Georgie, All Along (43)

“Oh?”

“The couple whose house it is—their daughter came to town unexpectedly. She lives out in California. Los Angeles.”

“What’s she like?” Hedi says, pretending to look at her clipboard. I know what she’s really doing is making it easier for me to talk.

Funny. Alive. Messy. Impulsive. So pretty I can still see her when I close my eyes at night.

“She’s all right.”

Okay, it’s not that easy to talk to her. I’m still me, after all.

“LA, huh? Must be a pretty big change of scenery for her.”

I make a noise of assent, and Hedi gives me an annoyed look that I recognize. A couple years back she asked if I’d take a few of her summer interns out with me on my boat to do collection work. I’d done it, no problem, but the next time I’d come to see her she’d made this exact face at me and told me that if I was going to keep taking interns out I had to make at least five minutes of pleasant conversation with them so the kids wouldn’t think I was bringing them out on the water to do a murder. I’ve gotten better, but every one of those kids still makes me feel like I’m a thousand years old.

“She grew up here,” I say, “so she’s familiar. But yeah, real different from California, I suspect.”

Hedi’s flipping pages on the clipboard, making a show of being busy.

“What’re you testing for this time?” I ask her.

“The usual.” She flips another page. “So, are you making a new friend, then?”

I sigh. Talk about the usual. She’s always had a real bug up her ass about me being antisocial, and that was even before we became friends. When I took Intro Bio with her, she always said I’d do better if I was more collaborative and communicative, because that’s how scientists achieve great things. I’d told her I didn’t have any intention of being a scientist, but she said as long as I was in her class, I was one, and I better do the work. Once I was no longer getting graded by her, she’d ask me what I did other than build docks and bring her water and plant clippings, and I’ve never had an answer for that. Hedi knows I don’t see my family, but she doesn’t concern herself with that; once she told me her elderly parents and all three of her siblings are involved in some kind of religious cult out west, and she hasn’t talked to any of them in over thirty years.

No, what Hedi concerns herself with is how I haven’t done what she’s done, which is to make a family of her own, one where blood doesn’t matter. Hedi’s married to an English professor who lives in Maine, but they’re both also in a long-term relationship with a woman named Laura who lives with Hedi full time. During the holidays and over the summers, the three of them live and travel together. Laura’s got two kids from her previous marriage, and they’re around, too; they call Hedi “Mom” and sometimes Laura’s ex-husband comes to Christmas at their house, along with a host of the various friends and neighbors and former students Hedi always invites. Plus, she’s got animals out the wazoo over at her place, a motley crew of rescues. I got Hank because of Hedi, though that hasn’t quite satisfied her in terms of improving my social life. Or, as she puts it sometimes, “having more meaningful relationships.”

“No,” I say, more firmly than I intend, because what’s one hundred percent clear about last night is that I don’t see Georgie Mulcahy as a friend, and I guess she doesn’t see me as one, either.

But I don’t know the right thing to do about it.

“Oh, I see,” she says.

“No, you don’t,” I mutter, but probably she does. I swear she sees everything. Eyes in the back of her head, same as all teachers, except these ones see the stuff that matters. Not you carving an anarchy symbol into your desk, but you frustrated and heartsore because something you want might not be a good idea for you.

“I’m not sure what you’re bothered about, young Levi,” she says, teasing me the way she used to when I was the oldest person on her roster. “Temporary roommate, temporarily in town? That’s your sort of thing exactly. No fuss there.”

Here’s what Hedi doesn’t, can’t see: Georgie Mulcahy is all fuss. I’ve fussed about her for fucking days, and that’s to say nothing about the hours I’ve spent since I didn’t kiss her back, miserably replaying that split second where I lost the opportunity to keep her lips against mine. I fuss about her sleeping in the room right beside me. I fuss about the way her laugh sounds. I still fuss about her legs, sure, but now I also fuss about those big eyes and that bright smile, and how she aimed all of them at me on a quiet summer night over a danged citronella candle. I fuss over the way I seem to understand her, fuss over the way it feels like I fit with her, fuss over how I know it can’t go anywhere between us.

All right, it’s me who’s all fuss.

“Levi,” she says sternly, obviously frustrated by my silence.

“You know me, Hed. I keep things steady in my life. Simple.”

And she’s not simple, is the silent implication. Not for me.

She gives up with the clipboard, clasping her hands on top of it. “Listen, I’ve given up on lecturing you about the life you’ve decided to lead. You build your docks, work on your house, hang out with Hank, do work for me when you can. That’s a good life.”