Landline(7)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

Georgie waited, feeling nervous for some reason. Like she was calling some guy she liked when she was fourteen. Not the guy she’d been married to for fourteen years.

“Hello?” Neal sounded like he’d been asleep. His voice was rough.

She sat up straighter. “Hey.”

“Georgie.”

“Yeah . . . Hey.”

“It’s really late here.”

“I know, I always forget, I’m sorry. Time zones.”

“I—” He made a frustrated huffing noise. “—I guess I didn’t expect you to call.”

“Oh. Well. I just wanted to make sure you got in okay.”

“I got in fine,” he said.

“Good.”

“Yeah . . .”

“How’s your mom?” she asked.

“She’s fine—they’re both fine, everybody’s fine. Look, Georgie, it’s late.”

“Right. Neal, I’m sorry—I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You will?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll call earlier tomorrow. I just, um . . .”

He huffed again. “Fine.” And then he hung up.

Georgie sat there for a second, holding the dead receiver against her ear.

Neal had hung up on her.

She hadn’t even had a chance to ask about the girls.

And she hadn’t gotten to say “I love you”—Georgie always said “I love you,” and Neal always said it back, no matter how perfunctory it was. It was a safety check, proof that they were both still in this thing.

Maybe Neal was upset with her.

Obviously he was upset with her, he was always upset with her—but maybe he was more upset than she thought.

Maybe.

Or maybe he was just tired. He’d been up since four.

Georgie had been up since four thirty. Suddenly she felt tired, too. She thought about getting back in the car and driving out to Calabasas, to an empty house where nobody was waiting up for her. . . .

Then kicked off her shoes and climbed under her old bedspread, clapping twice to turn off the light. She could still see fifty pairs of mournful pug eyes flashing in the dark.

She’d call Neal tomorrow.

She’d start with “I love you.”

THURSDAY

DECEMBER 19, 2013

CHAPTER 4

There was a Post-it note from Pamela (the front-desk girl) on Georgie’s office door. She must have missed it when she left last night.

Your husband called while you were talking to Mr. German. He said to tell you they landed and to call when you can.

Georgie’d already tried to call Neal twice that morning on the way to work—she wanted something to replace their last stilted conversation in her head—but he hadn’t picked up.

Which wasn’t that unusual. Neal often left his phone downstairs or in the car, or he forgot to turn his ringer on. He never purposely ignored Georgie’s calls. Never so far.

She hadn’t left him a message—she kept freezing up. But at least Neal would see that she’d called. That was something.

He’d sounded so off last night. . . .

Clearly Georgie had woken him up. But it was more than that. The way that he’d said his mom was fine—“they’re both fine”—for a second, Georgie thought maybe he was talking about his dad.

Neal’s dad had died three years ago. He was a railroad yardman, and he had a heart attack at work. When the call came that day from his mom, Neal had gone into their bedroom without saying a word. It was only the second time Georgie had seen him cry.

Maybe Neal was disoriented last night, waking up in his parents’ house, sleeping in his old room. All the memories of his dad . . .

Or maybe he’d just meant Alice and Noomi. “She’s fine. They’re both fine. Everybody’s fine.”

Georgie set her coffee on her desk and plugged in her phone.

Seth was watching her. “Are you about to start your period?”

That should probably be an offensive workplace question, but it wasn’t. You can’t work with someone every day of your adult life and never talk to him about your PMS.

Or maybe you could, but Georgie was glad she didn’t have to. “No.” She shook her head at Seth. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” he said. “Are those your clothes from yesterday?”

Jeans. One of Neal’s old Metallica concert T-shirts. A cardigan.

“We should work in the big room,” she said, “with the whiteboards.”

“Those are your clothes from yesterday,” Seth said, “and they were sad enough yesterday.”

Georgie exhaled. “I spent the night at my mom’s house, okay? You’re lucky I showered.” She’d used Heather’s shower, and Heather’s shampoo. And now she smelled like frosting.

“You spent the night at your mom’s house? Were you too drunk to drive?”

“Too tired,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes. “You still look tired.”

Georgie frowned back at him; Seth looked pristine, of course. Gingham shirt, tan pants cuffed high over his bare ankles, suede saddle shoes. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a Banana Republic. Or what Georgie imagined that might look like—it’d been years since she was actually inside a Banana Republic. She did all her shopping online now, and only when things got desperate.

Seth, however, had never let himself go. If anything, he’d tightened his grip. He looked like he hadn’t aged a day since 1994, since the first day he and Georgie met.

The first time she’d seen Seth, he was sitting on a pretty girl’s desk, playing with her hair. Georgie had been excited just to see another girl in The Spoon offices.

She found out later that the girl only came in on Wednesdays to sell ads. “Girls aren’t usually into comedy,” Seth explained. Which was better than what a lot of the other guys on staff said: “Girls aren’t funny.” (After working at the college humor magazine for four years, Georgie eventually convinced a few of them to add, “Present company excluded.”)

She’d chosen the University of Los Angeles because of The Spoon. Well, and also because of the theater program, and because ULA was close enough to her mom’s house that Georgie could still live at home.

But The Spoon was the main thing. It was Georgie’s thing.

She’d started reading it in the ninth grade; she used to save back issues and stick the front pages up on her bedroom wall. Everyone said The Spoon was The Harvard Lampoon of the West Coast—lighter, better-looking. Some of her favorite comedy writers had gotten their start there.