Landline(40)

Georgie wasn’t going to tell Seth.

She wasn’t going to tell anybody.

God, she’d thought that Neal liked her. Better than he liked anyone else, anyway. (He even said that he liked her. He said he wanted to kiss her. . . . ) (Though apparently not enough to actually do it.) She should never have tried to kiss him first.

She should never kiss anyone first. . . .

Georgie always kissed first.

She always fell for the guy in the room who seemed the least interested in her. The guy who was toxically arrogant or cripplingly shy. Or both. The guy at the party who looked like he’d rather be any where else.

“You should try dating nice guys,” her friend Ludy used to say in high school. “They’re nice. I think you’d like them.”

“Boring,” Georgie’d said. “Pointless.”

“Not pointless—nice.”

They’d had this conversation in the cafeteria. They were waiting by the door so that Georgie could casually get in line behind Jay Anselmo, who was two years older than they were, really into No Doubt and competitive car stereos, and who would undoubtedly ignore her. “What’s the point of making a nice guy like me?” Georgie said. “Nice guys like everybody.”

“You shouldn’t have to make anybody like you, Georgie. You should want to be with somebody who can’t help but like you.”

“Nothing good is easy.”

“Not true,” Ludy said. “Sleep. TV. Jell-O Instant Pudding.” (Ludy was a riot. Georgie missed her.) “I don’t want to go out with Jell-O Instant Pudding,” Georgie said.

“I would marry Jell-O Instant Pudding.”

Georgie rolled her eyes. “I want to go out with Mikey.”

“I thought you wanted to go out with Jay Anselmo.”

“Jay Anselmo is Mikey,” Georgie explained. “He’s the guy in the Life cereal commercial who hates everything. If Mikey likes you, you know you’re good. If Mikey likes you, it means something.”

Georgie’d ended up kissing Jay Anselmo one night after a football game, at a party in Ludy’s backyard. He’d let her kiss him all through her sophomore year. And then he’d gone off to college, and Georgie’d found a few other guys to kiss.

She’d never really thought of kissing-first as a problem; Georgie tended to hook up with guys who appreciated the clarity.

But tonight, in Neal’s room, it was a problem.

She’d read Neal all wrong: She’d thought he was a Mikey. She’d thought he was the grumpiest hobbit in the Shire. But really, he just had a girlfriend.

Georgie was done kissing first. The next person she kissed was going to have to do all the work. Assuming she ever found anybody who thought she was worth it.

Georgie wanted to go home.

She wanted to cry all the way there, thinking about Neal’s sideways symmetrical mouth and the way he could freehand a perfectly straight line.

She wanted to find Seth.





CHAPTER 16


Georgie’s cell phone chimed. She picked it up.

“Earth to Georgie.”

She looked up from the text message to Seth, who was sitting across from her at the writers’ table.

He met her eyes, then looked down at his phone and typed something.

Chime. She looked at her phone.

“We’re running out of time.”

Georgie thought for a second, then thumbed in a reply—

“I know, I’m sorry.”

When Seth looked back up at her, his eyebrows were crowded together over his brown eyes.

She felt herself tearing up.

He tilted his head, then scrunched his nose unhappily. Seth hated it when Georgie cried. He went back to the phone again, typing rapidly.

“Talk to me.”

“I can’t. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“I don’t care where you start.”

She wiped her eyes on her shoulder.

Seth sighed.

“Georgie, whatever it is—we’ll get through it.”

She stared down at her phone. After a few seconds, AN EMERGENCY CONTACT popped up on the screen, and it started to ring. It was just the standard ring—Marimba—Georgie never had time to figure out special ringtones.

She grabbed her laptop and stood up, answering the call and walking toward the door, careful not to close the computer or unplug the phone. “Hello?”

“Meow!”

Georgie felt a cold surge of disappointment. Then felt guilty about it. You’re not supposed to feel a cold surge of disappointment at the sound of your four-year-old daughter’s voice.

“Meow,” Georgie said, leaning against the wall outside the writers’ room.

“Grandma said I could call you,” Noomi said.

“You can always call me. How are you, sweetie? Did you make me some cookies?”

“No.”

“Oh. That’s okay.”

“Maybe Grandma did. I made some for Santa and some for me.”

“That was smart. I’ll bet they’re delicious.”

“Meow,” Noomi said. “I’m a green kitty.”

“I know.” Georgie tried to focus. “You’re the best green kitty in the world. I love you so much, Noomi.”