“Just give me a T-shirt!” Georgie was standing in her mom’s bathroom in a towel, shouting through the door.
“I don’t have any sleeping T-shirts. Do you want one of Kendrick’s?”
“Gross. No.”
“Then you’ll just have to deal.” Her mom opened the door and threw something in. Georgie unfolded a pair of aqua-colored pajama shorts—polyester satin, with cream-colored bows and a matching, low-cut lace-trimmed top. She groaned.
“Have you been talking to Neal all this time?” her mom asked.
“Yeah,” Georgie said, wishing she had clean underwear. Not willing to borrow any.
“How is he?”
“Good.” She realized she was smiling. “Really good.”
“How’re the girls?”
“Fine.”
“Are you working things through?”
“There’s nothing to work through,” Georgie said. Yes, she thought. I think so. She peeked out of the bathroom. “Where’s Kendrick?”
“In the living room, watching TV.”
Georgie walked out.
“Look at you,” her mom said. “You look so nice. You should let me go shopping with you sometime.”
“I have to call Neal back,” Georgie said. “Thanks, um, for the pajamas. And everything.” She stooped to kiss her mom on the cheek. Georgie tried to do stuff like that more now that she had kids of her own. Alice and Noomi couldn’t get enough of Georgie; they practically crawled on her when she was home. It made Georgie feel physically ill to think of them shying away from her—or bristling when she tried to kiss them. What if they went a whole year without calling her “Mom”?
So Georgie tried to be more affectionate with her own mother. When she could.
As soon as she kissed her mom on the cheek, her mom turned her face to catch Georgie on the lips. Georgie frowned and pulled away. “Why do you always do that?”
“Because I love you.”
“I love you, too. I’m going to call Neal.” Georgie tugged at the satin shorts; there was no tugging them to a reasonable length. “Thank you.”
She looked both ways before walking out into the hall. She stopped at Heather’s room—Heather was lying on her bed. She had her laptop out and was wearing headphones.
She took them off when she saw Georgie. “Hello, Victoria, did you come to tell me a secret?”
“Do me a favor.”
“What?”
“I’m starving, but I don’t want to walk through the living room like this.”
“I think if Dad sees you in Mom’s lingerie, it might scar him for life.”
Heather called Kendrick “Dad.” Which made sense because he’d raised her. And because he wasn’t three years older than Heather. “It might scar me for life,” Georgie said. “Why are all her pajamas lingerie?”
“She’s a very sensual woman. I know this because she likes to tell me.” Heather got off the bed. “What do you want to eat? I ate all the ziti. And the puppy chow—there wasn’t that much left. Hey, do you want me to order you a pizza?”
“No,” Georgie said. “I’ll take whatever’s in the kitchen.”
“You could have borrowed some of my pajamas, you know.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” Georgie said. “Why don’t you give me as many as you can spare, and I’ll fashion something comfy and tentlike out of them.”
“I’m sure I have something that would fit you.”
“Oh my God, stop. Just get me some food. I’m gonna go hide in my room.”
“Have you been talking to Neal?”
Georgie grinned. “Yeah.”
“That’s good, right?”
Georgie nodded. “Go. I’m hungry.”
Heather brought back an apple, three prewrapped slices of cheese, and a giant bottle of Mexican Coke. Georgie would have been better off sending Alice.
“Call Neal,” Heather said. “I want to say hi to the girls.”
“It’s after one in the morning there,” Georgie said. “They’re asleep.”
“Oh, right. Time zones.”
Georgie unwrapped a slice of cheese and started eating it. “Thank you. Now go.”
“You’re supposed to wrap the cheese around the apple; it’s like a caramel apple.”
“That doesn’t sound anything like a caramel apple.”
“Call him now,” Heather said. “I want to say hi.”
“No.”
Georgie’s mom, miraculously, hadn’t spoiled anything with Neal, but there was no way Georgie was letting Heather near the phone.
“Why not?” Heather asked.
“You know why not,” Georgie said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Because. We have private . . . stuff to talk about.”
“Like divorce stuff?”
“No.”
“Like phone sex?”
Georgie grimaced. “No.”
“Because you can’t have phone sex wearing Mom’s lingerie.”
“I just want to talk to my husband, okay? Privately?”
“Sure. Right after I say hi.”
Georgie tried to open the Coke bottle. “Do you have a bottle opener?”
“Yeah, Georgie, I carry one in my jammies. Here.” Heather took the bottle and started to twist the cap in the side of her mouth.
“Stop,” Georgie said, reaching for the bottle. “You’ll ruin your teeth.”
Heather sighed dramatically, and handed Georgie the bottle. Georgie set it delicately in her own mouth and bit down as gingerly as possible.
The phone rang.
Before Georgie could even think about getting to it, Heather grabbed the receiver and shouted, “Hi, Neal!”
Georgie dropped the bottle and launched herself on her sister, digging under Heather’s head for the phone.
“It’s Heather. . . . Yes, Heather.”
“Heather,” Georgie whispered. “I’m going to kill you. Let go.”
Heather was curled into a defensive ball on the bed, still pushing Georgie (in the face) with one hand, and holding the phone to her head with the other. Her expression went from bratty and victorious to confused. She let go of the phone, abruptly, and Georgie pushed her off the bed.
Georgie grabbed the phone. “Neal?”
“Yeah?” He sounded confused.
“Just a minute.”
Heather was standing in the middle of the room, bug-eyed, arms folded. “That’s not Neal,” she whispered. At least she was whispering.