Landline(60)

“Heather, I’m serious, there’s no such thing as a wrong pizza. That boy wanted to talk to you.”

Heather just shook her head and opened the vegetable drawer.

“How long has this been going on?” Georgie asked.

“Nothing’s going on.”

“How long have you been ordering pizzas for sport, not sustenance?”

“How long has Seth been your wake-up service?”

Georgie pushed the fridge door closed—Heather had to jerk back to get out of the way. “Out of line,” Georgie said.

Heather looked like she wanted to say something else, something worse, but pressed her lips closed and folded her arms.

Georgie decided to walk away. She stopped at the edge of the kitchen. “I’m going to take a shower. Come get me if Neal calls.”

Heather ignored her.

“Please?” Georgie said.

“Fine,” Heather agreed, not even bothering to turn her head.

Georgie checked the yellow phone before she got into the shower, just to make sure there was a dial tone and that the ringer was turned up. (As if somebody might have snuck in and messed with it.) Once, in junior high, she’d been so worried about missing a call from a boy, she’d dragged the phone into the bathroom with her every time she had to go. (He never did call.) (Which didn’t discourage Georgie even a little bit.) She stood under the shower until the water ran cold, then stole some more of her mom’s yoga pants and a sweatshirt with a pug on it, and walked out to the laundry room.

When Georgie was growing up, the washing machine and dryer sat out against the garage with a little plastic canopy over them. But Kendrick had built her mom a laundry room onto the back of the house, with a tile floor and a sorting table. Georgie’d still be able to hear the kitchen phone out here, if it rang.

She opened the washing machine and dropped in her jeans and T-shirt and bra. . . .

It was a very depressing bra.

It’d been pink once, sometime between Alice and Noomi, but now it was a grayish beige, and one of the underwires kept sneaking out through a rip between Georgie’s breasts. Sometimes the wire crept almost all the way out and sprung like a hook from the neck of her shirt; sometimes it bent the other way and poked her. You’d think that would prompt Georgie to buy some new bras, but instead she just pushed the wire back as soon as no one was looking, then forgot about it until the next time that bra came up in her rotation.

Georgie was bad at all shopping, but bra shopping was the worst. You couldn’t do it online, and you couldn’t have somebody else do it for you.

Bra shopping had always been the worst—even when her breasts were still young and lovely. (If only Georgie could figure out how to call herself in the past, she’d tell herself how young and lovely she was. “This is the ghost of bra-shopping future: Everybody’s a little lopsided, roll with it.”) She closed the washing machine lid, set the dial to GENTLE, then sank down on the floor in front of the dryer and leaned against it. It was warm and humming, and Georgie felt like one of those rhesus monkeys who preferred the cloth mother.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Everything had seemed so good when Georgie fell asleep last night. Better than good. Maybe better than ever . . .

Which was weird. When she was talking to Neal in the past, they got along better than they did in their shared past or their shared present. Maybe these were the versions of themselves that were meant to be together—mature Georgie and mostly unjaded Neal. Too bad they couldn’t go on this way.

How long could this go on?

It was December 23rd.

Georgie knew what happened back in 1998: Neal ended up on her doorstep on Christmas Day. That meant that Neal—landline Neal—would have to leave Omaha tomorrow morning, in the past, to propose to her.

Would that still happen . . . Would Neal still propose? Or had Georgie screwed that up an hour ago, in one fell swoop of Seth?

Maybe she’d screwed it up the very first time she called Neal in the past.

Yesterday, Georgie had wondered if she was supposed to talk Neal out of loving her—if that was the point of this magic, to save him from her. But what if she’d talked him out of it just by opening her mouth?

She was thinking in hot, helpless circles when Heather walked down the back steps into the laundry room. She was carrying one of those Campbell’s soups that you can heat up in the microwave, then drink out of the can. Chicken & Stars.

“Do you ever feed yourself?” Heather asked. “Or does Neal just set out a dish for you every morning?”

“Sometimes I order things,” Georgie said.

“What do you feed the girls?”

“Neal feeds the girls.”

“What if Neal isn’t home?”

“Yogurt.”

Heather handed Georgie the soup, a peace offering, then sat down next to her, against the washer.

“Thanks,” Georgie said.

Heather still looked wary of Georgie. She took a deep breath and let it out through her teeth. “I know something’s going on, so you may as well tell me—are you sleeping with Seth?”

Georgie took a sip of soup and burned her mouth. “No.”

“Do you have a boyfriend who sort of sounds like your husband, but isn’t your husband, but is also named Neal?”

“No.”