduce you, Georgie? You’re my girlfriend.”

She swallowed. “Yeah, but I’m sleeping in my childhood bedroom.”

“Georgie. I’ve had my way with you in that childhood bedroom. Just last week, in fact.”

“Yeah, but you’re in your childhood bedroom.” And you’re actually, practically your childhood self. Georgie couldn’t talk dirty with this Neal. It would be like cheating on her Neal—wouldn’t it?

“Have you blacked out all of last summer?” he asked.

She smiled and looked away, even though he couldn’t see her. “The Summer of Spectacular Phone Sex,” she said. Of course she remembered the Summer of Spectacular Phone Sex.

“Exactly,” he said. “The Summer of Conjugal Long Distance.”

Georgie had forgotten that nickname. It made her laugh. “No. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I can’t have spectacular phone sex with you.” I haven’t had phone sex for fifteen years. “I’m wearing my mother’s lingerie.”

Neal laughed. Genuinely. Out loud, which almost never happened. “If you’re trying to turn me on, I have to tell you, sweets, it’s not working.” “I’m actually wearing my mother’s lingerie,” Georgie said. “It’s a long story. I didn’t have anything else to wear.”

She could hear him smiling, even before he started talking. “Well, Christ, Georgie—take it off.”

Neal.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“No,” she said, “just stay.”

“I’m falling asleep.” He breathed a laugh. It sounded muffled. She could picture his face in the pillow, the phone resting on his ear—she was imagining a cell phone. Wrong.

“That’s okay,” she said.

“I might be asleep already,” he murmured.

“I don’t mind. It’s nice. I’ll fall asleep, too. Just set the phone close, so I can hear you wake up.”

“And then I’ll explain to my dad that I was on a long distance call for ten hours because sleeping on the phone seemed romantic at the time.”

God. Long distance. Georgie had forgotten about long distance—did that still exist? “It would be romantic, though,” she said. “Like waking up in each other’s heads.”

“I’ll call you when I wake up.”

“Don’t call me,” she said. “I’ll call you.”

He snorted a little.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “But seriously: Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

“Okay, you call me, sunshine. Call me as soon as you wake up.”

“I love you,” Georgie said. “I love you like this.”

“Asleep?”

“Unlocked,” she said. And then, “Neal?”

“Call me before you get dressed,” he said.

She laughed. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.” His voice was a slur.

“I miss you,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

Georgie felt her own eyes closing. The receiver slid along her cheek—she clutched it, lifting it back up. “Neal?”

“Mmm.”

“I miss you.”

“Just a few more days,” he mumbled.

“Good night, Neal.”

“Good night, sweetheart.”

Georgie waited for him to hang up, then set the receiver on its hooks and slid partway off the mattress to put the phone back on the nightstand.