Rainbow Rowell - Landline

It had.

Nineteen years since Georgie stumbled across Seth in The Spoon offices.

Seventeen years since she first noticed Neal.

Fourteen since she married him, standing beside a row of lilac trees in his parents’ backyard.

Georgie never thought she’d be old enough to talk about life in big decade-long chunks like this.

It’s not that she’d thought she was going to die before now—she just never imagined it would feel this way. The heaviness of the proportions. Twenty years with the same dream. Seventeen with the same man.

Pretty soon she’d have been with Neal longer than she’d been without him. She’d know herself as his wife better than she’d ever known herself as anyone else.

It felt like too much. Not too much to have, just too much to contemplate. Commitments like boulders that were too heavy to carry.

Fourteen years since their wedding.

Fifteen years since Neal tried to drive away from her. Fifteen since he drove back.

Seventeen since she first saw him, saw something in him that she couldn’t look away from.

Seth was still watching Georgie, one eyebrow raised.

What would he say if she tried to tell him about the last thirty-six hours?

“Jesus, Georgie, you can go crazy next week. Everything can happen next week. Sleep. Christmas. Nervous breakdowns. This week we’re making our dreams come true.”

“I’m gonna make some coffee,” Georgie said.

The three of them kept working through dinner. They started moving even faster, making even more progress. . . .

And then they all realized they were moving so fast because they were turning their script into an episode of Jeff’d Up.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Seth said. “We’re corrupted. We’re completely corrupted.”

“This suuuuuuucks,” Scotty said.

Seth started erasing the whiteboard with both forearms—he’d regret that later when he saw the state of his checked shirt.

They decided to watch a few episodes of Barney Miller to wash out their brains. Seth kept the complete series on VHS in their office. They had a VCR in there, too, crammed into the corner with an old TV.

“We could just watch this online,” Scotty said, climbing into the IKEA hammock.

Seth knelt in front of the VCR and popped in a tape. “Not the same. The voodoo won’t work.”

Georgie brought her laptop with her, with her phone plugged into the side, and tried calling Neal from the doorway. (No answer.)

Seth sighed as soon as the Barney Miller bass line started. He flashed Georgie a wide white smile. “We’re going to get past this,” he said.

She smiled back—she couldn’t help it—and sat next to him on the floor.

This was how Georgie had spent her first two years of college. Whenever she wasn’t working with Seth at The Spoon, she was hanging out at his frat house, watching Barney Miller and Taxi and M*A*S*H. His room was lined and carpeted with VHS tapes.

“What are you doing in a fraternity?” she’d asked. “Comedy writers don’t join fraternities.”

“Don’t pigeonhole me, Georgie. I’m infinite.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“The usual reasons. Backup friends, navy blue jackets—plus someday I might run for office.”

They’d written the first draft of the Passing Time pilot in Seth’s room. And written the second draft down at The Spoon, Georgie doing all the typing.

How had she missed Neal until junior year? He’d started working at The Spoon as a freshman, same as her. Georgie must have seen him, without really seeing him, dozens of times. Was she that sucked in by Seth? Seth was extra sucky—pushy and loud, always demanding Georgie’s attention. . . .

But once Georgie noticed Neal, she saw him around the office constantly. She’d try not to stare when he walked past her desk on his way to the production room. Sometimes, if she was lucky, he’d look her way and nod.

“I just don’t understand the attraction,” Seth said after a month of this.

“What attraction?”

They were sitting at their shared desk, and Seth was eating Georgie’s princess chicken. Stabbing at it with one chopstick. “Yours. To that fat little cartoon man.”

Georgie didn’t quite understand it either—why Neal was suddenly the only thing on her radar. “We’re just friends,” she said.

“Really,” Seth said.

“Friendly acquaintances.”

“Yeah, but that’s the thing, Georgie—he isn’t friendly. He growls at people, literally, if they get too close.”

“He doesn’t growl at me,” she said.

“Well, he wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because you’re a pretty girl. You’re probably the only pretty girl who’s ever talked to him. He’s too stunned to growl.”

Georgie tried not to watch for Neal. She tried to play it cool when she saw him. But she usually found an excuse to walk back to the production room a few minutes after he got there. Sometimes she’d pretend she had to talk to one of the other artists. Sometimes, she’d walk right up to Neal’s drafting table and lean against the wall, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

Seth was an idiot: Neal wasn’t fat. Just sort of soft-looking. Small and strong, without any corners.

“You’re lurking,” Neal said that night. The princess-chicken night.

Georgie had meandered back to the production room and was leaning idly against a pillar near his table. “I’m not lurking,” she said. “I just didn’t want to startle you.”

“Do you think you’re startling?”

This week’s comic strip was more complicated than usual. One panel with lots of characters. Neal had started inking at one corner.

She craned her head over the table. “I wouldn’t want you to jump and spill ink all over your drawing.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”

“You might,” she said.

“I don’t jump.”

“Nerves of steel, huh?”

Neal shrugged.

“So,” she said, “I could sneak up behind you and, I don’t know, scream, and you wouldn’t even flinch.”

“Probably not.”

Georgie pulled a wheeled stool over and sat across from him. “But I could be an ax murderer.”

“You couldn’t.”

“I could.”

“Georgie McCool, ax murderer . . .” He cocked his head, like he was considering it. “No. You couldn’t.”

“But you wouldn’t know it was me sneaking up on you,” she said.

“I’d know it was you.”

“How?”

He looked up at her for a second, then went back to his work. “You have a very distinct presence.”

“Distinct?”

“Palpable,” Neal said.

Georgie tried not to smile. “Is that a compliment?”

“I don’t know, do you want it to be?”

“Do I want people to know when I walk into a room?”

“Do you want me to know?”

“I . . .”

Neal glanced up over her shoulder, then looked back down. “Your boyfriend needs you.”

Georgie spun partway around. Seth was standing in the doorway, his smile falsely bright. “Hey. Georgie. Could I get you to look at something?”

She squinted at him, trying to suss out whether he really needed her help or whether he was just being obstructionist. “Um, sure,” she said, “just a minute.”

He waited in the doorway.

“Just. A minute,” she said again, pointedly raising her eyebrows at him.

Seth nodded, already pouting, and backed away.

Georgie stood up. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Neal said, inking a smile onto a cartoon rabbit. “Conjoined twin?”

“Writing partner.” She reluctantly made for the door.

“Writing partner,” Neal murmured, going about his business.

Seth hadn’t really needed her help—of course he hadn’t. (And he’d eaten everything good out of her dinner.)

“I knew you were crying wolf,” she said, pushing the take-out container onto his side of the desk. “Next time I’m going to ignore you.”

“I wasn’t crying wolf.” He scooted his chair closer to hers. “I was crying hobbit.”

“What if I did this to you when you were on the make?”

“Oh God, Georgie, take it back. You can’t be on the make with the cartoon hobbit.”

“I never pass judgment on any of your girlfriends.”

“Because they’re all nice and gorgeous. Uniformly. God, they should wear uniforms, isn’t that a delicious idea?”

“The point is—I get to do this, Seth. I get to talk to guys. Do you want me to spend the rest of my life alone?”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then back off.”

He leaned forward, resting an elbow on her armrest. “Are you lonely, Georgie? Do you have needs?”

“I said back off.”

“Because you could tell me about your needs,” he said. “I think our friendship is ready for that.”

“I hate you.”

“Where ‘hate’ equals ‘love’ and also ‘can’t live without.’”

“I’m ignoring you now.”

“Wait, I really do need your help with this.” He turned his computer monitor toward her and pointed. “Is this funny? It’s a Snoopy/Snoop Dogg thing, and every time Charlie Brown tries to feed him, he’s like, ‘Thanks, Chizzuck.’ . . .”

The next time Seth tried to interrupt her while she was talking to Neal, Georgie really did ignore him. She sent him away with an “I’m sure it can wait.”

That made Neal look almost all the way up from his comic strip. He raised an eyebrow, and the side of his lips curved up into a closed-mouth smile.