Neal added another thought bubble to her caricature: “Now what am I supposed to say?!?!”
Then he drew a thought bubble coming out of the bottom of the page, pointing back at himself: “Anything you want, Georgie McCool.”
And then a smaller thought bubble: “If that is your real name . . .”
Georgie knew she was blushing. She watched his hand go back to the comic, then cleared her throat. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
That got a smile out of Neal, a real smile, with both sides of his mouth. “Nebraska,” he said.
“Is that like Kansas?”
“It’s more like Kansas than other things, I guess. Do you know a lot about Kansas?”
“I’ve watched The Wizard of Oz many, many times.”
“Well then,” he said, “Nebraska’s like Kansas. But in color.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Mesmerizing you.”
“You came to California to mesmerize me?”
“I should have,” he said. “That beats the real reason.”
“Which is . . .”
“I came to California to study oceanography.”
“That sounds like a perfectly good reason,” she said.
“Well”—he flicked his pen in short strokes around the hedgehog’s face—“as it turns out, I don’t actually like the ocean.”
Georgie laughed. Neal’s eyes were laughing with her. “I’d never seen it before I got here,” he said, glancing quickly up at her. “I thought it seemed cool.”
“It’s not cool?”
“It’s really wet,” he said. “And also outside.”
Georgie kept laughing. Neal kept inking.
“Sunburn . . . ,” he said, “seasick . . .”
“So now what are you studying?”
“I am definitely still studying oceanography,” he said, nodding at his drawing. “I am definitely here on an oceanography scholarship, still studying oceanography.”
“But that’s terrible. You can’t study oceanography if you don’t like the ocean.”
“I may as well.” He almost smiled again. “I don’t like anything else either.”
Georgie laughed.
Neal added another thought bubble to the bottom of the page: “Almost anything.”
“You can’t leave yet.” Seth stood in the doorway with his arms crossed.
“Seth, it’s seven o’clock.” Nine in Omaha. Or maybe 1998 in Omaha.
“Right,” he said, “and you didn’t get here until one, and you’ve been practically useless all day.”
“A, that isn’t true,” Georgie argued. “And B, if I’m being useless, I may as well go home.”
“No,” he pleaded, “stay. Maybe you’re about to come out of it.”
“I’m exhausted,” she said. “And possibly still hungover. And you know what? You’ve also been useless for the last three hours—what’s your excuse?”
“I’m useless when you’re useless, Georgie”—Seth swept one hand up helplessly—“that’s a long-established fact.”
She unplugged her phone. “Then maybe we’ll both be in better shape tomorrow.”
“You can talk to me about this,” he said, his voice low and losing all pretense. “Whatever’s going on with you today. This week.”
Georgie looked up at him. At his brown eyes and still-not-even-a-little-bit-gray hair. Never removed from the package.
He was her best friend.
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
CHAPTER 10
Georgie started to call Neal on the way home that night, her phone plugged into the lighter—then she stopped. Neal hadn’t picked up any of her calls, all day.
The last time she’d talked to him was still . . . the last time she’d talked to him.
Which Georgie still wasn’t dealing with.
Which she still couldn’t accept.
Georgie thought about her big, dark, empty house—her house that already felt haunted. . . .
And instead of heading back home, she got off the freeway in Reseda.
She didn’t have a key to her mom’s house, so she had to knock on the front door.
Heather opened it, looking significantly more kempt than usual. She was wearing lip gloss and at least three shades of eye shadow.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.” She pulled on Georgie’s arm. “Come inside—hurry—and stay away from the windows.”
“Why? Is someone casing the house?”
“Just come in.”
Georgie came in. Her parents—her mom and Kendrick—were watching TV on the couch, cuddling one of the pugs, the lumpy pregnant one, between them, and petting her with all four hands. “Georgie!” her mom said. “We didn’t know you were coming.”
“I just didn’t feel like driving out to Calabasas. You’re so much closer to the studio.”
“Of course.” Her mom made a concerned face. Georgie couldn’t tell if it was for her or for the dog. “You feeling better?”
“Yeah, I—” The doorbell rang. Georgie reached back toward the door.
“No!” her mom snapped. The dog barked. Heather pushed Georgie away, motioning frantically for her to get back.
“It’s the pizza boy,” her mom whispered.
“That isn’t an explanation,” Georgie whispered back.
Heather peeked out the window, smoothed down her snug T-shirt, then opened the door and stepped onto the stoop, shutting it behind her.
“She has a crush,” her mom said, scratching the pug’s distended belly. “You remember what that was like,” she said to the dog in a baby voice, “don’t you? Don’t you, little mama?”
“I don’t think she remembers,” Georgie said. “You bred her with some dog in Tarzana she’d never met before.”
“Shhh,” her mom said, covering the dog’s eyes. “Only because her hubby shoots blanks.”
“Uhhhhghh.” Georgie shuddered.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” her mom said, still in the baby voice, still smiling at the dog.
“I am,” Georgie said. She was. Relatively. She wasn’t drunk or hungover. And she hadn’t talked to any dead people for almost twenty-four hours now, so that was a plus.
“Well, good,” her mom said. “There’s leftover Swiss steak in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
“And pizza,” Heather offered, walking back into the living room. Aglow. She closed the front door and leaned against it, holding the pizza box against her stomach.
Georgie looked down at the box. “Oh, no. That’s very special pizza. I wouldn’t dare. Anyway, I ate at work—I think I might just lie down.”
She started walking through the living room toward the hall. “Actually . . .” She turned back to her mom. “Could I use your cell phone?”
“Sure, it’s in my purse.” Her mom pushed the dog onto Kendrick’s lap and got off the sofa. “I washed your jeans for you,” she said, finding her purse, rifling through it, “but you look so good in those pants. You should wear more loungewear.” She handed Georgie her phone, a bejeweled Android something-or-another with a pug screen saver.
Georgie dialed Neal’s number and hung up when it went to voice mail. Then she dialed his mom’s house, holding her breath. Busy.
“Thanks,” she said, handing the phone back. “Kendrick? Could I use your phone?” Georgie felt like she was testing something, but she wasn’t sure what.
Kendrick’s phone was plain and black and splattered with drywall mud. Voice mail again. Then busy on the landline. “Thanks,” Georgie said, handing it back.
Her mom looked down at her phone, probably checking to see whom Georgie had called. “Oh, honey, do you really think Neal’s screening his calls?”