Landline (7 page)

“I didn’t know you used real ink,” she said.

He nodded.

“Can I watch?”

He nodded again.

G
eorgie’s mother had spectacular cleavage. Tan, freckled, ten miles deep.

“Genetics,” her mom said when she caught Georgie looking.

Heather shoved a bowl of green beans into Georgie’s arm. “Were you just staring at Mom’s breasts?”

“I think so,” Georgie said. “I’m really tired—and she’s kinda begging for it in that shirt.”

“Oh, sure,” Heather said. “Blame the victim.”

“Not in front of Kendrick,” their mom said. “You’re making him blush.”

Kendrick smiled down at his spaghetti and shook his head.

Her mom had caught Georgie on her cell phone that afternoon while she was waiting for Neal to call.
“Let me make you dinner. I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t,”
Georgie had said. “
Don’t worry.”
But she’d still agreed to come by after work.

Her mom made spaghetti with homemade meatballs, and pineapple upside-down cake for dessert. And they’d all waited for Georgie to get there before they started eating, so she didn’t feel like she could excuse herself right away to call Neal. (It was almost seven thirty already, nine thirty in Omaha.)

Georgie had tried Neal’s cell phone twice on the way here. Her calls went straight to voice mail again—which didn’t necessarily mean he was still hanging out with Dawn, but also didn’t prove that he wasn’t.

(It was stupid to worry about Dawn. Neal was a teenager when he was with Dawn.)

(But weren’t people constantly leaving their spouses the moment their prom dates friended them on Facebook?)

(Plus Dawn never got old. In any sense of the word. It was always good to see her, and she always looked good. The last time Georgie’d seen Dawn, at Neal’s dad’s funeral, she looked like she’d never been removed from the package.)

“Did you talk to the girls today?” her mom asked.

“I talked to them yesterday.”

“How are they taking everything?”

“Fine.” Georgie choked down half a meatball. “There’s not actually anything to take, you know.”

“Kids are perceptive, Georgie. They’re like dogs”—she offered a meatball from her own fork to the pug heaped in her lap—“they know when their people are unhappy.”

“I think you may just have reverse-anthropomorphized your own grandchildren.”

Her mom waved her empty fork dismissively. “You know what I mean.”

Heather leaned into Georgie and sighed. “Sometimes I feel like her daughter. And sometimes I feel like the dog with the least ribbons.”

Heather was eating spaghetti, too, but out of a restaurant to-go box. Georgie decided not to ask. She glanced up at the clock—seven forty-five.

“You know, I promised I’d call Neal before it gets too late.” She’d promised his voice mail, anyway. “I’m just going to use the phone in my room, if that’s okay.”

“But you haven’t finished eating,” her mom protested.

Georgie was already halfway down the hall. “I’ll be back!”

Her heart was beating hard when she got to her room. Was she that out of shape? Or just that nervous?

She curled her fingers behind the hooks of the yellow phone and sat on the bed, pulling it into her lap and waiting to catch her breath.

Please answer
, she thought, picturing Neal’s somber blue eyes and his stern jaw. Picturing his strong pale face.
Please. I just really need to hear your voice right now.

She started dialing his cell, then hung up and tried the landline—maybe Margaret was a better bet to pick up; their parents’ generation still felt morally obligated to answer phones.

Georgie listened to it ring, trying to hold down the butterflies in her stomach. Trying to crush them, actually, into butterfly bits and pieces.

“Hello?”

Neal. Finally.

Neal, Neal, Neal
.

The butterflies burst back to life and started fluttering up Georgie’s throat. She swallowed. “Hey.”

“Georgie.” He said it like he was confirming something. Gently confirming.

“Hey,” she repeated.

“I didn’t think you’d call again.”

“I told your mom I would. I told you the last time we talked—why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think you’d call then either.”

“I love you,” she blurted out.

“What?”

“The last time we—you hung up before I could tell you that I love you.”

“So you called to say you love me?”

“I . . .” Georgie felt so confused. “I called to make sure you got in okay. To see how you are. To see how the girls are.”

Neal laughed. Not in a good way. It was the sound effect his defenses made when they snapped into place. “The girls,” he said. “
The girls
are fine. Are you talking about Dawn? Because I haven’t seen her.”

“What? Your mom said you were over there today.”

“When did you talk to my mom?”

“Today. She said Dawn was showing you her cockatiel. Amadeus.”

“Dawn’s cockatiel is named Falco.”

Georgie tucked in her chin, defensively. “Sorry. I’m not an expert on Dawn’s cockatiels.”

“Neither am I.”

She shook her head and took her glasses off, holding her palm against her eye. “Neal. Look. I’m sorry. This isn’t why I called.”

“Right. You called to tell me that you love me.”

“Yeah.
Actually. Yes, I did.
I love you.”

“Well, I love you, too. That isn’t the problem, Georgie.” His voice was almost a whisper.

Georgie whispered, too: “Neal. I didn’t know you were this upset. You should have told me you were this upset before you left. I wouldn’t have let you go—I would have come with.”

He laughed again, and this time it was even worse. “I should have told you?” he hissed. “I
did
tell you. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I said ‘I love you, but I’m not sure it’s enough, I’m not sure it will
ever
be enough.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to live like this, Georgie’—remember?”

Georgie was speechless. She did remember. But . . .

“Just a second,” Neal said quietly. “I don’t want to have this conversation in front of my parents. . . .” What he said next was muffled: “Dad, can you hang this up when I get upstairs?”

“Sure, tell your Georgie girl I said hi.”

“You can tell her yourself. She’s right there.”

“Georgie?” someone said into the phone. Someone who was not Neal’s dad. Who couldn’t be.

“Mr. Grafton?”

“We’re sorry you couldn’t come for Christmas this year. We made it snow for you and everything.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Georgie said—she must have said it, she heard herself say it.

“Well, maybe next year,” he said.
He who was not, who could not be, Neal’s dad—who was dead. Who died in a train yard three years ago.

There was a click, then the hollow sound of another phone on the line. “I’ve got it, Dad, thanks.”

“See ya, Georgie girl,” Neal’s dad said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said. Autonomically.

There was another click.

Georgie sat completely still.

“Georgie?”

“Neal?”

“Are you okay—are you crying?”

She
was
crying. “I . . . I’m really tired. I haven’t been sleeping, and
Neal
, oh my God, I just imagined the strangest thing. I imagined your dad telling me Merry Christmas. Isn’t that—”

“He did tell you Merry Christmas.”

She sucked in a breath.

“Georgie?”

“I don’t think I should be talking right now.”

“Georgie, wait.”

“I can’t talk right now, Neal. I just . . . I have to go.”

She slammed the phone down onto the cradle, looked at it for a second, maybe two, then shoved it away from her. It fell to the ground with a heavy, clanging thump. The receiver went flying into the bedside table.

Georgie stared at it.

This wasn’t right. None of this was right.

Neal’s dad was dead. Neal always said I love you. And he knew who “the girls” were.

And also . . . also, especially—especially,
especially
—Neal’s dad was
dead
.

Georgie was . . . She must be imagining things.

Exhausted. She was exhausted.

And upset. Too much stress. Not enough sleep.

Also, maybe someone had drugged her—that was possible. That was more possible than Neal’s dad
coming back from the dead
to wish her Merry Christmas. Which didn’t. Just. Happen.

What else hadn’t happened today? Had she even gone to work? Had she spent last night on the couch? Had she ever woken up?

Wake up! Wake the fuck up, Georgie!

Maybe when she woke up, when she really woke up, she’d find Neal lying beside her. Maybe they wouldn’t even be fighting. (
Were
they fighting?) Maybe, in the real world, the waking world, Georgie and Neal never fought.

“I had a dream that things were just like they are now,”
she’d say when she woke up,
“but we weren’t happy. And it was Christmas, and you left me. . . .”

“Georgie?” Her mom was calling from the kitchen. Unless Georgie was dreaming that, too. “Are you okay?” her mom shouted.

“I’m fine!” Georgie yelled back.

Her mom came to her room anyway. “I heard a noise,” she said from the doorway. She looked down at the phone, lying stretched out and off the hook on the floor. “Is everything all right?”

Georgie wiped her eyes. “Fine. I’m just”—she shook her head—“I don’t know, maybe having a nervous breakdown.”

“Of course you are, honey. Your husband left you.”

“He didn’t leave me,” Georgie said. But maybe he had. Maybe that’s why Georgie was falling apart. “I think I need to rest.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Or maybe I need a drink.”

Her mom came into the room and picked up the phone, setting it back on the table. “I hardly think you should start drinking.”

Had Georgie been drinking already? Had this ever happened before? Was she blacking out?

“Do you remember Neal’s dad?” she asked her mom.

“Paul? Sure. Neal looks just like him.”

“Looks? Or
looked
?”

“What?”

“What do you know about Neal’s dad?” Georgie asked.

“What are you talking about? Didn’t he have a heart attack?”

“Yes.” Georgie reached out and grabbed her mom’s arm. “He had a heart attack.”

Her mom looked significantly more concerned. “Do you think you’re having a heart attack?”

“No,” Georgie said. Was she having a heart attack? A stroke, maybe? She smiled and touched her own cheeks; nothing seemed to be drooping. “No. No, I just need some rest, I think.”

“I don’t think you should drive home.”

“I don’t think so either.”

“Okay.” Her mom studied her. “You’ll get through this, Georgie. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life alone after your dad and I split up.”

“You left him for another guy.”

Her mom shook her head dismissively. “These feelings aren’t rational. There’s nothing rational about marriage.”

“A
fatal
heart attack, right?”

“Why are you fixated on Neal’s dad? Poor man. Poor Margaret.”

“I don’t know,” Georgie said. “I just need to rest.”

“You rest.” Her mom turned off the light on her way out.

Georgie lay in the dark for an hour.

She cried some more.

And talked to herself. “I’m imagining things. I’m tired. I’m just tired.”

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

She opened them again, and watched the yellow phone.

She thought about going home. She went out and sat in the car for a while. Eventually, she plugged in her cell phone and tried to call Neal. (He didn’t pick up.) (
Because he never fucking picks up
. And maybe he
had
left her, maybe they were so out of synch that Georgie didn’t even recognize when he was actually, really leaving her. Maybe he’d already told her he was leaving, and she just hadn’t listened.)

She sat in the car and cried.

Then she tried Neal’s mom’s number, even though it was late. Georgie just needed to talk to him again. Normally. She needed to have a normal conversation to reset everything.

His mom’s line was busy. Maybe his dad had some really important ghost phone calls to make at midnight central time.

Georgie thought again about trying to sleep. She thought about how all her freaking out was probably making this situation—whatever this situation was—worse.

Then she went inside and went through the kitchen cabinets until she found a bottle of crème de menthe, probably left over from the last time her mom made grasshopper pie. (Her mom and Kendrick weren’t drinkers.) (Potheads? Possibly. Neal suspected.)

Georgie drank it straight. It was like getting drunk on syrup.

At some point she must have fallen asleep.

F
our missed calls—all from Seth.

It was already noon, and Georgie was just leaving for work. Her phone rang as soon as she plugged it into the car lighter.

“Sorry,” she said, answering it. “I overslept.”

“Jesus, Georgie,” Seth said, “I was ready to call the police.”

“You were not.”

“Maybe I was. I was just about to drive all the way out to Calabasas looking for you. What the fuck?”

“I stayed at my mom’s again. I’m sorry. I forgot to set the alarm.”

That was a vast, vast oversimplification. Georgie had woken up on her mom’s couch a half hour ago, with one of the pugs licking her face. Then she’d puked for twenty minutes. Then she’d spent another ten trying to find clothes in Heather’s room—nothing fit—before ending up in her mom’s closet, settling for a pair of velour sweatpants and a low-cut T-shirt with rhinestones. Georgie hadn’t even brushed her teeth. (Didn’t see the point; her whole body already smelled like mint.) “I’m coming,” she told Seth. “I’ll bring lunch.”