Landline(32)

“He’s at the grocery store,” Alice said. “We’re gonna make all Grandma’s famous Christmas cookies. Even the ones with Hershey’s Kisses that look like mice.”

“They have cherries for bottoms,” Noomi said.

Alice was still talking: “And we’re gonna make peanut butter balls and green Christmas trees, and Grandma already said I could use the mixer. Noomi’s gonna help, but she has to stand on the chair, and Dawn says that sounds dangerous, but it won’t be, because Daddy will hold her.”

Nurse Dawn. “That sounds wonderful,” Georgie said. “Will you save me some cookies?”

“Meow!”

“Sure,” Alice said. “I’ll have to get a box.”

“Meow, Mommy!”

“Meow, Noomi.”

“We have to go now because we’re getting the kitchen ready.”

“Alice, wait—will you give Daddy a message?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Will you tell him that I called to say I love you?”

“I love you, too,” Alice said.

“I love you, honey. But tell Daddy that I love him. Tell him that’s why I called.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Alice. I love you, Noomi.”

“Noomi’s in the kitchen with Grandma now.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Mommy.”

Georgie started to say good-bye, but Alice had already hung up.



Someone was knocking on her windshield.

Georgie lifted her head off the steering wheel. It was Kendrick. She couldn’t really hear what he was saying. She rolled down the window.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Kendrick nodded. “’Cause, the thing is, you look kind of like you’re sitting in your car crying.”

“I’m done crying,” she said. “Now I’m just sitting in the car.”

“Oh, well. Okay.”

Georgie rolled the window back up and hid her face in the steering wheel.

There was more knocking. She looked up.

“You’re blocking me!” Kendrick shouted—so that she could hear him, not because he was angry—and motioned at the open garage where his truck was already running.

“Sorry,” Georgie said. “I’ll just . . .”

She put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

She’d just go to work.



Options:



1. Call doctor. (End up on drugs? Possibly institutionalized . . . Would at least earn Neal’s pity.) 2. Consult psychic. (Pros: Very romantic-comedy. Cons: Sounds time intensive; have always disliked strangers’ living rooms.) 3. Pretend this never happened. Just have to avoid yellow phone, apparently . . .

4. Destroy yellow phone? (Conduit to the past too dangerous to allow. Nightmare scenarios possible, i.e., what if Marty McFly’s dad doesn’t take his mom to the prom?) 5. CHRIST ALMIGHTY. I DO NOT HAVE A CONDUIT TO THE PAST.

6. Call doctor?

7.

7.

7. Keep playing along?



“Ma’am?”

“I’m sorry, yes?”

“That was a Venti vanilla latte, right?”

“Right,” Georgie said.

“You can go ahead and drive through.”

Someone honked, and Georgie checked the rearview mirror. There were at least five cars behind her.

“Right,” she said. “Sorry.”



If this were a movie . . .

If there were an angel . . .

Or a machine that told fortunes . . .

Or a magic fountain . . .

If this were a movie, it wouldn’t be random. A random call to a random point in the past. It would mean something. So what did this mean?

Christmas 1998:

Georgie and Neal went to a party. They fought. Neal dumped her—at least, she thought he was dumping her. And then, a week later, he proposed.

And now she was talking to him during that week, that lost week. . . . Why?

Was she supposed to change something? If this were Quantum Leap, there’d be something specific she was supposed to change. (This is not Quantum Leap, Georgie—this is your life. You are not Scott Bakula.) But what if . . .

Christmas 1998. They fought. Neal went home. He came back. He proposed. They lived not-exactly-happily ever after. Wait, was that what she was supposed to fix? The not-exactly-happy part?

How was she supposed to fix something like that, over the phone, when she wasn’t even sure it was fixable?

Christmas 1998. A week without Neal. The worst week of her life. The week he decided to marry her . . .

Was Georgie supposed to make sure that he didn’t?





CHAPTER 14


“I don’t know what to say,” Seth said. He was leaning on the white-board, frowning at her Metallica T-shirt. “On the one hand, your hair is wet, so you’ve obviously showered and changed. I applaud that. On the other, I miss the velvet jogging pants. . . . Georgie? Hello? Hey.”

Georgie stopped trying to plug her phone into her computer and looked up at him. He’d kicked away from the wall and set his hand on her shoulder.