Landline

Georgie had shown up at The Spoon offices, a rumpus room/computer lab in the basement of the student union, the first week of her freshman year, willing to do anything—willing to make coffee or proofread the personal ads—but wanting, so badly, to write.

Seth was the first person she met there. He was a sophomore and already an editor, and initially he was the only guy on staff who’d make eye contact with Georgie at editorial meetings.

But that was because he was Seth, and because she was a girl.

Seth’s chief pastime back then was paying attention to girls. (Another thing that hadn’t changed.) Lucky for him, then and now, girls usually paid attention back.

Seth was shiny and handsome—tall, with brown eyes and thick auburn hair—and he dressed like he belonged on the cover of an early Beach Boys album.

Georgie got used to Seth’s madras shirts and khaki pants.

She got used to Seth. Always sitting on her desk or falling onto the couch next to her. She got used to always having his attention at The Spoon—because she was almost always the only girl in the room.

And because they were a good team.

That was pretty obvious, almost immediately. Georgie and Seth laughed at all the same jokes, and they were funnier together—as soon as one of them walked into a room, the other started putting on a show.

That’s when Seth had started calling Georgie his secret weapon. The other guys on staff at The Spoon were so busy ignoring her, they mostly missed how funny she was.

“Nobody cares who writes their favorite sitcoms,” Seth would say. “Nobody cares if it’s a cool guy with little wire-rimmed glasses.” (It was the ’90s.) “Or a cute girl with yellow hair.” (That was Georgie.) “Stick with me, Georgie, and nobody’ll see us coming.”

She did.

After graduation, she’d stuck with Seth through five half-hour sitcoms, each one a little less terrible than the last.

And now they finally had a hit, a huge hit—Jeff’d Up—and who cared if it was terrible? (Who cared, besides Georgie. And Seth. And the rest of the bitter, disillusioned writing staff.) Because it was a hit, and it was theirs.

And it would all be worth it if this deal went through.

Seth had been ecstatic ever since they got the call from Maher Jafari’s office. They’d thought, even after their triumphant pitch meeting, that Jafari was going to pass on Passing Time. On them. He’d sent them a weird note that seemed like a rejection. But then, two days ago, he’d called to say that the network needed a midseason replacement. Something they could turn pretty quickly. And pretty cheap. “I’ve got a feeling about this one,” Jafari had said. “Can you make it happen in a week?”

Seth had promised to make everything happen in a week. “We can make it happen by last week,” he said.

Then he’d climbed up on his desk chair to dance again. “This is our Sopranos, Georgie, it’s our Mad Men.”

“Get down,” she’d said. “Everyone’s going to think you’re drunk.”

“I may as well be,” he said, “because I’m about to get drunk. And time is an illusion.”

“You’re a delusion. We can’t write four scripts before Christmas.”

Seth didn’t stop dancing. He pumped his chin and did a little lasso move over his head. “We’ve got till the twenty-seventh. That’s ten whole days.”

“Ten days during which I’ll be in Omaha, Nebraska, celebrating Christmas.”

“Fuck Omaha. Christmas came early.”

“Stop dancing, Seth. Talk to me.”

He’d stopped dancing and frowned at her. “Are you hearing me? Maher Jafari wants our show. Our show, remember? The one we were put on this earth to write?”

“Do you think anybody actually gets put on earth to write TV comedy?”

“Yes,” Seth said. “Us.”

He’d been irrepressible ever since—even when Georgie was arguing with him, even when she was ignoring him. Seth wouldn’t stop smiling. He wouldn’t stop humming, which should probably annoy her. But Georgie was used to that, too.

She looked back up at him now to ask about a Jeff’d Up deadline. . . .

And ended up just looking at him.

He was grinning to himself and typing an e-mail with his index fingers, just to be silly. His eyebrows were dancing.

She sighed.

They were supposed to end up together, Seth and Georgie.

Well, technically, they had ended up together. They’d talked every day since that first day they met.

But they were supposed to end up together-together. Everyone thought it would happen—Georgie had thought it would happen.

Just as soon as Seth exhausted his other possibilities, as soon as he worked through his queue of admirers. He hadn’t been in any hurry, and Georgie didn’t have a say in the matter. She’d taken a number. She was waiting patiently.

And then, one day, she wasn’t.

After Seth headed down to the writers’ room, Georgie decided to try calling Neal again.

He picked up after three rings. “Hello?”

No. It wasn’t Neal. “Alice? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Mommy.”

“I know. Your song played when the phone rang.”

“What’s my song?”

Alice started singing “Good Day Sunshine.”

Georgie bit her lip. “That’s my song?”

“Yep.”

“That’s a good song.”

“Yep.”

“Hey,” Georgie said, “where’s Daddy?”

“Outside.”

“Outside?”

“He’s shoveling the snow,” Alice said. “There’s snow here. We’re gonna have a white Christmas.”

“That’s lucky. Did you have a good plane trip?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What was the best part? . . . Alice?” The girls liked answering the phone—and they loved calling people—but they always lost interest once they were on the line. “Alice. Are you watching TV?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Pause it and talk to Mommy.”

“I can’t. Grandma doesn’t have pause.”

“Then turn it off for a minute.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Okay, just . . .” Georgie tried not to sound irritated. “I really miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

“I love you guys . . . Alice?”