Rainbow Rowell - Landline

But Georgie wanted to talk to them, and anyway, Alice woke up while Georgie was trying to slide on her pink Mary Janes.

“Daddy said I could wear my boots,” Alice croaked.

“Where are they?” Georgie whispered.

“Daddy knows.”

They woke Noomi up, looking for them.

Then Noomi wanted her boots.

Then Georgie offered to get them yogurt, but Neal said they’d eat at the airport; he’d packed snacks.

He let Georgie explain why she wasn’t getting on the plane with them—“Are you driving instead?” Alice asked—while he ran up and down the stairs, and in and out the front door, double-checking things and rounding up bags.

Georgie tried to tell the girls that they’d be having such a good time, they’d hardly miss her—and that they’d all celebrate together next week. “We’ll have two Christmases,” Georgie said.

“I don’t think that’s actually possible,” Alice argued.

Noomi started crying because her sock was turned the wrong way around her toes. Georgie couldn’t tell if she wanted it seam-on-the-bottom or seam-on-top. Neal came in from the garage and whipped off Noomi’s boot to fix it. “Car’s here,” he said.

It was a minivan. Georgie herded the girls out the door, then knelt down next to the curb in her pajama pants, kissing both their faces all over and trying to act like saying good-bye to them wasn’t that big of a deal.

“You’re the best mommy in the world,” Noomi said. Everything was “the best” and “the worst” with Noomi. Everything was “never” and “always.”

“And you are the best four-year-old girl in the world,” Georgie said, smashing her nose with a kiss.

“Kitty,” Noomi said. She was still tearful from the sock problem.

“You are the best kitty in the world.” Georgie tucked Noomi’s wispy yellow-brown hair behind her ears and pulled her T-shirt smooth over her belly.

“Green kitty.”

“The best green kitty.”

“Meow,” Noomi said.

“Meow,” Georgie answered.

“Mom?” Alice asked.

“Yeah?” Georgie pulled the seven-year-old closer—“Here, give me all your hugs”—but Alice was too busy thinking to hug back.

“If Santa brings your presents to Grandma’s house, I’ll save them for you. I’ll put them in my suitcase.”

“Santa doesn’t usually bring Mommy presents.”

“Well, but if he does . . .”

“Meow,” Noomi said.

“Okay,” Georgie agreed, holding Alice in her left arm and scooping Noomi close with her right, “if he brings me presents, you take care of them for me.”

“Mommy, meow!”

“Meow,” Georgie said, squeezing them both.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Alice.”

“The true meaning of Christmas isn’t presents anyway, it’s Jesus. But not for us, because we’re not religious. The true meaning of Christmas for us is just family.”

Georgie kissed her cheek. “That’s true.”

“I know.”

“Okay. I love you. I love you both so much.”

“To the moon and back?” Alice asked.

“Oh my God,” Georgie said, “so much farther.”

“To the moon and back infinity?”

“Meow!”

“Meow,” Georgie said. “Infinity times infinity. I love you so much, it hurts.”

Noomi’s face fell. “It hurts?”

“She doesn’t mean it literally,” Alice said. “Right, Mom? Not literally?”

“No. Well. Sometimes.”

Neal stepped forward. “Okay. Time to catch a plane.”

Georgie stole half a dozen more kisses while she buckled the girls into their car seats, then stood by the side of the van with her arms folded nervously across her chest.

Neal stepped up to her and looked over her shoulder, like he was thinking. “We land at five,” he said, “Central time. So it’ll be around three here. . . . I’ll call you when we get to my mom’s.”

Georgie nodded, but he still wasn’t looking at her.

“Be safe,” she said.

He checked his watch. “We’ll be fine—don’t worry about us. Just do what you have to do. Rock your meeting.” And then he was hugging her, sort of, an arm around her shoulder, his mouth bumping against hers. By the time he said, “Love you,” he was already pulling away.

Georgie wanted to catch him by the shoulders.

She wanted to hug him until her feet left the ground.

She wanted to tuck her head into his neck and feel his arms a little too hard around her ribs.

“Love you,” she said. She wasn’t sure if he heard her.

“I love you!” she shouted at the girls, knocking on the backseat window and kissing it because she knew it made them laugh; the back windows of their Prius were covered in kiss smears.

They were waving at her like crazy. Georgie stepped away from the van, waving with both hands. Neal was in the front seat talking to the driver.

She thought he might have looked back at her once, before the van turned the corner—her hands froze in the air.

And then they were gone.

“Do you need some help?”

Georgie blinked.

Seth was standing beside her. Tapping the top of her head with a folder. Jeff German wanted an episode rewritten before the writers all left for the holidays—and it was mostly Georgie’s job to finish it. (Because she didn’t trust anyone else to help.) (Which was her own issue. And not something she should be irritated about.)

The whole afternoon had been a blur of noise and food and Christmas carols. For some reason—well, for alcoholic reasons—everyone had decided to sing Christmas songs from two to three thirty. Then somebody, maybe Scotty, had tried to slide a 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.