Landline

  “He did tell you Merry Christmas.”

  She sucked in a breath.

  “Georgie?”

  “I don’t think I should be talking right now.”

  “Georgie, wait.”

  “I can’t talk right now, Neal. I just . . . I have to go.”

  She slammed the phone down onto the cradle, looked at it for a second, maybe two, then shoved it away from her. It fell to the ground with a heavy, clanging thump. The receiver went flying into the bedside table.

  Georgie stared at it.

  This wasn’t right. None of this was right.

  Neal’s dad was dead. Neal always said I love you. And he knew who “the girls” were.

  And also . . . also, especially—especially, especially—Neal’s dad was dead.

  Georgie was . . . She must be imagining things.

  Exhausted. She was exhausted.

  And upset. Too much stress. Not enough sleep.

  Also, maybe someone had drugged her—that was possible. That was more possible than Neal’s dad coming back from the dead to wish her Merry Christmas. Which didn’t. Just. Happen.

  What else hadn’t happened today? Had she even gone to work? Had she spent last night on the couch? Had she ever woken up?

  Wake up! Wake the fuck up, Georgie!

  Maybe when she woke up, when she really woke up, she’d find Neal lying beside her. Maybe they wouldn’t even be fighting. (Were they fighting?) Maybe, in the real world, the waking world, Georgie and Neal never fought.

  “I had a dream that things were just like they are now,” she’d say when she woke up, “but we weren’t happy. And it was Christmas, and you left me. . . .”

  “Georgie?” Her mom was calling from the kitchen. Unless Georgie was dreaming that, too. “Are you okay?” her mom shouted.

  “I’m fine!” Georgie yelled back.

  Her mom came to her room anyway. “I heard a noise,” she said from the doorway. She looked down at the phone, lying stretched out and off the hook on the floor. “Is everything all right?”

  Georgie wiped her eyes. “Fine. I’m just”—she shook her head—“I don’t know, maybe having a nervous breakdown.”

  “Of course you are, honey. Your husband left you.”

  “He didn’t leave me,” Georgie said. But maybe he had. Maybe that’s why Georgie was falling apart. “I think I need to rest.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “Or maybe I need a drink.”

  Her mom came into the room and picked up the phone, setting it back on the table. “I hardly think you should start drinking.”

  Had Georgie been drinking already? Had this ever happened before? Was she blacking out?

  “Do you remember Neal’s dad?” she asked her mom.

  “Paul? Sure. Neal looks just like him.”

  “Looks? Or looked?”

  “What?”

  “What do you know about Neal’s dad?” Georgie asked.

  “What are you talking about? Didn’t he have a heart attack?”

  “Yes.” Georgie reached out and grabbed her mom’s arm. “He had a heart attack.”

  Her mom looked significantly more concerned. “Do you think you’re having a heart attack?”

  “No,” Georgie said. Was she having a heart attack? A stroke, maybe? She smiled and touched her own cheeks; nothing seemed to be drooping. “No. No, I just need some rest, I think.”

  “I don’t think you should drive home.”

  “I don’t think so either.”

  “Okay.” Her mom studied her. “You’ll get through this, Georgie. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life alone after your dad and I split up.”

  “You left him for another guy.”

  Her mom shook her head dismissively. “These feelings aren’t rational. There’s nothing rational about marriage.”

  “A fatal heart attack, right?”

  “Why are you fixated on Neal’s dad? Poor man. Poor Margaret.”

  “I don’t know,” Georgie said. “I just need to rest.”

  “You rest.” Her mom turned off the light on her way out.

  Georgie lay in the dark for an hour.

  She cried some more.

  And talked to herself. “I’m imagining things. I’m tired. I’m just tired.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

  She opened them again, and watched the yellow phone.

  She thought about going home. She went out and sat in the car for a while. Eventually, she plugged in her cell phone and tried to call Neal. (He didn’t pick up.) (Because he never fucking picks up. And maybe he had left her, maybe they were so out of synch that Georgie didn’t even recognize when he was actually, really leaving her. Maybe he’d already told her he was leaving, and she just hadn’t listened.)

  She sat in the car and cried.

  Then she tried Neal’s mom’s number, even though it was late. Georgie just needed to talk to him again. Normally. She needed to have a normal conversation to reset everything.

  His mom’s line was busy. Maybe his dad had some really important ghost phone calls to make at midnight central time.

  Georgie thought again about trying to sleep. She thought about how all her freaking out was probably making this situation—whatever this situation was—worse.

  Then she went inside and went through the kitchen cabinets until she found a bottle of crème de menthe, probably left over from the last time her mom made grasshopper pie. (Her mom and Kendrick weren’t drinkers.) (Potheads? Possibly. Neal suspected.)

  Georgie drank it straight. It was like getting drunk on syrup.

  At some point she must have fallen asleep.

  SATURDAY

  DECEMBER 21, 2013

  CHAPTER 8

  Four missed calls—all from Seth.

  It was already noon, and Georgie was just leaving for work. Her phone rang as soon as she plugged it into the car lighter.

  “Sorry,” she said, answering it. “I overslept.”

  “Jesus, Georgie,” Seth said, “I was ready to call the police.”

  “You were not.”

  “Maybe I was. I was just about to drive all the way out to Calabasas looking for you. What the fuck?”

  “I stayed at my mom’s again. I’m sorry. I forgot to set the alarm.”

  That was a vast, vast oversimplification. Georgie had woken up on her mom’s couch a half hour ago, with one of the pugs licking her face. Then she’d puked for twenty minutes. Then she’d spent another ten trying to find clothes in Heather’s room—nothing fit—before ending up in her mom’s closet, settling for a pair of velour sweatpants and a low-cut T-shirt with rhinestones. Georgie hadn’t even brushed her teeth. (Didn’t see the point; her whole body already smelled like mint.) “I’m coming,” she told Seth. “I’ll bring lunch.”

  “We already have lunch here. And half a script—it’s fucking terrible, hurry up.”

  “I’m coming.” She ended the call and got on the 101.

  Four missed calls, all from Seth. None from Neal.

  Georgie rubbed her thumb over the phone’s touchscreen. She wasn’t thinking about last night. Last night was something Georgie was not going to think about right now.

  It was a new morning. She’d call Neal and start over from here. She held the phone up over the steering wheel and thumbed through her recent calls, pressing AN EMERGENCY CONTACT.

  It rang. . . .

  “Good day, sunshine.”

  “Hey, Alice. It’s Mommy.”

  “I know, I heard your song. Also, there’s a picture of you when you call—from Halloween. You’re dressed like the Tin Man.”

  Neal had been the Cowardly Lion. Alice was Dorothy. Noomi was Toto the cat.

  “I need to talk to Daddy,” Georgie said.

  “Are you in the car?”

  “I’m on my way to work.”

  “You promised not to talk on the phone in the car—I’m telling Daddy.”

  “I promised to wait until I was done
merging. Where is Daddy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He’s not there?”

  “No.”

  “Where’s Grandma?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Alice.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please find Grandma.”

  “But we’re watching The Rescuers.”

  “Pause it.”

  “Grandma doesn’t have pause!”

  “You’re only going to miss a few minutes. I’ll tell you what happens.”

  “Mommy, I don’t want you to spoil it for me.”

  “Alice. Listen to my voice. Do I sound like I’m in the mood to debate this?”

  “No . . .” Alice sounded hurt. “You’re using your mean voice.”

  “Go get Grandma.”

  The phone fell. A second later someone picked it up.

  “Don’t use your mean voice, Mommy.” It was Noomi. Crying. Undoubtedly fake crying. Noomi almost never truly cried; she’d start fake crying long before she arrived at actual tears.

  “I’m not using my mean voice, Noomi. How are you?”

  “I’m just so sad.”

  “Don’t be sad.”

  “But you’re using your mean voice, and I don’t like it.”

  “Noomi,” Georgie said, in what probably was her mean voice. “I wasn’t even talking to you. Calm down, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Georgie?”

  “Margaret!”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” Georgie said. “I just . . . Is Neal around? I really, really need to talk to Neal.”

  “He went to do some last-minute shopping for the girls.”

  “Oh,” Georgie said. “I guess he didn’t take his phone.”

  “I guess not—are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “Yeah. I just miss him. Them. Everybody.” She closed her eyes, then quickly opened them. “You and . . . Paul.”

  Her mother-in-law was quiet.

  Georgie decided to keep going. She wasn’t sure what she was fishing for. “I’m sorry the girls didn’t get to know him like I did.”

  Margaret took a breath. “Thank you, Georgie. And thank you for letting Neal bring them to Omaha. Since we lost Paul, well, this is the hardest time of year to be alone.”

  “Of course,” Georgie said, wiping her eyes with the heel of her thumb. “Just tell Neal I called.”

  She pressed END and dropped the phone on the passenger seat.

  That sealed it.

  Georgie had lost her mind.

  “Jesus Christ,” Seth said when she walked into the room. His jaw dropped, probably just for effect. “Jesus H. Christ on a thousand bicycles.”

  Scotty shot Diet Coke through his nose. “Oh fuck,” he said. “Oh God, it burns.”

  “Can we just—” Georgie tried.

  “What happened to you?” Seth was out of his chair and circling her. “You look like Britney Spears, back when she was dating backup dancers and walking around gas stations barefoot.”

  “I borrowed some of my mom’s clothes. I didn’t think you’d want me to waste another hour going home to change.”

  “Or shower,” Seth said, looking at her hair.

  “Those are your mom’s clothes?” Scotty asked.

  “She’s a free spirit,” Georgie said. “We’re working now, right? I’m here, and we’re working?”

  “There’s something green on your face,” Seth said, touching her chin. “It’s sticky.” Georgie jerked away, finding her seat at the long conference table.

  Scotty went back to his lunch. “Is this what happens when Neal’s out of town? No wonder he keeps you on such a short leash.”

  “I’m not on a leash,” Georgie said. “I’m married.”

  Seth shoved a foam container in front of her. Georgie opened it. Soggy Korean tacos. She waited a second to figure out whether she was more sick or more hungry. . . . More hungry.

  Seth handed her a fork. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Just show me what you have so far.”

  Not fine. Completely not fine.

  “I should have told you? I did tell you. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I said ‘I love you, but I’m not sure it’s enough, I’m not sure it will ever be enough.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to live like this, Georgie’—remember?”

  It made sense, really. If Georgie was going to have a delusional, paranoid nervous breakdown about her husband leaving her, it made sense that she’d flash back to the one time Neal actually had left her.

  Sort of left her.

  Before they were married.

  It was Christmas break, their senior year. And they’d gone to some party, some TV party that seemed really important at the time. Seth was already working on a Fox sitcom, and he wanted Georgie to meet all the other writers on the show—the star was even supposed to be there. It was just a party in somebody’s backyard, with a pool and beer and Christmas lights threaded through the lemon trees.

  Neal spent the whole night standing next to the fence and refusing to talk to anybody. Refusing on principle. As if making small talk—as if being polite—would be too much of a concession. (A concession to Seth. To California. To the fact that Georgie was going to get a job like this with these sorts of people, and Neal would be along for the ride.)

  So he stood by the fence with the cheapest beer available and dead-bolted his jaw into place.

  Georgie was so infuriated by this little sit-in, she made sure she and Neal were some of the last people to leave. She met and talked to all of Seth’s new work friends. She played her part in the Seth-and-Georgie show. (It was a good part; Georgie got most of the punch lines.) She made everyone there love her.

  And then she got into Neal’s worn-out Saturn, and he drove her to her mom’s house. And he told her he was done.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he said.

  “I love you,” he said, “but I’m not sure it’s enough, I’m not sure it’ll ever be enough.”

  He said, “I don’t want to live like this, Georgie.”

  And the next morning, he’d left for Omaha without her.

  Georgie didn’t hear from Neal that whole week. She thought they were over.

  She thought that maybe he was right, that they should be over.

  And then, on Christmas morning, in 1998, Neal was there at her front door—down on one knee on the green indoor-outdoor carpeting, holding his great aunt’s wedding ring.

  He asked Georgie to marry him.

  “I love you,” he said. “I love you more than I hate everything else.”

  And Georgie had laughed because only Neal would think that was a romantic thing to say.

  Then she said yes.

  Georgie plugged her cell phone into her laptop and made sure the ringer volume was turned all the way up.

  “What are you doing?” Seth asked. “No cell phones in the writers’ room, remember? That’s your rule.”

  “We’re not even officially here,” Georgie said.

  “You’re not even unofficially here,” he snapped back at her.

  “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Right. Me, too. Four scripts, remember?”

  She rubbed her eyes. It was just a dream. Last night. Even though it hadn’t felt like a dream—that’s all it could have been. An episode.

  That was something people had. Normal people. Episodes. And then they laid cool cloths over their eyes and made plans to spend time near the sea.

  Neal had been on her mind, Neal’s dad had been on her mind—and her brain had done the rest. That’s what Georgie’s brain was good at. Episodic storytelling.

  “Probably the most important week of our career,” Seth was mumbling, “and you decide to check out.”

  “I haven’t checked out,” Scotty said.

  “I’m not talking about you,” Seth said to him. “I’m never talking about you.”

  Scotty folded his arms. “You know, I don’t like being the butt of all
your mean jokes when no one else is around. I’m not the Cliff Clavin here.”

  “Oh my God”—Seth pointed at him—“you’re totally the Cliff Clavin. I’ll never stop seeing you like that now. Did you ever watch Family Ties? You’re kind of our Skippy, too.”

  “I’m too young for Family Ties,” Scotty said.

  “You’re too young for Cheers.”

  “I watched it on Netflix.”

  “You even look like Skippy—Georgie, is Scotty our Skippy? Or our Cliff?”

  Georgie’d never had an episode before.

  Though it felt like she might be having another one now. She stuck her glasses in her hair and pinched the top of her nose

  “Georgie.” Seth poked her arm with the eraser end of his pencil. “Are you listening? Scotty—Skippy or Cliff?”

  She put her glasses back on. “He’s our Radar O’Reilly.”

  “Aw, Georgie.” Scotty grinned. “Stop, you’ll make me cry.”

  “You’re too young for M*A*S*H,” Seth grumbled.

  Scotty shrugged. “So are you.”

  They worked on their show.

  It was easier when they were working. Easier for Georgie to pretend that nothing was wrong.

  Nothing was wrong. She’d just talked to Alice and Noomi, just a few hours ago—they were fine. And Neal was just out Christmas shopping.

  So he wasn’t in any hurry to talk to her—that wasn’t unusual. What did they need to talk about? Georgie and Neal had talked every day since they’d met. (Nearly.) It’s not like they needed to catch up.

  Georgie worked on her show. Their show. She and Seth got in a groove and wrote dialogue for an hour, batting the conversation back and forth between them like a Ping-Pong ball. (This was how they usually got things done. Competitive collaboration.)

  Seth blinked first. Georgie caught him with an especially silly “your mom” joke, and he fell back in his chair, giggling.

  “I can’t believe you guys have been doing this for twenty years,” Scotty said, sincerely, when he was done applauding.

  “It hasn’t been quite that long,” Georgie said.

  Seth lifted his head. “Nineteen.”

  She looked at him. “Really?”