“Two kids,” she said. “A boy and a girl. But not until my TV empire is under way.”

His eyes got big. “Christ.”

“Also a house with a big front porch. And a husband who likes to take driving vacations. And a car, obviously, with a roomy backseat.”

“You really are spectacular at this.”

“And I want a Disneyland annual pass. And a chance to work with Bernadette Peters. And I want to be happy. Like, seventy to eighty percent of the time. I want to be actively, thoughtfully happy.”

Neal was rubbing their hands into his blue sweatshirt. It said NORTH HIGH WRESTLING. TAKE ’EM DOWN, VIKES! His jaw was tight, and his blue eyes were almost black.

“And I want to fly over the ocean,” she said.

He swallowed and reached out to touch her face with his free hand. It was cold, and sand fell from it onto Georgie’s neck. “I think I want you,” he said.

Georgie squeezed the hand he was holding to his chest, and used it as an anchor to pull herself closer. “You think . . .”

Neal licked his bottom lip and nodded. “I think . . .” The closer she was, the more he looked away. “I think I just want you,” he said.

“Okay,” Georgie agreed.

Neal looked surprised—he almost laughed. “Okay?”

She nodded, close enough to bump her nose up against his. “Okay. You can have me.”

He pushed his forehead into hers, pulling his chin and mouth back. “Just like that.”

“Yeah.”

“Really,” he said.

“Really,” she promised.

She reached her mouth toward his, and he twisted his head up and away, looking at her. He was breathing hard through his nose. He was still holding her cheek.

Georgie tried to make her face as plain as possible:

Really. You can have me. Because I’m good at wanting things and good at getting what I want, and I can’t think of anything I want more than you. Really, really, really.

Neal nodded. Like he’d just been given an order. Then he let go of Georgie’s hand and pushed her (pinned her) gently (firmly) back into the sand.

He leaned over her, his hands on either side of her shoulders, and shook his head. “Georgie,” he said. Then he kissed her.

That was it, really.

That was when she added Neal to the list of things she wanted and needed and was bound to have someday. That’s when she decided that Neal was the person who was going to drive on those overnight road trips. And Neal was the one who was going to sit next to her at the Emmys.

He kissed her like he was drawing a perfectly straight line.

He kissed her in India ink.

That’s when Georgie decided, during that cocksure kiss, that Neal was what she needed to be happy.

They were all tired.

Seth had finger-combed all the curl out his hair. It was looking less JFK Jr., more Joe Piscopo. “We’re not adding a g*y Indian character,” he said. That’s final.”

Scotty leaned over the table. “But Georgie said she wanted to add some diversity.”

“She didn’t say she wanted to add you.”

“Rahul isn’t me. He’s tall, and he doesn’t wear glasses.”

“He’s worse than you,” Seth said. “He’s fantasy-you.”

“Well, all these white guys are just fantasy-yous.”

Seth abused his hair some more. “Fantasy-me would never show up on this show. Fantasy-me was already on Gossip Girl.”

“Georgie,” they both said at once.

“Rahul can stay,” Georgie said. “But this is a misfit comedy; he has to be short and wear glasses.”

“Why would you do that to Rahul?” Scotty folded his arms. “Now he’ll never find love.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Scotty, you’ll find love.”

“One, I’m talking about Rahul. And two, I don’t think you mean that.”

Georgie put her hand on Scotty’s shoulder. “He’ll find love, Scotty. I’ll write him a dreamy boyfriend.”

“You’d do that for me, Georgie?”

“I’ll do it for Rahul.”

“That episode better be f**king hilarious,” Seth said.

Scotty stood up and shoved his laptop in his backpack. “Rahul stays,” he told Seth. “I just made some Indian kid a star.”

Scotty walked out, head high.

Seth was still frowning. “Does this mean we have to go back and write Rahul into the pilot?”

“He can start in the third episode,” Georgie said. “You were just saying we needed a couple g*y characters. You said our 1995 was showing.”

“I know.”

Georgie closed her laptop. “I know we said we’d take home scripts, but I don’t know how much I’m going to get done tonight. . . .”

“Stay,” Seth said. “We’ll get dinner and work on it together.”

“I can’t. I have to call Neal.” It was already eight o’clock in Omaha. Georgie wanted to call him by ten.

Seth studied her for a minute. Like the one thing she wasn’t telling him was the only thing he didn’t know about her.

What would happen if she called Seth tonight from the yellow phone? Would she get the Sig Ep house in 1998? Would one of his Saturday-morning girls answer?

Seth never talked about the Saturday-morning girls now, but Georgie assumed the parade marched on.

“Thanks,” he said. “For pushing through today. I know that something is seriously f**ked up with you.”

Georgie unplugged her phone.

“And it’s killing me that you won’t talk about it,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry, Georgie—I want you to be funny.”

CHAPTER 17

By the time Georgie pulled into her mom’s driveway, she was 100 percent sure that if she called Neal tonight from the yellow rotary phone, he’d pick it up in the past.

Or that it would seem that way—that the grand illusion was going to hold.

And she was 1,000 percent sure she was going to call him. Even though that might be dangerous. (If it were real.) (Georgie needed to pick a side—real or not real—and stick with it.)

She had to call. You can’t just ignore a phone that calls into the past. You can’t know it’s there and not call.

Georgie couldn’t, anyway.

Whatever was happening, this was the role she’d been given. Neal wasn’t the one with a magic phone that could call into the future.

(God, maybe she should test that theory, she could ask him to call her back . . . No. No way. What if her mom answered and started talking about Alice and Noomi and divorce? What if Georgie herself answered the phone back in 1998 and said something horrible and immature, and ruined everything? Nineteen-ninety-eight Georgie clearly couldn’t be trusted.)

Heather opened the door to the house before Georgie could knock.

“Is there a pizza coming?” Georgie asked.

“No.”

Georgie stayed out on the stoop.

“Baked ziti,” Heather said, rolling her eyes. “Just come in.”

Georgie did. Her mom and Kendrick were eating dinner in the kitchen.

“You’re home early,” her mom said. “I made a Caesar salad, if you’re hungry, and there’s puppy chow for dessert.”

The pugs started barking under the table.

“Not for you, little mama,” Georgie’s mom said, leaning over to make eye contact with the pregnant one. “This puppy chow is for big mamas and daddies. Little mamas can’t have chocolate—I swear, Kenny, they understand everything we say.”

Heather was standing to the side of the front door, pulling out the curtain, so she could peek out at an angle.

They were all completely over the fact that Georgie was here. Even the dogs had stopped tracking her every movement with their little whiteless eyes.

Georgie could probably move back home without ever having to talk to her mom about it. Her mom would just start thawing out one more pork chop for dinner and complaining when Georgie left her bag on the table—maybe her mom thought she’d already moved back home.

“Thanks,” Georgie said, heading for her room. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Are you coming out later?” her mom called after her.

“No,” Georgie shouted back, “I’m calling Neal!”

“Tell him we said hello! And that we all still love him! Tell him he’ll always be part of this family!”

“I’m not telling him any of that.”

“Why not?”

Georgie was halfway down the hall. “Because he’ll think I’m crazy!”

She opened her bedroom door, then quickly closed it behind her—then thought about pushing a dresser against it. Instead she rushed over to the closet and started emptying things out into her room. She’d buried the phone at the very bottom, under an old sleeping bag, a few rolls of gift wrap, her Rollerblades from grade school . . .

There it was. There.

Georgie fell back on her heels and stared at the phone, not sure if she should touch it, not sure if she should rub it three times and make a wish.

She picked up the receiver and held it to her head. No dial tone.

Well, of course, no dial tone—it’s not plugged in. It’s not plugged in to the space/time portal in the wall behind my bed. (Cue maniacal laughter.)

She crawled over to her bed and shimmied underneath to plug the phone in, half expecting the outlet to zap and spark. Then she pushed out again, untangled her hair from the bedsprings, and leaned against the bed with the phone in her lap.

Right. Here we are. Time to call Neal.

Neal . . .

Georgie held her breath while she dialed his number, then choked when he picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Neal?”

“Hey,” he said. She could hear the quarter-smile in his voice. The one that just barely dented his cheek. “I thought it might be you.”

“It is,” she said. “It’s me.”

“How are you?”

“I’m . . .” Georgie closed her eyes and realized she still hadn’t properly exhaled. She did it now, bringing up her knees and setting the phone on the floor beside her. This was Neal, he was still there. He was still taking her calls. “Better now,” she said, rubbing her eyes into the back of her wrist.

“Me, too,” he said, and God, that was good to hear. God, he was good to hear.

Georgie and Neal had never spent this much time apart, not since they got married. She was going crazy not talking to him every day, not checking in with him. In the present. In real life.

Was that what was going on here? Was Georgie hallucinating these phone calls because she missed Neal? Because she needed him?

She needed him.

Neal was home. He was base.

Neal was where Georgie plugged in, and synced up, and started fresh every day. He was the only one who knew her exactly as she was. She should tell him about this magic phone insanity. Right now.

She could tell him, she could always tell Neal anything. Georgie and Neal were bad at a lot of things, but they were good at being on each other’s side. Neal was especially good at being on Georgie’s side, at being there when she needed him.

She thought of all the times he’d stayed up late to help her with a script. The way he’d lived at her right hand after Alice was born (when Georgie was depressed and in pain and terrible at breastfeeding). The way he never made her feel crazy, even when she was acting crazy, and never made her feel like a failure, even when she was failing.

If there was anyone she could tell about this, it was Neal.

“Georgie? Did I lose you?”

“No,” she said. Jesus. She could not tell Neal. “I’m here.”

“Tell me about your day.”

Well, first I unplugged my magic phone, then I got into my electric car. . . .

“I worked with Seth on Passing Time,” Georgie said—because it was the only true thing that seemed safe to say.

She immediately wished she could take it back. Mentioning Seth was like flipping Neal’s off switch; that was as true back then as it was now. (All right, so maybe she couldn’t talk to Neal about everything.)

“Ah,” he said, his voice noticeably cooler.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I . . .” He cleared his throat. She could hear him consciously letting the annoyance go. Neal still did that, too. The irritation would freeze on his face, he’d gather it up, then shake it off. “I helped my mom bake more cookies,” he said. “She set some aside for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Then I ate them.”

“Bastard.”

He laughed a breath. “And then . . . I met that guy my dad wanted me to meet, the guy with the railroad police.”

It took a second for that to click. Neal’s dad’s friend, railroad police. Right. There was a job Neal had thought about—never seriously—back in Omaha. “I still think you’re making that up,” she said.

“I’m not making it up.”

“Railroad detectives. It sounds like an hour-long drama on CBS.”

“It sounds really interesting,” Neal said. “Like all the best parts of police work, the thinking and the problem-solving, but not having to walk a beat or answer 9-1-1 calls.”

“This week on Railroad Detectives,” Georgie teased, “the team discovers a cache of sleepy hoboes. . . .”

“Something like that.”

“Is the railroad looking for oceanographers?”