Landline (18 page)

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

“Georgie? Did I lose you?”

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

“Tell me about your day.”

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

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

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

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

“What about you?” she asked.

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

“Thanks.”

“Then I ate them.”

“Bastard.”

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

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

“I’m not making it up.”

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

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

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

“Something like that.”

“Is the railroad looking for oceanographers?”

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

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

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

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

“And you don’t?”

“I didn’t say that.”

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

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

“Are you jealous of Dawn?”

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

“No, we haven’t,” Neal disagreed.

He was right; in 1998, they hadn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

“That makes it worse.”

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

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

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

“Seth isn’t my ex-boyfriend.”

“God, no, he’s worse.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Thanks. Still no.”

“Is that Neal?”

“It is,” Neal said. “Hi, Liz.”

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

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

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

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

Georgie could tell that Neal was speechless.

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

“Thanks, Liz,” Neal said.

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

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

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

“Oh, of course. Neal, honey—”

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

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

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

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

Georgie wasn’t sure how to recover.

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

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

“But not now?”

“No,” Georgie said, “not now.”

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

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

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

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

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

“She
reclaimed her virginity
?”

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

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

Neal sounded like he might have laughed.

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

“I got it.”

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

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

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

Was that Neal’s first time ever?

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

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

Neal.

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

“Really,” he huffed.

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

“A comparably sized sun?”

“I was going to say the moon.”

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

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

“You and Seth aren’t
just
anything.”

“Neal . . .”

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

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

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

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

“Is there a difference?”

“Neal . . .”

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

“Are you asking me to?”

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

He never had.

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

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

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

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

Georgie would come crashing down.

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

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

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

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

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

Was that codependence? Or was it just marriage?

“You could,” she said.

“What?”

“You could ask me to choose.”

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

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

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

“Those are just jokes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was quiet.

Georgie waited.

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

“You never have to be, I promise.”

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

“Thank you.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay,” she said.

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

“Do what?”

“Be jealous and crappy to each other.”

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

“Why?”

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

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

“No.”

“Then I’m not. End of story.”

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