Landline(18)

“Are you okay—are you crying?”

She was crying. “I . . . I’m really tired. I haven’t been sleeping, and Neal, oh my God, I just imagined the strangest thing. I imagined your dad telling me Merry Christmas. Isn’t that—”

“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 f*ck 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 f*cking 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.