Landline

  “I don’t think she remembers,” Georgie said. “You bred her with some dog in Tarzana she’d never met before.”

  “Shhh,” her mom said, covering the dog’s eyes. “Only because her hubby shoots blanks.”

  “Uhhhhghh.” Georgie shuddered.

  “You look like you’re feeling better,” her mom said, still in the baby voice, still smiling at the dog.

  “I am,” Georgie said. She was. Relatively. She wasn’t drunk or hungover. And she hadn’t talked to any dead people for almost twenty-four hours now, so that was a plus.

  “Well, good,” her mom said. “There’s leftover Swiss steak in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

  “And pizza,” Heather offered, walking back into the living room. Aglow. She closed the front door and leaned against it, holding the pizza box against her stomach.

  Georgie looked down at the box. “Oh, no. That’s very special pizza. I wouldn’t dare. Anyway, I ate at work—I think I might just lie down.”

  She started walking through the living room toward the hall. “Actually . . .” She turned back to her mom. “Could I use your cell phone?”

  “Sure, it’s in my purse.” Her mom pushed the dog onto Kendrick’s lap and got off the sofa. “I washed your jeans for you,” she said, finding her purse, rifling through it, “but you look so good in those pants. You should wear more loungewear.” She handed Georgie her phone, a bejeweled Android something-or-another with a pug screen saver.

  Georgie dialed Neal’s number and hung up when it went to voice mail. Then she dialed his mom’s house, holding her breath. Busy.

  “Thanks,” she said, handing the phone back. “Kendrick? Could I use your phone?” Georgie felt like she was testing something, but she wasn’t sure what.

  Kendrick’s phone was plain and black and splattered with drywall mud. Voice mail again. Then busy on the landline. “Thanks,” Georgie said, handing it back.

  Her mom looked down at her phone, probably checking to see whom Georgie had called. “Oh, honey, do you really think Neal’s screening his calls?”

  “I don’t know,” Georgie said, honestly. “Thanks. And thanks for letting me stay.”

  Her mom put an arm around Georgie’s shoulder and kissed the side of her head. Georgie slumped into the half hug for a minute, then headed to her room.

  It felt so much like coming home from school after a really bad day. Her mom had folded her jeans and Neal’s T-shirt, and set them on the pillow as if she’d known Georgie would come back. (As if Neal had left Georgie and also kicked her out of the house.) There were even new sheets on Georgie’s old bed.

  She thought about taking a shower, then climbed onto the bed and pulled the phone into her lap. There wasn’t any reason to call Neal again. She’d just tried; he hadn’t picked up.

  Was he actually avoiding her calls?

  It sure seemed that way. The only time someone answered Neal’s phone was when he wasn’t there . . . supposedly. Maybe his mom was running interference for him. Maybe she knew something that Georgie didn’t.

  Margaret wouldn’t want this to happen. She liked Georgie, and she’d never want this for the girls. (This, Georgie thought, not wanting to find better words for her worst-case scenario.)

  Margaret wouldn’t wish for it or want it. . . .

  But Neal was Margaret’s son. And she knew he was unhappy.

  That was just a fact.

  That wasn’t Georgie being melodramatic or paranoid or delusional. That was Georgie being honest.

  Neal wasn’t happy. Neal hadn’t been happy for a long time.

  He didn’t complain about it. He didn’t say, “I’m unhappy.” (God—in a way, that would be a relief.) He just wore it, breathed it. Held it between them. Rolled away from it in his sleep.

  Neal wasn’t happy, and Georgie was why.

  And not because of anything she’d ever done or said. Just because of who she was.

  Georgie was Neal’s anchor. (And not the good kind. Not the happy anchor that keeps you safe and grounded, the one you get tattooed across your chest.) Georgie was . . . dead weight.

  Okay. Now she was being melodramatic.

  This was why she never let herself think about this. Because her brain would dive and dive and never touch bottom. She didn’t let herself think about it. But she still knew it. Everyone around them knew it—Margaret must. That Neal wasn’t happy. That he hated California, that he felt alternately lost and thwarted here. Trapped.

  And everyone knew that Georgie needed Neal far more than he needed her. That the girls needed Neal far more than they needed her.

  Of course Neal would get custody. Neal already had custody. Neal and Alice and Noomi—they were a closed system, an independent organism.

  Neal took them to school, Neal took them to the park, Neal gave them baths.

  Georgie came home for dinner.

  Most nights.

  When Georgie drove Alice to swim lessons, Alice worried that Georgie would get lost on the way there. “I guess we can call Dad if you can’t find it.”

  On Saturday mornings when Neal left to run errands, the girls wouldn’t ask for breakfast until he came home. When they fell and hurt themselves, they screamed “Daddy!”

  Georgie was extra. She was the fourth wheel. (On something that only needed three wheels. The fourth wheel on a tricycle.)

  She’d be nothing without them. Nothing. But without her? They’d be exactly the same. And Neal . . . maybe Neal would be happier.

  She felt sick again.

  She picked up the yellow receiver but kept one finger on the phone’s plunger, not ready to hear the dial tone. There wasn’t any reason to call Neal now—she’d just tried.

  Georgie should pick up a wall charger for her cell phone tomorrow on the way to work.

  Or just get your battery fixed, her brain yelled at her. Or just go home, where you have wall chargers stashed all over the house!

  I’m not going home again until Neal is there, Georgie yelled back, realizing for the first time that it was true.

  She let the plunger go and listened to the phone hum.

  It isn’t going to happen again, she told herself. After all, nothing strange had happened all day. Neal was avoiding her, but that wasn’t strange; it was just horrible.

  It wasn’t going to happen again. Georgie’s head was clear. She felt firmly rooted in reality. Miserably rooted. She tapped the receiver against her forehead to prove that it hurt. Then she ran her index finger along the phone’s plastic face and started dialing Neal’s mom’s landline.

  Because . . .

  She wanted to.

  Because she’d gotten through landline-to-landline twice so far, never mind what had happened after.

  One, she dialed, four, oh, two . . .

  These rotary dials were like meditation. They forced you to slow down and concentrate. If you pulled the next number too soon, you had to start over from the top.

  Four, five, three . . .

  It wasn’t going to happen again. The weirdness. The delirium. Neal probably wouldn’t even pick up.

  Four, three, three, one . . .

  CHAPTER 11

  “Hello?”

  Georgie exhaled when she heard Neal’s voice, then resisted the urge to ask him who the president was. “Hey,” she said.

  “Georgie.” He sounded relieved. (He sounded like Neal, like heaven.) “You called.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry I was such a jerk last night,” he said quickly.

  Last night. She felt a wave of panic. Last night, last night, last night. Neal shouldn’t remember last night, because last night hadn’t happened outside of Georgie’s crazy head.

  “Georgie? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about the way I acted.” He sounded determined. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Georgie choked out.

  “You just caught me by surprise,” he said.
“Hey—are you crying again?”

  “I . . .” Was she crying? Or hyperventilating? Maybe a little of both.

  Neal’s voice dropped. “Hey. Don’t cry, sunshine, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying,” Georgie said. “I mean, I won’t. I’m sorry, I just . . .”

  “Let’s start over, okay?”

  Georgie sobbed half a hiccuppy, hopeless laugh. “Start over? Can we do that?”

  “This conversation,” he said. “Let’s start this conversation over. And last night’s, too. Let’s go back to last night, okay?”

  “I feel like we have to go back further than that,” Georgie said.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Neal was whispering. “I don’t want to go back any further. I don’t want to miss any of the rest.”

  “Okay,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  This was crazy. This was weird and crazy. It wasn’t real. But it was still happening. If Georgie hung up, would it stop?

  Or should she keep crazy on the line, so she could trace the call?

  “Okay,” she said again.

  “Okay,” Neal said. “So . . . you called to see if I got in all right. I did. It was a long drive, and I only had three CDs, so I listened to this radio show in the middle of the night—it was called Coast to Coast—and now I think I believe in aliens.”

  Georgie decided to play along. She must be having this hallucination for a reason. Maybe if she played along, she’d figure out what it needed, and it would move on. (Or did that just work for ghosts?)

  “You’ve always believed in aliens,” she said.

  “I have not,” Neal said. “I’m a skeptic—I was a skeptic. Now I believe in aliens.”

  “Did you see some?”

  “No. But I saw a double rainbow in Colorado.”

  She laughed. “John Denver wept.”

  “It was pretty amazing.”

  “Did you drive straight through, without stopping?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I did it in twenty-seven hours.”

  “That was stupid.”

  “I know. But I had a lot to think about—I figured the thinking would keep me awake.”

  “I’m glad you got home okay.”

  For a hallucination, this conversation was progressing very rationally. (Which made sense; Georgie had always been good at writing dialogue.)

  She’d guessed right: She was obviously talking to Neal—or imagining that she was talking to Neal—just after their big Christmas fight, in college.

  But they hadn’t talked after that fight.

  Neal didn’t call Georgie after he left for Omaha, so Georgie didn’t call him either. He’d just shown up at the end of the week, on Christmas morning, with an engagement ring. . . .

  “You still sound pretty upset,” Neal said. Not-Neal said. Hallucinatory, aural-mirage Neal said.

  “I’ve had a weird day,” Georgie replied. “Also—I think you might have broken up with me a few days ago.”

  “No,” he said quickly.

  She shook her head. It still reeled. “No? Are you sure?”

  “No. I mean . . . I got angry, I said some terrible things—and I meant all of them—but I didn’t break up with you.”

  “We’re not broken up?” Her voice broke on “broken.”

  “No,” Neal insisted.

  “But I always thought you broke up with me.”

  “Always?”

  “Always . . . since we fought.”

  “I don’t want to break up with you, Georgie.”

  “But you said you couldn’t do this anymore.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “And you meant it,” she said.

  “I did.”

  “But we’re not broken up?”

  He growled, but she could tell that it wasn’t at her. Usually when Neal growled, he was growling at himself. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “But I’m hoping this can change because . . . I don’t think I can live without you either.”

  “Sure you can.” Georgie wasn’t joking.

  Neal laughed anyway. (Well, he didn’t laugh—Neal rarely laughed. But he had a sort of huffy, roof-of-the-mouth breathy thing that counted as a laugh.) “You really think I can live without you? Because I haven’t had any luck with that so far.”

  “Not true,” Georgie said. She might as well say it; this conversation wasn’t real, it didn’t cost her anything. In fact, maybe that’s what she was supposed to be doing here—saying everything she could never say to the real Neal. Just getting it out of her chest. “You had twenty years of luck before we met.”

  “That doesn’t count,” he said, like he was playing along. (No, I’m the one playing along, Georgie thought. You, sir, are a hallucination.) “I didn’t know what I was missing before I met you.”

  “Frustration,” she said. “Irritation. Douchebag industry parties.”

  “Not just that.”

  “Late nights,” she continued. “Missed dinners. That voice I use when I’m trying to impress people . . .” Neal hated that voice.

  “Georgie.”

  “. . . Seth.”

  Neal made another huffy noise. This one wasn’t anything like a laugh. “Why are you trying so hard to push me away?”

  “Because,” she pushed. “Because of what you said before you left. About how it wasn’t working and you weren’t happy, and how you didn’t think you could go on like this. I keep thinking about what you said—I haven’t stopped thinking about it—and I can’t think of any way to argue. You were right, Neal. I’m not going to change. I’m all caught up in a world that you hate, and I’m just going to pin you here. Maybe you should get out while you still can.”

  “You think I should break up with you?” he said. “You want that?”

  “Those are two different questions.”

  “You think I’d be better off without you?”

  “Probably.” Say it, she told herself. Just say it. “I mean—yes. Look at everything you said after that party. Look at the evidence.”

  “A lot has happened since I said that.”

  “You saw a double rainbow,” she said, “and now you believe in aliens.”

  “No. You called three times to tell me that you love me.”

  Georgie caught her breath and held it. She’d called Neal so many more times than that.

  He sounded like he was holding the phone even closer to his mouth now: “Do you love me, Georgie?”

  “More than anything,” she said. Because she was still telling the truth, damn the torpedoes. “More than everything.”

  Neal huffed, maybe in relief.

  “But,” she kept pushing, “you said that might not be enough.”

  “It might not be.”

  “So . . .”

  “So I don’t know,” Neal said. “But I’m not breaking up with you. I can’t right now. Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s start over,” he said softly.

  “How far back?”

  “Just to the beginning of this conversation.”

  Georgie took a deep breath. “How was your trip?”

  “Good,” he said. “I did it in twenty-seven hours.”

  “Idiot.”

  “And I saw a double rainbow.”

  “Miraculous.”

  “And when I got here, my mom had made all my favorite Christmas cookies.”

  “Lucky.”

  “I wish you were here, Georgie—it snowed for you.”

  This wasn’t happening. This was a hallucination. Or a schizophrenic episode. Or . . . a dream.

  Georgie slumped back against her headboard and brought the tightly coiled telephone cord up to her mouth, biting on the rubbery plastic.

  She closed her eyes and kept playing along.

  CHAPTER 12

  “I can’t believe you drove straight through.”

  “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “You drove for twenty-seven h
ours. I think that’s illegal.”

  “For truckers.”

  “For a reason.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. I started dropping off a bit in Utah, but I stopped the car and walked around.”

  “You could have died. Right there. In Utah.”

  “You make it sound like that’s worse than regular dying.”

  “Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

  “I promise never to almost die in Utah. I’ll be extra careful from now on around Mormons.”

  “Tell me more about the aliens.”

  “Tell me more about the drive.”

  “Tell me more about your parents.”

  “Tell me more about Omaha.”

  Georgie just wanted to hear his voice, she didn’t want it to stop. She didn’t want Neal to stop.

  There were moments when it started to rise up on her, what was happening. What she had access to, real or not. Neal. 1998. The immensity of it—the improbability—kept creeping up the back of Georgie’s skull like dizziness, and she kept shaking it off.

  It was like getting him back. Her Neal. (Her old Neal.)

  He was right there, and she could ask him anything that she wanted.

  “Tell me more about the mountains,” Georgie said, because she wasn’t really sure what to ask. Because “tell me where I went wrong” might break the spell.

  And because what she wanted more than anything else was just to keep listening.

  “I went to see Saving Private Ryan without you.”

  “Good.”

  “And my dad and I are going to see Life Is Beautiful.”

  “Good. You should also rent Schindler’s List without me.”

  “We’ve been through this,” he said. “You need to watch Schindler’s List. Every human being needs to watch Schindler’s List.”

  Georgie still hadn’t. “You know I can’t do anything with Nazis.”

  “But you like Hogan’s Heroes. . . .”

  “That’s where I draw the line.”

  “The Nazi line?”

  “Yes.”

  “At Colonel Klink.”

  “Obviously.”

  She wasn’t crying anymore. Neal wasn’t growling.

  She was burrowed under the comforter, holding the phone lightly against her ear.