Landline(46)

“Is there a pizza coming?” Georgie asked.

“No.”

Georgie stayed out on the stoop.

“Baked ziti,” Heather said, rolling her eyes. “Just come in.”

Georgie did. Her mom and Kendrick were eating dinner in the kitchen.

“You’re home early,” her mom said. “I made a Caesar salad, if you’re hungry, and there’s puppy chow for dessert.”

The pugs started barking under the table.

“Not for you, little mama,” Georgie’s mom said, leaning over to make eye contact with the pregnant one. “This puppy chow is for big mamas and daddies. Little mamas can’t have chocolate—I swear, Kenny, they understand everything we say.”

Heather was standing to the side of the front door, pulling out the curtain, so she could peek out at an angle.

They were all completely over the fact that Georgie was here. Even the dogs had stopped tracking her every movement with their little whiteless eyes.

Georgie could probably move back home without ever having to talk to her mom about it. Her mom would just start thawing out one more pork chop for dinner and complaining when Georgie left her bag on the table—maybe her mom thought she’d already moved back home.

“Thanks,” Georgie said, heading for her room. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Are you coming out later?” her mom called after her.

“No,” Georgie shouted back, “I’m calling Neal!”

“Tell him we said hello! And that we all still love him! Tell him he’ll always be part of this family!”

“I’m not telling him any of that.”

“Why not?”

Georgie was halfway down the hall. “Because he’ll think I’m crazy!”

She opened her bedroom door, then quickly closed it behind her—then thought about pushing a dresser against it. Instead she rushed over to the closet and started emptying things out into her room. She’d buried the phone at the very bottom, under an old sleeping bag, a few rolls of gift wrap, her Rollerblades from grade school . . .

There it was. There.

Georgie fell back on her heels and stared at the phone, not sure if she should touch it, not sure if she should rub it three times and make a wish.

She picked up the receiver and held it to her head. No dial tone.

Well, of course, no dial tone—it’s not plugged in. It’s not plugged in to the space/time portal in the wall behind my bed. (Cue maniacal laughter.) She crawled over to her bed and shimmied underneath to plug the phone in, half expecting the outlet to zap and spark. Then she pushed out again, untangled her hair from the bedsprings, and leaned against the bed with the phone in her lap.

Right. Here we are. Time to call Neal.

Neal . . .

Georgie held her breath while she dialed his number, then choked when he picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Neal?”

“Hey,” he said. She could hear the quarter-smile in his voice. The one that just barely dented his cheek. “I thought it might be you.”

“It is,” she said. “It’s me.”

“How are you?”

“I’m . . .” Georgie closed her eyes and realized she still hadn’t properly exhaled. She did it now, bringing up her knees and setting the phone on the floor beside her. This was Neal, he was still there. He was still taking her calls. “Better now,” she said, rubbing her eyes into the back of her wrist.

“Me, too,” he said, and God, that was good to hear. God, he was good to hear.

Georgie and Neal had never spent this much time apart, not since they got married. She was going crazy not talking to him every day, not checking in with him. In the present. In real life.

Was that what was going on here? Was Georgie hallucinating these phone calls because she missed Neal? Because she needed him?

She needed him.

Neal was home. He was base.

Neal was where Georgie plugged in, and synced up, and started fresh every day. He was the only one who knew her exactly as she was. She should tell him about this magic phone insanity. Right now.

She could tell him, she could always tell Neal anything. Georgie and Neal were bad at a lot of things, but they were good at being on each other’s side. Neal was especially good at being on Georgie’s side, at being there when she needed him.

She thought of all the times he’d stayed up late to help her with a script. The way he’d lived at her right hand after Alice was born (when Georgie was depressed and in pain and terrible at breastfeeding). The way he never made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing.

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.