Landline Read Free Page B

shrimp tray under her office door. Now it was six, and quiet, and Georgie was finally making progress on the script change.
    “No,” she told Seth. “I’ve got it.”
    “You sure?”
    She didn’t look up from her screen. “Yep.”
    He settled against the desk, her side of the desk, next to her keyboard. “So . . .”
    “So what?”
    “So,” he said, “they went to Omaha.”
    Georgie shook her head, even though the answer was yes. “It made sense. We already had the plane tickets, and I’m going to be working all week anyway.”
    “Yeah, but . . .” Seth nudged her arm with his leg. Georgie looked up. “What’re you gonna do on Christmas?”
    “I’ll go to my mom’s.” It was only sort of a lie. She could still go. Even if her mom wasn’t home.
    “You could come to my mom’s.”
    “I would,” Georgie said. “If I didn’t have my own.”
    “Maybe I’ll go to your mom’s, too.” Seth grinned. “She loves me.”
    “That’s not much of a character reference.”
    “You know, she called here three times this morning before you got in. She thinks you let your phone die on purpose. To avoid her.”
    Georgie turned back to her screen. “I should.”
    Seth stood up and slung his leather messenger bag over his shoulder. It was going to take Georgie another hour to rewrite this scene. Maybe she should just start over. . . .
    “Hey. Georgie.”
    She kept typing. “Yeah.”
    “Georgie.”
    She looked up one more time. He was standing at the door, studying her. “We’re so close,” he said. “It’s finally happening.”
    Georgie nodded and tried to smile. It was another weak effort.
    “Tomorrow,” Seth said, then thumped the doorframe with his palm and walked away.
     
    Georgie was on her way home when her sister called.
    “We ate without you,” Heather said.
    “What?”
    “It’s nine o’clock. We were hungry.”
    Right. Dinner. “That’s okay,” Georgie said. “Tell Mom I’ll call tomorrow.”
    “She still wants you to come over tonight. She says your marriage is over, and you need our support.”
    Georgie wanted to close her eyes, but she was driving. “My marriage isn’t over, Heather, and I don’t need your support.”
    “So Neal didn’t leave you and take the kids to Nebraska?”
    “He took them to see their grandmother ,” Georgie said. “It’s not like he’s fighting me for custody.”
    “Neal would totally get custody, don’t you think?”
    He totally would , Georgie thought.
    “You should come over,” Heather said. “Mom made tuna mac.”
    “Did she put peas in it?”
    “Nope.”
    Georgie thought about her empty house in Calabasas. And the empty suitcase sitting next to the closet. Her empty bed.
    “Fine,” she said.
     
    “Do you have an iPhone charger?” Georgie dropped her keys and her phone on the kitchen counter. She never carried a purse anymore; she kept her driver’s license and a credit card out in the car, shoved in the glove compartment.
    “I would if you bought me an iPhone.” Heather was leaning on the counter, eating tuna mac out of a glass storage container.
    “I thought you already ate,” Georgie said.
    “Don’t talk to me like that. You’ll give me an eating disorder.”
    Georgie rolled her eyes. “Nobody in our family gets eating disorders. Stop eating my dinner.”
    Heather took another giant bite, then handed Georgie the container.
    Heather was eighteen, a change-of-life baby—meaning, Georgie’s mom had decided to change her life by sleeping with the chiropractor she worked for, and accidentally got pregnant at thirty-nine. Her mom and the chiropractor were married just long enough for Heather to be born.
    Georgie was already in college by then, so she and Heather only lived in the same house for a year or two. Sometimes Georgie felt more like Heather’s aunt than her big sister.
    They looked enough alike to be twins.
    Heather had Georgie’s wavy, browny-blond hair. And Georgie’s washed-out blue eyes. And she was built