Landline

“Neal?” Georgie said into the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Just a minute, okay? Don’t go anywhere. Are you going anywhere?”

“No.”

Heather was still reaching for the phone; Georgie held the receiver against her chest. “Promise me you won’t talk to him,” she whispered.

Heather put her hand on the receiver and nodded.

“On Alice and Noomi’s lives,” Georgie said.

Heather nodded again.

Georgie let go of the phone and ran down the hall. Her hands were trembling when she picked up the yellow phone. (That never used to happen to her when she was upset; she was probably pre-diabetic.)

“Got it,” she said. She heard the kitchen phone click. “Neal?”

“Still here.”

Georgie sank onto the floor. “Me, too.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Georgie said, “yeah. I’ve just had the weirdest day. Plus, I guess I . . . I didn’t think you were going to call back.”

“I said I would.”

“I know, but . . . you were angry.”

“I—” Neal stopped and started his sentence again. “We ended up staying with my aunt for a while. It was hard to leave. She was really happy to see us, so we stayed for dinner at the nursing home. And that was depressing and kind of gross, so we went to Bonanza on the way home.”

“What’s a Bonanza?”

“It’s like a cafeteria-buffet-steakhouse thing.”

“Is everything in Nebraska named after Westerns?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“I’ll bet your Italian restaurants are named after Sergio Leone movies.”

“What made your day so weird?”

Georgie started laughing. It sounded like a laugh played backwards.

“Georgie?”

“Sorry. It’s just . . .” What made her day so weird? “I delivered three puppies and found out that Heather is g*y.”

“What? Oh—for a second, there, I thought you were talking about your sister. Your cousin is g*y?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Georgie said.

“How did you deliver puppies? Whose puppies?”

“That doesn’t matter either. But I think we’re keeping one.”

“‘We’—you and your mom? Or ‘we,’ we?”

“We, we, we,” Georgie said. “All the way home.”

“Georgie?”

“Sorry.”

“You delivered puppies?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. I need another second.” Georgie pulled the phone away from her ear and dropped it on the carpet. At some point, she’d started breathing like Heather during the pug emergency. Georgie smoothed her hair back and redid her ponytail, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes.

This is it, Georgie, get back in the game.

No, this wasn’t a game. It was her life. Her ridiculous life.

It doesn’t matter what you say now, she told herself. Neal’s going to propose on Christmas. He already did. He said, “We’ll make our own enough.” It’s fate.

Unless . . .

Unless it wasn’t. Maybe Neal had just said that “enough” thing because it was on his mind that day, not because of their phone calls. Had he given Georgie any other clues over the years that these conversations happened? (This would be easier to figure out if Neal were the sort of guy who ever gave away clues.)

This was Georgie’s last chance to talk to Neal before he left for California. Her last chance to make sure he left—what was she supposed to say?

She took a deep breath, in, then pushed it, out. Then picked up the phone.

“Neal?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Do you believe in fate?”

“What? What kind?”

“Like, do you believe that everything is already decided? That we’re destined for it?”

“Are you asking if I’m a Calvinist?”

“Maybe.” Georgie tried again: “Do you think that everything is already decided? Already written. Is the future just sitting there waiting for us to get to it?”

“I don’t believe in destiny,” he said, “if that’s what you mean. Or predestination.”

“Why not?”

“There’s no accountability in it. I mean, if everything is already set in stone, why try? I prefer to think that we’re choosing in every moment what happens next. That we choose our own paths—Georgie, why is this important?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded far away from herself in the receiver.

“Hey . . . Georgie.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“Just now?”

“No,” he said. “Today. All day.”

“Oh. It’s okay.”

Neal huffed. Frustrated. “I hate that you thought I wouldn’t call—I hate that everything is so tentative between us right now. When did everything get so tentative?”

“I think when you left for Omaha without me.”

“I just came home for Christmas.”

Georgie’s voice was barely there when she reached for it. “That’s not true.”

She could hear Neal clenching his jaw. “All right,” he said. “You’re right.”

Georgie was quiet.

Neal was quiet, too.

“I didn’t break up with you,” he said finally. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said. “But we’re still broken.”

Neal growled. “Then we’ll fix it.”

“How?”

“When did you get so hopeless, Georgie? The last time we talked, everything was fine.”

“No, the last time we talked you were pissed with me about Seth.” She rested her tongue between her teeth and thought about biting all the way through.

“Because you were putting him first again.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “He just showed up. He woke me up.”

“He just showed up in your bedroom.”

“Yes.”

Neal growled again. “I hate that. I hate that so much, Georgie.”

“I know, Neal.”

“That’s all you can offer me? You know?”

“I can tell you I’ll never invite him into my bedroom,” she said. “But sometimes he just shows up. You said you didn’t want me to choose between you.”