CHAPTER 26
Georgie’s mom lent her another pair of velour pants. And a T-shirt that said PINK.
Heather lent Alison a DECA T-shirt that hung too wide around the other girl’s neck.
They made a new nest for the dogs next to the Christmas tree, and Georgie’s mom decided that she and Kendrick couldn’t go to San Diego for Christmas and leave the puppies alone. “I guess we’ll keep you company, Georgie.”
Everyone agreed that Alison couldn’t just go back to work, not after everything. She spent ten tense minutes on the phone, trying to explain the situation to Angelo.
“Did you get fired?” Heather asked when Alison walked back into the living room.
Alison shrugged. “I’m going back to Berkeley next week, anyway.”
On the bright side, she had three large pizzas in the back of her car, plus an order of lasagna, some very cold fried mushrooms, and a dozen parmesan bread twists.
“God bless us, every one,” Georgie said, cracking open one of the boxes.
Fortunately for Heather, their mom only had eyes for the puppies and didn’t even notice Heather and Alison on the couch, giggling at each other with cheeks full of pizza.
Georgie herself was three giant slices in when the phone rang in the kitchen. The landline.
Heather looked at Georgie, and Georgie dropped her pizza, practically stepping on Porky on her way to the phone.
She got there on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Neal said. “It’s me.”
“Hey,” Georgie said.
Heather was standing behind her. She held out her hand. “Take it in your room,” she said. “I’ll hang it up.”
“Neal?” Georgie said into the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Just a minute, okay? Don’t go anywhere. Are you going anywhere?”
“No.”
Heather was still reaching for the phone; Georgie held the receiver against her chest. “Promise me you won’t talk to him,” she whispered.
Heather put her hand on the receiver and nodded.
“On Alice and Noomi’s lives,” Georgie said.
Heather nodded again.
Georgie let go of the phone and ran down the hall. Her hands were trembling when she picked up the yellow phone. (That never used to happen to her when she was upset; she was probably pre-diabetic.) “Got it,” she said. She heard the kitchen phone click. “Neal?”
“Still here.”
Georgie sank onto the floor. “Me, too.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Georgie said, “yeah. I’ve just had the weirdest day. Plus, I guess I . . . I didn’t think you were going to call back.”
“I said I would.”
“I know, but . . . you were angry.”
“I—” Neal stopped and started his sentence again. “We ended up staying with my aunt for a while. It was hard to leave. She was really happy to see us, so we stayed for dinner at the nursing home. And that was depressing and kind of gross, so we went to Bonanza on the way home.”
“What’s a Bonanza?”
“It’s like a cafeteria-buffet-steakhouse thing.”
“Is everything in Nebraska named after Westerns?”
“I guess so,” he said.
“I’ll bet your Italian restaurants are named after Sergio Leone movies.”
“What made your day so weird?”
Georgie started laughing. It sounded like a laugh played backwards.
“Georgie?”
“Sorry. It’s just . . .” What made her day so weird? “I delivered three puppies and found out that Heather is gay.”
“What? Oh—for a second, there, I thought you were talking about your sister. Your cousin is gay?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Georgie said.
“How did you deliver puppies? Whose puppies?”
“That doesn’t matter either. But I think we’re keeping one.”
“‘We’—you and your mom? Or ‘we,’ we?”
“We, we, we,” Georgie said. “All the way home.”
“Georgie?”
“Sorry.”
“You delivered puppies?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know. I need another second.” Georgie pulled the phone away from her ear and dropped it on the carpet. At some point, she’d started breathing like Heather during the pug emergency. Georgie smoothed her hair back and redid her ponytail, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes.
This is it, Georgie, get back in the game.
No, this wasn’t a game. It was her life. Her ridiculous life.
It doesn’t matter what you say now, she told herself. Neal’s going to propose on Christmas. He already did. He said, “We’ll make our own enough.” It’s fate.
Unless . . .