Landline(64)

Georgie scowled at her.

“You’re practically homeless,” Heather said, “aren’t you? If Neal doesn’t come back, you’re gonna have to forage for food and water.”

Georgie shoved the phone and cards into her pocket. “We’re not wasting time here,” she said. “There won’t be any hanging out at the Orange Julius, scamming for hot guys.”

“I’m not twelve, Georgie.”

“In and out. We get the bra, we get a new battery for my phone, then we’re out of there.”

“Are you buying me a new phone? Because I think I’d rather have an iPad.”

“Who said I was buying you a phone?”

“It was implied. Besides, Mom says you’re good for it.”

“Just hurry. I don’t want to miss Neal.”



“Jingle Bell Rock” was playing inside the mall, and inside the store, and inside the dressing room in the Intimates Department.

There was already a jumble of bras on the floor, and Georgie was trying on more, facing away from the mirror. She was so distracted, she kept forgetting to pay attention to which ones fit.

Just pick one, Georgie. Or buy them all. It doesn’t matter. You’re just killing time.

Jesus, what a weird time to kill time. The fate of her future hung in the balance, and there was nothing she could do at the moment but run out the clock. At least, not until Neal called back.

He would call back, right?

What if he didn’t, what if he was too angry? What if he was still angry tomorrow morning?

Georgie had to talk to Neal, to make things right again. She had to make sure that he still got into his car tomorrow, his tomorrow, and showed up at her door on Christmas Day.

But what if he didn’t?

Did Georgie really believe that the last fifteen years would just unravel? Had she committed so completely to this bizarre scenario that she thought her marriage was going to start fading out, like Marty McFly in the middle of “Earth Angel”?

What else could she think? She had to keep playing along—the stakes were too high.

If Neal didn’t show up to propose to her in 1998 . . .

Twenty-two-year-old Georgie would never know what she was missing. That girl thought it was already over, that she’d already lost him.

Georgie collapsed that week after Neal left for Omaha.

She spent the whole time in a fog. Lying in her bed, deliberately not calling him. Why should she call him? What was she supposed to say—sorry? Georgie wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t sorry that she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wasn’t sorry that she was making it happen.

It’s not like Neal was offering her some compelling alternate plan: “Georgie, I want to be a sheep farmer—it’s in my blood, and I can’t do it anywhere but Montana.” (Was that where sheep were farmed?) “I need you. Come with me.”

No, Neal was just saying, “I hate it here, I hate this. I hate that you want this.”

All he was offering Georgie were negatives.

And then he’d taken even those off the table. He’d left without her—broken up with her on his way out of town.

Georgie had genuinely believed they were broken up.

For the first few days that Neal was gone, she felt it like an actual breach between her ribs, a tear at the bottom of her lungs. Georgie would wake up in a panic sure that she’d run out of air—or that she’d lost the ability to hold it inside of her.

Then the breath would hit her like a baseball to the heart.

The air was right there; she just had to think about it. In, out. In, out. She wondered if she was going to have to spend the rest of her life reminding herself to breathe. Maybe that would be her internal monologue from now on. In, out. In, out.

Neal didn’t call to apologize to Georgie that week, either.

Why should he? she thought at the time. What did he have to apologize for? For not wanting exactly what Georgie wanted? For realizing what his limitations were?

Good for him for knowing himself so well.

Good for him for figuring it out.

Neal loved her, Georgie knew that. He couldn’t keep his hands off her—he couldn’t keep his ink off her; he was always doodling on her stomach or her thigh or her shoulder. He kept a set of Prismacolor markers by his bed, and when Georgie took a shower, the water ran rainbows.

She knew Neal loved her.

Good for him for realizing it wasn’t enough to make him happy. That was very mature of him. He was probably saving them both a lot of heartache.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

In-out, in-out, in-out.

Stay with me, stay-ay.

By that Christmas morning, Georgie hadn’t made any emotional progress from the breakup. She wasn’t feeling any better or stronger.

She was pretty sure that every Christmas from then on would be tainted by Neal leaving. Like Georgie would never be able to hear “Jingle Bells” again without feeling Neal drive away from her with a tow chain in her stomach.

Seth kept calling to check on her, but she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to hear him tell her how much better off she was without Neal.

Georgie wasn’t better off. Even if Neal was right—even if they’d never make it work together, even if they were fundamentally wrong for each other—she still wasn’t better off without him. (Even if your heart is broken and attacking you, you’re still not better off without it.)