“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.
They looked enough alike to be twins.
Heather had Georgie’s wavy, browny-blond hair. And Georgie’s washed-out blue eyes. And she was built like Georgie was in high school, like a squashed hourglass. Though Heather was a little taller than Georgie. . . .
That was lucky for her. Maybe someday, when Heather got pregnant, the babies wouldn’t beat out her waist like a Caribbean steel drum. “It’s those C-sections,” Georgie’s mom would say. As if Georgie had chosen to have two C-sections, as if she’d ordered them off the menu out of sheer laziness. “I had you girls the natural way, and my body bounced right back.”
“Why are you staring at my stomach?” Heather asked.
“Still trying to give you an eating disorder,” Georgie said.
“Georgie!” Her mom walked into the room, holding a small but very pregnant pug up to her chest. Georgie’s stepdad, Kendrick—a tall African-American guy, still in his dusty construction clothes—wasn’t far behind. “I didn’t hear you come in,” her mom said.
“I just got here.”
“Let me heat that up for you.” Her mom took the tuna casserole and handed Georgie the dog. Georgie held it away from her body; she hated touching it—and she didn’t care if that made her the villain in a romantic comedy.
Kendrick leaned over and took the dog from her. “How’re you doing, Georgie?” His face was entirely too gentle. It made her want to shout, “My husband didn’t leave me!”
But Kendrick didn’t deserve that. He was the best shockingly young stepdad a girl could ask for. (Kendrick was forty, only three years older than Georgie. Her mom met him when he came to clean their pathetic excuse for a pool.) (These things actually happen.) (In the Valley.) “I’m fine, Kendrick. Thanks.”
Her mom shook her head sadly at the microwave.
“Really,” Georgie said to the whole room. “I’m better than fine. I’m staying in town for Christmas because our show is really, really close to getting a green light.”
“Your show?” her mom asked. “Is your show in trouble?”
“No. Not Jeff’d Up. Our show—Passing Time.”
“I can’t watch your show,” her mom said. “That boy is so disrespectful.”
“Trev?” Heather asked. “Everybody loves Trev.”
Trev was the middle son on Jeff’d Up. He was Georgie’s special creation—a slack-faced, twelve-year-old misanthrope, a character who didn’t like anything and never did anything likable.
Trev was where Georgie buried all her resentment. For Jeff German, for the network, for Trev himself. For the fact that she was working on a show that was basically Home Improvement without anything good—without Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Wilson.
Trev was also the breakout star of the show.
Georgie narrowed her eyes at her sister. “You love Trev?”
“God, not me,” Heather said. “But everybody. The thugs at school all wear ‘This sucks’ T-shirts. Like, not the intimidating, cool thugs—the depressing, homely thugs who listen to Insane Clown Posse.”
“It’s not ‘This sucks,’” Kendrick said helpfully. “It’s more like ‘This suuuuuuucks.’”
Heather laughed. “Oh my God, Dad, you sound just like him.”
“This suuuuuucks,” Kendrick said again.
“This sucks” was Trev’s catchphrase. Georgie took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
Her mom shook her head and set a plate of tuna mac on the table, then took the dog back from Kendrick, rubbing her face into its damp gray muzzle. “Did you think I forgot about you?” she cooed. “I didn’t forget about you, little mama.”
“Thanks,” Georgie said, sitting down at the table and pulling the plate of tuna mac toward her.
Kendrick patted her shoulder. “I like Trev. Is your new show going to be more like that?”
“Not exactly,” she said, frowning.
It still made her uncomfortable when Kendrick tried to be fatherly with her. He was only three years older. “You’re not my dad,” she sometimes wanted to say. Like she was twelve years old. (When Georgie was twelve, Kendrick was fifteen. She might have flirted with him at the mall.) “Passing Time,” Heather said in a smooth voice, pulling a pizza box out of the refrigerator, “is an hour-long dramedy. It’s something plus something plus something else.”
Georgie threw her sister an appreciative smile. At least someone listened to her.
“It’s Square Pegs,” Georgie said, “plus My So-Called Life, plus Arrested Development.”
If Seth were here, he’d add, “Plus some show that people actually watched.”
And then Scotty would say, “Plus The Cosby Show!”
And then Georgie would say, “Minus the Cosbys,” and feel bad that their pilot didn’t have more diversity. (She’d bring that up with Seth tomorrow. . . . ) Passing Time was a show that captured all the angst of high school life—all the highs and lows, all the absurdities—and then made them higher and lower and more absurd.
That’s how they’d pitched it, anyway. That’s how Georgie had pitched it to Maher Jafari last month. She’d been on fire in that meeting. She’d hit every note.
She and Seth had gone straight from Jafari’s office to the bar across the street, and Seth had stood on his barstool to toast Georgie, flicking Canadian Club down on her head like holy water.
“You are fucking magic, Georgie McCool. That was a Streisandic performance in there. You had him laughing through his fucking tears, did you see that?”
Then Seth had started stomping his feet on the barstool, and Georgie’d grabbed on to his bare ankles—“Stop, you’ll fall.”
“You,” he’d said, craning his head down and holding his drink up, “are my secret weapon.”
Heather leaned against Georgie’s chair now, gesturing with a piece of cold pizza. “Passing Time is already my favorite show,” she said, “and I’m part of a very desirable demographic.”
Georgie swallowed the bite of tuna mac that was sitting at the back of her throat. “Thanks, kid.”
“Have you talked to the girls today?” her mom asked. She was holding the pug right up against her face, scratching between its ears with her chin. The pug’s watery eyes bulged with every pull.
Georgie grimaced and looked away. “No,” she said. “I was just about to call.”
“What’s the time difference?” Kendrick asked. “Isn’t it almost midnight there?”
“Oh God.” Georgie dropped her fork. “You’re right.” Her cell phone was dead, so she walked over to the brown Trimline that was still stuck to the kitchen wall.
Heather and Kendrick and her mom and the dog were all watching her. Another dog shuffled into the kitchen, its toenails clicking against the tile, and looked up.
“Is there still a phone in my room?” Georgie asked.
“I think so,” her mom said. “Check the closet.”
“Great. I’ll just . . .” Georgie rushed out of the kitchen and down the hall.