Georgie, All Along (28)

“It’s because I went to school with him,” she says, either because she doesn’t notice the tension wafting off of me or maybe because she does. “And I, uh, remember him.”

I clear my throat. “Sure,” I manage, but I’m folding the towel in half, draping it over the sink. “I’ll finish drying later, if that’s all right.”

She goes on as if she hasn’t heard me. “And for a second you sort of looked—”

“Georgie,” I snap, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve said her name out loud. For some reason I don’t want to think too much about, I hate that it was like this. Harsh, hard.

She’s looking at me, her eyes wide, her hands covered in suds from the sink. I’ve finally got her to see that talking more isn’t the best way forward here, but it’s not a relief. I can only imagine what her next set of questions would’ve been. Probably she wants to know how he’s doing. Maybe she even wants to know how to get in touch with him.

I wouldn’t be surprised.

But more important, I wouldn’t know what to tell her either way.

“I don’t see him,” I say, preempting her, and it’s an effort to make my voice come out softer. I know this isn’t her fault; it’s mine. “Or anyone in my family. I prefer not to talk about that.”

“Oh,” she says quietly. “Oh, of course.”

It’s the of course that gets me, even though it shouldn’t. Didn’t I see it on her face last night, the recognition? Didn’t I know already she probably has a host of stories about me at her disposal?

Still, it stings, makes this room closer and less comfortable than it was even before, though this is for a different reason. She’s broken our fragile peace, reminding me that we’re not strangers, not in the way that’d make this whole roommate/ dog sitter situation easier. Instead we’re the kind of strangers who grew up in adjacent tiny towns in the same small county, where your business isn’t ever your own. Where one of you has the kind of reputation that sticks around, no matter what you’ve done since.

I grab for the bowl of food scraps, slap a hand against my thigh, and call for Hank.

“I’m gonna take him out. You can leave the rest for me to clean up.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m s—”

I don’t let her finish what I know is going to be an apology. I don’t deserve one, and I know it.

“I appreciate what you’re doing. Letting me stay, and with Hank.”

Hank’s collar clinks as he comes into the room, his bearing sleepy. He shakes his head, ears flapping, forgetting his injury. I should’ve left him alone to rest more, but I’m desperate. I need to get out of this kitchen.

“I told you, it’s no prob—”

“But let’s keep this simple,” I say, cutting her off again.

No conversation, I mean. No trap doors.

She nods, her face flushed in what I’d guess is embarrassment, and it’s as if I’ve fallen through another one anyway. I’m far beneath her, down in the musty dark of my past, and all I want is to climb up and out.

So I don’t apologize, don’t try to explain. I open the door and go, knowing her eyes are on me as I walk away.





Chapter 7


Georgie


So far, I wouldn’t say it’s going great.

Bel and I are only a few hours into our first fic-inspired effort, and I’m tense and distracted, half of me frustrated that it’s not how I imagined and half of me embarrassed at having done this at all. When I got to Bel’s house early this afternoon, she was pacing back and forth along her porch, holding her phone in front of her face and talking animatedly to whomever was on the other end. I’d sat in the car and attempted to scroll through my social media feed, but since the signal here sucks, it wasn’t so much scrolling as it was waiting for things to load. By the time Bel had opened the door, I was staring at an ad for a two-hundred-dollar necklace that looked like it was made of paperclips, and desperately trying not to think any more about Levi Fanning and the disastrous ending to our dinner two nights ago.

“What’s with your face?” Bel had said, which I took to mean that my efforts had been in vain. I’d told her I was thinking about the current composition of the Supreme Court and then changed the subject and asked her about her phone call. For the rest of our drive, Bel had gone into great detail about a refurbished laptop program she’s trying to organize for five different school districts across the DMV area, and while that had stopped me thinking about Levi, it’d also kicked up another unpleasant train of thought. By the time she was done, I was thinking, A notebook from eighth-grade, Georgie? Really?

Still, I’d pulled into a spot along Sott’s Mill’s main street and tried to gather up all my scattered enthusiasm before we got started. When I’d been getting ready for the day, Sott’s Mill had seemed like the perfect starting point, and not only because I haven’t figured out a way for Bel to be an active participant in jumping off an old dock or getting drunk on hard cider. It’d seemed like the perfect starting point because it was low-key, familiar. After all, lunch and shopping are things I did fairly regularly with my rare off days back in LA, meeting up with another PA whose principal had worked on Nadia’s wildly successful Netflix series a couple of years ago. Pretty much the only thing Jade and I had in common was our jobs, but she was friendly and well-adjusted and loved fashion, and wandering in and out of boutiques with her had always given me a pang of longing for Bel.