Landline(61)

“Is something really weird going on?”

Georgie turned her head toward Heather and tipped it against the dryer. “Yeah . . .”

Heather mirrored her, laying her head against the washer. “I can’t even remember you without Neal,” she said.

Georgie nodded slowly, then took another, more careful, drink of soup. “You were in our wedding, you know. Do you remember?”

“I think so,” Heather said, “but I might just be remembering the photos.”

Heather was supposed to be the flower girl, but none of Georgie’s friends had been able to afford the trip to Nebraska, so Heather became her only bridesmaid—besides Seth, who just assumed he’d be standing up for Georgie.

Georgie wasn’t even sure she should invite Seth (because the wedding was in Omaha, and because Neal), but Seth started calling himself Georgie’s best man, and she wasn’t sure how to argue. . . .

He wore a brown three-piece suit and a pale green tie to the wedding. Heather wore lavender shantung and a green cardigan. Seth carried her down the aisle.

And he insisted that Heather come along for Georgie’s bachelorette party—a “bridal-party only” dinner at some thousand-year-old Italian restaurant near Neal’s house. They ate spaghetti with sugar-sweet tomato sauce, and Seth talked nonstop about the sitcom he was working on, the one he’d just convinced to hire Georgie. Georgie drank too much Paisano, and Heather fell asleep at the table. “Good thing I’m the designated driver,” Seth said.

There was a photo from the next day, at the ceremony, of Seth signing the marriage certificate as Georgie’s witness. Heather was standing on tiptoe to watch. Seth in his brown waistcoat. Georgie in her white dress. Neal beaming.

Georgie took another gulp of soup. “You were adorable,” she told Heather. “I think you thought it was your wedding—Neal danced with you, and you blushed the whole time.”

“I remember that,” Heather said. “I mean, I’ve seen the pictures. I looked just like Noomi.”

Georgie and Neal hadn’t had a traditional church wedding—or much of a reception. They got married in Neal’s backyard. The lilacs were in bloom, and Georgie carried a handful of branches that his mom had gathered into a bouquet.

Everything was on the cheap. She and Neal had both just graduated, and Georgie didn’t start on the sitcom until they got back from their honeymoon. (Five days in rural Nebraska, in a cabin somebody owned on a muddy river.) (The five best days.) They’d tried to pay for the whole wedding themselves; her mom and Kendrick were already digging deep to buy plane tickets, and Georgie didn’t want to ask Neal’s parents for help.

Georgie was the one who suggested they get married in Omaha. She knew Neal would like it. Their breakup, their almost breakup, was still fresh in her memory, and Georgie wanted Neal to look back on their wedding day and feel happy—about all of it. She wanted him to be happy that day, to be completely in his element.

Neal’s family ended up helping out anyway. His parents bought the cake, and his aunts made cream cheese mints and sandwiches. The pastor who’d baptized and confirmed Neal was there to marry them. And after the ceremony, Neal’s dad moved his stereo out onto the patio and played deejay.

The only song Georgie insisted on was “Leather and Lace.”

That had started out as a joke.

“Leather and Lace” was playing in a restaurant on one of their first dates, and Georgie cracked herself up telling Neal that it was “our song.” Then they both tried—and failed—to think of a more ridiculous “our song.” (Neal suggested “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves”; Georgie pushed for the theme from Taxi.) After that, “Leather and Lace” kept coming on the radio at significant moments in their relationship. . . .

Once when Neal was kissing her in the car outside her mom’s house.

Once on a road trip to San Francisco.

Once when Georgie thought she was pregnant, and they were waiting in line at Walgreens to buy a Clearblue Easy. (Neal with his hand on her back. Georgie holding the pregnancy test like it was a pack of gum. Stevie Nicks crooning about having her own life and being stronger than you know. At some point, “Leather and Lace” just became their song. For real.

When it started to play on their wedding day, on Neal’s parents’ patio, Georgie got all choked up.

Was that the moment she realized she was actually getting married?

Or was it just the moment she realized she’d landed a guy who would dance with her, totally sincerely, forehead to forehead, to “Leather and Lace”? (“Stay with me, stay-ay.”) After “Leather and Lace,” Neal danced with his mom to “Moon River.” (The Andy Williams version.) Then Georgie danced with Seth, and Neal danced with Heather to “Both Sides Now.” (The Judy Collins version.) A few hours later, when everyone else had gone or gone inside—Seth left for the airport right after the cake—Neal and Georgie stayed out on the patio, slow-dancing to whatever came on the oldies station.

They’d never really danced together before that day. Or since. And, truthfully, they weren’t doing much dancing even then. . . . Neal held Georgie with one hand on the small of her back and one on the back of her neck, and Georgie leaned against him with both hands on his chest, and they swayed from side to side.

It wasn’t dancing. It was just a way to make the wedding last. A way to stay in the moment, rolling it over and over in their heads. We’re married now. We’re married.