Landline (14 page)

“I’m trying to get your mind off the emotional pain.”

“If you do it again, I’m going to slap you.”

He immediately tugged on her ponytail. Gently this time. Georgie let it slide.

Seth always had to force Georgie to go to parties. Once she was there, she was fine. Once she was there, she was usually great—if not
the life
of the party, certainly one of its most valuable players. People (new people, strangers) made Georgie nervous. And nervous Georgie was much more extroverted than regular Georgie. Nervous Georgie was practically manic.

“It’s like you turn into Robin Williams in nineteen-eighty-two,” Seth told her.

“Oh God, don’t say that, that’s mortifying.”

“What? Nineteen eighty-two Robin Williams was hilarious. Everybody loved nineteen-eighty-two Robin Williams.”

“I don’t want to be Mork at parties.”

“I do,” Seth said. “Mork kills.”

“Cute guys don’t want to go home with Mork,” Georgie groaned.

“I think you’re wrong,” he said, “but I take your point.”

(It hadn’t gotten better over the years; Georgie
still
got nervous at parties and pitches and big meetings. Seth said their careers would be over if Georgie ever realized she was awesome and stopped freaking out about it.)

Not long after Georgie gave up on Neal, Seth talked her into going to the
Spoon
Halloween party. Seth was dressed like Steve Martin. He had a white suit, and he’d spray-painted his hair gray, and there was a gag arrow on his head.

Georgie was going as Hot Lips Houlihan from
M*A*S*H
. Which just meant fatigues, an olive green T-shirt, and dog tags. Plus, she’d blown out her hair. She figured she must look okay because Seth seemed distracted by her breasts.

As soon as they were inside the party, he was distracted by somebody else’s breasts. There were a lot of girls here for a
Spoon
party; there must be some cross-pollination—maybe somebody’s roommate was a business major.

Georgie grabbed a Zima, then poured it into a cup so she wouldn’t look like she was drinking Zima.

She’d already started nervously chattering at some guy dressed like Maggie Simpson when she saw Neal on the other side of the room. He was leaning against a wall between two clusters of people—watching her.

When Georgie didn’t look away, he raised his bottle of beer not quite to his chest and nodded his head. She squeezed her cup until it dented, then tried to nod back. It was more of a spasm.

Georgie returned her attention to the guy dressed as Maggie Simpson. (Why would a guy dress like Maggie Simpson?) He was trying to guess who she was. “That chick from
Tomb Raider
?” Georgie looked back at Neal. His head was tilted to the side. Still watching her.

She felt herself blushing and peered down at her drink.

Maybe he’d come over. Maybe Neal would finally walk fifteen steps out of his way to say hello to her. Georgie glanced back at him, just as he was glancing up again from his beer—he wouldn’t even lift his entire head to look at her.

Fuck it.

“Sorry, would you . . . excuse me? I just saw my, um, I’m just—my friend’s over there. Excuse me.” Georgie backed away from Maggie Simpson and squeezed through an extremely pathetic dance circle to get to Neal’s wall. There wasn’t much room between him and the people next to him; he slid over to make room for her.

“Hey,” she said, leaning in sideways.

Neal had his back to the wall, and he was holding his beer with both hands. He didn’t look up. “Hey, Hot Lips.”

Georgie grinned and rolled her eyes. “How’d you know who I was?”

His lips twitched just enough to give him dimples. “I know about your weird preoccupation with ’70s sitcoms.” He took a drink of beer. “I’m surprised you didn’t come as Detective Wojciehowicz.”

“Couldn’t find the right tie,” Georgie said.

Neal nearly smiled.

She glanced down at his clothes. He was dressed like normal—jeans, a black T-shirt—but there was a silvery white pattern creeping up from his sleeves and down from his collar. He must have painted it himself. It looked almost crystalline.

“Give up?” he asked.

She nodded.

“The first frost.” He took another drink.

“It’s lovely,” Georgie said. Someone had just cranked up the music, so she said it again, louder.
“It’s lovely.”

Neal shrugged his eyebrows.

“I have to admit I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be.”

“You don’t seem like Party Guy.”

“I hate parties,” Neal said.

“Me, too,” she agreed.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Really.”

“Really.”

“I could tell by the way you walked in, and everybody shouted, ‘Georgie!’ and you blew a thousand air kisses, and the stereo started playing ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It’ . . .”

“
A
, you’re exaggerating, and
B
, just because I’m
good
at parties doesn’t mean I like them.”

“You prefer things you’re not good at?”

Georgie took a frustrated gulp of Zima and thought about walking away. “Obviously.”

Then there was a whoop of laughter behind her, and somebody fell against Georgie’s back, pushing her into Neal’s shoulder. She held her cup against her chest, so it wouldn’t spill on him. Neal quickly turned toward her, making more room on the wall and steadying her for a second, his hand on her arm.

“Sorry,” the guy behind her said.

“No worries,” Georgie told him. She and Neal were standing closer now, their shoulders almost touching on the wall.

They really were almost the same height. Georgie was five-five; Neal might be five-six. Maybe. It was nice—having a guy’s eyes right there where she could reach them. If he’d just look at her . . .

“So,” Neal said, “you came with your not-boyfriend, right?”

“He’s
not
my boyfriend.”

“Right. I think I saw him come in. He’s dressed like The Jerk.”

Georgie closed her eyes for a second. When she started talking, her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t sure Neal would even be able to hear her: “Sometimes I think the only reason you ever talked to me at all was because you knew it pissed off Seth.”

His reply came cold and quick: “Sometimes I think that’s the only reason you ever talked to me.”

She opened her eyes. “What?”

“Everybody knows.” Neal’s chin was practically touching his chest—that’s how
not
he was looking at her. “Everybody at
The Spoon
says you’re crazy about him.”

“Not everybody,” Georgie said. “
I’ve
never said that.”

Neal shrugged harshly and went to take a drink of his beer, but the bottle was empty.

Georgie pushed away from the wall and took a step backwards. She needed to get out of here before she started crying, but first—“You know what? This is why you’re standing alone at a party. Because
you’re
a jerk. You’re a jerk to people who actually, inexplicably like you.” She took another step backwards. Into some other guy.

“Hey, Georgie!” the guy shouted. “Are you Private Benjamin?”

“Hey,” she said, trying to get past him.

“Georgie, wait,” she heard Neal say. She felt a hand on her wrist. Firm, but not tight—she could still pull away. Neal kept talking, but the music buried it. (
God
, she hated parties.) He stepped in closer. Close. They were standing in a crowd of people who were all trying to decide whether they wanted to dance. Neal’s head dipped toward hers. “I’m sorry!” he shouted in her ear. And then something else.

“What?” Georgie yelled.

He seemed frustrated. They looked in each other’s eyes for a few seconds—a few overwhelming (to Georgie) seconds—then he started pulling her back toward the wall.

Georgie followed. Neal tightened his grip on her wrist.

He cut through the crowd and led her down a short hallway, stopping in front of the only closed door. There was a piece of caution tape stretched over it and a sign that said:

STAY OUT!!

IF ANYONE GOES IN HERE,

MY ROOMMATE WILL
END
ME.

HAVE MERCY.

—Whit

Whit worked at
The Spoon.

“We can’t go in there,” Georgie said.

“It’s fine.” Neal opened the door and ducked under the tape.

Georgie followed.

He leaned over and turned on a floor lamp without letting go of her wrist. The door swung mostly closed behind them, and the roar of the music receded.

Neal turned back to her and set his jaw. “You’re right,” he said in his normal voice. His hand dropped, and he rubbed his palm on his jeans. “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk.”

“Seth would agree with you there.”

“I don’t want to talk about Seth anymore.”

“
You’re
the one who brought him up.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Neal had a way of holding his chin down and looking out the top of his eyes, even when he wasn’t sitting at the drafting table. “Can we go back and start over?”

“How far back?” Georgie tried to fold her arms, but she was still holding that stupid Zima.

“Back to the wall,” he said. “Back to you walking across the living room toward me. To you saying, ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’”

“Are you saying you want to go back to the living room?”

“No. Just go ahead, say it again now.”

Georgie rolled her eyes, but she said it: “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Neal said. He lifted his chin and looked directly in her eyes. For the second time in five minutes. For the second time ever. “I’m here because I knew you’d be here. Because I hoped you would be.”

Georgie felt like a snake was unwinding itself in the back of her neck and along her shoulders. She swayed a little, and her mouth clicked open. “Oh.”

Neal looked away, and Georgie took in three gallons of air.

He was shaking his head. “I’m . . . sorry,” he said. “I wanted to see you. But then I got angry. I didn’t know what to—
you’ve been ignoring me.
”

“I haven’t been ignoring you,” she said.

“You stopped coming back to talk to me.”

“I thought I was bothering you.”

“You weren’t bothering me,” he said, facing her again. “Why would you
think
that?”

“Because
you
never come talk to
me
.”

“I never
had
to come talk to you.” Neal looked bewildered. “You always came to me.”

“I . . .” Georgie finished her drink so she could put down the cup.

Neal took it from her. He set the cup and his bottle on a desk behind him.

“I thought I was bothering you,” she said. “I thought you were just humoring me.”

“I thought you got tired of me,” he said.

She brought her hands up to her forehead. “Maybe we should stop thinking.”

Neal huffed and nodded, smoothing down the hair at the back of his head. They were both quiet for a dozen awkward heartbeats; then Neal motioned toward the bed. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Oh,” Georgie said, looking at the bed. There was another sign there:

NO, SERIOUSLY. HE WILL
END
ME.

Get out of here, okay?

—Whit

“I don’t think we should,” she said.

“It’s
fine
.”

They should leave. They were violating someone’s privacy. But . . . Georgie looked up at Neal, with his black T-shirt and his pale skin. He was smoothing down his hair again—ridiculously, it couldn’t be even a quarter-inch long in back. His elbow was in the air, his triceps flexed.

Georgie slid against the bed, sitting on the floor.

Neal looked down at her and nodded. “Okay . . . ,” he murmured, sitting next to her.

After a few seconds, she nudged her shoulder against his. “So. What have I missed?”

“When?”

“Since I’ve been sitting at my own desk,” she said, “playing hard to get.”

Neal smiled a little and looked down; his eyelashes brushed the top of his cheeks. “Oh, you know. Ink. Talking rabbits. Singing turtles. A chipmunk who wishes he was a squirrel.”

“Your comic last week was one of my favorites.”

“Thanks.”

“I put it in my Save Box,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s actually just a box. I, uh . . . I hate that feeling, you know, when you’re thinking about something you’ve read or heard, and you thought it was so smart at the time, but now you can’t remember it. I save things I don’t want to lose track of.”

“Must be a big box.”

“Not as big as you’d think,” she said. “I started putting your comic strips in there before I knew you were you.”

“Before you knew I was me?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Thanks.” Neal’s legs were bent in front of him, and he was picking at loose threads on his thighs.

He seemed uncomfortable. Georgie had that feeling again, that she was the only one keeping the conversation alive. Maybe she should shut up and see if Neal would say anything.
No. No more games.
“Would it be easier to talk to me if you were holding a pen?”

Neal lowered his eyebrows, and his head bounced. “Huh. I guess so. Too bad I don’t smoke.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know—something to do with my hands.”

“Oh,” Georgie said. And then, because she wanted to, she reached out and took his hand. Laid her palm on the back of his hand. Curled her fingers behind his thumb. Neal looked down at their hands, then slowly turned his palm up, bending his fingers around hers. Georgie squeezed.

Neal’s magic hand.
(This was the left one, so maybe it was slightly less magic.)

Neal’s wide, square palm. Neal’s short, straight fingers
—softer than Georgie expected, smoother than her own.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

“Before I knew you were you . . .” He shook his head. “There is no ‘before I knew you were you.’”

Georgie pushed her shoulder into his, and Neal pushed back, still looking at their hands.