Landline

CHAPTER 19

The first time Georgie woke up, it was just after dawn, and it was because she wasn’t wearing pants. Which was alarming at first. And then funny. And then she pulled the covers up over her head and tried to go back to sleep. Because it felt like she’d been dreaming, dreaming something good, and like maybe she’d be able to get back to it if she didn’t completely open her eyes.

She fell asleep thinking that she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so warm—and that maybe “warm” was the same as “in love”—and obviously she was in love with Neal, she’d always been in love with Neal, but when was the last time she’d talked to him for six hours, just talked to him? Just him, just her. Maybe this was the last time, she thought. And then she fell back to sleep.

The second time Georgie woke up, it was because somebody was shouting. Two somebodies were shouting. And banging on her bedroom door.

“Georgie! I’m coming in!” Was that Seth?

“Georgie, he’s not coming in!” And Heather . . .

Georgie opened her eyes. The door opened and immediately slammed shut.

“Fuck, Heather,” Seth whined. “That was my finger.”

Georgie sat up. She was wearing her mom’s skimpy tank top. Clothes, she needed clothes. She spotted Neal’s T-shirt on the floor and made a desperate grab for it, yanking it over her head.

“I can’t just let you waltz into my sister’s bedroom!” Heather shouted.

“Are you protecting her honor? Because that ship has sailed.”

“It hasn’t sailed. He’s just visiting his mom.”

“What?” Seth sounded winded. The door opened, and he spotted Georgie before it slammed shut again. “Georgie!”

The door flew back open, and Seth and Heather fell in, practically on top of each other.

“Oh my God,” Georgie said. “Get off my sister.”

Heather was pulling at the neck of Seth’s sweater.

“Tell her to get off me,” he said.

“Get off!” Georgie shouted. “This is like a nightmare I haven’t even had yet.”

Heather let go and stood up, folding her arms. She looked as suspicious of Georgie as she did of Seth. “I answered the front door, and he ran past me.”

Seth straightened his cuffs furiously, glaring at Georgie. “I knew you were here.”

“Brilliant deduction,” Georgie said. “My car’s parked outside. What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” He gave up on his cuffs. “Are you kidding me? I mean, are you kidding me? What are you doing here! What are you doing, Georgie?”

Georgie rubbed her face in Neal’s T-shirt and glanced over at the phone—which was sitting next to her old alarm clock, which said noon. “Jesus,” she groaned. “Is it really almost noon?”

“Yes,” Seth said. “Noon. And you’re not at work, and you’re not answering your phone, and you’re still wearing those ridiculous clothes.”

“My battery’s dead.”

“What?”

She pulled the comforter tight around her waist. “I’m not answering my phone, because my battery’s dead.”

“Oh, good,” he said, “that explains why you’re at your mom’s house, having an epic lie-in.”

The doorbell rang. Heather looked at Georgie. “Are you okay?”

Seth threw his hands in the air. “Seriously! Heather! I think you can trust me to be alone with your sister, who has been my best friend longer than you have been alive.”

Heather pointed at him, threatening. “She’s fragile right now!”

The doorbell rang again.

“I’m fine,” Georgie said. “Get the door.”

Heather stomped out into the hall.

Seth ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Okay. Let’s not panic, we’ve still got time—and I’ve got coffee. There are still twelve workable hours left today, right? And then at least that many tomorrow. And maybe five or six on Christmas?”

“Seth . . .”

“What did she mean by ‘fragile’?”

“Look, Seth, I’m sorry. Just let me get dressed.”

“You’ve got your special Metallica T-shirt on,” he said. “Looks like you’re already dressed.”

“Just let me change, then. And brush my teeth and wake up. I’m sorry. I know we need to work on the scripts.”

“Jesus, Georgie”—he sat down hard on the bed, facing her—“do you think I care about the scripts?”

She folded her legs up under the comforter. “Yes.”

Seth’s head fell into his hands. “You’re right. I do. I care a lot about the scripts.” He looked up, despondently. “But finally getting our dream show won’t be that rewarding if you move back in with your mom and start sleeping eighteen hours a day.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He rucked both hands through his hair. “Stop. Saying that. Just . . . tell me what’s going on with you.”

She glanced over at the yellow phone. “I can’t.”

“I already know.”

“You do?” No, he couldn’t.

“I know it’s Neal. I’m not blind.”

“I never thought you were blind,” Georgie said. “Just self-absorbed.”

“You can talk to me about this.”

“I really can’t,” she said.

“The universe won’t unravel, Georgie.”

“Something else might.”

Seth sighed. “Just . . . did he leave you?”

“No.”

“But you guys aren’t talking.”

No, she thought, not since Wednesday. Then—yes, all night long.

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

Seth looked up, almost like he was embarrassed for her. “The way you’ve been taking your laptop with you to the bathroom, just in case your phone rings.”

“I have to leave it plugged in,” she said.

“Get a new phone.”

“I’m going to. I’ve been busy.”

Seth drew his lovely auburn eyebrows together. He looked like a concerned junior senator. Like the actor who’d get cast to play a concerned junior senator. Like the star of a lighthearted procedural on the USA Network. “Can’t you just tell him this is all my fault? Throw me under the bus.”

“That doesn’t actually work,” Georgie said, fisting her hands in the comforter in her lap. “Making you seem like an asshole just makes me seem like a person with asshole loyalties.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “He thinks I’m an asshole no matter how you make me out.”

She sighed and looked at the ceiling. “God. Seth. This is why we can’t talk about this.”

“What? I’m not saying that he’s an asshole. I’m saying that I know he thinks I am.”

“Neal is not an asshole.”

“I know,” Seth said.

“And I hate that word.”

“I know.”

She wanted to rub her eyes, but she didn’t want to let go of the comforter.

“I mean, he is sort of an asshole . . . ,” Seth said.

“Seth.”

“What? That’s his shtick, isn’t it? You know that’s his shtick. He’s like a Samuel L. Jackson character.”

“I can’t stand Samuel L. Jackson.”

“I know, but you like that whole ‘You wanna mess with me, punk, huh? Do ya?’ thing. You love that.”

“Shut up, you don’t even know Neal.”

“I know him, Georgie. I’ve been sitting one seat away from him my whole fucking life. I secondhand-smoke know him. It’s like we’ve got shared custody of you.”

“No”—Georgie pressed her fingertips into her forehead—“this is why we don’t talk about this. You don’t have any custody.”

“I have some. Weekdays.”

“No. Neal is my husband. He has full custody.”

“Then why isn’t he here trying to figure out what’s wrong with you?”

“Because!” Georgie shouted.

“Because why?”

“Because I fucked up!”

Seth was angry. “Because you didn’t go to Omaha?”

“Most recently because I didn’t go to Omaha. Because I never go to Omaha.”

“You go once a year! You bring me back that Thousand Island dressing I like.”

“I mean, metaphorically. I always choose the show. I always choose work. I’m forever not going to Omaha.”

“Maybe you should ask yourself why not, Georgie.”

“Maybe I should!” she practically shouted.

Seth stared at his lap.

Georgie stared at hers. This wasn’t them—Seth and Georgie never fought. Or rather, they always fought; they bickered and they insulted and they mocked. But they never fought about anything that mattered.

She knew that Seth knew things weren’t great between her and Neal.

Of course Seth knew. He’d been sitting right next to her for twenty years. He’d watched it all go bad—at least that’s how it would look from his perspective—but he never mentioned it.

Because there were rules.

And because some things were sacred. Not Georgie’s life, but work—work was sacred. Seth and Georgie checked their lives at the door, and they worked. And there was something really beautiful about that. Something freeing.

No matter how badly they messed up their lives, the two of them would always have the show, whatever show they were on, and they’d always have each other—they protected that.

They protected work so they’d always have it there, an oasis that ate up their days.

God. God. This was how Georgie had ruined everything.

By being really good at something. By being really good with someone. By retreating into the part of her life that was easiest.

She started crying.

“Hey,” Seth said, reaching out to her.

“Don’t,” Georgie said.

He waited until she was just sniffling. “Did you get to work on the script last night?”

“No.”

“Are you coming in today?”

“I—” She shook her head. “—I don’t know.”

“We can work here, if you want. Change of scenery might do us good.”

“What about Scotty?”

Seth shrugged. “He’s already working from home. He even finished an episode. It’s . . . not bad. It doesn’t sound like us, but it’s not bad. It’s something.”

Work. Georgie should go to work. She was missing Christmas so she could work on the show. If she didn’t work on the show, this whole week would be a waste; Georgie would have destroyed her marriage for nothing. She was about to tell Seth, “Fine, fine, I’ll come in, I’ll work,” when the phone rang.

The landline.

She and Seth both looked at it. It didn’t ring again.

“Come on,” Seth said. “I brought coffee. I don’t know where it ended up—I handed it to your sister to get her out of my way. God, she’s protective, have you been getting death threats?”

Someone thumped down the hall, and the door opened. Heather shoved her head and shoulders through. “It’s for you.” She scowled at Georgie. “It’s Neal.”

Georgie’s heart skipped a beat. (Great. Now she was having heart palpitations.) (Wait. Neal could call the kitchen phone, too? This was out of control.) “Thanks. Hang up when I pick up?”

“You want me to hang up on him?”

“No,” Georgie said, “I’ll get it in here.”

“Can you do that?”

“Are you serious?”

Heather scowled some more. “Sorry I’m not up on your twentieth-century technology.”

“Go to the kitchen, wait until you hear me pick up, then hang up.”

“Just pick up now,” Heather said.

Georgie looked at the phone, just out of reach, and at Seth—and not at her mom’s pajama shorts lying on the floor. “In. A minute,” she said.

“Fine.” Heather watched Georgie closely, like she was trying to crack her game. “I’ll just go talk to Neal while I wait.”

“Don’t talk to him, Heather.”

Heather’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “I’ll just say hi to Neal, ask him about the girls. . . .”

Georgie kicked Seth. “Pick up the phone.”

“What? You want me to talk to Neal?”

“Nobody’s talking to Neal. Pick up the phone—” She kicked him again. “—then hand it to me. And you—” She pointed at Heather. “—are a terrible sister. And a worse person.”

Georgie kicked Seth one more time. He stood and picked up the receiver—holding it in the air for a few seconds, pinching the handle like it was a bomb—then tossed it to Georgie.

Heather waited in the doorway. Hang it up, Georgie mouthed. Now.

She held the phone up to her ear and waited for the click. She could hear voices at Neal’s house—his parents. She could hear Neal breathing.

Heather rattled the phone onto the hook in the kitchen.

“Hello?” Georgie said.

“Hey,” Neal answered.

Georgie felt her face get all soft; she looked down so Seth wouldn’t notice. “Hey. Can I call you back?” She hoped this was the right Neal. (She didn’t mean the right Neal, she meant the young one.)

“I know I wasn’t supposed to call,” he said, “but it was getting late, and I thought—I don’t know what I thought, that I wanted to talk to you, I guess.”

This was the right Neal. “It’s okay,” she said, “but can I call you back?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’ll call you right back.”

“Good morning, Georgie.”

Georgie looked at the clock. “It’s almost two there, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Neal said. “But . . . not there, right? I called now because I didn’t want to miss telling you good morning.”

“Oh.” She felt her face go globby. “Good morning.”

“A-ha!” Seth said.

Georgie looked up at him, stricken.

He leaned against the closet, pleased with himself. “You’re not wearing pants.”

“Is that Seth?” Neal asked.

Georgie closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

She could hear Neal’s defenses coming up—and falling down, like Iron Man’s armor snicking into place. She could hear it from across the country and fifteen years away.

Neal’s voice was central air: “Did he just say that you weren’t wearing pants?”

“He’s being an idiot.”

“Yeah. Well. You’re calling me back, right? When you’re done with Seth? Is that what’s happening?”

“Yeah,” Georgie said. “That’s what’s happening.”

“Right.” He exhaled roughly into the phone. “Talk to you soon.”

He hung up.

Georgie threw the receiver at Seth, hard. But not hard enough—the cord caught and coiled back in on itself, falling to the floor. For a second, she was worried that she’d broken it. (Could she just plug in a new phone? Apparently the brown Trimline was magic, too, so she could always call Neal from the kitchen.)

“It’s not enough for you to ruin my marriage now,” she seethed, “is it? You have to ruin it everywhere at once.”

Seth eyebrows jumped up—he looked like she had hit him with the phone. He looked like he wanted to shout, “Rules, rules, rules!”

“Ruin your marriage . . . ,” he said.

Georgie let out a breath and shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She kept shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . Why did you open your mouth?”

“You think I’m ruining your marriage?”

“No. Seth. I don’t. I think I’m ruining my marriage. You’re just an accessory.”

“I’m not an accessory—I’m your best friend.”

“I know.”

“I’m always going to be your best friend.”

“I know.”

“Even if this—”

“Don’t,” she said.

He fell back against the closet, kicking it gently, then resting his foot against it like he was modeling orange chinos. (He was wearing orange chinos.) Then he folded his arms. “What does that even mean,” Seth asked, “‘everywhere at once’?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. I’m just tired.”

“And scared,” he said quietly.

She looked down at the comforter. “And scared.”

“And talking to me about it is clearly a catastrophic idea. . . .”

She pulled her lips into her mouth and bit them, nodding.

“So let’s not talk about it, Georgie. Let’s just write.”

Georgie looked up at him. Seth was being as sincere as he knew how—his face was so open, she practically didn’t recognize it.

“It’s the only thing I can fix for you,” he said.

Her eyes dropped to the phone. “I have to call Neal back.”

“Fine. You call Neal back. Then get dressed. I’ll track down our coffee and find a place to set up. . . . And then you’ll come out when you’re ready—and I won’t mention that you sleep pantsless, but I’ll always know from now on, Georgie, always—and we will write ourselves a script. We’ll go Amy Sherman-Palladino on its ass.”

“I love Amy Sherman-Palladino.”

“I know,” he said, crunching his eyebrows at her meaningfully. “I’m your best friend.”

“I know.”

“I’m going out to the kitchen now.”

“Seth . . .”

“And you’ll be out in a minute.”

“Seth, I can’t right now. I have to call Neal back.”

His head fell back against the closet. “I can wait.”

“I don’t want you to wait.”

“Georgie.”

“Seth. I have to fix what I can.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“Go to work,” she said. “Write.”

“And you’ll come in to the office later?”

“Probably.”

“But you’ll definitely come in tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

He bounced his head gently against the fiberboard. “Fine. Just . . . fine.” He kicked off the door. “Four days,” he groaned. “We have four days to make this happen.”

“I know.”

“All right . . . but if it turns out you can’t actively pick up the pieces of your marriage today, you may as well come write with me.”

“Stop talking about my marriage. For all time.”

Seth stopped at the door and grinned back at her. “Well, come on—you’re gonna see me to the door, right?”

Georgie folded her arms in the comforter. “Let Heather kick you out. It’ll cheer her up.”

“I always thought Heather liked me,” he muttered, letting the door swing closed behind him.

Georgie didn’t wait for Seth to leave the house, she didn’t wait for her head or eyes to clear—she didn’t stop to process the fact that Neal had called her, twice now, which meant her magic phone worked both ways, which might mean . . . Who knows what that might mean? It’s a magic phone. It’s not like it has rules.

She dialed Neal’s number so fast, she hit a wrong number and had to start all over.

His dad answered. Just to flip Georgie the fuck out again.

“Hi, Paul—Mr. Grafton, it’s Georgie. Is, um, is Neal there?”

“You can call me Paul,” he said.

“Paul,” Georgie said, and she felt like crying again.

“You caught us just in time,” he said. “Here’s Neal.”

A shuffling noise then—“Hello?”

“Hi,” Georgie said.

“Hi,” Neal said. Coolly. But maybe not angrily. It was always so hard to tell with him. “Seth give you a break?”

“He left.”

“Oh.”

“Are you leaving?” she asked. “Your dad said—”

“Yeah. We’re going to see my grandma’s sister. She’s in a nursing home.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“It really isn’t. She’s in a nursing home, and she’ll be alone on Christmas. It’s pretty much the very least we can do.”

“Oh,” Georgie said.

“Sorry. I just . . . hate nursing homes. My great aunt doesn’t have kids of her own, so we—”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.” Neal huffed. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“When?”

“When I called.”

“I was sleeping,” she said.

“You were with Seth.”

“He’d just woken me up.”

“You were supposed to call me when you woke up.”

“I was going to call you.”

“Eventually,” he said.

“Neal. You promised you’d never be jealous of Seth.”

“I’m not jealous of Seth. I’m angry with you.”

“Oh.”

“I have to go,” he said. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

Don’t call me, Georgie almost answered. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

“Okay.”

She wasn’t going to say “I love you” now just to see if he’d say it back. “I’ll be here,” she said again.

“Okay.” He hung up.

CHAPTER 20

Neal hung up.

Because it was that easy for him.

For a second, Georgie wished he knew—who she really was, when she really was, everything. Neal wouldn’t just hang up on her like that if he knew he was hanging up on the future. You don’t hang up a magic phone.

Georgie wandered out to the kitchen, hungry.

Heather was standing at the front door, talking to someone. Georgie spotted the pizza delivery car through the picture window and wondered if it would be rude to interrupt and take the pizza from them, or if, without the pizza, their little flirtation would collapse in on itself.

She started the coffeemaker and rooted through the fridge, not finding anything.

After a few more minutes, Heather walked into the kitchen, smiling.

“Where’s the pizza?” Georgie asked. “I’m starving.”

“Oh. I didn’t order a pizza.”

“But the pizza boy was here.”

Heather stepped past Georgie and leaned into the fridge. “It was a wrong pizza.”

“There’s no such thing as a wrong pizza,” Georgie said. “All pizzas are right from conception.”

“It was the wrong address,” Heather said. “Probably just a mix-up because we order from them so often.”

“Heather, I’m serious, there’s no such thing as a wrong pizza. That boy wanted to talk to you.”

Heather just shook her head and opened the vegetable drawer.

“How long has this been going on?” Georgie asked.

“Nothing’s going on.”

“How long have you been ordering pizzas for sport, not sustenance?”

“How long has Seth been your wake-up service?”

Georgie pushed the fridge door closed—Heather had to jerk back to get out of the way. “Out of line,” Georgie said.

Heather looked like she wanted to say something else, something worse, but pressed her lips closed and folded her arms.

Georgie decided to walk away. She stopped at the edge of the kitchen. “I’m going to take a shower. Come get me if Neal calls.”

Heather ignored her.

“Please?” Georgie said.

“Fine,” Heather agreed, not even bothering to turn her head.

Georgie checked the yellow phone before she got into the shower, just to make sure there was a dial tone and that the ringer was turned up. (As if somebody might have snuck in and messed with it.)

Once, in junior high, she’d been so worried about missing a call from a boy, she’d dragged the phone into the bathroom with her every time she had to go. (He never did call.) (Which didn’t discourage Georgie even a little bit.)

She stood under the shower until the water ran cold, then stole some more of her mom’s yoga pants and a sweatshirt with a pug on it, and walked out to the laundry room.

When Georgie was growing up, the washing machine and dryer sat out against the garage with a little plastic canopy over them. But Kendrick had built her mom a laundry room onto the back of the house, with a tile floor and a sorting table. Georgie’d still be able to hear the kitchen phone out here, if it rang.

She opened the washing machine and dropped in her jeans and T-shirt and bra. . . .

It was a very depressing bra.

It’d been pink once, sometime between Alice and Noomi, but now it was a grayish beige, and one of the underwires kept sneaking out through a rip between Georgie’s breasts. Sometimes the wire crept almost all the way out and sprung like a hook from the neck of her shirt; sometimes it bent the other way and poked her. You’d think that would prompt Georgie to buy some new bras, but instead she just pushed the wire back as soon as no one was looking, then forgot about it until the next time that bra came up in her rotation.

Georgie was bad at all shopping, but bra shopping was the worst. You couldn’t do it online, and you couldn’t have somebody else do it for you.

Bra shopping had always been the worst—even when her breasts were still young and lovely. (If only Georgie could figure out how to call herself in the past, she’d tell herself how young and lovely she was. “This is the ghost of bra-shopping future: Everybody’s a little lopsided, roll with it.”)

She closed the washing machine lid, set the dial to GENTLE, then sank down on the floor in front of the dryer and leaned against it. It was warm and humming, and Georgie felt like one of those rhesus monkeys who preferred the cloth mother.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Everything had seemed so good when Georgie fell asleep last night. Better than good. Maybe better than ever . . .

Which was weird. When she was talking to Neal in the past, they got along better than they did in their shared past or their shared present. Maybe these were the versions of themselves that were meant to be together—mature Georgie and mostly unjaded Neal. Too bad they couldn’t go on this way.

How long could this go on?

It was December 23rd.

Georgie knew what happened back in 1998: Neal ended up on her doorstep on Christmas Day. That meant that Neal—landline Neal—would have to leave Omaha tomorrow morning, in the past, to propose to her.

Would that still happen . . . Would Neal still propose? Or had Georgie screwed that up an hour ago, in one fell swoop of Seth?

Maybe she’d screwed it up the very first time she called Neal in the past.

Yesterday, Georgie had wondered if she was supposed to talk Neal out of loving her—if that was the point of this magic, to save him from her. But what if she’d talked him out of it just by opening her mouth?

She was thinking in hot, helpless circles when Heather walked down the back steps into the laundry room. She was carrying one of those Campbell’s soups that you can heat up in the microwave, then drink out of the can. Chicken & Stars.

“Do you ever feed yourself?” Heather asked. “Or does Neal just set out a dish for you every morning?”

“Sometimes I order things,” Georgie said.

“What do you feed the girls?”

“Neal feeds the girls.”

“What if Neal isn’t home?”

“Yogurt.”

Heather handed Georgie the soup, a peace offering, then sat down next to her, against the washer.

“Thanks,” Georgie said.

Heather still looked wary of Georgie. She took a deep breath and let it out through her teeth. “I know something’s going on, so you may as well tell me—are you sleeping with Seth?”

Georgie took a sip of soup and burned her mouth. “No.”

“Do you have a boyfriend who sort of sounds like your husband, but isn’t your husband, but is also named Neal?”

“No.”

“Is something really weird going on?”

Georgie turned her head toward Heather and tipped it against the dryer. “Yeah . . .”

Heather mirrored her, laying her head against the washer. “I can’t even remember you without Neal,” she said.

Georgie nodded slowly, then took another, more careful, drink of soup. “You were in our wedding, you know. Do you remember?”

“I think so,” Heather said, “but I might just be remembering the photos.”

Heather was supposed to be the flower girl, but none of Georgie’s friends had been able to afford the trip to Nebraska, so Heather became her only bridesmaid—besides Seth, who just assumed he’d be standing up for Georgie.

Georgie wasn’t even sure she should invite Seth (because the wedding was in Omaha, and because Neal), but Seth started calling himself Georgie’s best man, and she wasn’t sure how to argue. . . .

He wore a brown three-piece suit and a pale green tie to the wedding. Heather wore lavender shantung and a green cardigan. Seth carried her down the aisle.

And he insisted that Heather come along for Georgie’s bachelorette party—a “bridal-party only” dinner at some thousand-year-old Italian restaurant near Neal’s house. They ate spaghetti with sugar-sweet tomato sauce, and Seth talked nonstop about the sitcom he was working on, the one he’d just convinced to hire Georgie. Georgie drank too much Paisano, and Heather fell asleep at the table. “Good thing I’m the designated driver,” Seth said.

There was a photo from the next day, at the ceremony, of Seth signing the marriage certificate as Georgie’s witness. Heather was standing on tiptoe to watch. Seth in his brown waistcoat. Georgie in her white dress. Neal beaming.

Georgie took another gulp of soup. “You were adorable,” she told Heather. “I think you thought it was your wedding—Neal danced with you, and you blushed the whole time.”

“I remember that,” Heather said. “I mean, I’ve seen the pictures. I looked just like Noomi.”

Georgie and Neal hadn’t had a traditional church wedding—or much of a reception. They got married in Neal’s backyard. The lilacs were in bloom, and Georgie carried a handful of branches that his mom had gathered into a bouquet.

Everything was on the cheap. She and Neal had both just graduated, and Georgie didn’t start on the sitcom until they got back from their honeymoon. (Five days in rural Nebraska, in a cabin somebody owned on a muddy river.) (The five best days.)

They’d tried to pay for the whole wedding themselves; her mom and Kendrick were already digging deep to buy plane tickets, and Georgie didn’t want to ask Neal’s parents for help.

Georgie was the one who suggested they get married in Omaha. She knew Neal would like it. Their breakup, their almost breakup, was still fresh in her memory, and Georgie wanted Neal to look back on their wedding day and feel happy—about all of it. She wanted him to be happy that day, to be completely in his element.

Neal’s family ended up helping out anyway. His parents bought the cake, and his aunts made cream cheese mints and sandwiches. The pastor who’d baptized and confirmed Neal was there to marry them. And after the ceremony, Neal’s dad moved his stereo out onto the patio and played deejay.

The only song Georgie insisted on was “Leather and Lace.”

That had started out as a joke.

“Leather and Lace” was playing in a restaurant on one of their first dates, and Georgie cracked herself up telling Neal that it was “our song.” Then they both tried—and failed—to think of a more ridiculous “our song.” (Neal suggested “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves”; Georgie pushed for the theme from Taxi.)

After that, “Leather and Lace” kept coming on the radio at significant moments in their relationship. . . .

Once when Neal was kissing her in the car outside her mom’s house.

Once on a road trip to San Francisco.

Once when Georgie thought she was pregnant, and they were waiting in line at Walgreens to buy a Clearblue Easy. (Neal with his hand on her back. Georgie holding the pregnancy test like it was a pack of gum. Stevie Nicks crooning about having her own life and being stronger than you know. At some point, “Leather and Lace” just became their song. For real.

When it started to play on their wedding day, on Neal’s parents’ patio, Georgie got all choked up.

Was that the moment she realized she was actually getting married?

Or was it just the moment she realized she’d landed a guy who would dance with her, totally sincerely, forehead to forehead, to “Leather and Lace”? (“Stay with me, stay-ay.”)

After “Leather and Lace,” Neal danced with his mom to “Moon River.” (The Andy Williams version.) Then Georgie danced with Seth, and Neal danced with Heather to “Both Sides Now.” (The Judy Collins version.)

A few hours later, when everyone else had gone or gone inside—Seth left for the airport right after the cake—Neal and Georgie stayed out on the patio, slow-dancing to whatever came on the oldies station.

They’d never really danced together before that day. Or since. And, truthfully, they weren’t doing much dancing even then. . . . Neal held Georgie with one hand on the small of her back and one on the back of her neck, and Georgie leaned against him with both hands on his chest, and they swayed from side to side.

It wasn’t dancing. It was just a way to make the wedding last. A way to stay in the moment, rolling it over and over in their heads. We’re married now. We’re married.

You don’t know when you’re twenty-three.

You don’t know what it really means to crawl into someone else’s life and stay there. You can’t see all the ways you’re going to get tangled, how you’re going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten—in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems.

She didn’t know at twenty-three.

That day, out on the patio, it just felt like the biggest day of her life so far, not the biggest day of her life from now on. Not the day that would change everything. That would change her, at a cellular level. Like a virus that rewrites your DNA.

That day, that evening, out on the patio . . .

Georgie pretended to dance. She clung to Neal’s shirt. They rubbed their noses together. “You’re my wife,” Neal said, and then he laughed, and she tried to catch his dimples with her teeth. (Like if she caught them, she might get to keep them.)

“Yours,” she said.

Maybe Georgie had gotten a glimpse of it then, the way infinity unspooled from where they were swaying. The way everything she was ever going to be from then on was irrevocably tethered to that day, that decision.

Neal was wearing a navy blue suit, and he’d waited to get his hair cut until the day before the wedding, so it was a little too short.

“Yours,” she said.

Neal squeezed the back of her neck. “Mine.”

The dryer stopped.

“I’ve never been in love,” Heather said. “I don’t think I’m susceptible.”

Georgie set down her soup can and pushed her glasses up to rub her eyes. “How could you possibly know that?”

Heather shrugged. “Well, it hasn’t happened yet, has it?”

“Maybe you haven’t ordered enough pizza.”

“I’m being serious, Georgie.”

“Okay—seriously, Heather, you’re only eighteen. You have plenty of time to fall in love.”

“Mom said she’d been in love three times by my age.”

“Well”—Georgie frowned—“she’s unusually susceptible. She’s got a compromised immune system when it comes to love.”

Heather played with the drawstring on her sweatshirt. “I haven’t even really dated anybody yet.”

“Have you tried?” Georgie asked.

Her sister wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to try.”

“It’ll happen in college.”

“You dated in high school,” Heather insisted. “Did you fall in love before Neal?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because I need to talk to somebody,” Heather said, “and Mom is aberrant.”

“Can’t you talk to your friends?”

“My friends are at least as clueless as I am. Did you fall in love before Neal?”

Georgie thought about it. There was a guy in the eleventh grade who’d been something more than just another moving target—for a few weeks, then it passed. And then there were the years she’d sat on the couch with Seth.

“Maybe,” Georgie said. “Maybe I came really close to falling in love, cumulatively, over two or three relationships.”

“But not like with Neal.”

“Not like with Neal.”

“How’d you know he was the one?”

“I didn’t know. I don’t think either of us knew.”

Heather rolled her eyes. “Neal knew—he proposed to you.”

“It’s not like that,” Georgie said. “You’ll see. It’s more like you meet someone, and you fall in love, and you hope that that person is the one—and then at some point, you have to put down your chips. You just have to make a commitment and hope that you’re right.”

“No one else describes love that way.” Heather frowned. “Maybe you’re doing it wrong.”

“Obviously I’m doing it wrong,” Georgie said. “But I still think love feels that way for most people.”

“So you think most people bet everything, their whole lives, on hope. Just hoping that what they’re feeling is real.”

“Real isn’t relevant,” Georgie said, turning completely to face Heather. “It’s like . . . you’re tossing a ball between you, and you’re just hoping you can keep it in the air. And it has nothing to do with whether you love each other or not. If you didn’t love each other, you wouldn’t be playing this stupid game with the ball. You love each other—and you just hope you can keep the ball in play.”

“What’s the ball a metaphor for?”

“I’m not sure,” Georgie said. “The relationship. Marriage.”

“You’re really depressing,” Heather said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking about marriage to someone whose husband just left her.”

“He didn’t leave you,” Heather said. “He’s just visiting his mom.”

Georgie looked down at the empty soup can in her lap.

“I keep waiting for you to say that it’s all worth it . . . ,” Heather said.

Georgie swallowed. “That’s a meaningless thing to say.”

They sat quietly for a minute until one of the pugs—the bulging pregnant one—scuttled down the stairs into the laundry room. Watching a pug run down stairs is a lot like watching a pug fall down stairs. Georgie winced and looked away. It ran over to her and froze, barking aggressively.

“I don’t like you either,” she said, turning back to the dog.

“It’s the shirt,” Heather said. “She hates that shirt.”

Georgie looked down at the pug that was BeDazzled on her borrowed shirt.

“They’re very territorial,” Heather said. “Here, move—let her climb into the dryer.”

“I may not like her,” Georgie said, “but I don’t want to cook her.”

“She likes it,” Heather said, pushing Georgie over and opening the dryer door. “It’s warm.” She lifted the dog into the dryer, on top of the clothes.

“What if it’s too hot in there?”

“Then she’ll jump out.”

“This is so dangerous,” Georgie said. “What if you don’t know she’s in there, and you start the dryer?”

“We check first.”

“I wouldn’t have checked.”

“Well, now you will. Look—she likes it.”

Georgie watched the little dog settle down on a pile of darks, glad that her own clothes were still in the washer. She frowned at the dog, then at Heather. “Remind me never to ask you to babysit again.”

Georgie’s bra fell apart completely in the washing machine. Her mom had a Speed Queen with an old-fashioned agitator, and the loose underwire had wrapped around the center and caught on something inside the drum. Georgie yanked the wire free.

It hadn’t even been ninety minutes since Neal hung up on her. He might not have made it to his aunt’s nursing home in Iowa yet. Georgie couldn’t just sit here, waiting all day. She should go to work. . . . God, no, she couldn’t deal with Seth right now.

She held up the bra, trying to decide whether she could get by on one underwire, then shoved it into the dryer with the rest of her clothes (dislocating the pug first) and ran back into the house.

Heather was sitting on the couch, messing with her phone.

“Do you want to go to the mall?” Georgie asked.

“On the day before Christmas Eve? Sure, that sounds like a great idea.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Heather was already narrowing her eyes; she narrowed them to a squint. “Aren’t you going to put on a bra?”

“I’m going to the mall to buy a bra.”

“Why don’t you just go home and pick up some clothes?”

Georgie thought of her house. Sitting dark and too far away, almost everything just as Neal had left it. “I need to get back here before Neal calls.”

“So take your phone with you.”

“He’s calling here—are you coming?”

“Nah,” Heather said. “I’ll stay. That way there’s somebody to answer the phone when Neal calls.” She put his name in air quotes.

They frowned at each other.

“Come with me,” Georgie said. “I’ll buy you something.”

“What?”

“I might have to go to the Apple Store.”

Heather leapt up from the couch, then froze. “I can’t be bribed; I won’t keep your dirty secrets.”

“I don’t have any dirty secrets.”

Georgie’s cell phone was still plugged in to the car lighter and woke up as soon as she turned on the car. She had seven missed calls and four voice mails from Seth, plus two missed calls and one voice mail from Neal’s cell. Georgie stopped—halfway in her mom’s driveway and halfway in the street—to play that voice mail. She held her breath, waiting to hear Neal’s voice. To hear now-Neal’s voice.

“Mom?” It was Alice. “Grandma wants to know if we’re allowed to watch Star Wars, Episode Five. I told her yes, but she said there’s a lot of violence. And Daddy went to see Grandpa at the cemetery, and he didn’t take his phone, so we can’t get his permission. I told Grandma it’s okay—that we just close our eyes when Luke cuts Darth Vader’s head off—but she doesn’t believe me. So call us back, okay? I love you—” Alice kissed into the phone. “—bye.”

Georgie set the phone down on the dashboard and backed into the street.

“Are you okay?” Heather asked.

“I’m fine,” Georgie said, shoving her glasses up and wiping one eye with the back of her hand.

“’Cause we just left the house, and you’re already driving like an asshole.”

“I’m fine,” Georgie said.

CHAPTER 21

There was no parking at the mall—they circled and circled before they found a spot. Then Georgie opened her glove compartment and dug out her driver’s license and credit card.

“Don’t you have a purse?” Heather asked.

“I’m not usually in purse-necessary situations.”

“I thought moms were supposed to carry big purses with first-aid kits and packets of Cheerios.”

Georgie scowled at her.

“You’re practically homeless,” Heather said, “aren’t you? If Neal doesn’t come back, you’re gonna have to forage for food and water.”

Georgie shoved the phone and cards into her pocket. “We’re not wasting time here,” she said. “There won’t be any hanging out at the Orange Julius, scamming for hot guys.”

“I’m not twelve, Georgie.”

“In and out. We get the bra, we get a new battery for my phone, then we’re out of there.”

“Are you buying me a new phone? Because I think I’d rather have an iPad.”

“Who said I was buying you a phone?”

“It was implied. Besides, Mom says you’re good for it.”

“Just hurry. I don’t want to miss Neal.”

“Jingle Bell Rock” was playing inside the mall, and inside the store, and inside the dressing room in the Intimates Department.

There was already a jumble of bras on the floor, and Georgie was trying on more, facing away from the mirror. She was so distracted, she kept forgetting to pay attention to which ones fit.

Just pick one, Georgie. Or buy them all. It doesn’t matter. You’re just killing time.

Jesus, what a weird time to kill time. The fate of her future hung in the balance, and there was nothing she could do at the moment but run out the clock. At least, not until Neal called back.

He would call back, right?

What if he didn’t, what if he was too angry? What if he was still angry tomorrow morning?

Georgie had to talk to Neal, to make things right again. She had to make sure that he still got into his car tomorrow, his tomorrow, and showed up at her door on Christmas Day.

But what if he didn’t?

Did Georgie really believe that the last fifteen years would just unravel? Had she committed so completely to this bizarre scenario that she thought her marriage was going to start fading out, like Marty McFly in the middle of “Earth Angel”?

What else could she think? She had to keep playing along—the stakes were too high.

If Neal didn’t show up to propose to her in 1998 . . .

Twenty-two-year-old Georgie would never know what she was missing. That girl thought it was already over, that she’d already lost him.

Georgie collapsed that week after Neal left for Omaha.

She spent the whole time in a fog. Lying in her bed, deliberately not calling him. Why should she call him? What was she supposed to say—sorry? Georgie wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t sorry that she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wasn’t sorry that she was making it happen.

It’s not like Neal was offering her some compelling alternate plan: “Georgie, I want to be a sheep farmer—it’s in my blood, and I can’t do it anywhere but Montana.” (Was that where sheep were farmed?) “I need you. Come with me.”

No, Neal was just saying, “I hate it here, I hate this. I hate that you want this.”

All he was offering Georgie were negatives.

And then he’d taken even those off the table. He’d left without her—broken up with her on his way out of town.

Georgie had genuinely believed they were broken up.

For the first few days that Neal was gone, she felt it like an actual breach between her ribs, a tear at the bottom of her lungs. Georgie would wake up in a panic sure that she’d run out of air—or that she’d lost the ability to hold it inside of her.

Then the breath would hit her like a baseball to the heart.

The air was right there; she just had to think about it. In, out. In, out. She wondered if she was going to have to spend the rest of her life reminding herself to breathe. Maybe that would be her internal monologue from now on. In, out. In, out.

Neal didn’t call to apologize to Georgie that week, either.

Why should he? she thought at the time. What did he have to apologize for? For not wanting exactly what Georgie wanted? For realizing what his limitations were?

Good for him for knowing himself so well.

Good for him for figuring it out.

Neal loved her, Georgie knew that. He couldn’t keep his hands off her—he couldn’t keep his ink off her; he was always doodling on her stomach or her thigh or her shoulder. He kept a set of Prismacolor markers by his bed, and when Georgie took a shower, the water ran rainbows.

She knew Neal loved her.

Good for him for realizing it wasn’t enough to make him happy. That was very mature of him. He was probably saving them both a lot of heartache.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

In-out, in-out, in-out.

Stay with me, stay-ay.

By that Christmas morning, Georgie hadn’t made any emotional progress from the breakup. She wasn’t feeling any better or stronger.

She was pretty sure that every Christmas from then on would be tainted by Neal leaving. Like Georgie would never be able to hear “Jingle Bells” again without feeling Neal drive away from her with a tow chain in her stomach.

Seth kept calling to check on her, but she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to hear him tell her how much better off she was without Neal.

Georgie wasn’t better off. Even if Neal was right—even if they’d never make it work together, even if they were fundamentally wrong for each other—she still wasn’t better off without him. (Even if your heart is broken and attacking you, you’re still not better off without it.)

Her mom made Georgie come out to the living room Christmas morning to watch Heather open her presents. Heather was three, just old enough to understand that everything under the tree was for her. Georgie sat on the couch in flannel pajama pants and a ratty T-shirt, and ate pancakes with her fingers.

Kendrick was there. He was still new then. He brought Georgie a movie-theater gift certificate with a bow on it. Heather got a talking Teletubby, which she was currently spazzing out over.

He—Kendrick, not the Teletubby—kept trying to talk to Georgie, and he was trying so hard, Georgie didn’t have the heart to ignore him. (But she didn’t have any heart at all, so that made conversation difficult.) When the doorbell rang, Kendrick jumped up to answer it, probably just to get away from Georgie.

“It’s your friend Neal,” he said when he came back to the living room.

“You mean Seth,” she said.

Kendrick scratched his goatee—he used to have a ridiculous goatee—“Neal’s the little one, right?”

Georgie set down her plate and got off the couch.

“Why didn’t you invite him in?” her mom asked Kendrick.

“He said he’d rather wait outside.”

Georgie didn’t believe it was Neal. She couldn’t believe it was Neal. First of all, because Neal was in Omaha—he wouldn’t have skipped Christmas in Omaha. And second, because they were broken up. And third, because if Georgie did believe it was Neal, and then it turned out that it wasn’t? That might be it. That might finish her.

The front door was still open when she got there.

Neal was standing on the other side of the screen, biting his lip and squinting up her block, like he was waiting for her to come from the other direction.

Neal.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

Georgie’s hand trembled as she pushed the screen door open.

Neal turned to her, and his eyes got wide. Almost like he hadn’t let himself believe it was really going to be her.

He took a step back, so Georgie stepped out onto the front porch. She wanted to grab him. (It was probably safe to grab him—Neal probably hadn’t come to her house on Christmas morning just to break up with her extra hard, right? He wouldn’t have come back just to tell her he was leaving?)

Neal’s eyes were thin, and his face was tight. He looked like she was still hurting him. “Georgie,” he said.

Georgie started crying instantly. From zero to eleven. “Neal.”

Neal shook his head, and she jerked forward to hug him. Even if he had come just to make sure she knew they were really over, Georgie was going to get one more desperate embrace out of this.

His arms came around her shoulders, and he held her so tight, they rocked back and forth. “Georgie,” Neal said, then started pulling away.

She didn’t let him.

“Georgie,” he said, “wait.”

“No.”

“Yes. Wait. I need to do something.”

She still didn’t let go; Neal had to unwind her arms and take a step back.

As soon as he was away, he dropped to one knee. Georgie thought maybe he was going to apologize, that he was falling at her feet. “No,” she said, “you don’t have to.”

“Shhh. Just let me do this.”

“Neal . . .”

“Georgie, please.”

She folded her arms and looked miserable. She didn’t want him to say he was sorry. That would take them right back into the heart of their sorry situation.

“Georgie,” he said. “I love you. I love you more than I hate everything else. We’ll make our own enough—will you marry me?”

Georgie stopped, in the middle of fastening a bra behind her back, and turned to face herself in the dressing room mirror.

Oh . . .

CHAPTER 22

Christmas.

On one knee.

Looking straight through her.

“We’ll make our own enough,” he’d said.

Last night on the telephone, Georgie had asked Neal if love was enough.

And fifteen years ago, he’d answered her.

Was that . . . could it just be a coincidence?

Or did it mean . . .

That it had already happened.

That this—all of this, the phone calls, the fighting, the four-hour conversations—had already happened. For Neal. Fifteen years ago.

What if Georgie wasn’t disrupting the timeline with these phone calls—what if this was the timeline? What if it had been the timeline all along?

“We’ll make our own enough,” Neal had said that day at her door.

Georgie remembered him saying it, remembered that it sounded nice—but all she was focused on at the time was the ring in his hand.

Could it be that Neal was referring to a conversation he’d thought she was a part of?

“What if it isn’t enough?” Georgie asked him last night.

“We’ll make our own enough,” he promised her in 1998. “Will you marry me?”

CHAPTER 23

“Oh.”

Georgie gaped at herself in the mirror. “Oh my God,” she gasped.

“It can’t be that bad,” Heather said from outside the fitting room. “You’re not even forty.”

“No, I . . .” Georgie walked out of the mauve cubicle, pulling her mother’s pug sweatshirt down over her head. “I need to go home now.”

“I thought Neal was calling you at our house.”

“Right, I need to go there. Now.”

The attendant met them just outside the room. “Did any of those work out?”

“This one’s fine,” Georgie said. She reached under her shirt and snapped the tags off the bra, handing them to the salesperson. “I’ll take this one.” She started walking toward the cash register.

Neal had never told Georgie why he changed his mind—why he forgave her, why he came back to California and proposed. And Georgie had never asked. She hadn’t wanted to give him an opportunity to reconsider. . . .

But maybe this was why. Maybe she was why. Now.

“I’m sorry,” the salesperson said. “I can’t let you wear that out. Store policy.”

Georgie stared at her. She was a thin, white woman, a little younger than Georgie, with taupe-colored lipstick. She’d kept trying to come into the dressing room with Georgie to make sure the bras were fitting correctly. “But I’m buying it,” Georgie said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Store policy.”

“Fine,” Georgie said, “I need to go—I’ll just take it off and do all this some other day.”

“But you already removed the tags. You have to purchase it.”

“Right.” Georgie nodded. “Fine.”

She reached up behind her to unclasp the bra, then after a few seconds of maneuvering, pulled it out one of her sleeves and dropped it on the counter.

“Ring it up twice,” Heather said. “She’ll take two.”

The salesperson went to get another bra.

“You are such a badass,” Heather said, grinning at her. “Have I mentioned that I want to be you when I grow up?”

“I don’t have time for this. We need to leave. Now.”

“But we were going to the Apple Store. Georgie, please. I want an iPad, I’ve already named it.”

“You can order it online. We need to leave.”

“Seriously? You’re really buying me an iPad? Can I also order a pony?”

When Neal left California that Christmas, he and Georgie were as good as broken up, and when he came back, he wanted to marry her. And in between, in between . . .

Maybe this. Maybe her.

Maybe this week, these phone calls—everything—had already happened. Somehow, sometime . . .

And Georgie just had to make sure that it happened again.

“Georgie? Hey.”

Heather shoved the bag of bras into Georgie’s chest. Georgie caught them.

“Sorry to interrupt your aneurysm,” Heather said, “but you said that time was of the essence here.”

“Right,” Georgie said, “right.” She followed Heather to the car, then handed her the key fob. “You drive.”

“Why?” Heather asked.

“I need to think.”

Georgie climbed into the passenger seat and tapped her dead phone against her chin. She didn’t even bother plugging it in.

CHAPTER 24

Georgie set the yellow rotary phone in front of her on the bed and stared at it. She resisted the urge to check the dial tone, just in case Neal called at that exact second.

This changed everything.

Didn’t it?

If Neal had already proposed to her in the past, then Georgie must have already convinced him in the future. It didn’t matter what happened now. What she said. Whether he called her back.

Whatever Georgie did next had already happened. She was walking in her own footsteps—there was nothing she could mess up.

She leaned close to the phone and lifted the receiver to her ear, slamming it down again as soon as she heard a dial tone.

Is that what this whole week was about, preserving the status quo? Maybe she should be grateful for that. . . .

But Georgie had thought—she’d hoped—that this wrinkle in time was offering her a shot at something better.

God, what good is a magic phone, anyway? It isn’t a time machine.

Georgie couldn’t change the past—she could only talk at it. If Georgie had a proper time machine, maybe she could actually fix her marriage. She could go back to the moment that everything started to go bad, and change course.

Except . . .

There hadn’t really been a moment like that.

Things didn’t go bad between Georgie and Neal. Things were always bad—and always good. Their marriage was like a set of scales constantly balancing itself. And then, at some point, when neither of them was paying attention, they’d tipped so far over into bad, they’d settled there. Now only an enormous amount of good would shift them back. An impossible amount of good.

The good that was left between them didn’t carry enough weight. . . .

The kisses that still felt like kisses. The notes Neal stuck to the refrigerator when Georgie got home late. (A sleepy cartoon tortoise with a word bubble telling her there were leftover enchiladas on the bottom shelf.) Shared glances when one of the girls said something silly. The way Neal still put his arm around her when they all went to the movies. (He was probably just more comfortable that way.)

So much of what was still good between them was through Alice and Noomi—but Alice and Noomi were so solidly between them.

Georgie was pretty sure that having kids was the worst thing you could do to a marriage. Sure, you could survive it. You could survive a giant boulder falling on your head—that didn’t mean it was good for you.

Kids took a fathomless amount of time and energy. . . . And they took it first. They had right of first refusal on everything you had to offer.

At the end of the day—after work, after trying to spend some sort of meaningful time with Alice and Noomi—Georgie was usually too tired to make things right with Neal before they fell asleep. So things stayed wrong. And the girls just kept giving them something else to talk about, something else to focus on. . . .

Something else to love.

When Georgie and Neal were smiling at each other, it was almost always over Alice and Noomi’s heads.

And Georgie wasn’t sure she’d risk changing that . . . even if she could.

Having kids sent a tornado through your marriage, then made you happy for the devastation. Even if you could rebuild everything just the way it was before, you’d never want to.

If Georgie could talk to herself in the past, before the scales tipped, what would she say? What could she say?

Love him.

Love him more.

Would that make a difference?

When Georgie was eight months pregnant with Alice, she and Neal still hadn’t settled on a day care.

Georgie thought maybe they should get a nanny. They could almost afford one. She and Seth had just started working on their third show, a CBS sitcom about four mismatched roommates who hung out in a coffee shop. Neal called it Store-Brand Friends.

Neal was working in pharmaceutical research then. He’d thought about graduate school for a while but didn’t know what he wanted to study, so he got a job in a lab. Then he got another job in another lab. He hated it, but at least he worked better hours than Georgie. Neal was done every day by five—and home making dinner by six.

There was a nice day care they were considering on the studio lot. They went and visited, and Georgie put their name on the waiting list.

It was going to be fine, Neal said. It was all going to be fine.

It was just happening so fast.

They’d always assumed they’d have kids someday, but they hadn’t really talked through the details. The closest they’d come was on that first date, when Georgie said that she wanted kids and Neal hadn’t argued.

After they’d been married for seven years, it seemed like they should probably get on with it—the trying, not the talking. Georgie was already thirty, and lots of her friends had had fertility problems. . . .

She got pregnant the first month they stopped using condoms.

And then it was happening. And they still didn’t talk about it. There was no time. Georgie was so tired by the time she got home from the show, she fell asleep most nights on the couch during prime time. Neal would wake her up and walk behind her up their narrow staircase, his hands supporting her hips and his head resting between her shoulder blades.

It was all going to be fine, he said.

Georgie was thirty-seven weeks along when they went out to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary. They walked to an Indian restaurant near their house—their old house in Silver Lake—and Neal talked her into having a glass of wine. (“One glass of red wine isn’t going to hurt at this point.”) They talked about the studio day care some more; it was Montessori, Georgie said—for probably the third time that night—and the kids had their own vegetable garden.

There was an Indian family sitting one table over. Georgie was terrible at guessing kids’ ages before she had her own, but the family had a little girl who must have been about a year and a half. She was toddling from chair to chair, and she reached out and grabbed Georgie’s armrest, smiling up at her triumphantly. The girl wore a pink silk dress and pink silk leggings. She had a cap of black hair and gold studs in her ears. “Oh—sorry,” the girl’s mother said, leaning over and sweeping the child up onto her lap.

Georgie set her glass down too hard, and wine splashed out onto the yellow tablecloth.

“Are you okay?” Neal asked, his eyes dropping to her stomach. He’d been looking at Georgie differently since she started to show, like she might split open at anytime without warning.

“I’m fine,” she said, but her chin was wobbling.

“Georgie—” Neal took her hand. “—what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” she whispered. “I don’t know why we’re doing this.”

“Why we’re doing what?”

“Having a baby,” she said, glancing tearfully over at the pink-swathed toddler. “We’re just—all we ever talk about is what we’re going to do with it when we’re not there. Who’s going to raise it?”

“We are.”

“From six to eight P.M.?”

Neal sat back in his chair. “I thought you wanted this.”

“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t get what I want.” Maybe I don’t deserve it.

Neal didn’t tell her it would all be fine. He seemed too shocked to speak. Or maybe too angry. He just watched Georgie cry—his brow low, his jaw forward—and refused to finish his chana masala.

The next morning he told her he was quitting his job.

“You can’t quit your job,” Georgie said. She was still lying in bed. Neal had brought her a mug of hot black tea and a plate of scrambled eggs.

“Why not?” he said. “I hate it.”

He did hate it. He’d been there three years, the pay was terrible, and his boss was an unrepentant egomaniac who liked to brag about “curing cancer.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but . . . do you even want to stay home?”

Neal shrugged. “You’re going to be miserable if we put this baby in day care.”

“I’ll get over it,” Georgie said, knowing that she would and feeling guilty about that, too.

“You don’t want me to stay home?”

“I haven’t thought about it, have you?”

“There isn’t anything to think about,” he said. “I can do this. You can’t. We don’t need my paycheck.”

“But . . .” Georgie felt like she should argue, but she didn’t know where to start. And, actually, she really, really liked this idea. She already felt better about the baby, knowing that it would be with Neal, that they wouldn’t be turning it (they didn’t know the gender yet, but they’d settled on “Alice” or “Eli”) over to a stranger nine hours a day.

“You’re sure?” she asked, moving to get out of bed. She was huge—Georgie got huge with both pregnancies—and she was having spasms in her lower back every time she sat up. Neal bent in front of her so she could put her arms around his neck, then pulled her upright with his hands on her hips. “It’s a big sacrifice,” she said.

“Taking care of my own child isn’t a sacrifice. It’s what parents do.”

“Yeah, but are you sure? Don’t you want to think about this?”

Neal was looking at Georgie’s face, not smiling—just meeting her eyes without flinching, so she’d know he was serious. “I’m positive.”

“Okay,” she said, and kissed him, already feeling so relieved. And feeling some sort of evolutionary satisfaction. Like she’d made the right decision picking this man; he was going to find all the best sticks for their nest and chase off all the predators.

They stood together, curled over the mass of baby between them, and Georgie felt like everything was going to be fine.

That’s how Neal had become a stay-at-home dad.

That’s how Neal had thrown away his own career before he’d even figured out what he wanted from it.

What would happen now? If they stayed together? (God, was she really asking that question?)

Noomi would start school next year. Would Neal go back to work then? What would he want to do—what would he want to be?

A railroad detective?

CHAPTER 25

Neal didn’t call her back.

Georgie lay on her bed and watched the phone. She was trying to figure out whether she could see the magic if she looked hard enough. Whether the phone shimmered or glittered or made some sort of spooky Freaky Friday noise when it was doing its thing.

One of the pugs, the boy, wandered into the room. He stood next to the bed barking until Georgie hauled him up with her.

“I don’t like you,” she said. “I don’t even know your name. In my head, I call you ‘the Sweaty One’ and the other one ‘the One Who Looks Like It Bit a Brick.’”

She did know their names. They were Porky and Petunia

Porky nuzzled his flat face into Georgie’s stomach and whimpered. She rubbed her knuckles into the skin at the back of his neck.

The door was open, and Heather leaned in.

“I’m still fine,” Georgie said. Heather had been checking on her ever since they got back from the mall and Georgie had run to her room to brood over the phone.

“I brought you some Pringles,” Heather said.

“I don’t want any Pringles.”

Heather walked over and sat on the bed. “Well, now you’re just lying.” She shook a stack of chips out onto the bedspread, and Georgie and Porky started eating them. When the can was empty, Heather wiped her fingers on Georgie’s borrowed velour pants and lay down on the bed next to the dog. “Are you okay?”

Georgie didn’t answer. She started crying instead.

Porky climbed into her lap.

“He hates it when people cry,” Heather said.

“Well, I hate him, so he’s making it worse.”

“You don’t hate him.”

“I do,” Georgie said. “His face is always wet, and the best thing he smells like is bacon bits.”

“Why don’t you just call Neal?”

“He probably isn’t home. Besides, I don’t want to talk to him if he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Maybe you’ll change his mind.”

Georgie tried to smooth out the wrinkles over Porky’s eyes.

“If you and Neal split up,” Heather asked, “will you move back in here?”

“Why? Am I in your way?”

“No. I kind of like having you here. It’s like having a sister.” Heather elbowed Georgie. “Hey. You’re supposed to say, ‘We’re not splitting up—Neal’s just visiting his mom.’”

Georgie shrugged.

After another minute or so, Heather elbowed her again. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“Where’s Mom?”

“At her work Christmas party.”

“We could make some more cheesy apples,” Georgie said.

“I ate all the cheese slices.” Heather turned on her side and rested her head in her hand. “I guess we could order a pizza. . . .”

Georgie forced a smile she knew wouldn’t happen on its own. “That sounds perfect.”

“I guess I could call Angelo’s,” Heather said.

“Perfect,” Georgie said, “but tell them we don’t want any of those wrong pizzas. If we get a wrong pizza, we’re sending it back.”

Heather smiled back at her. “Do you like artichoke hearts?”

“I love artichoke hearts. I love all hearts.”

Heather bounced up and pressed redial on her phone. She ordered the pizza, already jiggling her leg and biting at her lip. “I’ll wait in the living room for it,” she said as soon as she ended the call.

“Good idea,” Georgie agreed.

Georgie and Porky went back to their melancholy staring. Georgie at the phone. Porky at Georgie.

“I’m sorry,” Georgie said, scratching under his collar. “But I really don’t like you.” She thought of Noomi. Noomi liked the pugs; she said they looked like really ugly kitties. “Meow,” Noomi would say, getting as close to Porky’s face as he’d let her. (Which, to Porky’s credit, was pretty close.)

“Meow,” Georgie said now.

Porky sneezed.

Both the pugs loved Neal. Georgie knew he fed them table food. (Because he was a soft touch. And because he hated her mom’s cooking.) As soon as Neal sat down on the couch, the pugs would start nipping at his jeans until he had both of them in his lap. That’s how Neal ended up every Thanksgiving afternoon and every other Christmas—with two little girls and two little dogs sacked out in his lap. Neal, tired and bored, but smiling at Georgie from across the room, his dimples playing hide-and-seek with her.

She felt the tears welling up on her again.

Porky whined.

“Oh God,” Georgie said, sitting up. “I have to do something.”

She took one more look at the phone. It didn’t ring.

“Come on.” She set the dog on the floor and left the room.

“What’re you doing?” Heather asked. She’d taken down her hair and spritzed the curls with something, and she was waiting by the door—literally, leaning against the frame.

“Losing my mind,” Georgie said.

“Can’t you do that in your room?”

“I thought you were worried about me.”

“I was. I will be. But now—” Heather pointed emphatically at the door. “—there’s a pizza coming.”

“That’s what happens when you order one.”

“Right,” Heather said, goggling her eyes at Georgie. “The pizza will be here any minute.”

“Oh, right.” Georgie said. “I’ll just . . .”

The doorbell rang. Heather jumped.

“I’ll just get my clothes out of the dryer.”

Heather nodded.

“It might take a while . . . ,” Georgie continued. “You just . . . shout or something when the pizza gets here.”

Heather nodded again. The doorbell rang again. Georgie felt like telling Heather that none of this mattered, that her pizza-boy dramatics were nothing compared to Georgie’s magic, life-destroying phone of destiny—but instead she turned deliberately toward the laundry room.

As soon as Georgie was through the door, she heard the whimpering

Porky was standing outside the open dryer, barking at it. “Damn it, Heather.” Heather must have let Petunia into the dryer again—to take a nap on Georgie’s warm, clean clothes.

Georgie stomped down the back steps, irritated with every living thing in the house. Porky looked up at her and barked. “What’s the problem?” Georgie asked. “Do you want to drool all over my clothes, too?”

She leaned over the dryer door to look for the other one, lumpy old Bit-a-Brick. That’s when Georgie saw the blood. “Oh God . . .”

Porky started barking again. Georgie crouched in front of the dryer, trying not to block the light. All she could see was a pile of clothes streaked with blood. Neal’s Metallica T-shirt was on top, moving; she pulled it out of the way. Petunia was curled underneath, gnawing at something, something dark and wriggling.

“Oh God, oh God—Heather!” Georgie shouted. She jumped up and ran back in the house. “Heather!”

When she got to the kitchen, Heather was standing at the front door, staring at Georgie like she was planning how to kill her later. The pizza boy was standing . . .

Oh. The pizza boy was a girl.

Smaller than Heather; wearing dark jeans, a short-sleeved white T-shirt under thin leather suspenders, and a ball cap that said ANGELO’S. The girl looked kind of like Wesley Crusher, but prettier and with nicer arms. It was a good look.

Huh, Georgie thought, then said out loud: “Heather. It’s Petunia.”

“What?”

“Petunia’s having a baby.”

“What?”

“Petunia!” Georgie said, more urgently. “She’s having puppies in the dryer!”

“No, she’s not. She’s having a C-section in two weeks.”

“Great!” Georgie shouted. “I’ll go tell her!”

“Oh God!” Heather shouted back. She ran past Georgie toward the laundry room. Georgie ran behind her as far as the door.

Heather knelt in front of the dryer and immediately screamed. Porky was running back and forth across the tile floor—it sounded like someone rattling their fingernails against a metal desk. He was already hoarse from barking. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Heather chanted.

“Whoa,” someone said.

The pizza girl stepped around Georgie on the stairs. “Whoa,” she said again, crouching behind Heather.

“She’s gonna die,” Heather said.

The girl touched her shoulder. “She’s not.”

“She is. Their heads are too big, she has to have a C-section. Oh God.” Heather took a few crazy breaths. “Oh my God.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Georgie said. “She was built for this.”

“She wasn’t,” Heather said, crying now. “Pugs are bred to be useless. We have to take her to the vet.”

“I think it’s too late for that,” pizza girl said, looking into the dryer. “There are puppies in there.” Porky ran by the dryer again, and the girl scooped him up, running her hand over his skull and whispering, “Hush.”

“Right,” Georgie said.

Heather was still crying and breathing like she was making every effort to pass out.

“Right,” Georgie said again. “Heather, move.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to help Petunia.”

“You don’t even like her.”

“Move.”

Pizza girl tugged on Heather’s elbow, and Heather moved back.

“My OB didn’t like me either,” Georgie murmured. “Get out your phone, Heather. Google ‘pugs in labor.’”

“I would if I had a smartphone!” Heather snarled.

“I’ve got it,” ever-more-impressive pizza girl said. “Here—” She handed Porky to Heather. “—maybe you guys could get some clean towels.”

“Have you done this before?” Heather asked hopefully, taking the dog and wiping her face in its fur.

“No,” the girl said, “but I watch Animal Planet.”

“Google,” Georgie said, reaching into the dryer. Petunia had burrowed under the T-shirt again and was shivering, worrying something with her mouth. Georgie tried to nudge more clothes away, so she could see.

“Okay, okay,” pizza girl said. “It’s loading. Okay, here we go—‘giving birth can be especially challenging for both pugs and pug owners.’”

“So far, so good . . . ,” Georgie said. “It’s too dark, I can’t see anything.”

“Oh.” The girl held her key chain over Georgie’s shoulder. “There’s a flashlight.”

“That’s handy.” Georgie took the heavy key chain and found the stainless steel light.

“It helps when I’m delivering pizzas at night, to get the credit card numbers—okay, it says here that pugs have complicated pregnancies, and we should be financially prepared for a C-section. . . .”

“Skip ahead,” Georgie said. Petunia was wet and splotched with blood. The thing in her mouth was moving. Oh, God, she’s eating it.

“She’s eating the puppies!” Heather shrieked. She was leaning behind Georgie holding a stack of towels and three bottled waters.

“She’s not eating it,” pizza girl said, putting her hand on Heather’s arm. She held up her phone so they both could see. “It’s in its sac. They’re born in sacs, and the mom chews them out. It’s a good sign that she’s chewing them free. It says that pugs are notoriously bad mothers. If she didn’t do it, we’d have to.”

“We’d have to chew them out?” Georgie asked.

The girl looked at Georgie like she was insane—but still managed to look patient. “We’d use a washcloth,” she explained.

“I brought washcloths!” Heather said.

The girl smiled at Heather. “Great job.”

“What else does it say?” Georgie asked.

Still-competent-but-clearly-distracted pizza girl looked back at her phone. “Um . . . okay, puppies—there can be one to seven.”

“Seven,” Georgie repeated.

“Sacs . . . ,” the girl said, “chewing . . . Oh, she’s supposed to chew the umbilical cord, too.”

“Great.”

“And placentas—there’s a placenta for each puppy. That’s important. You need to look for the placentas.”

“What do the placentas look like?”

“Do you want me to Google that?”

“No,” Georgie said, “keep reading.”

Petunia was still working on the wriggly thing with her teeth. “Good girl,” Georgie said. “Probably.”

She patted blindly around Petunia and recoiled when she felt something else soft and warm.

“What?” Heather asked, still half in a panic.

“I don’t know,” Georgie said, reaching back in. She found it again, warm and wet. Was it a puppy? Georgie held up what looked like a bag of blood, then dropped it. “Placenta.”

“That’s one,” the girl said enthusiastically.

“Aren’t you supposed to be reading?” Georgie reached back in.

“There’s nothing else. Make the dog comfortable. Make sure she helps the puppies get free. Count the placentas. Make sure they nurse . . . .”

Georgie felt something else wet under Petunia and grabbed it instinctively. “Jesus,” she said. “Another baby.” Still in its sac. It looked like a raw sausage. Georgie reached for one of Heather’s towels and started rubbing at the membrane. “Like this?”

Pizza girl looked up from her phone. “Harder, I think.”

Georgie scrubbed at the lump till the skin around it tore and she could see the grayish pink puppy inside.

“Is it alive?” Heather asked.

“I don’t know,” Georgie answered. The puppy was warm, but not warm as life. Georgie kept rubbing it clean, tears falling on her hand. Petunia whined, and Heather’s girl reached past Georgie into the dryer to pet her.

Heather knelt next to Georgie. “It is it alive?” She was crying, too.

“I don’t know.” The puppy twitched, and Georgie rubbed harder, massaging it with her hands.

“I think it’s breathing,” Heather said.

“It’s cold.” Georgie brought the puppy up to her chest and tucked it inside her sweatshirt, rubbing. The puppy shuddered and squeaked. “I think . . .”

Heather hugged Georgie. “Oh God.”

“Careful,” Georgie said.

Pizza girl sat back from the dryer cradling another puppy against her white shirt.

“Oh my God,” Heather said, and hugged her, too.

There were three puppies.

And three placentas.

Eventually Georgie thought to call her mom.

And then she called the vet, who talked them through cutting the last umbilical cord and making Petunia comfortable.

The puppies got a sponge bath. Georgie took charge of the one she was still holding inside her shirt. Then they all got tucked back into the dryer with clean towels. “It’s her little nest,” Heather said, patting the dryer like it had helped.

Georgie tried to put the Metallica shirt in the washer, but Heather grabbed onto it, making a disgusted face. “Georgie, no. This is an intervention.”

“Heather. That’s Neal’s shirt. From high school.”

“It gave its life for a good cause.”

Georgie let go. Heather handed the T-shirt to pizza girl, who was starting to clean up.

Pizza girl’s name was Alison, and Heather’s face followed her around the room like a sunflower chasing daylight.

“I still don’t like you,” Georgie said to Petunia, reaching in and stroking the dog’s slack stomach. “Look at you, nursing like a champ. Now who’s a notoriously bad mother?”

The puppies were clean, but Georgie and Heather and Alison were still sticky with blood and fetal juices—and pug vomit, Georgie was pretty sure.

Their mom looked horrified when she finally ran into the laundry room, kitten heels clicking on the stairs.

“It’s fine,” Georgie tried to assure her. “Everything is fine.”

“Where are my babies?” her mom asked, taking in the pile of bloody towels and the pile of bloody girls. Heather and Alison were sitting together in front of the dryer. Alison was cuddling Porky, who’d been stashed in the hall bathroom for most of the action. Her stained white T-shirt made her look like a butcher.

“They’re right here,” Heather said. “In the dryer.”

Georgie’s mom hurried over, and Alison quickly got up to make room. “My little mama,” Georgie’s mom said, “my little hero.”

Alison took a step back. “I guess . . . ,” she said, looking over at Heather.

Heather’s head was in the dryer.

“I guess I should go,” Alison said. After a few more seconds, she handed Porky to Georgie (who immediately handed him over to Kendrick), then wiped her hands on her jeans and started walking toward the door.

“Alison,” Georgie said, “thanks. You were a lifesaver. If I ever have another baby, I want you to deliver it.”

Alison waved her hand, like it was nothing, and kept walking.

“Who was that?” Kendrick asked as soon as she was out of sight.

“Pizza—,” Georgie said, but stopped when Heather’s head whipped up, her face full of dread. “Heather, can you help me with something in the kitchen?” Georgie leaned over and grabbed her sister’s sleeve, then pulled her up the steps and into the house, just as the front door was closing.

“What are you doing?” Georgie demanded.

“Nothing,” Heather said, jerking away. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t let that incredibly attractive, steady-handed girl walk away.”

“Georgie, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Heather, that girl just helped us deliver babies.”

“Because she’s a nice person.”

“No. Because she’s willing to wade through blood and amniotic fluid just to impress you.”

Heather rolled her eyes.

“What is wrong with you?” Georgie asked. “You obviously want to kiss that girl. I kind of want to kiss that girl. So go do it. Or go, I don’t know, make progress in that general direction.”

“It’s not that easy, Georgie.”

“I think it might be.”

“I’m not you. I can’t just . . . take what I want. And Mom’s here, and she’ll figure out that I’m gay—”

“She’s gonna figure it out anyway. She won’t care.”

“Eventually she won’t care. I’ll tell her eventually. Just, not while I’m living here. I don’t want to, it’s not worth it—none of this is worth it. I mean, what? I humiliate myself? And freak out Mom, and probably get hurt . . . And just ruin everything for the chance that maybe I’m supposed to be with this girl I don’t even know?”

“Yes,” Georgie said. “That’s how it works. Exactly.”

Heather folded her arms. “Oh, you don’t know how it works—you told me so yourself. And that’s after spending your whole life trying to figure it out. It’s not worth it.”

Georgie couldn’t stop shaking her head. “Oh my God, Heather—forget what I said. Don’t listen to me. Why would you listen to me? Of course it’s worth it.”

“But it’s not even anything,” Heather said, glancing miserably at the door. “It’s just a chance.”

“The chance to be happy.”

“Or the chance to be heartbroken, like you?”

“The chance to be alive. To be . . . Heather, forget everything I said before. It’s worth it. Do you think I wouldn’t risk everything to bring Neal to that door right now? That’s how it works. You keep risking everything. And you keep hoping you can keep him from walking away.”

“Her.”

“Whoever. Jesus.”

The doorbell rang, and they both turned. After a second, the door opened, and Alison stepped carefully through, pushing her long bangs out of her eyes. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought everybody might still be out back—I think I left my keys on the dryer. . . .”

“I’ll get them,” Georgie said before either of the girls could say anything more. “I’ll be right back.” She squeezed Heather’s arm on the way to the laundry room, then sat down next her mom, pointing out which puppy was hers.

She left Alison’s keys sitting on top of the dryer.

CHAPTER 26

Georgie’s mom lent her another pair of velour pants. And a T-shirt that said PINK.

Heather lent Alison a DECA T-shirt that hung too wide around the other girl’s neck.

They made a new nest for the dogs next to the Christmas tree, and Georgie’s mom decided that she and Kendrick couldn’t go to San Diego for Christmas and leave the puppies alone. “I guess we’ll keep you company, Georgie.”

Everyone agreed that Alison couldn’t just go back to work, not after everything. She spent ten tense minutes on the phone, trying to explain the situation to Angelo.

“Did you get fired?” Heather asked when Alison walked back into the living room.

Alison shrugged. “I’m going back to Berkeley next week, anyway.”

On the bright side, she had three large pizzas in the back of her car, plus an order of lasagna, some very cold fried mushrooms, and a dozen parmesan bread twists.

“God bless us, every one,” Georgie said, cracking open one of the boxes.

Fortunately for Heather, their mom only had eyes for the puppies and didn’t even notice Heather and Alison on the couch, giggling at each other with cheeks full of pizza.

Georgie herself was three giant slices in when the phone rang in the kitchen. The landline.

Heather looked at Georgie, and Georgie dropped her pizza, practically stepping on Porky on her way to the phone.

She got there on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Neal said. “It’s me.”

“Hey,” Georgie said.

Heather was standing behind her. She held out her hand. “Take it in your room,” she said. “I’ll hang it up.”

“Neal?” Georgie said into the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Just a minute, okay? Don’t go anywhere. Are you going anywhere?”

“No.”

Heather was still reaching for the phone; Georgie held the receiver against her chest. “Promise me you won’t talk to him,” she whispered.

Heather put her hand on the receiver and nodded.

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

Heather nodded again.

Georgie let go of the phone and ran down the hall. Her hands were trembling when she picked up the yellow phone. (That never used to happen to her when she was upset; she was probably pre-diabetic.)

“Got it,” she said. She heard the kitchen phone click. “Neal?”

“Still here.”

Georgie sank onto the floor. “Me, too.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Georgie said, “yeah. I’ve just had the weirdest day. Plus, I guess I . . . I didn’t think you were going to call back.”

“I said I would.”

“I know, but . . . you were angry.”

“I—” Neal stopped and started his sentence again. “We ended up staying with my aunt for a while. It was hard to leave. She was really happy to see us, so we stayed for dinner at the nursing home. And that was depressing and kind of gross, so we went to Bonanza on the way home.”

“What’s a Bonanza?”

“It’s like a cafeteria-buffet-steakhouse thing.”

“Is everything in Nebraska named after Westerns?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“I’ll bet your Italian restaurants are named after Sergio Leone movies.”

“What made your day so weird?”

Georgie started laughing. It sounded like a laugh played backwards.

“Georgie?”

“Sorry. It’s just . . .” What made her day so weird? “I delivered three puppies and found out that Heather is gay.”

“What? Oh—for a second, there, I thought you were talking about your sister. Your cousin is gay?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Georgie said.

“How did you deliver puppies? Whose puppies?”

“That doesn’t matter either. But I think we’re keeping one.”

“‘We’—you and your mom? Or ‘we,’ we?”

“We, we, we,” Georgie said. “All the way home.”

“Georgie?”

“Sorry.”

“You delivered puppies?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. I need another second.” Georgie pulled the phone away from her ear and dropped it on the carpet. At some point, she’d started breathing like Heather during the pug emergency. Georgie smoothed her hair back and redid her ponytail, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes.

This is it, Georgie, get back in the game.

No, this wasn’t a game. It was her life. Her ridiculous life.

It doesn’t matter what you say now, she told herself. Neal’s going to propose on Christmas. He already did. He said, “We’ll make our own enough.” It’s fate.

Unless . . .

Unless it wasn’t. Maybe Neal had just said that “enough” thing because it was on his mind that day, not because of their phone calls. Had he given Georgie any other clues over the years that these conversations happened? (This would be easier to figure out if Neal were the sort of guy who ever gave away clues.)

This was Georgie’s last chance to talk to Neal before he left for California. Her last chance to make sure he left—what was she supposed to say?

She took a deep breath, in, then pushed it, out. Then picked up the phone.

“Neal?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Do you believe in fate?”

“What? What kind?”

“Like, do you believe that everything is already decided? That we’re destined for it?”

“Are you asking if I’m a Calvinist?”

“Maybe.” Georgie tried again: “Do you think that everything is already decided? Already written. Is the future just sitting there waiting for us to get to it?”

“I don’t believe in destiny,” he said, “if that’s what you mean. Or predestination.”

“Why not?”

“There’s no accountability in it. I mean, if everything is already set in stone, why try? I prefer to think that we’re choosing in every moment what happens next. That we choose our own paths—Georgie, why is this important?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded far away from herself in the receiver.

“Hey . . . Georgie.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“Just now?”

“No,” he said. “Today. All day.”

“Oh. It’s okay.”

Neal huffed. Frustrated. “I hate that you thought I wouldn’t call—I hate that everything is so tentative between us right now. When did everything get so tentative?”

“I think when you left for Omaha without me.”

“I just came home for Christmas.”

Georgie’s voice was barely there when she reached for it. “That’s not true.”

She could hear Neal clenching his jaw. “All right,” he said. “You’re right.”

Georgie was quiet.

Neal was quiet, too.

“I didn’t break up with you,” he said finally. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said. “But we’re still broken.”

Neal growled. “Then we’ll fix it.”

“How?”

“When did you get so hopeless, Georgie? The last time we talked, everything was fine.”

“No, the last time we talked you were pissed with me about Seth.” She rested her tongue between her teeth and thought about biting all the way through.

“Because you were putting him first again.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “He just showed up. He woke me up.”

“He just showed up in your bedroom.”

“Yes.”

Neal growled again. “I hate that. I hate that so much, Georgie.”

“I know, Neal.”

“That’s all you can offer me? You know?”

“I can tell you I’ll never invite him into my bedroom,” she said. “But sometimes he just shows up. You said you didn’t want me to choose between you.”

“And you said you would choose me.”

“I would,” she said. “I do.”

Neal huffed.

Georgie waited.

“Why are we fighting?” he asked. “Are you punishing me because I didn’t call you today?”

“No.”

“Then why are we fighting?”

Why were they fighting? They shouldn’t be fighting. Georgie was supposed to be wooing him, making him forgive her, making him love her—letting it all happen.

“Because,” she sputtered. “Because I want to!”

“What?”

“I just want to get everything out. I want every horrible thing on the table. I want to fight about it all now, so we never have to again!” She was shouting.

Neal was seething. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“I can’t do it!” she said. “I can’t keep fighting with you about the same things over and over again. I can’t keep not fighting about the same things over and over again. I can’t go another day, pretending you’re not pissed with me, pretending everything’s fine, talking in that stupid cheerful voice I use when I know you’re just quietly hating me.”

“Georgie.” Neal sounded surprised. And hurt. “I never hate you.”

“You do. You will. You hate what I do to your life, and that’s the same as hating me—that’s just as bad. If you hate your own life because of me, that’s worse.”

“Jesus. I don’t hate my life.”

“You will.”

“Is that a threat?”

She forced down a sob. “No. It’s a promise.”

“What the—” Neal stopped. He never swore in front of her, she wasn’t sure if he ever swore, period. “—what’s wrong with you tonight?”

“I just want to get it over with.”

“What? Us?”

“No,” she cried. “Maybe. I want to say every terrible true thing. I don’t want to trick you into coming back to me, Neal. I don’t want to tell you it’s all going to be okay when I know it isn’t.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“It’s not going to be okay. If you come back. If you forgive me or whatever it is you need to do. If you tell yourself that you’ll just get used to it. To Seth and L.A. and my job . . . You’re wrong. You’ll never get used to it. And you’ll blame me. You’ll hate me for keeping you here.”

Neal’s voice was cold. “Stop telling me that I hate you. Stop using that word.”

“It’s your word,” she said, “not mine.”

“Why are you being like this?”

“Because I don’t want to trick you.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because part of me does want to trick you. Part of me wants to say whatever I have to say to make sure you’ll still want me. I want to tell you that it’ll be different—better. That I’ll be more sensitive, that I’ll compromise more. But I won’t be, Neal, I know I won’t be. And I don’t want to trick you. Nothing is ever going to change.”

Neal was quiet.

Georgie imagined him standing on the other side of the kitchen, their kitchen, staring into the sink. Lying next to her in bed, facing the wall. Driving away from her without looking back.

“Everything is going to change,” Neal said before she was ready for it. “Whether we want it to or not. Are you—Georgie, are you saying you don’t want to be better to me?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Because I want to be better to you. I promise to be better to you.”

“I can’t promise you that I’ll change,” she said. Georgie couldn’t make promises that her twenty-two-year-old self wouldn’t keep.

“You mean you don’t want to.”

“No,” she said, “I—”

“You can’t even promise me that you’ll try? From this moment onward? Just try to think about my feelings more?”

Georgie coiled the yellow cord around her fingers until her fingertips went white. “From this moment onward?”

“Yeah.”

She couldn’t make promises for her twenty-two-year-old self. But what about for this version of herself? The one that was on the phone with him. The one that was still refusing to let him go.

“I . . . I think I can promise that.”

“I’m not asking you to promise me that everything will be perfect,” Neal said. “Just promise me that you’ll try. That you’ll think about how it feels for me when Seth is in your bedroom. That you’ll think about how long you’re leaving me waiting when you’re at work. Or how I might be feeling when I’m stuck at a stranger’s party all night. I know I’ve been a jerk, Georgie—I’m going to try not to be. Will you try with me?”

“From this moment onward?”

“Yeah.”

From this moment onward, from this moment onward. She grabbed on to the idea and held tight. “Okay,” she said. “I promise.”

“Okay. Me, too.”

“I’ll be better to you, Neal.” She steadied herself against the bed. “I won’t take you for granted.”

“You don’t take me for granted.”

“Yes,” she said, “I do.”

“You just get caught up—”

“I take for granted that you’ll be there when I’m done doing whatever it is I’m doing. I take for granted that you’ll love me no matter what.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Neal, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I want you to take that for granted. I will love you no matter what.”

Georgie felt herself sliding out of control again. “Don’t say that. Take it back.”

“No.”

“Take it back.”

“You’re crazy,” he said. “No.”

“If you say that, it’s like you’re telling me that all the insensitive things I do are okay. It’s like you’re just handing me ‘no matter what.’ You’re pre-pardoning me.”

“That’s what love is, Georgie. Accidental damage protection.”

“No, Neal. I don’t deserve that. And it isn’t even true. Because if I had that, already, you wouldn’t have left.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. The s in “sorry” slurred, like his mouth was pressed against the phone. “I won’t leave again.”

“You will,” she said. “And it’ll be my fault.”

“Jesus, Georgie. You’re all over the place. I can’t talk to you if you’re going to be like this.”

“Well, I’m going to be like this. I’m going to be worse than this.”

“I’m getting off the phone,” he said.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then we’re starting over.”

“No!”

“Yes. We’re starting this whole conversation over.” He still wasn’t shouting, but his voice was building like something that was about to blow.

“I don’t want to,” she panted. “It doesn’t work. Everything bad and everything good has already happened.”

“I’m going to hang up now, Georgie. And we’re both going to take some deep breaths. And when I call back, we’re starting over.”

“No.”

He did it then.

Neal hung up.

Georgie tried to take a deep breath—it caught in her throat like a millstone.

She dropped the receiver on the hook and wandered out into the hall, to Heather’s bathroom. Georgie hardly recognized her own face in the mirror. She looked pale and witless, a ghost who’d just seen a ghost. She rinsed her face with cold water and sobbed tearlessly into her hands.

So this was how Georgie talked her husband into proposing to her. By practically begging him not to. By finally freaking the fuck out.

Neal would be freaking out, too, if he was the one with a magic phone. . . .

Neal did have a magic phone, and he didn’t even realize it.

God, why had she said all those horrible things? Georgie looked in the mirror again. At the woman Neal had ended up with.

She’d said them because they were true.

Georgie went back to the bedroom and looked down at the yellow phone.

She picked up the receiver and listened for the dial tone, then dropped it on the floor and climbed into bed.

That noise the phone makes when you leave it off the hook? It stops after a while.