Landline (21 page)

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.)