“Okay.”
“I love you, Alice. I love you, Noomi.”
“Noomi’s in the kitchen with Grandma now.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Mommy.”
Georgie started to say good-bye, but Alice had already hung up.
Someone was knocking on her windshield.
Georgie lifted her head off the steering wheel. It was Kendrick. She couldn’t really hear what he was saying. She rolled down the window.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay.” Kendrick nodded. “’Cause, the thing is, you look kind of like you’re sitting in your car crying.”
“I’m done crying,” she said. “Now I’m just sitting in the car.”
“Oh, well. Okay.”
Georgie rolled the window back up and hid her face in the steering wheel.
There was more knocking. She looked up.
“You’re blocking me!” Kendrick shouted—so that she could hear him, not because he was angry—and motioned at the open garage where his truck was already running.
“Sorry,” Georgie said. “I’ll just . . .”
She put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.
She’d just go to work.
Options:
1. Call doctor. (End up on drugs? Possibly institutionalized . . . Would at least earn Neal’s pity.)
2. Consult psychic. (Pros: Very romantic-comedy. Cons: Sounds time intensive; have always disliked strangers’ living rooms.)
3. Pretend this never happened. Just have to avoid yellow phone, apparently . . .
4. Destroy yellow phone? (Conduit to the past too dangerous to allow. Nightmare scenarios possible, i.e., what if Marty McFly’s dad doesn’t take his mom to the prom?)
5. CHRIST ALMIGHTY. I DO NOT HAVE A CONDUIT TO THE PAST.
6. Call doctor?
7.
7.
7. Keep playing along?
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry, yes?”
“That was a Venti vanilla latte, right?”
“Right,” Georgie said.
“You can go ahead and drive through.”
Someone honked, and Georgie checked the rearview mirror. There were at least five cars behind her.
“Right,” she said. “Sorry.”
If this were a movie . . .
If there were an angel . . .
Or a machine that told fortunes . . .
Or a magic fountain . . .
If this were a movie, it wouldn’t be random. A random call to a random point in the past. It would mean something. So what did this mean?
Christmas 1998:
Georgie and Neal went to a party. They fought. Neal dumped her—at least, she thought he was dumping her. And then, a week later, he proposed.
And now she was talking to him during that week, that lost week. . . . Why?
Was she supposed to change something? If this were Quantum Leap, there’d be something specific she was supposed to change. (This is not Quantum Leap, Georgie—this is your life. You are not Scott Bakula.)
But what if . . .
Christmas 1998. They fought. Neal went home. He came back. He proposed. They lived not-exactly-happily ever after. Wait, was that what she was supposed to fix? The not-exactly-happy part?
How was she supposed to fix something like that, over the phone, when she wasn’t even sure it was fixable?
Christmas 1998. A week without Neal. The worst week of her life. The week he decided to marry her . . .
Was Georgie supposed to make sure that he didn’t?
CHAPTER 14
“I don’t know what to say,” Seth said. He was leaning on the white-board, frowning at her Metallica T-shirt. “On the one hand, your hair is wet, so you’ve obviously showered and changed. I applaud that. On the other, I miss the velvet jogging pants. . . . Georgie? Hello? Hey.”
Georgie stopped trying to plug her phone into her computer and looked up at him. He’d kicked away from the wall and set his hand on her shoulder.
“I know I’ve been asking you this all week,” he said, “but I’ll try one more time—are you okay?”
She wound the USB cord around her fingers. “If you could travel into the past and fix a mistake, would you?”
“Yes,” he said, without even thinking about it. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, you would? You’d mess with the past?”
“Absolutely. You said there was a mistake—I’d fix it.”
“But what if you messed everything up?” Georgie asked. “Like, what if that one action changed everything?”
“Like in Back to the Future?”
“Yes.”
Seth shrugged. “Meh. I don’t believe it. I’d go back and fix my mistake—everything else would work itself out. World War Three isn’t going to happen just because I got a higher SAT score.”
“But if you’d gotten a higher SAT score, you might not have gone to ULA, and then you’d never have met me, and we wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
“Pfft,” he said, lowering an eyebrow. “Do you really think that’s all that brought us together? Circumstance? Location?” He shook his head. “I find your perspective on space and time to be very limiting.”
Georgie went back to fumbling with her laptop. Seth took the cord out of her hand and plugged it in. “I printed out what we worked on yesterday,” he said. “Why don’t you take a look?”
Neal had noticed Georgie was different—on the phone last night. He’d mentioned it. Maybe he’d figure out what was happening. . . .
There was no way he’d figure out what was happening.
Why would Neal ever jump to the completely implausible and correct conclusion that he was talking to her in the future?
Georgie hadn’t said anything to date herself. She hadn’t mentioned the Internet. Or the war. Or their kids. She hadn’t tried to warn him about the stock market or 9/11.
“You don’t sound like yourself tonight,” he’d said. It was after they’d been on the phone about half an hour.
“Why not?” Georgie’d asked. God, it was like talking to a ghost. Something weirder than a ghost—a sending.
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Is my voice lower?” That would make sense. She was fifteen years closer to menopause. “Maybe it’s the crying.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think so. You seem . . . like you’re being really careful.”
“I am being really careful.”
“You seem like you’re not sure of anything.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“Yeah, but Georgie, ‘sure of everything’ is kind of your signature color.”
She laughed. “Was that a Steel Magnolias reference?”
“You know all about my Sally Field crush,” he said. “I’m not apologizing for it now.”
She’d forgotten about Neal’s Sally Field crush. “I know all your dirty Gidget secrets,” she said.
“It was the Flying Nun who really did it for me.”
Had Georgie been sure of everything at twenty-two?
She’d had a plan.
She’d always had a plan. It seemed like the smart thing to do—have a plan and follow it, until you have solid reasons to change course.
Neal had the opposite approach. His one big plan, oceanography, had gone sour on him; and then his plan turned into keeping his eyes open until something better came along.
Georgie used to think she could fix that for him. She was really good at making plans, and Neal was really good at everything else; this seemed like a no-brainer.
“You could just do this for a living,” Georgie said one night at The Spoon, before they even started dating.
“Entertain you?” Neal said. “Sounds good. How are the benefits?”
She was sitting across from him (always sitting across from him) leaning on his drafting table. “No. This. Stop the Sun. You’re good enough—I thought you we
re already syndicated.”
“You are very kind,” he said. “Very wrong, but very kind.”
“I’m serious.”
“I couldn’t do this for a living.” He gave the woodchuck he was drawing a cigar. “It’s just messing around—it’s just doodling.”
“So you wouldn’t want to be Matt Groening?”
“With all due respect, no.”
“Why not?”
Neal shrugged. “I want to do something real. I want to make a difference.”
“Making people laugh is real.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll let you take up that mantle.”
“Do you think that comedy is just messing around, too?”
“Honestly?” he asked.
“Of course, honestly.”
“Then yes.”
Georgie sat up straighter and folded her arms on the table. “You think my dreams are a waste of time?”
“I think your dreams would be a waste of my time,” he said. “I wouldn’t be happy.”
“So what would make you happy?”
“Well, if I knew that, I’d do it.” He’d looked up at her then, his eyes pained and almost too sincere for the circumstances, for the bright lights and the basement of the student union. He held his dip pen over the margin of his comic and let it drip. “I mean it. If I figure out what makes me happy, I’m not going to waste any more time. I’m just going to grab it. I’m just going to do it.”
Georgie nodded. “I believe you.”
Neal smiled and looked down, sheepish now, shaking his head a bit. “Sorry. I’ve had too much time in my own head lately.”
She waited for him to start inking again. “You could be a doctor . . . ,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“You have doctorly hands. I can imagine you performing very neat stitches.”
“Weird,” he said. “But thank you.”
“Lawyer?”
Neal shook his head.
“Indian chief?”
“Don’t have the connections.”
“Well,” Georgie said, “that’s all I’ve got—wait. Butcher? Baker? Candlestick maker?”
“None of those sound bad, honestly. The world needs bakers.”
“And candlestick makers,” she added.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about—” Neal glanced up at her, then looked down, licking his lips. “—I’ve been thinking about the Peace Corps.”
“The Peace Corps? Really?”
“Yeah. It’d give me something worthwhile to do while I figure the rest out.”
“I didn’t know there was still a Peace Corps.”
“That or the Air Force,” Neal said.
“Aren’t those two radically different directions?”
“Not at all.” He glanced up over her shoulder, then lowered his eyebrows and looked down.
Georgie knew that expression. She sat up and turned around to see what Seth wanted.
Seth had stepped all the way into the production room—usually he didn’t come past the door. But tonight he sat down on a stool near Georgie and leaned onto a desk. “Hey, Neal, what’s going on?”
“Not much,” Neal muttered without looking up.
Seth nodded and turned to Georgie. “So we’re just waiting on that cover story. Mike and Brian are still hammering it out.”
Georgie looked down at her watch. The Spoon went to press tonight. She and Seth were the managing editors, so they’d have to wait for the story, set it, then send the files to the printer. It’d be a late night.
“There’s no reason for both of us to stay,” Seth told her. “You should just take off.”
“That’s okay,” Georgie said. “I’ll stay. You go home.”
Seth wrinkled his nose. She was pretty sure he did it because it was adorable. She was pretty sure Seth had practiced all his facial expressions and gestures in front of a mirror, and worked out which ones made him look like a cross between an Abercrombie model and a kitten. “I don’t want to dump it on you,” he said. “You might be here all night.”
“I really don’t mind,” she said. “Don’t you have a date?”
He nodded slowly. “I do have a date.”
“With the lovely Breanna, I’ve heard.”
“With the lovely Breanna,” Seth said, still nodding; he pursed his lips and twisted them to the side.
“Go on,” she said. “You can owe me.”
Seth narrowed his eyes at Georgie, then at Neal, then seemed to make up his mind. “Okay.” He stood up. “I owe you.”
“Have fun on your date,” she said.
He got as far as the door, then spun around. “You know what? I’ll call Breanna. I can’t just abandon you like this. It’s going to be late, you’ll have to walk to your car by yourself—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Neal said. Georgie looked back at him, surprised to hear his voice. “I’ll be here,” he said. “I’ll make sure she gets to her car.”
Seth stared at Neal. Georgie was pretty sure they’d never made eye contact before; she waited for one or both of them to start on fire.
“What a gentleman,” Seth said.
“It’s nothing,” Neal parried.
“Great,” Georgie said, trying to signal Seth with her eyes—wishing they had a nonverbal sign for Leave me alone with this cute guy, you idiot. “Problem solved. Go ahead, Seth. Go on your date. Get down with your bad self.”
“I guess that’s settled then. . . .” Seth nodded again. “All right. Well. See you tomorrow, Georgie. You still coming over? To my room?”
“Yep. Give me a call when you sweep out the lovely Breanna and all of her underthings.”
“Right,” he said, and finally walked away.
Georgie turned back to Neal, feeling fluttery.
“You have terrible taste in sidekicks,” he said after a moment.
“Writing partner,” she corrected.
“Hmm.”
Neal did walk her to her car that night. And he was a perfect gentleman.
Much to Georgie’s disappointment.
Neal had sounded different, too, last night on the phone.
His voice was a little higher, his thoughts came out looser. Neal with less clench, less control.
He’d sounded like the boy on the other side of the drafting table.
CHAPTER 15
Seth and Scotty both liked to be laughed at.
As long as Georgie laughed at their jokes, they usually wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t contributing to the brainstorming, that she was just writing things they said on the whiteboard and underlining them.
But today wasn’t usually. Seth was still watching Georgie like he was trying to figure out was going on. . . .
Well, he could keep on trying—he was never going to come up with, Magic fucking phone! (Though Georgie was a little worried he’d figure out she wasn’t wearing underwear.)
Seth and Scotty brainstormed.
Georgie brain-hurricaned.
What if it was happening for a reason? What if she was supposed to fix what was wrong between her and Neal? “What’s wrong?” wasn’t such an easy question to answer.
Oh, she could answer it broadly:
A lot.
A lot was wrong between them, even on good days. . . .
(The breakfast-in-bed and coming-home-early days. Days when Neal’s eyes were bright. When the girls made him smile, and he made them laugh. Easy days. Christmas mornings. Coming-home-late days when Neal would catch Georgie at the door and crowd her against the wall.)
Even on good days, Georgie knew that Neal was unhappy.
And that it was her fault.
It wasn’t just that she let him down, and put him off, and continually left him waiting—
It was that she’d tied him to her so tight. Because she wanted him. Because he was perfect for Georgie, even if she wasn’t perfect for him. Because she wanted him more than she wanted him to be happy.
If she loved Neal, if
she really loved him . . .
Shouldn’t she want more for him than with me, always with me?
What if Georgie could give Neal the chance to start over? What would he do?
Would he join the Peace Corps? Would he go back to Omaha? Marry Dawn? Marry somebody even better than Dawn?
Would he be happy?
Would he come home from work every night, smiling? Would Dawn or Better-Than-Dawn already have dinner on the table?
Would Neal crawl into bed and pull her close to him, fall asleep with his nose in the hollow of her neck. . . .
Georgie had gotten that far in her imagining—to Neal spooning with his more-suitable-than-Georgie wife—when she imagined Neal’s second-chance kids in this second-chance world. Then she slammed the door shut on all his hypothetical happiness.
If the universe thought Georgie was going to erase her kids from the timeline, it had another fucking thing coming.
She went to the bathroom and cried for a few minutes. (That was one good thing about being the only woman on the writing staff—Georgie almost always had the bathroom to herself.)
Then she spent the next hour mentally throwing the yellow rotary phone down a deep well and filling it in with concrete.
She wasn’t going to touch that thing again.
It wasn’t really a conduit to the past. It wasn’t magic. There was no such thing as magic. (I don’t believe in fairies. Sorry, Peter Pan.) But Georgie still wasn’t going to risk it. She wasn’t a Time Lord, she didn’t want a Time-Turner. She felt weird even praying for things—because it didn’t seem like she should ask God for something that wasn’t already part of the plan.
What if Georgie accidentally erased her marriage with these phone calls? What if she erased her kids? What if she’d already screwed something up—would she even know?
She tried to remind herself that this was all an illusion. That she didn’t have to worry about the dangerous implications, because illusions don’t have implications.
That’s what she tried to remind herself, but she wasn’t sure she believed it.
Illusion.
Delusion. Mirage.
Magic fucking phone.
“Korean tacos again?” Seth asked.